Liberal Realism

China-Brasil Strategic Partnership??

Translation: Pax China in Brazil. Pax Brasilera in South America. Really interesting. The visit of Lula to China may mean a lot in the near future.

Pax China II: WaPo, Now is Jamaica

China is becoming the new financial source of the third world (See post on the subject). Check this article from the Washington Post, which says:

"With Jamaica's currency in free fall, unemployment soaring and banks heavily exposed to government debt, the Caribbean island's diplomats went into crisis mode earlier this year. They traveled to all corners of the world to seek help.

Jamaica's traditional allies, the United States and Britain, were preoccupied with their own financial problems, but a new friend jumped at the opportunity to come to the rescue: China.

When contracts for loan packages totaling $138 million were signed between the two countries in March, China became Jamaica's biggest financial partner. Headlines in Jamaica's leading newspapers, which only a year ago were filled with concern about China's growing influence in the region, gushed about its generosity.

"The loan couldn't have come more in time and on more preferred terms," E. Courtenay Rattray, Jamaica's ambassador to China, said in an interview. While the island nation continues to value its close relationships with Western powers, he added, in some respects Jamaica has more in common with China. "Those are developed countries. They don't have such an in-depth understanding of the development aspirations of Jamaica as does China," he said.

Overseas aid and loans are just one way China is asserting itself in its new role as a world financial leader. While polishing China's own image, Premier Wen Jiabao and other top leaders have blamed the West for the global economic crisis. Chinese officials increasingly are challenging the primacy of the dollar, warning other countries about the danger of keeping reserves in just one or two currencies, such as dollars and euros. And as the global economic crisis has eroded faith in U.S.-style capitalism, there's growing talk that a new "Beijing Consensus" will replace the long-dominant Washington Consensus on how developing countries should manage their economies […]

In a report last month titled "The Beijing Consensus," South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance sounded an alarm over China's aid and loans. Developing countries that accept Chinese assistance, it warned, may lower their guard and gravitate toward a Chinese-style economic model.

Jamaica's Rattray dismissed those fears as overblown. China's financial assistance to his country came with "no requirement to adopt specific macroeconomic policy approaches," he said, and there is "no debate about the government of Jamaica's commitment to a free-market economic model."

Cheng Enfu, an economics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-affiliated think tank, said he defines the Beijing Consensus as promotion of economies in which public ownership remains dominant; gradual reform is preferred to "shock therapy"; the country is open to foreign trade but remains largely self-reliant; and large-scale market reform takes place first, followed later by political and cultural change (It sounds for me like the "Embedded liberalism" consensus in which the postwar order was based).

The global economic crisis, Cheng said, "displays the advantages of the Chinese model" and has already expanded China's influence. "Some mainstream economists are saying that India should learn from China; Latin American countries are trying to learn from China. When foreign countries send delegations to China, they show interest in the Chinese way of developing," Cheng said…"

 

Pax China in South American: The Dragon v. Uncle Sam

China is doing exactly what the US government did during the WWI and afterwards, when European powers were too busy with political and economic struggle to take care of their interest in South America. (The story is really clearly told in Frieden's Global Capitalism). The US investing and lending money in the region, and they ended up fulfilling their long planned goal of being the most politically influent nation in the hemisphere. Is you check history, money is literally power. Pax Americana really begun after WWII, when the US became the financial center of the world and everybody own money to US government and/or bankers. That is why I consider really relevant this article from the NYT, which states that:

• "In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build an hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil's national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come."
• "China's trade with Latin America has grown quickly this decade, making it the region's second largest trading partner after the United States. But the size and scope of these loans point to a deeper engagement with Latin America at a time when the Obama administration is starting to address the erosion of Washington's influence in the hemisphere…."
• "Despite forging ties to Venezuela and extending loans to other nations that have chafed at Washington's clout, Beijing has bolstered its presence without bombast, perhaps out of an awareness that its relationship with the United States is still of paramount importance. But this deference may not last."
• "This is China playing the long game," said Gregory Chin, a political scientist at York University in Toronto. "If this ultimately translates into political influence, then that is how the game is played."

More on the Spanish framer of the XXI century socialism

El Framer Ibérico: constituciones andinas con acento español

¿Qué tienen en común el presidente de Bolivia, el venezolano Hugo Chávez y el ecuatoriano Rafael Correa, además de su afinidad ideológica y su discurso populista? Que todos ellos tienen el mismo asesor jurídico, un español. Así es. La expansiva revolución bolivariana ha confiado sus proyectos constitucionales a un jurista ibérico. Este arquitecto constitucional del socialismo del siglo XXI se llama Roberto Viciano Pastor y, junto al equipo que lidera como cabeza de la Fundación "Centro de Estudios Políticos y Sociales" (CEPS), se ha convertido en el framer preferido de los nuevos experimentos institucionales suramericanos.

Aparicio Caicedo,
analista del Gertrude Ryan Law Observatory

 

Además de ser catedrático de Derecho constitucional en la Universidad de Valencia, autor de libros como El Sistema Político en la Constitución Bolivariana de Venezuela, y promotor de publicaciones conjuntas como  Cataluña y el país valenciano frente a la Revolución Bolivariana, Viciano podría servir también de exitoso ejemplo de management legal. Ha sabido posicionarse en su nicho de mercado (mandatarios populistas latinoamericanos) y se ha hecho con una importante cartera de clientes (Chávez, Evo, Ortega, Correa y Humala). Y es que CEPS no malbarata sus servicios. Faltaba más. Sólo el gobierno ecuatoriano desembolsó más de 120.000 dólares para pago de honorarios y viáticos para estos verdaderos global players, en retribución a su patrocinio intelectual durante la Asamblea Constituyente celebrada durante 2008 en este enclave andino. El producto final fue la carta fundamental más larga del mundo, 444 artículos de la más pura tecnología jurídica, un catálogo detallado con derechos de hasta quincuagésima generación (lo cual resulta paradójico en un país que todavía no cuajan los de la primera generación). Por otra parte, la recientemente promulgada Constitución indigenista de Morales es otra de las acabadas obras de este grupo de Pizarros de la corrección política. No obstante, el corolario de sus esfuerzos puede que sea el reciente triunfo plebiscitario de las reformas constitucionales patrocinadas por el cuasi-monarca venezolano.

Las nuevas cartas fundamentales andinas parecen querer reinventar por enésima vez las cláusulas de un contrato social perennemente incumplido. Las constituciones de Viciano constituyen un complejo, detallado y extenso decálogo de principios económicos. ¿Acertados o no?, ¡quién sabe a ciencia cierta cuál es el camino que nos conducirá al progreso! Puede ser el socialismo reinventado de este siglo o las tesis recalentadas del liberalismo decimonónico. ¡Pero si ambos extremos ya han demostrado hasta el cansancio que no funcionan! ¿Un híbrido mejor? ¿Cuáles son las medidas exactas? Nadie lo sabe. Y es que, en economía, como en muchas otras ciencias sociales, nos podemos equivocar. Como de hecho lo hacemos muy a menudo. A pesar de ello los ingenieros sociales de CEPS parecen tener todas las respuestas, todas las curas a más de 500 años de recurrentes convulsiones sociales.

Los dogmáticos, de izquierda o derecha, son reacios a aceptar que las sociedades son demasiado complejas como para ser abarcadas por posición doctrinal alguna. Un auténtico ejercicio de economía constitucional hubiera comenzado por ahorrar más en superchería ideológica, tanta palabrería. Lo que pasa es que los intelectuales, como el nuevo rico que se gasta con ansiedad para demostrar su fortuna, tienden a experimentar con cualquier parafernalia ideológica que les dicte su vanguardia intelectual. Una vez más, millones de latinoamericanos servirán de conejillos de indias para los cientifismos sociales del momento. Lo malo es que las novelerías constitucionales, como las extravagancias arquitectónicas, pasan muy rápido de moda.

More on the Spanish framer of the Chavist Revolution.

As said before, the chavist revolution, which recently had it hey-day, has a Spanish framer. Paradoxical indeed it is. This new "Pizarros" of the socialism are lead by Roberto Viciano Pastor, a Constitutional law professor from the University of Valencia, Spain. Here is a recent article, Latin America's Document-Driven Revolutions, from the Washington Post on the subject:

"In all three cases, from the Venezuelan charter in 1999 to the new constitutions in Ecuador last year and Bolivia last month, a team of Spanish legal scholars influenced the conception, drafting or implementation of the documents, which have stirred domestic class tensions and harmed relations with the U.S. government. The leader is Roberto Viciano Pastor, an author and constitutional law professor at the University of Valencia whose technical, and some say ideological, assistance in writing the constitutions is generating new scrutiny across South America."

You may also check my latest article on the subject, published on Legaltoday.com: El Framer Ibérico: constituciones andinas con acento español.

   

 

Ecuador would break world record with the longest Constitution

If the majority of the ecuadorians say yes to the Constitutional project fostered by the president, Rafael Correa, they will have the longest Constitution of the world, with 444 articles. Check out the text of the project. The andean country would defeat India´s record with 395 articles.

The Spanish Framer of the "Chavist" Constitutionalism

What do Evo Morales (Bolivian president), Rafael Correa (Ecuadorian president) and Hugo Chávez (Venezuelan president) have in common, besides its neo-socialist ideology? They all trust their main constitutional projects to the same social alchemist: Roberto Viciano Pastor, a professor of Law at the University of Valencia, Spain. This Spanish scholar, and his team (Fundación Centro de Estudios Políticos y Sociales), is behind the constitutional reform process that has been taking place in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. Some say he was also advising the leftist Ollanta Humala, the Peruvian presidential candidate who was defeated by Alan Garcia. In recent days, Viciano has returned to the headlines in Ecuador after a report, signed by the law professor, was made public. The document has detailed information about his activities during the Constitutional Assembly held in Ecuador (November 2007-july 2008). It is surprising to learn the deepness of the involvement of Viciano's team on the process. They dictated the "red lines" of every debate and bills proposed. They were paid nearly USD 120.000 for its collaboration (including expenses). There is only an unofficial copy of the report circulating, which not many people have seen. I have attached those copies to this entry. There you may see how he talks not only about what he did but he also mentions the visit of members of the ruling party in Bolivian, to whom he serves as advisor as well. Viciano has written many books on Constitutional Law, one of those refers to the new constitutional system of Venezuela. He is in direct contact with the political elite of the chavist revolution.

 

 

 

 

Ecuador and its 20th Constitution

The Constitutional Assembly, being held in Ecuador, gave birth to a new Charta Magna. Ecuador has two records now. It will be its 20^th constitution and it will have more 400 articles. You know, politicians in this country (my country) seem to think that everything can be done with a new constitution. I my lifetime have witness 3 different constitutions. President Rafael Correa has created the new one. It is full of social justice rhetoric, talks about alimentary sovereignty, and the Latin American integration as a priority of the foreign policy….

The US Embassador to Colombia on the attack of Ecuadorian territory by Colombian forces

This is a very weak argument, full of falacies and common places, to back the attack perpetrated by Colombian forces on Ecuadorian territory that resulted in the killing if 17 FARC members. Mr. Embassador talks about balancing self-depense principle v. territorial sovereignty principle. FALLACY. The Colombians were not acting in self-defense, 17 sleep persons not planning to attack inmediatly are not inminent threat to nobody. In normal situations they would call that same act summary executions, not a military act.

 

Chavism revolution is contagious

Javier Corrales, author of the book "Leftism and Populism in today´s Latin America" gives a brilliant explanation on how populism works in Latin American and how is has been so successful.  He start saying that bolivarian revolution is not so easy to duplicate because it is expensive. Nevertheless, he outlines some elements that are easy to imitate (as some presidents are doing), like what he calls the "delivered polarization". Venezuela, he says, has demnstrated that extremism works as a political strategy, provoking the opposittion that would become "extreme and crazy". Ecuador´s president, Rafael Correa is a great example of this. He is provoking all the time the opposition, which become more angry as it looses political appeal for the center voters.