Economics as a positive change agent

The raft of MoUs signed between Vietnam and Sri Lanka during the Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang’s recent highly productive visit to Sri Lanka, signifies the enormous economic potential waiting to be tapped in Sri Lanka’s relations with this country of immense promise in South East Asia. It is expected that two-way trade between the countries would hit the US $ one billion mark and our hope is that this attractive target would be reached sooner rather than later.

That Vietnam is a rising economic star in Asia, should have been perceived from the time she gained admission to the highly prestigious ASEAN bloc of economic powers. However her steady advances in the economic and other relevant spheres mark her out as a highly dynamic growth centre in the Asian region and Sri Lanka is doing right by strengthening her bonds with Vietnam. This is highly perceptive foreign policy thinking on our part because it is now more than confirmed that the epicenter of world economic growth has shifted to East Asia.

At least in the case of the highly dynamic East Asia region, the thesis seems to be holding that ‘Economics drives Politics.’ Besides China and Vietnam, there are quite a few countries in this region which have chosen the path of economic liberalization, although with steady roots in the socialist model, and their current economic dynamism confirms the wisdom of having made these modifications in their development paradigms. That is, being too dogmatic on economic development strategies could prove counter-productive and this must be guarded against.

It could be seen that economic pragmatism is the essential need of the developing world. The ‘East Asian Economic Miracle’ is premised on innovation in policy approaches to development issues and the phenomenal economic resurgence of Asia in the past decade or so proves conclusively that pragmatic thinking on matters economic, is indeed the need of the hour.

Brazil, Russia, India and China or the BRIC countries are seen as the pick of the up and coming economic powers and the importance of the Asian region in this context is underlined by the fact that two of these foundational ‘BRIC’s in the global economy are located in East Asia. Countries, such as Vietnam, have been foremost in integrating themselves into this economically dynamic region and it would make sound economic sense for the rest of the developing world to follow suit.

The main feature article on this page, which is a thought-provoking speech by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, carries an identical line of reasoning as the foregoing, wherein he speaks of the advisability of making India’s neighbours stakeholders in her economic progress. Accordingly, it would not do to allow ideological proclivities and prejudices to stand in the way of the countries of a region integrating closely on the economic plane and in forming ties that would be mutually beneficial from the point of view of material advancement.

Shared economic prosperity is the most durable foundation of regional and world peace. This is particularly true of East Asia which is home to vast human and material resources. The challenge before Asia is to devise institutional and other arrangements that would enable the totality of Asian states to partake of this material prosperity on an equitable basis. Among other things, East Asia contains sizeable gas and oil reserves and these realities make the need for shared advancement even more urgent.

Meanwhile, there is no denying the need for the most wide-ranging economic linkages and Sri Lanka is doing well to explore every means of achieving this. It must be remembered that the West’s glory days from the economic viewpoint are fast coming to an end and that it is to the East that one must look for fresh well springs of economic growth. Besides, these prosperous countries of the East are the future economic super powers of the world and they would prove a daunting bulwark against attempts by the West to victimize countries such as Sri Lanka on nebulous allegations. This we are already seeing and it would prove a stitch in time to strengthen our bonds with East Asia. Thus, would our security be enhanced.