カテゴリー: News

              (White House Photo: Chuck Kennedy)

Tanzania was U.S. President Barak Obama’s last stop on his three-nation African stops which also took him to Senegal and South Africa.

During his visit, he met with Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, addressed business leaders at the Corporate Council on Africa, gave a press conference with President Kikwte, and joined former U.S. President George W. Bush in a low-key ceremony in which they lay a wreath in commemoration of  those who lost their lives in the 1998 Al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam .

 Some media reports suggested that the meaning of the trip was that the U.S. was playing “catch up,” i.e., trying to make up for lost time. On the surface this appeared to be true. In March this year, newly-elected Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tanzania as his second overseas trip as president. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that the purpose of Xi’s visit was to consolidate traditional friendship, chart the course for future cooperation and promote common development. Since 2009, China has been Tanzania’s largest trading partner and second largest source of  investment. As for traditional friendship China-Tanzania ties date all the way back to 1955 at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia where China was represented by then Premier Zhou Enlai. (And Zhou visited Tanzania a year after the country became Independent.) Moreover, China has been instrumental over the years in building infrastructure in Tanzania and during Xi’s trip in March 2013, offered loans amounting to USD$20 billion for development, mainly in the area of power generation.

 Just three months later, in July 2013, President Obama arrived in Tanzania with a battalion of business executives and with trade as a key issue.  At a joint press conference with the Tanzanian president, he gave a nod to America’s own long-standing relations with the country by noting the 50^th anniversary of the visit of the founder of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere to the Kennedy White House, and acknowledging Tanzania as being one of the first countries to welcome the U.S. Peace Corps.

 In a generally under-reported speech to The Corporate Council on Africa on July 1, 2013, Obama outlined a bold and far-reaching plan, not just for Tanzania, but for the region itself. In what might have been described as a toned-down campaign speech, he outlined a vision for Africa that focused on the transition from a relationship of aid to one of trade. During the speech he announced several proposals including a program to aid intra-African trade, the expansion of the Young African Leaders Program, and a previously-introduced Power Africa Plan to bring electricity to the southern part of the continent. He also zeroed-in on the concerns of the business community, particularly red-tape that hampers business and investment, and long time- frames for urgently-needed projects. He promised a whole new approach to relations, one that would empower Africa’s rising middle class.  The speech was pure Barack Obama, featuring a mastery of detail, humor, and an inspiring vision for the future that was easy to buy in to. 

 When he ran for election in his first term in 2008, his critics made light of Obama’s experience as a “community organizer,” but on July 1, 2013, this experience seemed to serve him well. It was as if he was there to organize a continent-size community. 

 http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/07/01/president-obama-speaks-business-leaders-forum-tanzania

Soon after her inauguration on February 25, 2013, newly-elected Korean President Park Geun-hey had  to face a tough crisis in dealing with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Rising tensions on the Korean peninsula were focused on the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs. Analysists suggested that after some initial mis-steps in her administration, Park rose to the challenge of her new office and successfully dealt with the heightened tensions and threats of war.

 According to her website, the goal of the Park administration’s domestic agenda is to “open a new era of hope and happiness for all people.” She has also tasked her government with dealing with four “major evils” :

•  Sexual violence
• Domestic violence
• School violence
• Unsafe food

 Park, 61, is the daughter of Korean president Park Chung-hee, who held the office from 1963 until his assassination in 1979. She graduated in 1974 with a degree in electronic engineering from Sogang University. After her mother’s death she acted as First Lady and assisted her father with his presidential duties.

Along the way to the presidency, Park Geun-hey received several honorary doctorates, including an honorary doctorate in literature from the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan. Park, the author of several books, is also said to be fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Park’s political career began in 1998. She served four terms in the Korea National Assembly from 1998-2012. She was chair of the Grand National Party from 2004-2006.  In 2012 she was elected president.

Republic of Korea Presidential website: http://english.president.go.kr/main.php

                                                  November 2012-April 2013

Continued tensions between Japan and China over the Daiyou/Senkaku issue have had a steady, negative impact on Japan-China tourism. Tensions began to rise in the autumn of 2012 when the Japanese government bought the Daiyou/Senkaku islands. This heated dispute, widely covered in the media, quickly had a massive, negative effect on tourism. China Daily quotes the Japan National Tourism Organization as posting a whopping 43.6% decline in Chinese tourists visiting Japan in November 2012. China Daily also reports a decline of 31% in Japanese tourist going to China in the same month.

 Although tensions have somewhat cooled of late, the negative effects on the tourism industry on both countries continues to be significant. Data from the Japan Tourism Marketing Co. for April 2013 shows a year-on-year drop of 33% of Chinese visitors to Japan and a year-on-year drop of 25.8% of Japanese visitors to China.

While the numbers are not encouraging to the tourism industry in either country, tourism overall remains robust in both countries. Observers say that the shortfall of Chinese tourists is somewhat offset by the increase in visitors for Taiwan, Thailand and Southeast Asia. As for the Chinese tourism industry, analysts are bullish on the growth of the industry between 2013-2017, particularly in the domestic sector.

Japan Tourism Marketing Co. (Visitor Data April 2013) http://www.tourism.jp/en/statistics/

A report released this spring by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Development predicts that China will be the leading world economy by 2016. The report titled OECD Economic Surveys China 2013 is available on the OECD website. In addition to analysis, it also contains policy recommendations including recommendations on Macro-structural policies, financial sector reform, competition and innovation, urbanization, intergovernmental fiscal relations and greening growth.

 The Chinese economy showed a steady double-digit growth to become the world’s second largest economy in 2010.  Growth for the first part of 2013 has been reported at 7.7%. The Chinese economy faces a number of problems including a re-balancing from an economy based on investment and exports to a more consumption-driven one. Other problems citied include property prices, an aging population, social inequality and the environmental costs of growth.

 Many believe that it is a bit premature to dismiss the current world’s number one economy, the United States. Vast stores of shale oil and gas are coming online, and analysts predict that the U.S. will be energy self-sufficient by 2020, and that the U.S. could easily become an energy exporter. This will give the U.S. a definite advantage over economies that will still have to rely on Gulf-region oil supplies in the second decade of this century.

 OECD Economic Surveys China 2013 Overview (PDF)

http://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/Overview_CHINA.pdf