Great Nations are built brick by brick

It is said that the person who thinks about today is a Manager, one who thinks about tomorrow is a Leader and the one who thinks about the next generation is a Statesman.

Ditto for countries.

Most of the Countries concentrate all their efforts on managing today's problems, and in a lot of cases, they manage yesterdays problems. They do not have the time or the inclination to look into the future and give the proper strategic thrust so needed to build a great nation.

I am not a great admirer of China. There is far too wrong with the Country and its ruling elite. A Country that is built on suppressing the peoples natural desires, comes low on my prefered choice of countries.

Whatever else one can accuse China of, one needs to understand and accept their long range planning. They want to become a real economic superpower that is based on their manufacturing ability. Towards this, they need Energy, Raw Materials and Labour. The last they have in plenty indigenously, but they are short on the first two.

During the past decade, China has been pursuing a path of aggessive strategy to tie up long term deals on the energy front. They have invested heavily in the African subcontinent for both Energy and for mineral ore. They have even gone as far as remote South America to meet their raw material requirements. Chinese have signed long term agreements with the Government of Chile for the right to mine Copper ore and transport them back to their country. Likewise if one were to travel across African and South America, both mineral rich, one can see heavy Chinese presence.

All these while, we Indians have been sleeping. We are sitting on top of unutilized $ 250 billion of Foreign Exchange and have virtually neglected our long term needs.

Great Nations dont sprout up, they are constructed brick by brick.