133 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
133 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
The information in this file was recently published in FREEDOM -
|
|
the fortnightly anarchist journal published by FREEDOM PRESS:
|
|
|
|
FREEDOM PRESS (IN ANGEL ALLEY) 84B WHITECHAPEL HIGH STREET,
|
|
LONDON E1 7QX GREAT BRITAIN
|
|
|
|
Do write for a sample copy or for a copy of our booklist of
|
|
publications. We will be putting more of this information out so
|
|
watch this spot...
|
|
|
|
CHOMSKY ON ASIA
|
|
|
|
As part of the current FOCUSES on different countries in Asia we
|
|
asked Noam Chomsky to comment on some of the issues we are
|
|
raising. Below we publish his replies to some questions we
|
|
posed...
|
|
|
|
Warren Christopher recently on a visit to China raised the Human
|
|
Rights issue with the Chinese government. How has corporate
|
|
interest reacted to his 'muddying the waters'? That Christopher
|
|
raised the human rights issue in China is widely believed (less
|
|
in the US than outside it), but it is true only in the narrowest
|
|
sense. He added to the pleas from the Clinton administration that
|
|
China make some kind of meaningless gesture so that the
|
|
Clintonites could pretend not to be backtracking on another
|
|
campaign promise. There was never the slightest chance that they
|
|
would interfere with profits by bringing up human rights In
|
|
general terms how do you see China fitting into the 'New World
|
|
Order'? As fot China and the NWO, the country seems to be
|
|
splitting into a sector that is part of the Japan-based overseas
|
|
Chinese investment network, linked to US multinationals and
|
|
export-import as well, with the usual third world amenities:
|
|
super-cheap labor, women burned to death locked into toy
|
|
factories, 15,000 deaths from industrial accidents last year, and
|
|
all sorts of other wondrous things that never come up in human
|
|
rights discussions, because profits are involved. About 3/4 of
|
|
the country seems to be either out of it, or perhaps even
|
|
declining. Could be an explosion, I think. The US has also
|
|
lifted the embargo against Vietnam recently. A change of heart?
|
|
And now that Coca Cola seems to have replaced the napalm who did
|
|
win the Vietnam war? Lifting the embargo has a very simple
|
|
explanation. Torturing people is fun, but making money is more
|
|
important. US business was becoming concerned that it was being
|
|
cut out of a promising source of cheap labor, markets, resources,
|
|
so the government 'discovered' that Vietnam has been more
|
|
forthcoming about POWs (the only moral issue left after
|
|
aggression that killed millions of people and destroyed three
|
|
countries - I doubt that Stalinist Russia could have gotten away
|
|
with what Western commissars have achieved on this one. Who won
|
|
the Vietnam war? Over 20 years ago I pointed out that the US had
|
|
already won - as, incidentally, was pretty well understood in the
|
|
business world. It hadn't yet achieved maximal objectives, but
|
|
had satisfied its major war aims, to ensure that there would be
|
|
no demonstration affect of successful development along
|
|
independent state-directed lines in Indochina. The documentation
|
|
on this is very clear, but unacceptable in the commissar culture,
|
|
which insists on total victory, in line with its general
|
|
totalitarian thrust. There are rumblings throughout the region
|
|
of discontent with GATT what potential do the people have of
|
|
winning such struggles in Asia or elsewhere? In Asia, there's
|
|
plenty of discontent with GATT. In India, they'll probably have
|
|
to ratify it at gunpoint. No alternative, though. Power has
|
|
shifted remarkably to absolutist, unaccountable institutions of a
|
|
scale that would have made any classical liberal shrink in
|
|
horror. National states are generally overwhelmed, and even rich
|
|
and powerful ones like the US are fairly restricted in policy
|
|
planning. A long story.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|