Toward Cross-Pacific Compromise Rather Than Conflict


(MENAFN- Asia Times) The Political tension that now exists between China and key Western nations, especially vis-à-vis the US, is unhealthy and quite possibly dangerous.

It is based on an unnecessary focus on what I call the macro interpretation of the ideological differences between East and West: It is based on the macro distinction between socialism and capitalism.

But I will discuss the simple day-to-day, eye-to-eye connections that typify much of the foundational albeit semi-unofficial links across the Pacific.

International relations lose their threatening aspects when we consider student and family travel, online retail purchases of everything from cosmetics to household appliances.

The interface under discussion, to the extent it is observed by government at all, involves low-level bureaucrats on both sides of the ocean, who are (almost) mindlessly interpreting and applying“rulebook” criteria to manage (or all too often mismanage) simple trade between ordinary buyers, sellers, investors and capital seekers, who are sometimes big guys like Apple, but lots of times ordinary trans-Pacific citizens who operate in hundreds or a few thousands of dollars.

Often the de facto policy that emerges at this low level controls the eventual messaging that afterward flows“up and down” to higher levels of government, where potentially its“macro sting” is blunted.

The issues that get in the way are endemic to just about every variety of macro-distinct society: Bureaucrats everywhere are a problem. But their influence can be put to good use.

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Asia Times

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