Comments on issues raised by BBC WHYS

China’s spectacular economic growth is an alarm to both rich and poor countries. Wealthy nations like the USA are to face a giant in the making as it will relegate it to a power instead of a superpower. Developing countries can have their ambitions of an economic take-off hampered by the Chinese expansion in every corner of the world. One mechanism to curb Chinese economic and military threat is to devise a new international trade mechanism by which giant economies shouldn’t swallow small ones.

China will continue to be unrivalled in its economic expansions. Developed nations can’t afford to have underpaid workers who help make the prices of goods cheap. Developing countries can’t make the best of their resources. So they find in Chinese goods a shortcut to have whet they need.

Chinese economy shouldn’t morally expand at the expense of its underpaid workforce and by flooding international markets with cheap goods that in most cases don’t have the quality of other developed economies.

It seems Israel and USA consider the agreement between Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government as an internal matter. According to Israeli PM Olmert, he and US President George Bush agreed to boycott a new Palestinian unity government unless it recognises Israel, This will have little effect on redressing the situation in Palestinian territories as the sanctions will continue. As the Palestinians made an effort to end internal strife among them, USA in particular should show a good gesture towards the Palestinian authority by offering it help. It shouldn’t use Hamas as a pretext to withhold it as Hamas no longer holds key ministries.

Hamas should act reasonably in its attitude towards Israel. It should have learnt from its difficulties in running Palestinian affairs internally and internationally that it can’t continue going against international agreements stipulating the rights of Israel to exist. It should seize this chance of reviving the Middle East process to give it a new life and not to be the cause of making it dead from the start. All parties should show flexibility to give peace a chance under mutual recognition.