How Is This Not World Government Already?

There will be no date, no particular point in history where you can say, “On this date, the New World Order was ushered in.” To a very large extent, we’re already in it. We’ve been in it for a long, long time. What they’re really doing is just building the walls a little bit at a time with the passage of each day, and we’re in it. We will never be able to say, “Gee, it started on this date.” If there was to be a date that historians might want to put on the arrival of this monster, I suppose it would be the date on which all of the nations of the world surrendered control over their money and over their military, because those are the two legs on which national sovereignty stands. If you’ve got a strong military and a strong money system, you’re a sovereign nation. If you don’t have those things, you’re nothing. You’re just a territory that is controlled by someone who does have strong money or a strong military. So we’re very close to the surrender of our money right now. I suppose that would be a date that historians might choose for the crossover point. - G. Edward Griffin, Restore the Republic's Reality Report, May 17, 2009

After G-20 Rancor, Pac Rim Leaders Push Free Trade

November 13, 2010

AP - Leaders of the world's three biggest economies -- the U.S., China and Japan -- all pledged Saturday to push for free trade, apparently putting aside acrimony over currencies that threatens to revive pressure to raise trade barriers.

The promises not to backslide into retaliatory trade tactics came at an annual summit of Pacific Rim leaders, just a day after a divisive summit of the Group of 20 major economies in South Korea.

Speaking to a conference on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Yokohama, Chinese President Hu Jintao vowed to keep his country's markets open and seek more balanced trade, while gradually adjusting the value of the Chinese currency -- which Washington complains is undervalued.

"The international community should oppose protectionism in all manifestations," Hu said in a speech that avoided overt references to spats with the U.S. or Japan over currency policies and other issues.

Though they may differ over details, the leaders from APEC -- which represents more than half of global economic production and two-fifths of world trade -- appear united in supporting more open markets.

Hu and his host, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, held a 22-minute meeting Saturday on the sidelines of the APEC summit, despite frosty relations due to conflicting claims over islands in the East China Sea. Tokyo and Beijing have sparred recently after a Chinese trawler collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels near the disputed islands east of Taiwan.

Thousand of anti-China protesters rallied outside the heavily guarded APEC venue Saturday, waving big Japanese flags and placards with slogans reading "Defend our territory" and "Defeat Chinese imperialism."

"I think China is a threat to Japan," said Sayo Kuroda, a 19-year-old college student whose family joined the protest.

Kan also was to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently angered Japan by visiting an island off its northern coast that both nations claim.

Many in Japan and elsewhere in the region are looking to the U.S. as a counterweight to China's growing influence and sometimes aggressive stance.

But the main focus of the APEC meetings will be devising ways to leverage more open trade for the sake of future growth.

During their summit, the leaders are expected to agree to take concrete steps toward a Pacific-wide free trade zone that would slash tariffs and other barriers to exports.

"Achieving free and open trade and investment is the surest way to accomplish common prosperity and greater stability in the Asia-Pacific region," declares a draft of the summit's final statement, obtained by The Associated Press.

In a striking change from previous Japanese administrations, Kan has promised to further open Japan's sluggish economy, despite protests from farmers who fear the loss of subsidies and protective tariffs.

"We have to grow with the fast developing economies of the Asia-Pacific," Kan said. "We will liberalize our trade."

Asia's robust and resilient growth has hinged on trade, and the U.S. is eager to tap into that dynamism, said President Barack Obama.

"In this region the United States sees a huge opportunity to increase our exports to some of the fastest growing markets in the world," Obama told the APEC conference. "For America this is a job strategy."

At a divisive Group of 20 summit in Seoul, South Korea, Obama failed to win support for an open call for Beijing to more quickly raise the value of its currency.

And though about half the leaders from the G-20 meeting traveled on to Yokohama, there was no sign that the ill-will shown in Seoul had carried over to the APEC summit, where meetings on the sidelines are considered an vital part of its annual program.

Currencies, however, appeared to get more attention than they normally do at APEC meetings.

The leaders' draft statement notes a need to reduce trade imbalances and government debt to help ensure stable and sustainable economic growth, and includes a pledge to move toward more "market-determined exchange rate systems."

"That takes into account the concerns of many countries outside of the U.S. and China that have seen their currencies appreciate rapidly over the last two months. It's reflective of the views outside of the U.S. and China," said Philippine presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang.

In the draft, the leaders also promise to reduce risks of disruptions from speculative capital, such as the huge flows of cash many in the region fear may flood their markets, driving their own currencies higher and prices higher, due to moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve to stimulate the U.S. economy by printing money.

Japan Is Test Case for Pac Rim Free Trade Zone

November 13, 2010

AP – As Asia-Pacific leaders committed themselves to achieving a Pacific-wide free trade zone at an annual summit Sunday, host Japan may prove a key test case for how realistic that vision is.

Acknowledging that Japan's economic power is declining, Prime Minister Naoto Kan declared his country must open up its markets and embrace free trade — or risk getting left further behind other regional rivals.

"Japan is determined to reopen itself," Kan said at a press conference that wound up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, alluding to the historic role that Yokohama, which hosted the summit, played more than 150 years ago as one of the first Japanese ports to open up to the West.

That bold declaration represents a change for Japan, which for decades had been ruled by conservative administrations that were reluctant to engage in trade liberalization and were closely tied with farmers who fiercely oppose lowering protective tariffs. Imported rice, for example, is subject to a 778 percent tariff.

Japan and the other 20 members of APEC will face many such tough choices as they strive to execute their shared commitment to free trade and greater regional integration as outlined in the leaders' communique issued at the end of the weekend meeting.

Their overarching goal: To work toward establishing a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific that would envelope all members, from behemoths China and the U.S. to tiny Brunei and New Zealand. Slashing tariffs and other barriers to imports and investments, the so-called FTAAP would cover half the world's global commerce and two-fifths of its trade. Kan said the rough target date was 2020.

The Asia-Pacific region has led the world's still-weak recovery from the financial crisis, and the region's leaders are convinced that open markets are a sure way to ensure future growth. Still, creating such a huge free trade zone is a highly complicated endeavor given the region's diversity and vested interests opposed to opening markets.

China's transformation into the world's second-largest economy — overtaking Japan this year — and the dynamism that has helped it lead the global recovery, was made possible mainly by opening to foreign trade and investment. While Washington complains that Beijing keeps its currency artificially low, giving China's exports an unfair price advantage, consumers have benefited enormously from lower-priced imports.

Japan's economy, meanwhile, has been stagnant for two decades, stymied by weak demand and a shrinking population even as regional rivals such as South Korea — which is racing ahead of Japan in free trade deals — are becoming formidable competitors.

"Other Asian economies are catching up to or surpassing Japan," Kan said Sunday after the summit ended.

"Japan would like to stay as a country with vigor, and to survive in this context, we really need to have economic integration with Asian and Pacific Rim friends and countries so that together we can grow," he said.

Although Japan has long sought to boost demand at home, the resource-scarce country remains strongly dependent on exports.

Driven by a sense of urgency, Japan's government — led by the ruling Democrats, who overthrew the long-ruling conservatives last year — announced a striking new openness toward free trade in a policy paper last week, just before the APEC meetings, as a way to revive growth.

Calling the present a "watershed moment," Tokyo promised to "open up the country." It pledged to wrap up free trade negotiations with Australia, resume suspended trade talks with South Korea, and seek new free trade partners, warning the country needed to become a more attractive place to invest. On Sunday, Japan signed a free trade deal with Peru.

Japan must now decide whether to join a U.S.-backed free trade grouping called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the APEC leaders held up as a building block for an eventual Pacific-wide free trade zone. The U.S., Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Peru are negotiating to join the TPP bloc, which currently brings together the small economies of Chile, New Zealand, Brunei and Singapore.

Big Japanese corporations are urging Kan to join or put Japan at a disadvantage, but he is already facing an intense fight from farmers who fret that a flood of cheaper agricultural products will ruin them.

"We small-scale farmers cannot compete with large-scale growers abroad," said Ryoichi Fujimaki, a 43-year-old vegetable farmer near Yokohama.

While Kan has also promised to revitalize Japan's farming industry and overhaul agricultural policy, but hasn't given details.

Some APEC leaders urged Japan to consider the big picture.

"You cannot guide your integration policy on only one sector," said Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, noting that agriculture represented less than 2 percent of Japan's economy. "If the country as a whole will win because of the FTA, that means it can compensate the losers and still there will be something for the winners."

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