Тенденції розвитку фондових ринків у контексті світової інтеграції. Деякі негативні аспекти світової інтеграції. Моніторинг ринку праці при трансформації ринкової економіки, страница 15

Meantime political orientation of the Central Asian region is relatively bipolar: pro-Russian — Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan; pro-Western — Uzbekistan (probably ‘pro-American’ would be more close to the reality) and between these poles stands Turkmenistan, with its firm neutrality. The primary interests of Russia and the USA in the region are: access to rich mineral resources (oil and gas, gold and other precious metals in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), keeping military presence in the region, and as a part of global expansion. Before terrorist attacks in the USA, Russia’s presence in the region was incomparable with any other country’s both in military and in political spheres, but the Antiterrorist Campaign launched by the USA at the end of 2001 changed everything up side down. Naturally, most of those conditions were not favorable for development of intraregional integration, but they turned out to be quite advantageous for each government separately.

Now, when we have general vision of the current atmosphere here, in Central Asia, let me turn to the core — Globalization and the Region.

Globalization, as a concept, is: delegation of governmental administrative bodies to the higher — international, or, in other words, global level; consideration of local and regional issues not as the ones of a separate state/region, but as a part of the whole world community and consideration of all the countries as its equal members.

As it was mentioned above, it is not wise to give a concrete period, stating that this is exactly the ‘starting-point’ of globalization. I believe there is no such a point at all. Even men and women of the Stone Age, those who were the witnesses of our civilization origin, thought that living in families was the only way to survive. Soon the families became tribes, communities, … and huge societies that where ruled by governments, and day by day the humanity made its way through the centuries up today and tomorrow it will be a single-united society-sole country. That sounds like a dream, fairy story, and of course, the real life is not a fairy-tale.

The real life is developed and developing countries, each with its own society, interests, problems, and fears. Although globalization, in its final point, implies the unification of all the countries and the creation of a sole one, there are too many ways to do that.

Today’s political map comprises more than 240 independent states, which are either developed or developing. Globalization, as headlines in newspapers, as subject ‘number one’ in political discussions, as antiglobalistic movements has reached only half or so of the ‘developed world’, and it’s only a myth in half of the developing one.

What developed countries regard as globalization, developing countries consider do be another instrument to subdue them; what developed countries consider to be human rights’ violation, developing countries refer as building internal security; what developed countries assure is violation of international trade norms, developing countries regard as protection of domestic manufacturers… What is that all about? — We are seeing the same object from different angles of view, from angles of our own interests, that’s all.

UN’s annual summits, even the last one (28.08 — 04.09.2002, Johannesburg, ‘…on Sustainable Development’) are the best examples where we can clearly see, from the speeches of representatives from member countries, all the states are interested in solving their own problems, and they don’t seem to be bothered with another’s difficulties, of course until those difficulties begin bothering them too. That principle is operating exactly in today’s globalizing world: developed countries with all their power (both military and economic potential) are making efforts to improve, or at least to reserve for themselves their own positions in global political/economic arena, and the only way they have is not to allow anyone else go ahead of them. Unfortunately, but beyond doubt, those ‘anyone else’s are developing countries.