This is interesting. Risk analyst Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia group was on Charlie Rose two nights back describing the struggle between market capitalism and state capitalism, US v China. My sense is that risk analysts are cold fish who assess the geopolitical business climate without regard to the moral struggle; and there was a bright thread through Bremmer’s comments that Israel is just getting in the way, and also that the Palestinian story has merit.
Bremmer excerpts begin with his take on the advantages of China’s state capitalism, and then to Turkey’s game:
Chinese corporations– the nature of their relationship between the state capitalist Chinese system and a free-market, if-badly-regulated, American system– is really changing the playing field…
CHARLIE ROSE: Have they had an unfair advantage?
IAN BREMMER [not taking sides]: You know, I think that the narrative between the United States and China is increasingly becoming as disparate as the narrative between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
CHARLIE ROSE: In what way?
IAN BREMMER: To answer your question of whether or not they’ve had an unfair advantage, you listen to Hillary Clinton and Obama, you’re going to hear them talking a lot not just about currency, but they’re going to say we want a level playing field. Right? Look at this table. We want a level playing field. What do we mean when we say we want a level playing field? We want the Chinese to operate by the same rules we do. What we’re really saying is that we want the way that corporations have been operating in China, we want that to continue to be the case. We want to continue to be able to operate business as normal. …
Now here’s Bremmer on Turkey:
So what’s going on in Turkey?
IAN BREMMER: I think Turkey’s doing exceptionally well. First point is —
CHARLIE ROSE: That’s self-evident. Just look at the numbers.
IAN BREMMER: Yes, but strategically they couldn’t have picked a better time to cut themselves from loose from Europe and move toward the Middle East.
CHARLIE ROSE: What’s the indication they’ve cut themselves loose. What’s the indication they’ve cut themselves loose?
IAN BREMMER: I think first of all a bunch of statements you see by Erdogan and the rest in terms of —
CHARLIE ROSE: What would be exhibit one?
IAN BREMMER: A willingness to focus on Islam as a legitimating factor in the Turkish government, which I think is clearly anathema to a continental Europe which is becoming only more concerned about Islamic immigration and non-integration within their countries. I think that the turn of the Turkish government directly away from Israel and the willingness to break off diplomatic relations with the Israelis — what the Turks are doing is saying, look, we know where the economic growth is going to be. It’s in the Middle East. We want to play a leadership role. Iraq is the most exciting investment story in this entire part of the world and the Turks are betting positioned to take advantage of it than anybody else.
