SAYING NO TO CHINA--AT LEAST ONCE

[Left Coast2020]

The economic disparity between the U.S. and China is so wide you could drive a 10-ton asteroid through it. It is known that a large percentage of products are made in China and other Asian countries. But there is one tid-bit in all of the discussions I've heard or read that is not mentioned in the MSM: China needs the U.S. as one of its markets.

Putting all of the talk about how China has become "our bank", China still depends on the American purchase of its manufactured goods. There are not many other countries China can rely on. Although they are expanding their reach in off-shore oil production by an agreement with West African countries for permits and contracts.

American companies are pulling out (to some extent) from cheap labor in Asia due to rising costs in that country. Housing is becoming un affordable in the northern Liaoning Province. Beijing? Forget it.Shanghai? No way. These are two of the most expensive cities in the country. Shenyang, where I spent the last 4 years, is where BMW has set up shop, as well as Michellin. But the biggest bummer of it all is the Buick plant west side of the city. If the cost of producing a product is increasing in China, it would make more sense to bring those jobs back to Lansing MI.

If there was a Congress that said no to the unfair trade policies that exist currently through a series of tariffs on imported products, China could only just complain. China knows that this is its business partner--the U.S.A. It would be uncertain what actions China would retaliate with, but personally, I don't believe it would be an all out trade war. It would be an overdue action for Congress to act American for once and tackle the issue of higher tariffs on Chinese products. That is the true way to bring back our economy to better footing than it is today.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Until corporations find themselves unable to function

And until government officials find themselves unelectable, there will be no change.

[Better Believe It]

2. China's Bi-Partisan Touch: China Bashing, Echoes of the Cold War

Useless Sanctions on China: Robert Reich Says 'Forget It,' Better to Rebuild American Industry
By Robert Dreyfusson
September 19, 2010

More and more, as the economic crisis continues and unemployment stays high, many politicians, labor officials and economists want to blame China and worse, take it out on China by punishing Beijing with sanctions, tariffs and other measures, even at the risk of trade war. That’s why Robert Reich’s piece in the Christian Science Monitor comes as a breath of fresh air.

Reich says that “it’s naive to assume all we have to do to get the Chinese to do what we want is to threaten them with tariffs.” He
He concludes:

“What worries me most about all this tough talk about China is it diverts attention from the real problem. American isn’t suffering high unemployment because we’re buying too much from China and not selling them enough. Trade with China is a small portion of the US economy. … The central challenge we face isn’t to rebalance trade with China. It’s to rebalance the American economy so its benefits are more widely shared.”

Read the full article at:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/154886/useless-sanctions-china-robert-reich-says-forget-it-better-rebuild-american-industry


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In China-Bashing in the 2010 Election, Echoes of the Cold War
By Robert Dreyfusson
October 11, 2010

If you've read my recent cover story for The Nation magazine, "China in the Driver's Seat," you know that I'm not a supporter of sanctioning China over its trade policy and that I think there's a troubling tendency in the United States today to blame or scapegoat China for America's ills. There is, unfortunately, a convergence of left and right on bashing China these days. On the left, criticism of China mostly revolves around allegations that China is somehow responsible for the loss of American manufacturing jobs over the past quarter-century, and that slapping harsh tariffs on China would make US-manufactured goods competitive again. On the right, the concern about China has more to do with China's emergence as a great power, complete with dire warnings from Washington think tanks, Republican politicians and neoconservative media outlets about Chinese military spending.

Now, according to the New York Times, China is becoming an issue in the 2010 election, with both Republicans and Democrats bashing Beijing in campaign ads and accusing opponents of kowtowing to the Chinese. This is dangerous nonsense, and it contains echoes—well, more than echoes of the cold war, when the "Who lost China?" debate fueled McCarthyism in the 1950s and fear of "Red China" built momentum for the war in Vietnam. No, the United States isn't going to war against China just yet—in fact, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is in Beijing today, in an effort to rebuild US-China military ties. But the Obama administration has taken a series of steps that, seen from Beijing, must look a lot like American military containment of China. In the past few months, the United States has confirmed a $6.4 billion arms deal for the island nation of Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province. It has conducted needless, provocative naval maneuvers off South Korea, not far from China. It has started cooperating militarily with disreputable, violence-prone special operations forces in Indonesia. And it has butted into disputes between China and some of its neighbors around the South China Sea, adopting a clearly anti-China position. In addition, of course, the United States and NATO have troops astraddle the Afghanistan-China border—which, Chinese officials told me a year ago, during a visit to Beijing, look very much like a NATO military deployment to contain China. And the United States is still pressuring China over Iran, whose oil and gas resources are vital to China's economic expansion.

Which is why the campaign ads are so distressing.

The tone of the ads is despicable and disgusting, from foreign-sounding Chinese music to stereotypical gongs to pictures of, yes, Chairman Mao.

Read the full article at:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/155317/china-bashing-2010-election-echoes-cold-war