Six dissertationsOn "Declaration for World Economic Development"
By Hu Zhendong, chief Representative of the UN Office of Industrial Development Organization for Investment and Technical Promotion in China
The "Declaration for World Economic Development" (Zhuhai Declaration) points out: "To make an effective use of the limited natural resources of all kinds (including manpower, energy and raw materials) and optimize to the greatest extent the disposition of the global economic resources must be done in accordance with scientific rules.
A gist of the "Declaration for World Economic Development" is the sharing of resources. This is not only an old topic but rather a challenge for themselves that human beings are unable to keep themselves away from it.
For most of the people of different ages in the past, resources sharing was only something ideal, a wish or sometimes just a goal whereas the exploitation, control and contending for or even the transfer of qualification for the enjoyment of resources have been running through the whole process of the development of civilization history of mankind.
The historical shadow still lingers on without going away. Today, for the developing countries whose population account for 4/5th of the global population it is still something ideal for them to talk about the sharing of resources, which is a kind of right that can only be acquired by making efforts and endeavors.
The question we are confronting now is how to find a way and a mechanism for getting out of the very shadow.
Whether the resources of a country can be shared by the broad masses of the people depends on the law, the system and the wisdom of the political reformers. The imbalance of the distribution of resources is enough to lead a country astray into turmoil and destruction.
The resources sharing between the two countries depends solely on whether the two countries can find out a mutually complimentary need, common view in development and a common interest. A forced demand is sufficient to bring about the disruption of the relations or war between the two countries.
To establish global sharing of resources among countries in the world depends on whether a mechanism can be built up on dialogue basis, reach a principle of mutual respect and eventually realize a beneficial framework and a solution program for common prosperity. A long-term failure in dialogue, common view and mechanism of resources sharing is enough to threaten the global peace and development.
The rules and regulations for enjoyment of resources have to be restructured.
And the prerequisite for the restructuring is to deal with the matter squarely.
What needs us to deal with squarely is first and foremost to look at the reality and history of the global allotment of resources.
The reality in the allotment of global resources is in direct proportion with the distribution pattern of wealth. The countries in the minority often and always occupy and enjoy the resources several or scores of times as against the proportion of the world population and even hundred times that of the poorest developing country - no matter whether in regard to the food, housing, clear water and air as well as oil, medicine, technology and talents.
The pattern in which it sees a great shortage of sharing mechanism was established during the past 300 years. The principle of establishment was absolutely unequal and the means resorted to for the establishment of the pattern was savage and brutal and sometimes even quite cruel. The low cost resources have propped up the prosperity of the first batch of industrial empires. And the prosperity has not only accorded the latecomers of imperialist countries with an enjoyment up till now but also laid a foundation for the pattern in which the resources are highly monopolized as we see today.
The industrial revolution in developing countries began to take place one following the other in the recent 40 years. Confronted with a resource environment cut up and broken to pieces, the developing countries of congenital deficiency have to pay a hill's lot for seizing back that part of resources that originally should go to them. Up to the present days, the development of the majority of developing countries still remains at a level at which not all children have got education nor all of their nationals have shaken off the fetter of illiteracy.
* This is the very reality that the developed countries should take more a square look at it.
The objective to take a square look at the history is to stride over the history, create a history.
In the face of the resources deficiency on which depends the existence and development of the developing countries the developed countries are duty-bound and held responsible to adopt more forceful and practical actions to adjust the prices of the resources, open up the space of resources, reduce the cost of resources and support the construction for the developing countries to enhance their competence for the exploitation of the resources when engaged in the process of jointly setting up the rules, orders and patterns for the global sharing of resources. This caters not only to the conception of the "Theory of Natural Rights" but also to the essential ideas of the major religions in the world and moreover to the needs of peace, development and sustainable development of mankind.
For the developing countries what should be more concerned for is the creative power and ability.
The resources sharing under the backdrop of globalization is absolutely not that of exportation or allowances as in the cold war period.
It is a kind of ability to acquire resources or sometimes a series of successive creation. For developing countries the globalization in an era of knowledge and intelligence though means more opportunities for them, yet opportunity has a prerequisite, namely the ability and knowledge.
Today, for developing countries to strive and make efforts for the global resources, though they still cannot get away from the round-table talks yet have shifted rather to their own home and farmland, to factories and schools, laboratories and even to the knowledge reserve and discovery of resources of the whole nation, and to the incubation of resources and the creative innovation of knowledge.
Technique and knowledge has already effected a great change of the world, which has also altered the categories of resources and ways of existence and what's more has changed the modes of transfer and acquisition of the resources.
* This is the very reality that the developing countries should take more a square look at it.
Opportunities are obviously unequal. However, opportunities do exist. For every developing country opportunity has ever appeared for them to shake off poverty, say goodbye to backwardness, and realize employment and increase welfares. And for some countries, there have been more appearances of opportunity but the key here lies in whether they can bring all the might of the nation into one for grasping the opportunity.
The new resources are speedily changing the patterns of the productivity of mankind. Though the old resources are still important yet their status is degrading in the productivity and is being transformed and readjusted by the new resources.
New resources: information, knowledge, technique, standard, talents and management……
Old resources: land, raw material, sources of energy, weaponry and capital……
The shortage of the old resources doesn't necessarily mean the insufficiency of the new resources while the insufficiency of the new resources will ultimately lead to the shortage of the old resources.
Information is a kind of resources, which is now going to be an indispensable part of the competitiveness of a country. In the upsurge of the global informationzation, though the transmission of information, equipment and ability for its processing is important, yet for the developing countries, what's more important is its content, the information itself. In a country in which it is short of high-quality content of information, no realistic significance can be talked about even if it has the strongest ability for processing the information.
Knowledge is not only a sort of resources but rather a foundation of competitiveness. The swift progress of the electronic information and technology has made the flow of knowledge to a scope, a scale and a depth as never seen in human society before. Just as did in the past when capital chased after the land, raw materials, sources of energy and weaponry…, now more and more capitals are bent on pursuing for knowledge.
Knowledge has changed the fate and destiny of numerous poverty-stricken children - either in Turkey, India, China, Cambodia or Zimbabwe. Knowledge can also help alter the fate and destiny of a country.
Education exists because of the acquirement for knowledge. The bounden-duty of education is to foster the knowledgeable workforces and innovators, not those knowledgeable overlords. The education that can only cultivate overlords will be of no avail to the challenge for shaking off poverty. Only when education is run for all the people can a country be hopeful to take a part in the disposition of the global resources.
Technique is a sort of resources but the oldest of its kind, and also the oldest element of the human productivity. But why it is often enlisted by human beings as a new resource is because the new technique has greatly expanded its technical connotation and outbound extension and, because of this, it has also greatly expanded the position of technique itself in the productivity.
For developing countries, the introduction, absorption and digestion of technology means an important way for shortening the differences in industry. However, the purpose of absorption is to digest it while the purpose of digestion is aiming at creation and innovation. Introduction should be carried out in an active way and absorption to be done diligently while digestion should be a thing very necessary.
Nevertheless, what's more important is creation and innovation. The developing countries practice the policy for urging their people on in creation and innovation. This should be made the most important policy for economy and for the public of the developing countries. For only by encouraging the people of their countries to make creation and innovation can they eventually complete their own industrialization and modernization. Treasure the creation means to value the future.
Standard is going to be a kind of resources. It is becoming a dagger which is the most anti-personal in market competition. Standard depends on an accumulation of a great many intellectual property rights, on the accurate positioning and satisfaction of the consuming colonies, on the internal coordination of industries and on the assembling of all sorts of technical personnel and an ameliorated environment for the growth of industries. Among them, for the developing countries the most important thing is the creation and improvement of an environment for the development of industries. On a piece of land lack of irrigation and fertilizer, nothing good can be harvested from it anyhow.
Talents prove to be the most valuable resources for the productivity today. In society of mankind "human beings" started to exist along with the production. So there is no doubt about the importance of human beings. However, the most precious things in the world today are the persons who are able to create knowledge and willing to use the knowledge. For the developing countries, to retain the talents and not let them flow away and to make a good use of them is more challengeable than to cultivate them. For the developing countries the original shortage of resources in education is now becoming a ceaseless source of supply, and in certain sense, an indispensable resource of talents for developed countries. This almost absurd flow of resources requires obviously the developing countries to create a stronger and more forceful environment for development and a system of arrangement and atmosphere in which talents are truly being respected.
Management is a kind of resources of which it is in greatest shortage today. Management is a sort of force, the real kernel of the competitive force. No matter what kinds of resources or the form of their flow, variation, transfer or integration…the display of efficiency and effect of resources depends on the management - Even for the most excellent talents, the management is necessary.
The difficulties for the management lie not at the outside but rather in the inside, not at the part but in the system as a whole, and nor in the past but at the present. The ultimate management is necessarily associated with a continuous challenge of the ego, and in the meantime, it requires obviously more bravery and guts to challenge the ego rather than the others.
Management is beyond doubt not only a sort of knowledge but rather an existence in reality. The most lack of "management" is a sort of management. So far as any developing country is concerned, a good management is surely not a simple process of finding but a serial movement of practice, creation and improvement and enhancement. Only by finding out a form of management, a culture, a way and a path most suitable to the country itself can all the precious resources be brought to display a higher efficiency.
Resources are quite precious, but what's more precious is how to effectively use the resources, the wisdom in realizing the sharing of resources. In an era of an increasing interdependence we need more reasoning power, justice and creative wisdom to build up a policy framework and solution program for the sharing of the global resources so as to confront jointly with the great challenge by the shortage and imbalance of resources for the development of mankind! However, this in itself is the very opportunity and challenge that the globalization has brought to all the countries in the world and I think this is the very essence of the "Declaration for World Economic Development".
(China.org.cn November 6, 2003)
