This entry was posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Best wishes to all who drop by this blog. Despite the demands for Breaking News crises from 24-hour-news channels, the world is in pretty good shape — far better than half or quarter of a century ago. Iraq was meant to collapse into civil war and partition. It didn’t. The summer was full of talk about a new Cold War, but no-one seemed to want it. In the economic downturn, China’s proved to be not a strategic threat but a global ally. And the dreadful famines and diseases that used to kill millions seem to be no more.
All the more reason to spend the New Year season with great thrillers The Third World War, for fictional analysis of how disaster could strike and Security Breach for a sassy kick-ass heroine, Kat Polinski, who’ll keep you curled up on the edge of your seat late into the night.
4 Responses to “Great New Year”
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December 23rd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
You make it sound as if China’s suddenly become altruistic – and it’s certainly noty being that in relation to Pakistan and India or it would be weighing in with other countruies to force Pakistan to deal with terrorist groups.
Possibly more lightheartedly, haven’t you heard the rumour it has increased production of shoes in Shenzhen for exporting free to dissidents in the west?
merry christmas
john
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
More real politik than altruism. As part of a longt-ago defence deal, Pakistan promised to keep Xingiang clear of terror, while fuelling the insurgency in Kashmir. Now, if a reforming Pakistan cannot control the export of terror, Xinjiang is at risk. It is in China’s interests to apply the pressure hard.
December 26th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Dear Humphrey,
Whenever someone writes something so bubbly and optimistic, I always answer the same way:
I hope you’re right.
Happy new year.
Sincerely,
John
December 26th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Best wishes, John, for the Season. On the balance of optimism against reality, if you estimate that the crisis-driven 24-hours-news agenda makes up for a substantive perecentage of our psychological awareness of potential catastrophe, I think we can say the world is in better shape now than we have ever known it before. Some thirty million died in Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and very few knew about it until it was over. Cholera in the low hundreds in Zimbabwe is now making headlines.