Broken world

The American-led global economic and financial system is broken - you have only to look at the shenanigans in Washington these past few weeks to see that - so where are the clear thinkers who can dream of a plan to fix things, and where are the practical politicians who dare to try to shape a new world?

It is time for India and Japan, in calm negotiation with China and with the help of internationally minded countries and agencies, to devise a plan to reshape the financial and economic structures of a battered world.

The task is immense and perhaps it is only a pipe dream (though I have not been smoking anything) to imagine that there are creative thinkers and hard-headed politicians who are up to the task. But India and Japan, with backing from China, offer the best hope.

The past six decades of Pax Americana have brought an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity to the world. Japan rose like a phoenix literally from the ashes of war and defeat, under the tutelage of the American peace and with generous aid and the hard work of its own people.

The past 20 years have seen the emergence of China, the growing strength of the Asian tigers and dragons, the rapid, though stuttering, growth of another ancient civilisation of India and, lately, economic stirrings in Africa, partly aided by China.

But recent days have seen just how arthritic the system has become. As the United States was on the verge of its own economic recovery, politicians stepped up their quarrelling to the point of making the country ungovernable, and then forced the shutdown and took it to the brink of reneging on its debts.