Asia's view of America

I found this op-ed piece this morning
globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com...

on cnn's blog page. It didn't make the headlines, but it is included in the "World" subheading below the "front page."

It's written by a Singapore resident, and is quite revealing about how the East sees the West.

Every time the United States or the West steps into an Islamic country it presents a major geopolitical gift to China. (When the U.S. decided to intervene in Libya) China was saying, “Great, go ahead! Go into more Islamic countries. Make my day.”

Funny that above that story, in the "Featured" thumbnails, is an article discussing the IMF's prediction that China will beat out the USA as the greatest global power by 2016 (which article then points out that analysts do not agree). That IMF prediction is already being discussed on ATS:


www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Wake Up blog entry says further:

A lot of my writings are intended to serve as a wake-up call to the West. I’m not anti-West nor am I anti-American - even though many people think I am. I’m actually just telling the West that you are acting against your own long-term geopolitical and economic interests in your policies towards the rest of the world. There was a time - and it lasted only 200 years - when the West could make decisions and the rest of the world had to comply. That era is gone, finished – poof!

The author: Kishore Mahbubani - Special to CNN

BUT, the West is pooh-poohing what the IMF says, as quoted here:

"China actively suppresses the renminbi on the currency markets through massive dollar purchases. As a result the renminbi is deeply undervalued on the foreign-exchange markets. Just comparing the economies on their exchange rates misses that altogether," said MarketWatch columnist Brett Arends.

This looks rather like a Spin effort to me. Or a "Nah, that'll never happen."

But, it you read both all the way through, you'll find quite disparate views - one from an Asian/Easterner (and my father, may he rest in peace, was at one time an engineer who traveled to Singapore with frequency studying new technologies - a midwestern American by birth, he traveled all over the world during his career, and he thought Singapore WAS the best country he'd ever visited).

On the one hand, this seems to be CNN giving both sides of the argument. But more subtly, the way the front page is organized, the Asian blog entry could easily be overlooked, and is stuck in a "commentary" section, as opposed to the "featured" headlines.

Slightly imbalanced, in my opinion. But in any case, the blog entry takes on the issue of the West's involvement in Islamic countries in a way not usually seen (by me, anyway).

How does ATS' international member pool view the USA/the West? I'd like to see more feedback from non-Westerners, to get a clearer picture of how the world DOES see America.

Laughing stock? Or super-power?
And in terms of New World Order and One Global Currency, this seems significant to me as well. If the IMF (aren't they the real rulers of the planet?) says America's in a tailspin, why would TPTB not address that?

EDIT to add the connection of IMF's opinion as related to NWO