Be wary of China

Pittsburgh Tribune-Revuew ^ | 11/23/03 | Dateline D.C.

[Jean S]

WASHINGTON: Too many of us forget that the Chinese have an educational system that rivals that found in many American cities. They are incredibly inventive and work for what we would consider criminally low wages. As for safety standards, environmental conditions and, particularly, pollution controls, these are honored more at international conferences than in any real world efforts.

[Paleo Conservative]

Too many of us forget that the Chinese have an educational system that rivals that found in many American cities

Does the author mean they have schools that produce illiterates?

[eno_]

And then there is this non-sequitur: The Beijing government has no such problems. It is clear on strategy -- growth must and will continue at not less than 8 percent a year and the authoritarian policies of the Communist Party of China will be maintained and enforced by the People's Liberation Army.

So, which is it? make a middle class, or be repressive? Can't have both.

I have been there. I have seen it happening. The Chinese people are thinking for themselves. The Chinese government has less direct infulence on them that our own does on the sheeple here.

[sourcery]

Does the author mean they have schools that produce illiterates?

Yes, but our productivity is far higher, as are our costs.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[Captainpaintball]

Does the author mean they have schools that produce illiterates?

That's the first thing I thought of as well.

[carlson]

the Chinese have an educational system that rivals that found in many American cities.

~~Im sure the schools in Chicago are still worse.

[Travis McGee]

Ping

[TexasTransplant]

What I wonder is if... 2/3 of the Chinese Population is made up of young males in search of any kind of release, we need to worry about "the Military" not the Toy Company, their greatest National asset is not cheap goods but a very very good and tough Military.

[TexasTransplant]

I should read what I post, that last one was one that was one that was connected and almost made sense if one knew what I knew when I posted it. But really if you overlook the part about making sense, sentance structure or anything else connected to Chinese education (Government Education) my last post still made sense!

Sorry to make a joke of it. China Sucks in many different ways, and Rocks in many others... the nice thing about being American is that I can say what I have said and keep my little sister, aint that a trip?

[GrandMoM]

BUMP

[Elliott Jackalope]

I was reading an article about how we are losing the art of tool and die making, and how so many people who used to supply tooling for manufacturing in this country are going out of business because they are being wiped out by the Chinese. The comment that really stood out was made by a man who had made tooling for thirty years, explaining how he bid on doing tooling for a project, and was underbid by the Chinese firm? Their bid? ZERO cost for tooling, and goods produced for less than the cost to buy the raw materials here.

Meanwhile, the Red Chinese government refuses to allow their currency to float to its real value because they, and I quote, "have too many bad loans in their banking system". Hmmmm. Could that be bad loans made to companies supplying tooling FOR FREE and finished goods for less than the cost of materials?

Our entire economy is being EVISCERATED by the RED CHINESE and their dirty, rotten sneaky underhanded trade practices. We are either going to have to impose some SERIOUS TARIFFS on their products, or we are going to see our entire industrial base completely wiped out by those scum sucking commie b*st*rds! It will be EXACTLY as Marx predicted it, we are competing amongst ourselves to sell them the rope to hang us!

[AnimalLover]

And, of course, as the Chinese control the major shipping lanes

And of course, being idiots, we are building them a 145 acre terminal at the Port of Los Angeles which lies just past the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Is this a "prime" spot for all kinds of things? The name of the terminal is COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Co.) which just happens to be partly owned by the PLA.

Also, check this out!

http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-11/23/content_283886.htm

China says it will not dump US Treasuries to retaliate ( 2003-11-23 09:28)

China will not retaliate in a developing trade spat with the United States by dumping US Treasuries, a Chinese paper reports, citing the agency in charge of the country's ballooning forex reserves.

"The nature of our agency is to manage the national forex assets well," an unnamed official with State Administration of Foreign Exchange told the China Business newspaper.

"To put it simply, we're looking at profits, and as long as we don't get instructions from the central bank, we won't sell US Treasuries in a bid to retaliate," the official was quoted as saying.

The remarks were made against the backdrop of heated tempers on both sides of the Pacific after the US government, under pressure to protect US jobs, said it would cap imports of Chinese bras.

US Ambassador Clark Randt was called in by Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong for an emergency meeting Thursday to be told the US decision would have a negative impact China-US trade.

China's foreign exchange reserves are the second-largest in the world after Japan's, hitting 383.9 billion dollars by late September.

A large part of this money has been spent buying US Treasuries and other debt instruments, helping to keep American interest rates low.

If China was suddenly to sell off Treasuries, it could potentially cause US interest rates to rise, wreaking significant damage on the US economy.

Could a good portion of Wall Street's problems be traced back here?

[taiwansemi]

If you impose tariffs, which are really taxes, then who will pay for these new taxes? Answer: The American middle-class. Second, if China is currenty bankrupting and weakening itself with bad loans as you say, why fear it, let alone claim it's "eviscerating" the entire US economy? Third, China's currency has been pegged to the dollar continuously for the past 10 years. It was only about a year ago that the value of the dollar has started to fall (and the yuan along with it). So you can't claim that China deliberately is undervaluing its currency when, in fact, its value goes up or down the same as the dollar whichever way the dollar moves. For 9 of the past 10 years, the dollar's value rose tremendously and so did China's value right along with it, which actually went against China's interests.

[taiwansemi]

looking for Beijing to pay our civil service

You bring up a good point about China's buying US Treasury bonds. The article also warned about China's ending up paying the salaries of U.S. government workers. All this is true right now, however. The U.S. does use the money China paid in buying Treasury bonds to make up the shortfall in its budget (the US budget deficit), which includes things spending on the U.S. military, government workers' salaries, etc. It may be hard to believe, but true nonetheless that the salaries of US soldiers in Iraq is currently being paid in part by Chinese money. What China gets in return, of course, is interest payments on the US Treasury bonds it holds. Unfortunately for America, US budget deficits are projected to be $500 bil. a year for as far as the eye can see, so America will be making interest payments to China for many years to come.

[endthematrix]

The Red Army shipping low cost crap to a Wal-Mart near you!

If Wal-Mart was listed as a nation, it would represent China's FIFTH largest trading partner...FIFTH!!!

Remember Hutchison-Whampoa and Global Crossing?

BTW, hello! long time lurker, newbe member here!

[taiwansemi]

What is so surprising about China's trying to control shipping lanes? China is the major trading/shipping nation on Earth. China's simply got a whole lot more stuff to ship than most other countries. They've got a bigger economic interest in keeping shipping lanes open than probably even the U.S. If you're a major shipping nation, you'd be stupid not to try to safeguard the world's major shipping lanes, using your military if necessary to do it. Looking back at history, every great economic power on Earth has had an interest in major shipping lanes, and China is the latest global economic power.

[Brian Allen]

<< I have been there. I have seen it happening. The Chinese people are thinking for themselves. The Chinese government has less direct infulence on them that our own does on the sheeple here. >>

What arrogant cowplop. Yours and this mindlessly-rambling diatribe of failed rust-belt trade Luddism.

I AM "there" [Asia] and have been for most of the past more than 40 years and clearly need to remind you that you totally overlooked the fact "150 million former rural Chinese citizens between jobs in the cities and about 200 million with no work at all."

Include that number among the around [More than!] a billion of the Peking Gang's rural and provincial serfs and slaves who exist at a medieval standard on less than Tree Hundred Dollars PER YEAR!

The psychopathologically-hesperophobic Peking Gang [That calls itself "china"] incites, enables, facilitates, supports, aids and abets our every enemy -- and poses an enormous potential threat -- but trade, in which the much-vaunted "chinese" net world-wide annual "deficit" is around only Twenty-Five Billion Dollars -- not only is not a component part of that threat -- but, because of the same systemic corruption that killed the South East Asian "miracle and which every year sees Scores of Billions of Dollars skimmed by "china" from "china" -- enormously diminishes it.

America's "problem" if it was that -- and it is not -- is not that Chinese won't "Buy American."

[Just as it wasn't, earlier, with the every-bit-as-corrupt and now abjectly bankrupt Japanese]

It is that Americans will not!

[America's mobbed-up corporations, their mobbed-up unions and their mobbed-up and treasonous politician mates having priced themselves out of competitive business]

[Brian Allen]

<< .... US [Feral-gummint] "budget deficits" are "projected" to "be $500 Billion per year" for as far as the eye can see .... >>

But by whom -- and based on what?

By no-one with either an intellectual or a moral basis for his claim -- and upon nothing moral and/or Rational, that's for sure!

[endthematrix]

Interview with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

"What is so surprising about China's trying to control shipping lanes?"

I'm not at all surprised!

"If you're a major shipping nation, you'd be stupid not to try to safeguard the world's major shipping lanes, using your military if necessary to do it."

I agree wholeheartedly, from the U.S. point of view, and that's the reason I'm posting! Wars are fought over competeing economic interests.

Wen Jiabao states:

"And we also hope you will lift restrictions on exports to China. I can give you an example. A few years ago, China placed an order for a Loral satellite and we paid a deposit of more than $150 million. However, someone in the U.S. did not want to see a Chinese rocket being used to launch the Loral satellite. Hence, the contract was not implemented and the $150 million deposit has not been refunded.