Regarding the center: It's not further east. Dubai is setting itself up as the place for the rich from that axis to come and chill out. Hong Kong is just a sea port, Singapore has no wish to have 3rd world citizens in there and Shanghai is just a playground for young french men.
The new center of the 3rd world is in the UAE.
Re:Being in Africa Makes You Untrustworthy
by muhfuhkuh on Saturday July 10, 2010 @02:28PM
(#1504103)
> Hong Kong is just a sea port
... with one of the highest concentration of major banks and biggest financial management hubs outside of NYC.
I thought the center is where the money is, always has been. From Rome to Florence, then London, then to the New World and NYC, and now switching over to Asia.
> Shanghai is just a playground for young french men.
And, Dubai is a place where celebs can go slumming as the streets rise with unpaid mortgages and backed-up sewage systems.
I'm sure the places we've named are more than just their rumor and stereotype.
What I mean is that these far east places are more focused on the west, and less on the 3rd world. Go to shanghai or hong kong - there are very few Africans. But go to Dubai...
The money is in Dubai.
They never have in 600 years of trading with Africa, starting with the spice routes and, even before, silk road.
> at some point the west will realise that a huge market does not recognize them as viable business partners anymore.
That was probably the history of slavery, colonization, and then Apartheid that was going on before that precluded the viability.
> Consider Dubai as a pivoting point for India/China and Africa. That's a new center of the world that is developing independently of the west.
Interesting, because I see the center being much further east. Think Hong Kong, Singapore, or Shanghai.