In the movie that bears this title the author H

It was tomorrow... In the movie that bears this title, the author H.G. Wells (1866-1946) is propelled to San Francisco in the late 1970s by his machine to travel in time. It said a series of gags. Dining in a good restaurant, Wells explains that it is better than the Scots where he took his breakfast - a Mc Donald's.

In this early 2011, the reading of a book published in 1901 may cause the same intertemporal shock - unfortunately without gag because we are here in the economy, "dismal science". This book, rediscovered random intellectual walks which make the charm of the profession of columnist, is called "The yellow peril" UI ' was before the advent of the politically correct. Its author is an economist, Edmond Théry, Director of the "European Economist" magazine. And his who is called Paul Henri Balluet Estournelles Constant, a member of Parliament, he became diplomat also obsessed by the rise of China, enemy of colonialism and promoter of international arbitration - which earned him the Nobel peace in 1909.

That we therefore say Théry and Estournelles de Constant "Need respond" against this illusion that made China a hive, a mine, a new Peru and present it as a hornet's nest, a trap, a source of disappointment and complications. " "Break caused by the sudden abnormal and unlimited, a huge new country competition" threatening "the social regime of major industrial nations of Europe". The reasoning is a huge news. Western industrial "never fail to use for their personal benefit wonderful economic conditions in China." But what "the day where we will put the US machine in the hands of the Chinese worker." It's simple: the China "return against us our own machines. And "when we have mobilized against us these countless legions of producers hungry, vigorous, sober, skillful and without work" Here also, the answer is simple: "the day where the legions remained neutral so far, immobile, asleep, we them will be created, crammed in factories built with our capital, ..., that day, and it will come soon, wages go up probably a few ... centimes". paid in a depreciated currency, perhaps go on to double them, them triple ... "But the gap with Western wages being one to fifteen, it does not change much. Then, "the European and American worker resign to lower him also its requirements", while "China will soon become a colossal European counterfeiting plant", to the point that "manufacturing trade reciprocity can never exist between it and Europe" The question still has no answer. Single plank of Salvation: "our special and luxury, that Chinese industries and that person follow...".

Everything is there: Dear Alain Peyrefitte, the technological looting awakening, reciprocity which clings today Brussels, the undervaluation of the yuan, the greed of Western industrial denounced in the 1990s by Tycoon Jimmy Goldsmith. The place misses here to detail the other mentioned themes, the lowering of prices of transportation in the rise of public debt in Europe penalized by too high budgetary expenditure (93 francs per head, against 2 francs in China).

This is what reassure economists: sometimes, they do are wrong! But the real mystery lies elsewhere. Why it took a century for the prediction come true The first answer to this question is reassuring: the Europeans and the Americans were able to operate in the twentieth century the industrial revolution in mass production, which gave long a formidable efficiency. The second is more disturbing. With the war that broke out in 1914 and then the crisis of the 1930s, Europe is folded on itself. With the fall in 1911 of the last great ruling dynasty, the Qing, China did the same. Internal wars, and Maoism have blocked border, up to the policy of opening initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Closing double protected. Openness exposes us. Théry and of Estournelles de Constant explained it at the beginning of the last century: the challenge is immense.