www.CostaRicaTicas.com

A little background on US/Chinese influence in Latin America, then in Costa Rica.

That China is developing as a nation was part of the bigger picture of the WW II generation. Remember that it was they who set up the United Nations, carved out geographical nations, and set the global economy into motion.

The US has not paid attention to Latin America since JFK. Consequently, China, which is communist in name only and is more nationalistic and capitalistic, has been wooing Latin America since the late 70's. Therefore they have greater influence that we do. Considering that Latin America are our cousins, this is a pitiful state of affairs.

We dropped the ball on the global economy. Our role was to consume (which we excelled) and to manage the money (we f***** up). Consequently most of the world has not been following our lead for several years now. That creates a power vacuum.

CR saw the handwriting on the wall, and established relations. Who in their right mind stays on a sinking ship? How we handle the next few years will determine whether we ascend again, or continue to become more irrelavant in the world.

China in the meantime, has problems of its own. Despite the talk of OneChina, they struggle daily with minor revolutions, some 20,000 in one year alone, to keep their, "country" together.

Believe me, the rest of the world would like to see us back in the saddle, and maybe this is a humiliating and sobering time for us.

Whosear,

I'm not exactly sure what your point is, but many of your assertions are not true.

China didn't set up the United Nations. Europe was much more keen on this than just about anybody.
China didn't carve out geographical nations. I'm not even sure what this means, but there have been "geographical" nations for quite a long time. Ancient China and Japan certainly count, but so do India, England, and many others.
China didn't set the global economy in motion recently or even in the recent past. The lure of the spice trade with India, the Spice Islands, and China helped spur the European age of discovery if that's what you meant.

The U.S. has certainly paid attention to Latin America since JFK. Since then we have been involved (either directly or indirectly) in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Chile and the Dominican Republic just to name a few off the top of my head. Since the end of the Cold War, we have been guilty of paying less attention to the region than we should.

Regarding the global economy, it might surprise you to know that the U.S. still produces around 20% of the global output by value in industrial goods (that's manufacturing) despite only having around 5% of the global population.

You are correct that China has trouble keeping it's minority populations in line. But then so does Spain (Basques & Catalonians).

Dollar diplomacy is nothing new. The Romans used it, the ancient Chinese used it, the British used it, and the U.S. used it most recently to create a worldwide empire.

_________________
"All them women gonna make me,
teach 'em what they don't know how..." TMIB

I don't think you've got your history straight. The PRC wasn't admitted into the UN until 1971. I suppose you could say that Korea and Vietnam were "carved out" by China; but the substantial "carving out" of nations in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa were the result of either Anglo-U.S. efforts and Soviet counter-efforts or the collapse of the European colonial system. The structure of the post WW2 economy (IMF and World Bank) was set up at the Bretton Woods Conference, in which neither the PRC (which didn't yet exist) nor the Soviet Union participated.

As far as the U.S. neglecting Latin America since JFK, it certainly has neglected the interests of the people of Latin America; but it has not neglected El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Grenada and a few other countries when it came to intervening either through the C.I.A, the military or the banking system. Some of these interventions may have been debatablely justified at the time; but, in retrospect, they were mostly mistakes.

The Chinese are taking a much more intelligent long range approach to the region. Their approach really has a lot of similarities to JFK's original Alliance For Progress strategy. Unfortunately, the Alliance For Progress was another victim of Vietnam when it's budget was pretty much decimated.

_________________
It's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money--Tom T. Hall
No man is a failure who is enjoying life--William Faulkner

What an excellent discussion this Thread is (my paltry contribution to the contrary)! Especial kudos to Brothers Kickstand and El Tranquilo for the recent Latin American-U. S. history, sad as it's been.

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Kickstand
when I read 'was part of the bigger picture of the WW II generation. Remember that it was they who set up the United Nations, carved out geographical nations, and set the global economy into motion."
I read that to mean, not China, but the US of A and the veterans and civilians who fought WW2 and then after the war started went on to create a better world as we know it.-- But if he did mean China, then you are right.

However at the same time we are discussing China in our back yard playing with our friends, The US Navy is in China's back yard back yard on joint training exercises with Vietnamese Navy. I find this interesting in that people who have lived owing China favors, are quick to go to back former enemies for protection and friendship when the favors come due.

A lesson CR can find repeated around the world and one that if they fail to note will not end good for them.

_________________
My best friend was the clock on the wall, and he turned out not to be much of a friend in the end

Go China!!

The more dependent they are on other countries to buy their products the more they will move towards a more moderate capitalistic society. As to using dollars to control the world, it is nothing new and certainly how we have dealt with Latin America forever.

Their main initial play was to get CR to dump Taiwan for money which took all of asking the question How Much?

BKTUNA/Boyd
I am never going home

_________________
BKTUNA/Boyd
I am never going home

Bktuna---- "How Much? "

Is CR using gringo newbees in the Del Ray to advise them???

_________________
My best friend was the clock on the wall, and he turned out not to be much of a friend in the end

Not that the Chinese always know how to deal with an empowered population in Latin America. A prime example is tensions in Peru. See this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world ... aperu.html

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

I have read similar articles about other countries, China is not as loved by the locals as the rulers love them. And this is going to come back and get them in the long run. At least Americans have always hire locally and spend locally as much as possible to reduce cost (excluding the way Iraq was handled after about a year) not so for China . We might have been hated for being there, but they loved our spending when we are there..and after we are gone they want us back or at least our money and spending habits.
Vietnam during and after the war is one of the best examples of this.

_________________
My best friend was the clock on the wall, and he turned out not to be much of a friend in the end

Brother Xman00 could not have picked a better example. Viet Nam spends millions trying to lure back the same age-class they were so intent on driving out in the 60's-70's--and becoming more capitalist to do so. Ah sweet irony! Those 50+ thousand US deaths to the contrary.

NOTE: No matter your political affiliation or thoughts about the decade we spent in Viet Nam, if you can go to the Wall and not shed some tears, then I feel genuinely sorry for you and find your humanity suspect. This is not subject to debate. The war may still be; the blood shed and sacrifice just isn't.

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Here's another thing--The Chinese ventures in Latin America haven't been all cakes-and-ale; they are running into serious opposition in Peru, trying to ensure themselves a steady flow of raw materials: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world ... aperu.html
The Ecuadoreans OTOH turned their buttocks up and said, "Phuck me hard and make it hurt" (something to do with Ecuador being a dollarized country? You be the judge). Here's a good overview of Chinese machinations in Latin America: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/world ... aloan.html

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Interesting point: Only about 35% of mainland China's population is ethnic Chinese--the rest are Tibetans, Mongols, Uighurs and other ethnic groups. The same is true in Taiwan-the majority population is Formosan, a mixture of Chinese and Japanese cultures. In both places the dominant ethnic Chinese discriminates in their own favor and against all others. Consider this when you hear bleats from the Chinese populations of Malaysia and Indonesia about how Chinese are discriminated against (both of these countries have a majority Muslim population of ethnic Malays and Indonesians).

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

I agree with JazzboCR, the goal of the People’s Republic of China is to bring the Republic of China back into the fold. The PRC also want world economic and military domination.

Thanks Kickstand, you articulated well what I was thinking after reading Brother Whosear’s post.

sorry I did not keep the link to this article, I think is out of Newsweek, or NY time. note in the middle of how we continue to add allies where China is not , full article deals with the world would rather have the USA then any one else as the rule make/enforcer and have consented that point to the US. ( I do have the full articular, about America being #1` )

And what about China, everybody’s favorite choice for future rival? One recent book, The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the 21st Century, argues that Beijing is supplying the successor to the “Washington Consensus”—the post–Cold War formula for open markets that came to grief in the financial crisis. But the China model of autocratic capitalism, successful as it has been at home, is hardly something most others want to emulate, and it may well be close to peaking. “China is obviously more dynamic and is going to rival the United States in various ways, but it’s not really picking up allies, and it’s generating insecurity in Asia that’s going to bring the U.S. even further into the region,” says Prince-ton scholar John Ikenberry, author of the forthcoming Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American System. Ikenberry has an unusual metric for global influence: he counts how many allies a country gains over the decades.

Starting in 1946, he says, the United States added allies—nations with which it has some kind of security relationship—every five years or so and now has a total of 62, including many from the former Soviet bloc. (Washington also has a strategic partnership with India, another world power.) During that same period, Ikenberry says, China never managed more than two allies altogether (though it has a lot of “fellow travelers,” nations that have fallen under the sway of Chinese investment capital). “For China to really be a global peer competitor,” says Ikenberry, “you have to think there are going to be states that will peel off [from the U.S.] and start to build a security relationship with China.”
Looking again at the NEWSWEEK list, the “best” countries tend to be small, homogenous, and fairly harmless: Finland (No. 1), Switzerland, Sweden. All wonderful places—but they are nations that have almost no geopolitical role to speak of and never will. They’re just too tiny.
Yet in the category of “large”—read significant—countries, the United States still finishes handily ahead of China in every major index, including economic dynamism, education, health, and “political environment.”

What the figures don’t show at all is the unspoken tradeoff in the global system, a grand bargain that has persisted for a half century: to wit, Europeans and Asians (except for China) will agree to forgo serious military power and strategic dominance in exchange for acknowledging (again, tacitly) that the United States will play that role. This way they get to maintain their generous welfare states and their high McKinsey living standards.
Set aside for the moment the invasion of Iraq. America spends more on defense than the rest of the industrialized world combined, not because it is inherently militaristic, but because the United States is the enforcer of the international system. American military power overlays every region of the planet, restraining belligerents and preventing arms races from East Asia to Latin America. That, in turn, enables globalization to proceed, even in these troubled times for the world economy.
With the exception of Iraq, this hidden infrastructure of U.S. power emerges into public view only occasionally, in tsunami relief or in America’s unique ability to supply airlift and logistical support to hotspots like East Timor and Sudan. Since 9/11, U.S. Special Operations Forces have been increasingly operating as global SWAT teams, slipping silently across borders to take out terror cells.

The big new question is whether Washington can sustain this global godfather role with an economy that is no longer dominant. Another key element of U.S. power is the unique role of the dollar. America is the only nation in the world that can fall heavily into debt without fearing default or a currency crash because most other countries keep dollars as their reserve currency. Those countries must, perforce, finance U.S. debt. How long can that last? Oddly enough, despite all the hubris emanating from Beijing, Berlin, and Moscow since the financial crisis, little has changed in the old relationships. China, Japan, and the other wealthy Asian countries continue to buy U.S. Treasury bonds (one reason interest rates remain so low, despite the huge U.S. deficit).

_________________
My best friend was the clock on the wall, and he turned out not to be much of a friend in the end