China is planning a major push into robotics. Just twenty years ago, China was able to make incredible inroads into the world’s manufacturing markets due to its low labor costs, much to the detriment of American manufacturing workers. Now, however, China is looking to replace many workers with robots. The shift will likely make Chinese manufacturing even more efficient and less expensive, but the effect on Chinese workers will probably be quite devastating. China currently lacks a large enough consumer market to employ large numbers of workers in service industries. And other countries will have to move into robotics just in order to keep up with the Chinese. Workers everywhere will find themselves in very weak labor markets.
India’s central pollution control board has found that more than half of the country’s rivers are polluted. India already has the record for the city with the dirtiest air (Delhi), and economic activity and population growth has led to the degradation of the environment. Prime Minister Modi has made cleaning up the environment a top priority, but he has also dedicated many of his policies to maximizing economic growth. Attaining both objectives simultaneously will be difficult.
American efforts to prevent its allies from joining China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have utterly failed. The US regarded the AIIB has a potential competitor to the World Bank and was worried about the diminished role of the Bretton Woods Institutions in the contemporary world order. What the US failed to realize is that the Chinese had a very good idea that will likely help many people all across the planet and that will likely make its investors a lot of money. It was a serious mistake for the US to think about the AIIB as an index of American vs. Chinese power in the world. Not everything is related to great power politics.
World Politics News 
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