PART 4: China steady on the peg

[CHIMO]

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has criticized the US for not taking measures to halt the dollar's slide and made it clear that China would not revalue the yuan under pressure. "You must consider the impact on China's economy and society and also the impact on the region and the world," Wen said in Laos late Sunday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet when asked about pressures to change the yuan's decade-old peg to the dollar. Wen also signaled that speculation was too rife in the market at the moment to make such a change.

The announcement was timely as China stands at the crossroads of economic destiny, the direction of which will determine if it will be the latest victim of bankrupt neo-liberal ideology or the sole survivor that manages to develop an effective immunity from the deadly financial virus of dollar hegemony that regularly assaults all economies. On a strategic level, China, the most populous nation on Earth, cannot possibly expect to develop toward world-class living standards by exporting to a rich minority of the world's population. The poor economies' excessive dependence on export to the rich economies under dollar hegemony will perpetuate the maldistribution of wealth on a global scale and put China permanently on the lower end of that scale.

For a small, rich segment of the world's population to be the engine of growth for the entire global economy by consuming the products made by a poor majority is a formula of global financial imperialism. Financial imperialism is an advanced stage of old-time industrial imperialism. Nineteenth-century industrial imperialism of the British model at least produced industrialized products at the core out of raw material from undeveloped colonies. Twenty-first-century finance imperialism of the neo-liberal model uses financial manipulation to make industrialized colonies produce everything in exchange for fiat money in the form of dollars.

In moving toward a socialist market economy, China can benefit from lessons learned in the US New Deal. The National Industrial Recovery Act aimed to stabilize industrial prices, raise wages and promote collective bargaining, while the Agriculture Adjustment Act aimed to raise farm prices. These measures were combined with measures for reforming banking and financial practices and increasing the supply of money and credit. The New Deal also appropriated large sums for direct relief for the poor and the unemployed and for a massive public works program. Unfortunately, both acts were struck down by a conservative Supreme Court as unconstitutional, which fortunately is not a problem for China. But to do that, China must first insulate its currency from dollar hegemony and relieve its economic growth from excessive dependence on export for dollars.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FL01Ad01.html

[The Straight Story]

1. The Chinese saved tibet! (according to this)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/employment/2002-11/18/content_633165.htm


This year (2002) is the 50th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet. Looking back on the course of modernization since its peaceful liberation, publicizing the achievements in modernization made by the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet through their hard work and with the support of the Central Government and the whole nation, and revealing the law of development of Tibet's modernization-these will contribute not only to accelerating the healthy development of Tibet's modernization but also to clearing up various misunderstandings on the "Tibet issue" in the international community and promoting overall understanding of the past and present situations in Tibet.

See how they used to be:

-- Backward social system and harsh economic exploitation.

The society of old Tibet under feudal serfdom was even more dark and backward than in Europe in the Middle Ages. The three major estate-holders -- officials, nobles and upper-ranking monks in monasteries -- accounted for less than five percent of Tibet's total population but owned all the farmland, pastures, forests, mountains and rivers, and the majority of the livestock. The serfs and slaves, accounting for more than 95 percent of the population, owned no land or other means of production. They had no personal freedom, had to depend totally on the manors of estate-holders for livelihood or act as their family slaves from generation to generation. They were subjected to the three-fold exploitation of corvee labor, taxes and high-interest loans and their lives were no more than struggles for existence. According to incomplete statistics, there were over 200 kinds of taxes levied by the Kasha (the former local government of Tibet) alone. Slaves had to contribute more than 50 percent or even 70 to 80 percent of their labor free to the Kasha and estate-holders, and over 60 percent of the farmers and herdsmen were burdened with similar high-interest loans.

--Rigid hierarchy and savage political oppression.

The "13-Article Code" and "16-Article Code" of old Tibet divided the people into three classes and nine ranks, enshrining social and political inequality between the different ranks in law. These codes explicitly stated that the life of a person of the highest rank of the upper class was literally worth his weight in gold, while that of a person of the lowest rank of the lower class was worth only the price of a straw rope. Serfs could be sold, transferred, given away, mortgaged or exchanged by their owners, who had the power over their births, deaths and marriages. Male or female serfs belonging to different owners had to pay a "redemption fee" if they wished to marry, and their children were doomed to be serfs for life. Serf-owners could punish their serfs at will. The punishments included flogging, cutting off their hands or feet, gouging out their eyes, chopping off their ears or tongues, pulling out their tendons, drowning them and throwing them down from cliffs.

More white papers from China here:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-03/10/content_815429.htm

[BayCityProgressive]

2. as opposed to

Chinese dictatorship and being used as a chinese trash dump now? Do you really think China "saved" them?

[The Straight Story]

3. I don't

But there is always spin...