Europe's Probable Fall

At their recent meeting in Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao was gracious enough to tell German Chancellor Angela Merkel that China had confidence in Europe and that the latter would no doubt overcome its difficulties. The word was confirmed by the act with China purchasing a significant amount of Spanish bonds. I am afraid there may be good reasons for not feeling so sanguine about Europe.

So far, in 2010, there is no doubt that the European narrative is astonishingly successful. During the first half of the 20th century, Europe was a battlefield in which terrible atrocities were committed. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, most Europeans were poor. Working conditions, whether in factories or farms, were terrible. Life for the great majority was short and brutal. Eminent historian Eric Hobsbawm entitled his book on the 20th century The Age of Extremes. The political fabric of Europe was torn apart by extremist ideologies from both the far left and far right. Spain, the country in which China has invested, witnessed an extremely bloody civil war from 1936 to 1939 and, well into the 1980s, it remained a backwater economically, socially and politically.