Decolonization Models for America’s Last Colony: Puerto Rico

Asia Headed Toward the Lead

231 Asia Headed Toward the Lead September 26, 2010 During most of its long recorded history, Asia led the world in terms of population and the economy. In the year 1000, the West’s share of the world’s gross domestic product was 8.7 percent, whereas Asia’s was 70.3 percent. The shift favoring the West began in 1820 with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. So growth in the Western world has proceeded at a dizzying pace during the past two hundred years. However, the twenty-first century is bringing about dramatic changes. In its BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] study, Goldman Sachs predicted that by the year 2050, three of the four principal world economies would be Asian. Its ranking was as follows: China, the United States, India, and Japan. The future will once again be in the hands of the Asians. Though China is the leader, the region does not revolve around it because there are other strong contenders, such as India, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Though [the Asians’] current dramatic growth is limited to manufacturing , their investment in education will put them in a position of leadership in technology and innovation. In 2004, China graduated 600,000 engineers from its universities, the United States only 70,000. This past June Beijing announced a national plan to develop and expand its talent bank from 114 million to 180 million by 2020. Beijing plans to import the best talent in the world and to prepare local talent to 232  Newspaper Columns produce a new generation of political leaders, scientists, engineers, technicians , entrepreneurs, educators, agronomists, and social scientists. According to the plan, this talent bank is essential to transform China from the principal manufacturing country in the world into a worldwide leader in innovation. China is already showing the world its technological capacity in transportation with its ultramodern airports and high-speed trains that connect its cities and in bioscience with its Beijing Genomics Institute, which holds the greatest number of DNA sequences in the world and has thus positioned itself to launch its own genetic-engineering industry with stem cells. And China has just earmarked $15 billion to the automobile and battery industries to develop electric cars that will not depend on oil. While China and Asia are leading the world into the twenty-first century , the United States is experiencing the highest deficit in its history, reporting high unemployment, and investing in military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan without any chance of winning. In the case of Puerto Rico, the two main political parties have driven the public debt to more than $67 billion, and the economy is in freefall as the island’s leaders look to failed economic models (neoliberalism) for solutions. Singapore is the Asian model that is most relevant to Puerto Rico. Its island is fourteen times smaller than ours; it has no natural resources; and its population will soon be greater than 5 million. Yet Singapore’s growth rate this year is expected to be 15 percent—the highest in the world—with enviable quality of life for its inhabitants. In 1965, when Singapore attained sovereignty, it realized that its future could not be one of dependence on Great Britain; its people were going to have to depend on themselves. While Puerto Rico is adjusting the funding formula to appropriate more funds for the University of Puerto Rico, which is facing budget deficits and cuts in academic offerings, Singapore has announced that it will be opening its fourth public university, this one associated with MIT and dedicated to the study of technology and design. And it has reached an agreement with Yale University to offer study in the liberal arts. Asia Headed Toward the Lead  233 The sovereign state of Singapore has placed its bets for development and a high quality of life in the twenty-first century, whereas the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico has bet on outdated approaches and increasing dependency on the United States, with a consequent decline in the quality of life for Puerto Ricans. ...