Page 179 - Afrika Must Unite

164 AFRICA MUST UNITE

the totality of the continent but of the individual countries linked
together in the union.
Advancing science, the new technologies, the constant im­
provements in modes of production and techniques of manage­
ment, the economic realities of this second half of the twentieth
century demand large expanses of land, with their variegated
natural resources, and massive populations, to obtain the greatest
benefits from them and thereby sustain their profitability. To­
day, those powers embracing large aggregates of population
and earth surface are more capable of full industrialization.
Unfortunately, in the present-day conflict of political ideo­
logies, these are the powers that make claims to ‘greatness’. The
others are virtual satellites oscillating between their orbits. The
current impact of the cold war on world affairs governs the
external policy, and influences in many ways the internal
policies of most of the rest of the world. Only China, with its huge
population and massive land extent, combined with its non­
competitive, centrally planned system of production and dis­
tribution, has a rate of productivity that is making her a potential
challenger of the only two powers whose weight counts in our
present world. T hat is the root reason why the United States
refuses to admit China into the United Nations and why the
Soviet Union is respectful of her attitudes. China’s rate of pro­
ductivity puts her ahead of the declining imperial powers whose
industrial extension, limited by their shrinking empires, has led
them into the European Common M arket, in the hope that the
increased productivity and expanded market offered by 170
million people will provide a more effective challenge to
America’s industrial - and hence political - mastery of the
capitalist world. Industrial output in China increased 276 per
cent in the years between 1950 and 1957, and it is estimated that
if the relative rates of development persist, she will outstrip Japan
and Britain in the not too distant future.

Only the Soviet Union, China, and perhaps Indonesia among
the under-developed countries possess the material and popula­
tion base sufficient for successful (socialist) economies. The
individual territories of Africa and South America, to say
nothing of the territorial boundaries of such countries as South