A Globalizing World
Globalization has become one of those "buzzwords" that means many different things to many different people. And it has become something of a banal cliché to point out what is increasingly obvious to most people: that there is a growing degree of interaction between different regions and localities throughout the world. We hear a lot about globalization these days. We hear that it's a bad thing, that it's a good thing, that it's inevitable, that it's overstated. But what does globalization really mean to you personally? How is your life related to globalization? The units in "A Globalizing World" seek to move beyond what is most obvious about globalization in a general sense to introduce some of the ways that you might understand how globalization relates directly to you.
The units also explore the geographer's perspective on globalization. In World Regional Geography, globalization is about the ways in which different regions and localities interact with each other, and how these interactions create change. At least six different types of interaction between regions and localities can be identified:
(1) Production systems in which different regions specialize in different parts of the production process; this type of interaction has also been called the International Division of Labor
(2) Financial systems in which money increasingly moves across international borders, sometimes through the electronic buying and selling of currencies, or through the private investment of capital from one country to another
(3) New technology systems that enable communication and travel between regions and localities, such as telecommunications infrastructure, satellites, and increasingly cheap and accessible air travel
(4) Market systems in which the same goods and services are sold in an ever-growing number of regional and local markets
(5) Transnational corporations that have the power to coordinate and control operations in more than one country
(6) Political and economic institutions that reach beyond any one country though international agreements and systems of governance, such as the European Union or the Association of South East Asian Nations
The units in "A Globalizing World" not only introduce specific examples of most of these types of interactions, but emphasize the social and cultural implications of these interactions, that is, the changes that people in the localities themselves experience. Our exploration of these local and regional implications of globalization is organized around several key themes: the geography of breakfast, the debate over free trade and "sweatshop" labor, the relationship between disease and globalization, and the debate over cultural change and "McDonaldization."
The Geography of Breakfast
Whatever you eat or drink for breakfast, the inescapable fact is that your day begins with globalization. Your breakfast is the outcome of a dizzying array of spatial relationship and interactions, and the systems that bring coffee and bananas to your breakfast table are much more complicated than most of us realize. In these units we examine the powerful role played by large corporate coffee buyers like Starbucks in the livelihoods of Central American coffee producers (Chapter 3), and we take a detailed look at the "banana trade war" that occurred between the EU and the United States (Chapter 4). While thinking about Starbucks and coffee, you may also wish to look at the case of Starbucks in Beijing's Forbidden City (Chapter 9), a unit which raises further questions about the cultural implications of global marketing systems.
The Sweatshop Debate
One particularly contentious aspect of international production systems is the fact that while the internationalization of production has allowed prices for many consumer products to remain very low, much of the production occurs in conditions that most of us would find intolerable. Companies in the United States and other major consumer markets increasingly subcontract production to factories where labor costs are low and where standards for the safety and livelihoods of workers, and the environment, are often much lower than in the United States. A multifaceted debate over the rights of workers in places like Mexico and China, about whether U.S. companies should do more to safeguard the safety and livelihoods of those who produce the goods ultimately sold by these companies, and about whether or not there can be different standards based on the realities of life in places like Mexico and China, has resulted. Are "sweatshops" exploitative and harmful to the countries where they're found, or do they offer the best opportunity for alleviating poverty by employing people who would have no job otherwise? We look at the cases of the maquiladora industrial zone along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Chinese sweatshops, where the difficulties of independent monitoring are also explored.
Globalization and Disease
The increasing frequency and volume of international travel means that the global impact of epidemics and contagions has also increased. The extent to which regions and localities are plugged into global networks of interaction is also the extent to which they open themselves to the vulnerabilities of new diseases carried along the networks of travel that link localities together. There is nothing new about vulnerabilities to disease brought by globalization, of course. European colonization in North and South American brought with it devastating diseases that depleted and weakened indigenous populations, and the devastating Spanish influenza epidemic of the early twentieth century was also the result of new interactions between once-isolated regions of the world. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic that spread through East Asia and parts of Europe and North America offers an interesting contemporary case in the globalization of disease. Most importantly, it offers a study of the mutual vulnerabilities that globalization creates between regions.
Is Globalization McDonaldization?
One significant theme within the topic of "A Globalizing World" is the debate over whether the increasing interactions between regions and localities are producing a world of sameness, a homogenized world where one place is indistinguishable from the next. From a geographer's perspective there is evidence both of homogenization and of new kinds of difference brought about by changing spatial relationships. Over all, the units here suggest that the McDonaldization thesis is too simplistic to capture the complexities of cultural and social change brought about by globalization. Nor can the process be reduced to one of "Westernization." The units look at the cultural politics of globalization in Islamic countries, among Hindu nationalists in India, in the case of a Starbucks coffee shop in a Chinese heritage site, and in the debate over "Asian Values" in the globalized societies of Singapore and Malaysia.
Chapter 2: North America
NAFTA
Chapter 3: Middle and South America
The Geography of Breakfast: Coffee
The Sweatshop Debate: Maquiladoras
Chapter 4: Europe
The Geography of Breakfast: The Banana Trade War
Chapter 6: North Africa and Southwest Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Globalization and Islam
Chapter 8: South Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Hindu Nationalism and Western Culture
Chapter 9: East Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Starbucks in the Forbidden City
The Sweatshop Debate: Made in China
Globalization and Disease: When China sneezes, the world…panics! The SARS Crisis
Chapter 10: Southeast Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Singapore, Globalization, and the Asian Values Debate
Chapter 2: North America
NAFTA (Chapter 2)
Introduced in 1994, NAFTA—the North America Free Trade Agreement—promised to lower tariffs and create jobs in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Has NAFTA been successful? Has it fulfilled its promises? How are we to judge the effectiveness of such an agreement in the face of changing economies and pressures around the world? Whom did NAFTA benefit? Whom did it hurt? More than 15 years into the agreement, debates over the effectiveness, winners, and losers continue. The internet is a good medium through which to learn about those debates.
This unit introduces a variety of perspectives about NAFTA and its history. There are both strong advocates of NAFTA and strong opponents. Read all of these sites, and in each case ask the following questions:
Those who tout its success:
Those who doubt its success:
After all this discussion, ask yourself the questions posed at the beginning of the lesson: Has NAFTA been successful? Has it fulfilled its promises? How are we to judge the effectiveness of such an agreement in the face of changing economies and pressures around the world? Whom did NAFTA benefit? Whom did it hurt? Do you think the expansion of NAFTA as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a good idea? Have other supranational free-trade blocs (such as the EU or ASEAN) made NAFTA a necessity?
Additional background information on NAFTA may be found at the following sites:
Chapter 3: Middle and South America
The Geography of Breakfast: Coffee
The Sweatshop Debate: Maquiladoras
THE GEOGRAPHY OF BREAKFAST - Coffee (Chapter 3)
In Chapter 1 you learned about the many links between your food and your stomach. In this lesson, you will continue to explore the geography of breakfast by concentrating on one product: coffee.
To begin, listen to or read the story of some Guatemalan coffee growers from American Radio Works.
Next, read more about coffee growers in general at the following sites:
Consider the role of Starbucks and other large corporations in the global trade network. Since becoming Starbucks Corporation and having just 17 coffee shops in 1987, Starbucks has opened more than 17,600 locations in 60 countries worldwide, as of the end of July 2012. In 2000, Starbucks was even built within the walls of Beijing's Forbidden City, until public pressure convinced the company to relocate (see Chapter 9 - the Globalization Debate - for more on this story). (Incidentally, the store reopened but then closed for good in 2007, when the Forbidden City decided to manage all stores within the complex.) With its position in the global economy, Starbucks has purchasing power when it comes to coffee beans, and thus has a lot of influence in market practices and coffee prices.
Next, read more about the joint project between Starbucks and Conservation International has a program to provide coffee trees to growers in Chiapas, Mexico. Explore this site and read about biodiversity hotspots, the farmers' lives, the benefits of the canopy, and the economic benefits of the project.
Read “Ethical Sourcing” on the Starbucks website and follow some of the links to learn more.
Finally, answer the following questions:
THE SWEATSHOP DEBATE - Maquiladoras (Chapter 3)
In Chapter 1 you found out how to define sweatshops, and you learned to think more about where your clothes were made instead of what label was sewn inside. In this lesson, you will learn more about the sweatshop debate as it is being played out today in Middle and South America in unique manufacturing facilities called "maquiladoras."
Begin this lesson by exploring the following Web sites. First, sites that oppose maquiladoras:
Next, sites that support maquiladoras:
After reading these you should be able to define maquiladora. Write a brief summary of what a maquiladora is, its purpose, its advantages and disadvantages, and where most maquiladoras are located.
Then answer the following questions:
In many cases, a U.S. company doesn't actually own the maquiladora but only subcontracts the maquiladora to produce a certain number of goods. In this case, the company could argue that the workers are not the company's responsibility.
Chapter 4: Europe
The Geography of Breakfast: The Banana Trade War
THE GEOGRAPHY OF BREAKFAST - The Banana Trade War (Chapter 4)
The dispute between the EU and the United States and WTO over the banana trade offers a fascinating illustration of many of the key issues involved in the debate over globalization. The next time you slice a nice ripe banana onto your breakfast bowl of corn flakes, consider where that banana came from, the conditions in which it was grown, and what had to happen in order for it to reach your breakfast table. For your banana to make that journey, many things had to happen, including trade agreements between importing and exporting countries. Such agreements had to be negotiated by government trade representatives. In addition, farmers, harvesters, shippers, handlers, wholesalers, advertisers, and retailers all had to be paid for their role in this trade. Your banana is thus an important piece of the global economy, and as the global economy goes through transformations, the banana trade is a good place to see the impacts such shifts have throughout the process of bringing your banana from the farm to the breakfast table.
The EU often negotiates privileged access to world markets for European firms and farmers and for former colonies, and the EU employs protectionist measures that favor European farmers at the expense of consumers, who must then pay higher prices for foreign goods, at the expense of producers outside Europe in both rich and poor countries. The banana trade is a case in point.
First, read about the background to the US and EU banana trade wars at Banana Link, a UK organization that supports banana farmers around the world.
The Lomé Convention, first signed in 1975, and renegotiated as the Cotonou Agreement in 2000, provided privileged access to the EU market for agricultural producers in ACP states, that is, former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific region, which produce agricultural goods such as bananas, beef, veal, sugar, and rum. Throughout the 1990s the EU faced pressure to change these practices in order to comply with WTO rules that saw the EU offering unfair privileges to certain producers and thus inhibiting free trade. One round of changes occurred in 1997, but the Cotonou Agreement was still regarded as protectionist by the U.S. government. U.S. pressure came at the behest of the major banana-producing companies in the United States (Dole and Chiquita), who were not been able to successfully break into the EU banana market because of the Cotonou Agreement. In 1999, because the United States felt that the EU was still unfairly restricting trade, it imposed trade sanctions on a number of key EU goods, and the "banana trade war" was on.
To explore the trade war and its implications, start with Rebecca Cohen’s article in The Science Creative Quarterly
Then examine the following sites, which offer reports detailing the concerns over the banana trade:
An article on Global Exchange’s website about Banana Plantations in Ecuador
The Caribbean Banana Exporters Association
The banana trade wars have ended according to these reports: the BBC and the Wall Street Journal and this article in Carribbean 360
Now that you are an expert on bananas, here's a final activity: Write a biography (or, you could think of it as a travelogue) of a banana as it journeys from a Caribbean farm, or a Latin American plantation, to a European or American breakfast table.
Chapter 6: North Africa and Southwest Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Globalization and Islam
IS GLOBALIZATION McDONALDIZATION? - Globalization and Islam (Chapter 6)
This unit takes a brief, introductory look at the debate over globalization in Islamic countries. Mark LeVine, the author of one of your on-line readings, notes that although "few Americans would imagine it, the Middle East is a particularly interesting place to examine the globalization debates, because here the issues have engaged Arab and Muslim scholars and ordinary people alike with particular intensity." The following sites consider the question of globalization and its impacts on and implications for Islamic countries from several perspectives. But all of them consistently identify two key issues: first, Islamic countries have largely been marginal to the globalization process; that is, the benefits of globalization have for the most part by-passed much of the Islamic world by. Second, despite that marginality, globalization is having tremendous impacts on the Islamic world. Indeed, Muslim countries were experiencing these impacts long before "globalization" was even a concept that meant anything in the West. As LeVine points out, the Islamic world has been engaged in an on-going "critical dialogue" with Western globalization for well over a century. Thus, globalization is something that much of the Islamic world is both historically familiar with, yet has remained largely outside and critical of. This is particularly ironic when one considers the pivotal role the Islamic world has played in global geopolitics, due to its control over a large portion of the world's crude oil reserves.
To begin, listen to a 20-minute talk by Professor Shireen Hunter, given November 2, 2000, at the Library of Congress's lecture series on Globalization and Muslim Societies (click on "Shireen Hunter"). Her talk introduces the concept of globalization and briefly touches on the implications of globalization for Islamic countries, and, in particular, for women in Islamic countries. As you listen, keep the following questions in mind:
Next, read the brief essay by Mark LeVine, entitled "Waiting for Islam in the Global Era."
Another perspective on this issue comes from Mona Maisami.
Finally, read a similar perspective on globalization from Professor Chandra Muzaffar.
In some ways, the attitudes conveyed here help prepare you to better understand the very complex issue of how globalization has shaped historic and recent events in Afghanistan, which is the subject of another unit in Chapter 8 (South Asia). As you work through that unit, you may wish to return to some of the above sites for further insight into the situation in Afghanistan.
Chapter 8: South Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Hindu Nationalism and Western Culture
IS GLOBALIZATION McDONALDIZATION? - Hindu Nationalism and Western Culture (Chapter 8)
Your textbook introduces the issue of religious nationalism in South Asia, and describes events in which India's leading Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, incited the destruction of an important mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, leading to a wave of riots throughout the region in which some 5,000 people died. The Taliban of Afghanistan, in other words, have not been the only example of religious radicalism in the South Asia region. Like the Taliban, many of the BJP's practices can be interpreted as a response to globalization.
Nevertheless, to view the BJP's policies simply as reactions against globalization is too simplistic, for it ignores the history of conflict within India between promoters of a secular state modeled after the British system established under colonial rule, and promoters of a religious-based Hindu state in which "Indian-ness" is a unifying cultural principle. Western imports – such as celebrating Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve, rock music concerts, beauty pageants, and fast-food restaurants – are simply convenient symbols exposing a more fundamental conflict in Indian society: that between modern secularism and conservative religious nationalism. But as India's economy has become much more integrated with the global economy since reforms in the early 1990s, a growing presence of Western products and symbols has fueled the increasing popularity of Hindu nationalism and the rapid rise of the BJP at the expense of India's leading secularist party, the Congress Party.
A good summary of this issue can be found in an essay entitled "Hindu Nationalism Clouds the Face of India," by H.D.S. Greenway, in the World Policy Journal.
The sites listed below allow you to examine in detail some of the specific issues in which the BJP has attempted to enforce a Hindu-based religious moral code in India. It is important to notice here that these conflicts are not simply about cultural differences between "Hindu-ness" and Western society, but also about the process of consumerism more generally. As India's economy becomes more commercialized, Hindu nationalists have focused not simply on cultural symbols, but on the more general fear that India is becoming a consumption-oriented society like the United States.
A vast change in the political atmosphere of India came in 2004 as the secular Congress Party defeated the BJP in national elections. Since this abrupt change, the BJP has grown decidedly less conservative in its official publications.
Chapter 9: East Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Starbucks in the Forbidden City
The Sweatshop Debate: Made in China
Globalization and Disease: When China sneezes, the world…panics! The SARS Crisis
IS GLOBALIZATION McDONALDIZATION? - Starbucks in the Forbidden City (Chapter 9)
In Chapter 3, you learned about the global reach of Starbucks when considering the Geography of Breakfast. In this unit, we explore some of the cultural issues associated with globalization through the story of Starbucks in Beijing's Forbidden City.
Begin this unit by reading the following stories, all of which appeared in the year 2000 when the controversy concerning Starbucks in the Forbidden City first broke. The stories are from CNN, The New York Times, ABC News, and China's People's Daily:
Clearly, the opening of a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, China's Imperial Palace, struck some kind of nerve in China. It was right at this time that KFC, which had been operating a restaurant in Beijing's ancient imperial garden, Beihai Park, was told that its lease would not be renewed in 2002 (KFC has operated successful franchises at the Great Wall, and near Mao Zedong's Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square). And in Nanjing, a McDonald's restaurant had opened in the city's newly refurbished Confucian Temple, shocking many visitors who had eagerly awaited the Temple's reopening. In November, 2001, Beijing Review hosted an on-line forum on the Starbucks controversy. Unfortunately, this forum is no longer accessible on-line, but a sample of some of the comments is reproduced below.
Beijing Review on-line forum on Starbucks in the Forbidden City:
Several comments clearly felt that Starbucks was a threat to China's cultural integrity:
What is interesting is that two of these three commentators identify themselves as foreign tourists (the nationality of the "netizen" is not clear). Do you think foreigners are more likely than Chinese to be offended by the presence of Starbucks in the Forbidden City? Would you feel somehow disappointed or angry upon discovering a Starbucks in this place you've traveled so far to see? Do you agree with "Helen and Mike" that "this would never happen in the United States"? (Imagine, for instance, a McDonald's in Philadelphia's Independence Hall or a Starbucks café in the Statue of Liberty.)
A number of Chinese commentators, on the other hand, did not find the Starbucks to be a problem:
Clearly, the controversy sparked a range of opinions about the nature of heritage preservation and national identity in the face of globalization. This is also clear from the comment made by officials from the Forbidden City Museum who participated in the on-line forum:
This comment seems to suggest an interesting outcome of globalization: globalization compels people to become more aware of their own cultural heritage. Thus, the Forbidden City officials put a positive spin on the controversy by claiming that the contending views "are quite helpful for the protection of this biggest and most intact ancient architecture compound in China."
As the People's Daily article points out, the Forbidden City was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987, making it one of the first sites in the world to be recognized as such.
In these terms, the Forbidden City's protection is the responsibility of not just China, but the international community as a whole.
Finally, you may want to visit the Starbucks home page. There you will find statements and information regarding the company's claims of social responsibility, and its policies for international franchises.
Since the controversy over Starbucks, cultural unease over the dominance of foreign corporations in China has continued, particularly as China contemplates the further opening of its borders to the global marketplace under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. In February, 2002, for instance, the city of Beijing ordered 30 large McDonald's "Golden Arches" signs to be taken down, claiming they were an "eyesore". The city claimed, perhaps ironically, that the signs were in violation of new guidelines established for the preparation of the 2008 Olympics.
In a blog posted by P.S. Babcock in July, 2004, he vigorously defends the presence of Starbucks in China's Imperial Palace.
The Forbidden City Starbucks also continued to be the subject of numerous online discussions long after it opened - see for example this one from Fark.com. and from Danwei.org (In China, a “danwei” is a work unit, like a company or a university, that traditionally provides its workers with all their needs including housing, education for their children, medical care, and recreation.)
In 2007, Starbucks closed its Forbidden City store.
THE SWEATSHOP DEBATE - Made in China (Chapter 9)
Are "sweatshops" a kind of "necessary evil" in Asia's pursuit of modernization, development, and prosperity for all, or are they so exploitative with such low wages that they never offer the poor a real chance to improve their situation? Since the late 1980s, China has become increasingly integrated with the global economy. By the late 1990s, China received over 40% of all foreign direct investment targeted at developing countries. According to the report "Made in China," by the National Labor Committee, U.S. companies in 1997 imported from China some $8.7 billion in apparel, $8 billion in toys and sporting goods, and $6.4 billion in footwear. In the first 10 months of 1997, U.S. consumers purchased 1 million garments made in China. Currently, about two-thirds of the toys purchased in the United States are made in China.
Clearly, China's economy has benefited greatly from the global marketplace. But these benefits have also come at a high price to China's workers, who labor for long hours and little pay in often poor conditions. In this unit we consider the debate over whether these workers should be considered the abused victims of corporate exploitation, or whether their jobs offer the best opportunity to escape poverty and should therefore be encouraged.
Start by considering two opposing views of this debate:
To complicate things, read the following article by Joshua Brown, about the problems inherent in the sweatshop monitoring process. Brown's article introduces the issue of independent monitoring into the debate. Basically, such monitoring offers a potential solution by seeking to expose and eradicate abusive practices while not jeopardizing the survival of sweatshops and the needed jobs they provide. But, as Brown points out, there are many problems in the independent monitoring process.
Now that you're more of an expert on the issue, consider these questions:
GLOBALIZATION AND DISEASE - When China sneezes, the world…panics! The SARS crisis (Chapter 9)
Economists have long used the metaphor of disease to illustrate how the world’s major economies are mutually dependent on each other for their well being. "When America sneezes," some say, "Europe catches cold." But the SARS crisis of 2003 reminds us that the illnesses spread by the networks of globalization are not just metaphorical. SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is a virus that emerged in southern China’s Guangdong Province in late 2002. Originally carried in animals, it somehow made a leap to humans and by February 2003, over 300 people in Guangdong had been hospitalized with symptoms of severe pneumonia. The virus initially attacks the lungs but spreads rapidly to other vital organs and muscles; it can be fatal without early detection and intensive medical intervention. How it spreads among humans is still not entirely understood, but the fact that the virus managed to very rapidly spread from Guangdong to 29 countries around the world, causing over 8,000 infections and nearly 800 deaths, has made SARS an effective case study in globalization.
For example, the SARS crisis revealed how the scale and speed with which people move about the world today makes containment of disease very difficult. Some two million people cross an international border every day worldwide, and the health of the global economy depends upon that movement being relatively unrestricted. SARS made clear the conflict between keeping global linkages flowing and preventing disease from spreading. When the World Health Organization (WHO) advised travelers to avoid the city of Toronto in an effort to contain the further spread of the virus, Canada’s economy was estimated to lose $30 million a day as a result. The WHO took some criticism (particularly from Canada) for overreacting to the virus but, in response, claimed that it was responsible for protecting the world from disease rather than protecting the global economy.
In this way, SARS also revealed the extent to which most economies still depend upon the free-flowing movements of people. Rather than travel to places where SARS cases had been found, many businesspeople relied on telecommunications and electronic media to conduct their international business. But given the devastating economic impact that cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, and Toronto suffered, conference calls and email are a poor substitute for face-to-face contact. Still, the crisis was taken up as an opportunity for the governments of Hong Kong and China to promote newly initiated online distance learning programs when schools were closed for several weeks. Internet retail providers also saw a burst of sales in response to the crisis as well.
Finally, SARS also reveals the uneven nature of globalization and the inequalities underlying global linkages. This is seen in two ways: On the one hand, the disease received a tremendous amount of global attention despite its relatively small impact in terms of actual infections and fatalities (SARS took nearly 800 lives over a course of six months, while some 8,500 people die of AIDS every day). For some, SARS captured the world’s attention because it impacted key hubs of globalization—Hong Kong, Toronto, Beijing—whereas the much greater killers AIDS and malaria are endemic in sub-Saharan African regions often thought to be left behind by globalization. On the other hand, the impact of SARS in China brought renewed attention to the striking inequalities that have developed in that country as it engages with the global economy.
Start your exploration of the crisis by reading and looking at the following sites:
The impact of the WHO’s travel restrictions on Hong Kong are evident in this story on "Hong Kong’s sorrow-tinged celebrations" from the BBC, but by mid-July 2003 it was becoming apparent that the economic impact of SARS in Asia was not as dire as was being predicted at the height of the outbreak, as reported by the BBC, "Asia shrugs off SARS’ economic impact."
It seems that the longer term impact SARS had on places like Hong Kong were more emotional than economic. This can perhaps best be captured by the fact that the 9th floor of the Metropole Hotel, from where the virus first spread after arriving from Guangdong in the infected body of doctor Liu Jianlun, is now referred to as "ground zero," a term which recalls the atomic blast that leveled Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II and, of course, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The comparison becomes almost cosmic when we learn the room number that Dr. Liu stayed in at the Metropole: 911.
While China shrugged off the economic damage rather easily, the political implications of SARS are much more serious for the country’s leadership. See this analysis by China scholar Joseph Fewsmith in the Stanford University Hoover Institute’s China Leadership Monitor.
Finally, for a discussion of SARS and inequality, see Harvard Medical School Professor Paul Farmer’s article from The Nation. For a contrast to Farmer’s view, see "The new killer threatening rich and poor alike," by Martin Woollacott, who argues that SARS might succeed in finally convincing the developed world that it is not immune to large scale infectious diseases, often thought to thrive only in poor countries. And, on the ways SARS reveals growing inequalities in China, see Anthony Kuhn’s article for the Los Angeles Times, which is summarized in the July 2003 edition of Migration News.
Issues for discussion and further exploration:
Additional SARS resources for further exploration:
Chapter 10: Southeast Asia
Is Globalization McDonaldization? Singapore, Globalization, and the Asian Values Debate
IS GLOBALIZATION McDONALDIZATION? - Singapore, Globalization, and the Asian Values Debate (Chapter 10)
Are Human Rights universally applicable to all people in all cultures around the world? Is it possible to find a definition of Human Rights that the world can agree on? Do Human Rights focus too much on the rights of individuals at the expense of recognizing the responsibilities individuals have toward the communities in which they live?
In this unit we examine the case of the debate over "Asian Values" and whether or not Human Rights are culturally relative. The most outspoken voices of the "Asian Values" position have come from the leaders of two Southeast Asian states: Singapore and Malaysia. They have also been echoed by leaders in China. It is interesting, however, that such calls for a culturally relative approach to human rights has come from the two wealthiest countries, in terms of GNP per capita, in the region. Moreover, both countries are more "globalized" in their economic development than other Southeast Asian countries. Is there a relationship between the degree of integration into the global economy experienced by Malaysia and Singapore, and their leaders' efforts to distance their countries from the liberal-democratic traditions of European and North American societies?
When we examine the "Asian Values" concept more closely, we find that there are many different but related issues being wrapped up in this phrase. On the one hand, the phrase seems to connote the prioritizing of "economic rights" and a decent standard of living for all citizens over the political and civil rights which Europeans and North Americans value, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and other individual liberties. On the other hand, however, the phrase is sometimes used to assert that Western-style democracy is not necessarily appropriate for Asian countries that value "social harmony" and consensus over political contests and compromises. In addition, "Asian Values" are also called upon to explain the particular success that many Asian countries and regions have had in modernizing their economies, such as Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Begin by reading an interview in Foreign Policy magazine with Lee Hsien Loong, son of Singapore’s former prime minister, Lee Kwan Yew. While Singapore’s "gamble" on globalization certainly paid off in the 1980s and early 1990s, in terms of economic development, the city-state has faced economic difficulties since 1997’s "Asian Crisis." As the interview reveals, however, the Singapore government remains committed to its strategy of integration with the global economy. Next, you can read a report from The Far Eastern Economic Review that offers a slightly less celebratory account of Singapore's modernization. "A City Divided" details Singapore's growing disparities in household incomes.
These articles convey some of the difficulties and risks associated with globalization. The degree to which a state can benefit from the global economy is also the degree to which it is vulnerable to global economic problems. The ongoing liberalization of Singapore's economy has also meant a degree of income inequality which, for the most part, did not exist prior to the mid-1990s.
Keep in mind the changes in Singapore, as we'll return to them after examining the "Asian Values" idea more specifically.
To learn about the "Asian Values" idea and debates it has incited, see the following sites:
· From the New Internationalist, the article “Sticks Stones and Smokescreens” by a Hong Kong–based human rights activist on how "Asian Values" becomes an excuse used by authoritarian leaders for repressing democracy and civil rights.
If you want a more thoughtful discussion of the idea of Asian Values and, more specifically, an analysis of how modernity in Singapore, China, and other East Asian countries is different from Western societies because of their Confucian heritage, listen to a speech by Harvard Professor Tu Wei-Ming, given at Rice University in 1998. In his speech, Professor Tu mentions that Western values accept three ideals as critical components of modern society: a free market, liberal democracy, and individualism. Then he outlines six common values that Confucian countries in East Asia share (including Singapore, because of its predominantly Chinese population):
According to Professor Tu, Asian Values should not be abused to legitimize authoritarianism, corruption, or dictatorial repression in Asian societies. Indeed, he sees a strong spirit of protest and a necessary role for "public intellectuals" in these societies to speak out against corruption and abuse when they see it. Asian Values, for Tu, does not mean that governments are not accountable for their actions.
After considering some of these issues, go back and re-read the article on Singapore from The Far Eastern Economic Review.