Presidents fall out over money - China US

[dArKeR]

China's president, Hu Jintao, yesterday rejected a personal appeal from his American counterpart, George Bush, to revalue his country's currency and adjust other policies that Washington claims give China an unfair trading advantage.

Hu declined to discuss the issue after the two men met during a summit of Pacific rim leaders in Bangkok and instead stressed the positive aspects of the conversation.

"We stated our readiness to resolve whatever questions that might emerge in our economic exchanges and trade through dialogue," he said, adding that they had agreed "that the economic cooperation and trade between our two countries have benefited our two peoples tremendously".

Washington believes the renminbi, pegged at 8,28 to the US dollar, is undervalued by as much as 40%, making Chinese exports much cheaper and costing America manufacturing jobs. Some US legislators are urging Bush to take the matter to the World Trade Organisation while others want Beijing's special trading privileges revoked.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22252

Would you do something a murderer asked you to do?

[Old and In the Way]

1. Let's see

Increase the RMB by 40% and that would send inflationary shocks throughout China....while making them uncompetitive with the rest of the world markets.

Why not devalue our currency by 40% George? Because there'd be rioting in the streets.

[MUAD_DIB]

2. In *'s mind the Chinese are just peasants living on

a farm somewhere. They can't have that much money anyway.

The problem is that * probably doesn't understand that there are almost as many chinese living in their cities as we have people in the United States, and their well-to-do class is getting bigger.

So China is just suppose to devalue their currecny for good old soul-seer Shrubby? Right.

What about Japan? Didn't * have wordsfor them as well. Are they supposed to devalue their currency as well after a decade of recession/slump.

Chimpy thinks that the world is his oyster. Too bad the world has a different oppinion.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. Not devalue the Chinese currency

Bu$h wants the Chinese to INCREASE the value of the renminbi.

As for Japan, the yen has increased about 7% against the dollar since mid-September. Bu$h wants the yen to get even stronger, while the Japanese government has been trying to weaken it.

Methinks this has little to do with trade (since such tactics have not worked in the past) but rather as a way to make a lot of money on currency fluctuations. For example, in 1985 lot of investors who had stocked up on yen made out like bandits when the yen was artificially strengthened from about 200/dollar to about 160/dollar.

[Zhade]

9. Speaking of 'peasants'...

I caught an interesting quote while watching CBC today. The program was on all the pre-invasion warnings of what would happen in Iraq afterward.

Richard Pearle, aka Prince of Darkness, was trying to deny that BuchCo was overly optimistic prior to the invasion. He said something along the lines of "We never thought, you know, that there'd be peasants dancing in the streets."

Nice choice of words, PoD. Almost...colonial.

[Beetwasher]

4. Ha Ha!

(in your best Nelson voice)

What an idiot! Why in the hell should the Chinese do what he asks? It's in their best interest not to do it, but they should do it because he TOLD them to? Oy vey...

[Neutrino]

5. China doesn't set Fiscal Policy based on what sound bites

will play well in the U.S. China has increased her Budget for VAT
(Value Added Tax) rebates to exporters. By accelerating the
reimbursement of delayed payments of VAT rebates of as much as
US$30bil, these measures act as a defacto devaluation of rmb.

Economics is just another class Bush slept thru, I guess. sigh.

China is not willing to risk instability in Currency markets by
creating a situation that might cause rampant speculation.

Guns and Butter. China wisely chooses Butter.

[psychopomp]

6. Oh, to have been a fly on *that* wall

I would have loved to have seen the look on Dumby's face when the Chinese President told him, politely, to take a hike!

[David__77]

7. China has been praised for its monetary policy in the past.

During the late 1990's Asian financial crisis, China was widely praised as providing the stability in east Asia amid crumbling financial structures. You cannot have it both ways. The WTO would reject any complaint about this, and that's why the administration is taking up this matter in the court of public opinion. Luckily for China, the US is otherwise "occupied" (occupying is more like it).

[cliss]

8. Finally someone says 'no' to the man?

I'm speechless, I tell you. I'm so used to (and tired of) Bushwacked tearing all over the globe, throwing his weight around, making everybody do his bidding.

Well, good for them.