Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Costs of Imperialism

A friend recently sent me a presentation at TED by a doctor named Hans Rosling, who has already gained some fame at TED for his first talk, in which he made statistics more visually palatable and effective for learning. In the latest video, which you can view below, Rosling estimates that China and India will reach the per capita income level of Western countries by 2048. Seeing as growth models often change, this is open to debate.

However, it was in the course of the talk that one can gain some really interesting knowledge. For one thing, both China and India were imperialized -- in different ways -- during the first half of the 20th century. During periods in which both of these large nations were being controlled, directly or otherwise, by other nations, the health of the Chinese and Indian populations stagnated while the rest of the world increased. (Health was measured via life expectancy.) In addition, per capita income moved nowhere. Using Rosling's visualizations, China and India were two "bubbles" just sitting in the same spot for decades while the rest of the world moved to higher and healthier places.

When their respective imperial forces were ousted, however -- the British for the Indians; the Japanese, British, Americans, and end of the civil war for the Chinese -- the quality of life for both nations quickly increased.

A similar relationship can be found among many circumstances in which a population is being controlled by an "outside force" -- i.e., a government unelected by or foreign to their own people. The reason seems pretty straightforward: when a foreign country is controlling another, then it is usually imposing laws and moving resources in a way that benefits the foreign country rather than the native population.

Or is it straightforward? Currently, in Afghanistan, although Western forces want to leave a stable, prosperous nation to the Afghans, the health of the people has plummeted. According to the UN's Human Development Index -- which measures quality of life using life expectancy, education indicators, and GDP per capita -- since 2001, when the Taliban were pushed out of power by foreign forces, Afghanistan has dropped from 117th to 181st in the world, making it the second worst-off country on Earth.

This horrible news comes despite the money, lives, and attention given to Afghanistan by Western nations. And this is an instructive lesson about foreign occupation: imperialism isn't always malintentioned. Indeed, neo-imperialism is often damaging to the very people the occupiers hope to assist. (Even if the assistance is ultimately meant to serve the interests of the occupiers, as is the case in Afghanistan.)

The culprit is the foreign forces themselves. As long as there is any major resistance, like the Taliban in Afghanistan, there will be major armed conflict between the foreign and domestic forces. The insecurity associated with this, as well as the death and disease directly related to the fighting itself, will doom the greater society to stagnation as resources are poured into the security matters and developmental policies become too unsafe to effectively implement.

This should raise questions about the utility of occupation and nation-building. Despite any purported intended benefits for a nation's people, these engagements drag out conflicts that ultimately suffocate the people. More effective assistance, then, might look to keep the developmental aspects of a strategy -- like education, trade, investment, and medicine -- while removing the antagonists -- namely, the occupiers.


  1. Very interesting post. I agree that not all imperialist/nation-building attempts are mal-intentioned (I like that word!). So it is interesting to see how the actions of imperialists can still lead to decreased life expectancy and an overall "unhealthy" environment for the occupied even when the occupier's intentions are genuinely good.

    As an aside - I am reading a book right now recommended to me called "The Next 100 Years." It's written by George Friedman, the CEO of some strategic consulting company and also author of a book about Blackwater. Anyway - obviously no one can predict the future, but his book is interesting. There's a lot in there about China. Your post made me think of a point he made about divisions in China between those living on the coast and those in the interior. He maintains that the costal dwellers who included more wealthy businessmen, almost wanted Europe to control China because it made them wealthier. If this is true (I have no way of knowing), then the idea that imperialism drives down the health of the nation can't be applied to the whole - because someone must be benefitting. What do you think?

    Food for thought.


  2. Thanks for the response.

    I would be careful about saying that an occupiers intentions are "genuinely" good. As I mentioned, even if Afghanistan, the assistance to the population is really meant for the security of Western countries. That is, the occupation now and in the past has always been about preventing a "haven for extremism" and another 9/11 or London subway bombing. Obama is (and Bush was) unequivocal about this. Look at the Administration's recent positions on Afghanistan for evidence. Obama's recent strategy review made the ultimate self-interest of the US in Afghanistan even more explicit.

    Friedman's book re: Indeed, I read it last year when I was living in DC. (I got it "hot of the rack".) His points about China I found too generalized, like much of his book. But Friedman is in the field of international geopolitics, where the ideas are often more broad than in any other paradigm in international relations. So although he recognizes the inequality in China, he brushes with huge strokes, claiming that these inequalities will lead to political fracture.

    But in saying this, he pays little attention to the details, like that fact that, despite inequality, the standard of living is still rising across the whole country. (For example, the current government is determined to development so-called second and third tier cities, which are heavily inland.) Moreover, the leadership is hardly ignorant of the inequality and, depending on the fifth generation of CCP leaders, who take office in 2012, this could continue to be a central feature of Chinese developmental policy. As long as this genuine attention is given to the inland and is successful, the absolute inequality might not be as destructive as Friedman posits.