European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Human rights as self-serving rhetoric

by Migeru
Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 04:51:46 AM EST

In the breakfast, Far Easterner links to this piece of Angloamerican angst:
Kuwait Times: China/Russia right at home in City of London (John Kampfner, July 27, 2007)

Brown has adopted a more cautious approach, signalling a reluctance to take to arms to spread "liberal democracy". And yet, as Brown and his new foreign secretary, David Miliband, have found, a new threat is emerging which neither Britain nor other western states have prepared for - the spread of Chinese and Russian power and influence. The theatre of battle is the City of London. Over the past decade, the UK has allowed its capital city to become the home for many of the world's most cutthroat and dodgy global financiers. Just as we turned a blind eye to fundamentalists setting up shop here in the 1990s, in the vain hope that they would treat us gently as they sought to undermine governments elsewhere, so we are doing the same now, all in the name of global capitalism.

This is an incredibly self-serving article hijacking concerns for liberty and human rights to the greater glory of the Angloamerican economic order.

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob

Consider

Brown and Miliband are right to distance themselves from past policies. They have correctly identified the immediate danger

which would be that

Countries that lecture about universal values do not deserve to be listened to if they indulge in rendition flights and torture.

but then

apart from kicking out a few diplomats and trying to talk tough - they have not even begun to think about how to cope with states that have seized on the capitalist free-for-all with alarming success.

So the problem is that we render and torture, but we have to cope with China and Russia? What's "alarming" seems to be their "success", and all this talk of human rights and liberal democracy is just hypocritical posturing.

The free market has been well and truly decoupled from the free society.

is questionable on many counts:

the notion of "freedom"
the notion that The West™ is most free
the notion that the free market and the free society are symbiotic

Maybe what has happened is that developing countries are not as hypocritical as The West™. The Free Market has always been sold on moral grounds, but the real problem is that the Free Market is a

message of rapid development, unencumbered by lectures about human rights and democracy

and always has been. Concerns about human rights and democracy have always acted as a moderator of the free market in The West™ but as a hypocritical excuse to impose imperialistic economic Free Market™ conditions on others.

What if the real challenge is posed not by failing states but increasingly successful ones? What if China and Russia are now setting the terms of engagement?

What if the real problem is that the Anglo-Americans are only concerned with having more than everyone else and China and Russia getting their share is a threat to their rank?

As if this wasn't enough, the article keeps in the recent tradition of trying to paint Russia as a thug and China as a gentler giant

Indeed, surely the whole point of globalization was to provide for unrestricted capital flows between borders. The question is not which countries are acquiring wealth and power, but which value systems. China's emergence as the world's next superpower has so far been seamless. Not only does it have international corporations queuing up for its capital, but it is now transferring that power into influence, from Africa to Latin America, without making enemies along the way. Russia is an altogether different story, where criminality, capitalism and the Kremlin have all merged into one noxious entity.

The Angloamericans have forgotten about Tiananmen faster than you can say "One Country, Two Systems". Maybe there is something to blackhawk's suggestion in yesterday's Salon than one of the strategic goals of The West™ is to incite a conflict between China and Russia. Fat chance of that, when everyone, even the European public, thinks the US is the biggest threat to world peace.

John Kampfner is editor of the New Statesman magazine - Guardian

<sigh>

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Human rights as self-serving rhetoric | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Human rights as self-serving rhetoric (4.00 / 2)

This started life as a comment to FarEasterner in the Salon.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 03:14:30 AM EST

This started (4.00 / 2)

as a post on the Comment is free section of the Guardian.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 04:25:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This started (none / 1)

Done.

The comments are uniformly scathing the poor writer.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 05:50:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I like that bit (4.00 / 5)

Unlike China's more diversified economy, Russia's wealth is dependent on oil and gas, whose market price has remained high for several years now. While Gazprom ponders a takeover of Centrica in the UK, it pressurised BP and Shell to sell it controlling stakes in two vast projects back in Russia. There are many further examples of sharp corporate practice.

Yeah, because China is not at all dependent on its eport-based model - exports done in a shocking percentage by foreign owned corporations (60%, I think) - and exports of, to a big extent too, useless junk.

And of course, Russia has evil State or evil State-owned companies acting, so it's bad per se. No economic or political sense to take back control of strategic resources when possible. Nothing like the government of Singapore-owned Temasek and the government of China owned CDB that took a stake in Barclays, a deal he gushed over. And need I mention that the only reason that Gazprom did not take over Centrica is that the UK government would not tolerate it (oh, it would be a "review on competition grounds", but the message came through all right).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 04:30:41 AM EST

Re: I like that bit (4.00 / 6)

The prize goes to the byline of the CiF article:

Britain's indulgence of Russian and Chinese business models is undermining what is left of liberal democracy

WTF, but WTF?

Russia and China are adopting British business models. And the article does say clearly that what undermines liberal democracy is the actions of The West™.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 04:36:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I like that bit (none / 1)

Wooa - back up!

exports done in a shocking percentage by foreign owned corporations (60%, I think)

You must mean the shippers and agents, surely? Or have I missed missed something rather important?

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 12:44:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Yep (4.00 / 3)

While the extraordinarily rapid growth of the Chinese economy has often been noted, it is less often realized how much of that growth actually reflects the role of foreign corporations. According to Morgan Stanley's chief economist Stephen Roach, 65 percent of the tripling of Chinese exports -- from $121 billion in 1994 to $365 billion in mid-2003 -- is "traceable to outsourcing by Chinese subsidiaries of multinational corporations and joint ventures."

Even more impressive:

The famed Chinese gross export sector - 40% of GDP - also has an unexpected characteristic: 90% of it arises from the efforts of foreign owned firms, revealing a striking lack of presence of Chinese enterprises and thus a greater independence of action from central government.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/12/blog_spotlight_.html

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 02:17:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A subject of Lawlessness (4.00 / 6)

Exile.ru: Applebaum Pickpocket Suspect

LONDON -- British authorities announced a major breakthrough in their investigation into who stole Washington Post columnist Ann Applebaum's wallet from her Moscow hotel room during a recent tragedy-finding mission.
"We believe that the Kremlin stole her wallet in order to send a message to Applebaum," said Stank. "And Putin's message to her read, 'If you come to Moscow and stay in an expensive Western hotel while looking for signs of Russia's decline, we will find your wallet. No matter which expensive Western hotel you stay at in Moscow, we can steal your wallet, run outside, go into a dark alley, open your wallet up, and find out if you're the type who keeps an expired condom in your wallet," said Stank. "Clearly, the Kremlin is operating outside the bounds of civilized behavior."

by blackhawk on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 04:59:23 AM EST

Re: A subject of Lawlessness (4.00 / 4)

LOL

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 05:01:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Human rights as self-serving rhetoric (4.00 / 8)

This makes perfect sense if you consider it's about tribal loyalties, not about moral issues.

The AngloSaxon ruling class, together with a few Saudi princes, owns the world. Anyone who attempts to buy back the world is bad - unless the AngloSaxon ruling class can make a sharp profit on the deal, in which case they're good.

Human rights is a non-issue. Aside from some awkward political traditions and the threat of violence if things are pushed too far, all populations are considered disposable.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 05:50:55 AM EST

To be fair (4.00 / 3)

You can buy your way into that ruling class. So in their minds, it's a perfect meritocracy.

That there could be other rules does not enter their minds - or rather, should not be allowed to enter anybody else' minds.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 06:56:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: To be fair (4.00 / 8)

You can buy your way into the outer circles of the aristo- - sorry, meritocracy, where you may be tolerated if you show that you're made of the right kind of predatory stuff.

But Chinese, Russian and Indian billionaires are only tolerated, not welcomed.

That's very much the point of the rhetoric. The parvenu wannabes are getting uppity and demanding a bigger slice of the pie, and the artisocracy is responding with outrage and tutting.

There's no problem with something like the Barclays buy-out, because that's just paper money chasing more paper money with a High Street front for the peasants.

But when it comes to energy policy, energy is power and national security, and that's a very different board game.

It's an oddly autistic world view based very much on traditional notions of an empire with solid borders. The borders may be notional ones that slice down the middle of the trading floor - this kind of trade is allowed and welcomed, that kind of trade isn't - but empire still seems to be underlying metaphor.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 07:38:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I'm not so sure (4.00 / 6)

The complaint is against those that play power games without recognising the monetary rules of the game, i.e. the rules set in London or NY. Look at Mittal - he's playing by these rules (those nice, big take-overs - which have the additional advantage of showing the continentals in a bad light) and he is an acclaimed member of the aristocracy. Same with Abramovich - he built up oil exports, hired lots of bankers, sold his company at the top (no mention of the fact that it's highly unlikely that he got to keep all that money to himself, considering where it's coming from), and calls London home.

No, the enemy is Gazprom, which uses minor formal offenses to turn earlier written contracts to its advantage via crude blackmail - all the more annoying when such blackmail works... and when it is a State entity that beats a private player, because it creates a dangeorus precedent.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 08:52:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I'm not so sure (4.00 / 3)

The friction starts when economics becomes diplomacy by other means.

I'm not so sure that Mittal is accepted completely. But even if he is, the difference between him and Gazprom is that Gazprom is jostling directly for turf with Big Oil, and that's not acceptable.

It's a strategic issue being framed as a betrayal of laissez faire economic principles.

Which is of course ridiculous, because the Russians are never going to say 'Yes, of course we realise I have betrayed the spirit of Adam Smith. We will hand over whatever gas and oil you want at knock-down prices because you have shamed us into it.'

What's bizarre is that the City seems to believe that if it shouts loudly about protectionism, etc, etc, this might actually happen.

That's where the tribalism comes in. Like the US, the City seems to have no ability to understand that it may not be the only game in town, and that it won't necessarily always get its own way.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sun Jul 29th, 2007 at 08:43:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: To be fair (4.00 / 2)

I don't think the French, German, or Japanese elites get a pass here. Economic parasitism is a human condition, not an anglo invention.

you are the media you consume.

by MillMan (millguy at gmail) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 04:10:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: To be fair (4.00 / 3)

They don't get a pass as elites, but they are currently busy following the (monetary based) rules set in London and NY. Greed is good. Selfishness is good for others. Making money is the sole way to measure success.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sun Jul 29th, 2007 at 12:52:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Human rights as self-serving rhetoric (4.00 / 3)

Celebrity gossip with photos, but what the hell, I'll plug it in here.

Tony Brenton, the UK ambassador in Russia, invited 25 hand-selected Russian bloggers for a lunch few days ago, and 10 came. The bloggers say that nothing of substance was discussed, but noted that Gazpacho Andalouse and Shrimp Risotto of adequate quality were served. No one asked wtf British Government is doing suggesting to change the Constitution during the lunch. Below are the pictures from the event. Note how British Embassy bothered enough to map nick names to real names (map of the table seatings with names), but did not get far enough to get the names in Cyrillic; on blogs, few commented that waitresses do not look too happy on the pictures; to be fair, bloggers do neither.

Photos

Must be a British charm offensive.

by blackhawk on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 05:51:13 AM EST

Bloggers? (none / 1)

They exist, one must acknowledge it, but wtf are they, no clue... But hey, if I invite them for lunch, maybe they'll say a few nice things ... or not, ungrateful bastards.

The real clash of civilisations, maybe.

PS - were you invited? And present?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 06:54:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Bloggers? (4.00 / 4)

I got the same impression that neither side was sure what they were together for.

No, I'm not a blogger, just an occasional commenter. The ones invited were "tysyachneki" - mostly people on the Russian side of livejournal.com with at least of 1 thousand registered readers, half of them are journalists, the rest mostly writers and political consultants.

by blackhawk on Sat Jul 28th, 2007 at 07:09:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Human rights as self-serving rhetoric | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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