As I was looking through the scholarly journals at the library, I was confused on which issue or topic to settle on; intercultural communication or foreign affairs? Then, I glanced at each journal and spotted the title “Brazil’s Big Moment.” I have been hearing many talks about Brazil these days and decided to further investigate what the country has to offer.
In his article, “Brazil’s Big Moment,” Juan de Onis asserts that Brazil will be next in line to be the powerful economic democracies of the world. he supports his position first by giving a brief synopsis of the features that are the key to Brazil’s economy growth, which are; expanded exports, oil discoveries, financial stability, low inflation, growing foreign and domestic investment, booming consumer demand, and so on; second, by explaining who is the key driver of this economic transition, and that is the current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also known as Lula; and lastly by affirming his argument, suggesting possible ways that the United States and Brazil can build international and business relationships, especially with the new administration that is to take over in January, as well as the upcoming presidential elections in Brazil. His purpose is to motivate readers, whether they are students, investors, grandparents, that there is hope in improving the economic crisis of the world, and there are countries, such as Brazil, who are nationalistic people and look forward to future foreign relations with regards to trade. The author’s writing seems persuasive, credible, and compassionate and stresses Brazil’s colonial and authoritarian past and its strong growth as a democracy.
The article compares Brazil’s GDP to that of China. Onis mentions, “China’s GDP grows at ten percent annually…Brazil’s growth rate is only five percent...China…invests at an annual rate of 40 percent of GDP and the government consumes only 14 percent. In Brazil, investment is 18 percent of GDP and government consumption is nearly 20 percent.” Compared to a world economic power, Brazil is clearly growing at a fast rate and is catching up to the Eastern powers. Thus I noticed another article that addresses China’s economy.
In his article, Joe Studwell reflects on arguments he made with regards to a book he wrote in 2002, about the travails of foreign investors in China in the 1990s. He revisits his arguments to prove why China does not take over the world by categorizing them into three columns; first, the young and foolish, where he argues that China’s capital banking and exchange controls are unfair to the Chinese citizens as well as unattractive to foreign investors. Studwell argues, “the only sure result of an open capital account for a developing country is to improve stock market returns for international investors.” He also compares the financial systems of post-communist China to Korea and Japan and views them as being crude and monolithic. Secondly, under the could be better column, Studwell discusses state industrial policy, where China would have not developed as well as it has in the past twenty five years if it weren’t for the non-state sector industries. Yet China’s continuous control on big industries in the state sector has shrunk the shares of exports accounted for by foreign firms each year since 1980. This raises the main questions; will Chinese big businesses dominated by government oversight achieve technological advances like the privately owned ones in Japan and Korea? Studwell seems to think that China will not keep up with its Northeast Asian competitors.
Last but not least, under the actually correct column, he reiterates his book’s main concept that, “an economy’s stock of foreign direct investment is a guide to its future competitiveness.” He shuns the “let the market rip” approach that other countries such as Malaysia adopted in order to attract foreign firms “to somehow ‘make local business competitive’ work.” China’s consent to the World Trade Organization has given it limited access to foreign markets.
From reading these two articles, there is a sense of pride in one’s country and its resource and production potential. With successful and positive approaches to globalization and the foreign maker, I foresee a further coalition between the East and West.
Monday, November 10, 2008
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