WHY THE G8 WILL NOT MAKE POVERTY HISTORY During my 7 hour journey to Edinburgh last Friday I passed the time by reading the heart rending true stories of womens lives over several decades in China in the book "The Good Women of China" by Xinran. This is a book I believe we should all read to gain an understanding of the appalling depths to which men can descend in their treatment of women. A Chinese campaign group at the Edinburgh gathering also made me aware that between 65 and 80 million people in China have died at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party since it came to power. Many are now courageously leaving the Party, despite the penalties this will incur. But why is China so relevant to the deliberations taking place at the G8 meetings and the central issues of poverty in Africa and global warming? The answers to this question are to be found in China's economic growth and its new trade with corrupt and repressive regimes in Africa. China is building new alliances and stealing a march on the West in its take up of the neo liberal privatisation agenda being promoted by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The drive towards globalisation is now likely to be led by China with India and Russia following closely behind. In Sierra Leone, for example, which I have visited several times in connection with poverty alleviation projects, China plans to turn the beautiful Lumley beach near Freetown into a holiday complex for rich tourists (During the Cold War China built the national stadium and swimming pool). There seems little doubt that poor people will then be excluded from this public amenity. China is now the main obstacle to stopping the genocide in Darfur (60 % of Sudan's oil now flows to China) as it will not agree to any moves to bring Sudan's leaders before the International Court to stand trial for genocide, nor to sending in troops. Over several centuries the rich resources (including food crops, and its people) have been stolen from a now impoverished continent. With China now set to join the exploiters of the West I find it impossible to feel positive about anything that is likely to come out of the G8 meetings. I don't doubt Gordon Brown's and Bob Geldoff's good intentions, but I fail to see how the failed free market, privatisation, neo-liberal policies of the past are going to help the poorest people of Africa. And yet these are precisely the conditions being imposed on poor countries as the price they must pay for debt relief. Also I fail to see that 'free' trade, whether it is supposedly 'fair' or not, is going to benefit the poor to any substantial degree. Africa is a rich continent which, with a little aid to compensate for the debt the West already owes for the exploitation of the past, will be able to restrict its trade to countries within its own borders. The rich, generally corrupt, leaders of Africa will increasingly turn to China, not the West, to fuel economic growth and perhaps as a result, a bit more of the wealth created will trickle down to the poor - but I have my doubts. However, perhaps the Chinese will realise that gross inequality fuels wars which could affect its own economic interests and it will therefore help Africa to build up a greater capacity to produce finished goods rather than depend on the sale of cash crops and raw materials for a pittance. And how will all this growth affect climate change? China derives 90% of its electricity from coal. China has 30,000 coal mines and uses one third of the world's total. Well if, in 20 years time, China has as many affluent consumers as there are in the West, then this question does not bear thinking about? We in the West cannot expect China to hold back on its economic growth unless we change the way we live. The problem of global warming is currently mainly due to consumption in the USA, Europe, Australia and Japan. There is an urgent need for planned global economic decline and a fairer distribution of resources. This necessarily means that UK consumers must move towards a simpler lifestyle that does not involve car ownership, for example, nor long holiday trips abroad. Mike Thomas Future in Our Hands