From an (ex-) addict to another

As someone who has been around for more than 4,000 years, give or take a millennium (although I completed 60 years in my present "Avatar" on Oct. 1), I have a lot to offer those who have not been around for as long as me.

I was the first in the world to make paper (revolutionizing the way knowledge and education are spread) and gunpowder (which revolutionized the way wars are fought).

I have also been an addict (more than once) and other addicts who may still have some chance of kicking their habits can more easily learn from me what I had to learn the hard way: That unsustainable and addictive "bad habits" of any kind can wipe you out.

Two major disasters over the last few centuries changed my path so much that there is a lesson in survival to others in similar doldrums.

I faced the first of these disasters when some of the Western countries bailed themselves out using my immense population and its immense (acquired) taste for opium. For quite some time, until the 18th century, only I could supply tea and the best silk to the world.

Some countries almost exhausted all the silver in their coffers (I never accepted gold in payment, since it was easier to check for the genuineness of silver) while satisfying their craze for these commodities. Collectively paying me almost 27 million kilograms of silver from the mid 17th century almost bankrupted some of them who, in order to survive, started smuggling opium in to my territories (to generate resources to buy tea and silk) despite my strong resistance.

When I started destroying contraband opium they marched in with their gunboats, snatched some of my territory, forced me to give them "free trade" rights, and in general bullied me into submission. It took me a several hundred years to get out of the stupor introduced by the (forced) addiction to opium.

The second disaster (about 40 years ago) was in all fairness, of my own making. I was so carried away with my own ideology for a certain style of living that I destroyed part of my own glorious past.

My penchant to blame the Western world for my own addiction to pursuing the dream of a "better *ideological* tomorrow", without really doing anything to get out of my present morass, isolated me from the world and almost wiped out development and progress for a whole generation, who could not even be adequately fed.

And that is exactly what at least some of the rest of the world is suffering from today: Not without realizing that pursuing any unsustainable ideology will only mean lurching from one bubble to the next.

Some world leaders thought "democracy" was a must for at least some of the countries (whether or not they had enough food), and spent trillions of dollars on military manpower and hardware in "educating" those who were considered laggards in a democratic way of ruling their countries, and further trillions in gathering the support of "useful allies" (without bothering about whether these allies practiced democracy).

More trillions were spent on saving the world from "weapons of mass destruction", which only existed in the minds of these leaders. And what was the net result of this addiction to ideologically improving the world?

At least US$3 trillion down the drain and decades of indebtedness to pay for the folly of creating this and other unsustainable bubbles, without really wiping out the real "weapons of mass destruction"!

While I should be happy that I now hold about an eighth of what the "great county *once upon a time* leading the world" owes to the rest of the world, I am also saddened by these great leaders' addiction to living life "their way" and enjoying "their dreams" as

as they promote unabated (and increasingly unaffordable) luxury, which is putting this planet's future in jeopardy. When the entire world agreed in Kyoto to expeditiously tackle global environmental problems, these great apostles spreading the gospels of democracy at such a great cost, were not only too busy to join the world effort to make a better environment, but did not even think of making their great gas guzzling autos, the profligate symbols of wasteful luxury, a wee bit more fuel efficient.

I could rise from the ashes of my opium and other addictions because I realized in time that creating jobs for several million aspirants every year was more pressing than unsustainable ideological daydreaming. I also benefited from the visionaries who thought that "a cat can be black or white so long as it can do its job of catching the mice".

My advice to the neo-addicts, busy preaching democracy to the hungry and the poor or celebrating today by borrowing from tomorrow, is that now is the time to drop addictive and unproductive pursuits, discourage bubble-building, and do some surgical fat trimming by giving up some unsustainable luxuries and profligacy before it's too late! Remember - unsustainable addictions to any thing may not kill a country, but the resulting unmanageable debts can wipe out the future for at least some of their people!

The writer has more than 35 years of experience covering several industries, including financial services in Hong Kong and Indonesia.