| A New Era for Human Civilization: Executive Intelligence Review; Volume 44, Issue 43 Contributor(s): Larouche Jr, Lyndon H. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1979248060 ISBN-13: 9781979248068 Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform OUR PRICE: $9.50 Product Type: Paperback Published: October 2017 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | Political Economy |
| Physical Information: 0.14" H x 8.5" W x 11.02" (0.40 lbs) 68 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Oct. 19-The vast infrastructure projects launched across Asia, Africa, and South America under the impetus of China's Belt and Road Initiative are breathtaking in scope and historically unprecedented. This is certainly the case in Southeast Asia, with new highspeed rail lines, ports and power projects, as well as soft infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, transforming the economies across the region. Xi Jinping announced his plan for a New Silk Road Economic Belt in 2013 in Kazakhstan, for overland development corridors across Eurasia. In the same year, in a speech in the Indonesian Parliament, he announced the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, to address the island nations and coastal nations of Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The ten Southeast Asia nations which form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are very diverse, with vastly different languages, cultures, religions, standards of living and ethnic makeup. In 2000, following the Asian financial crisis of 1998, ASEAN joined with China, Japan and South Korea, forming the Chiang Mai Initiative to pool currency reserves as mutual protection against any recurrence of the speculate attacks which had devastated the real economies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines in the 1998 so-called "Asian crisis"-which Lyndon LaRouche had then identified as the first ramification of a global financial melt down. But investments in the desperately needed infrastructure deficit precipitated by the 1998 crisis were at best piecemeal, coming primarily from Japan and South Korea, with some funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank. By 2014, the ADB estimated infrastructure needs in the region to be at least $800 billion annually, compared to total World Bank lending internationally of $50 billion annually and the ADB of about $10 billion. Thus, when China announced the formation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), only the degenerate Obama administration in Washington (and Japan, tailing after the United States) put up opposition. In addition, China facilitated the New Development Bank established by the five BRICS nations, and set up special funds within China (the New Silk Road Fund and others) intended to spark an infrastructure boom across the region and across the developing sector. Altogether, China intends to invest well more than $1 trillion in the New Silk Road projects. We present here a survey of the projects across Southeast Asia which are underway or planned for implementation in the near future. It should be noted that the burst in productive activity across the region is also spurring other nations to expand their investments into the booming economic environment, especially since this development of infrastructure lifts the entire productive platform of the region. |