And at the same time advocate policies to make trade prohibitively expensive. Do you know what prohibit means?
Free trade, is mis-claimed by your China apologist side.
Stick to what I say, don't construct strawmen and then argue against them.
Free trade is not what we have currently.
Agreed, our government can only ensure it doesn't interfere with us.
we have allowed their GOVERNMENT to dictate all the terms of trade and all the players. Hence we have artificial trade constructs.
How other people are restricted in their ability to trade is beyond the purview of our government.
Look at the wage differential between Hong Kong and Taiwan versus mainland China.
Do you think Hong Kong achieved it's wage power by restricting trade with the world?
Oh, "they purchase" them? What about the middle-men who don't give the "consumers" a choice?
Consumers decide whether to purchase anything. The middle-men look the world over for goods that consumers will decide help improve their living standards. You want to cut off a source for those goods, or at least make them 'prohibitively expensive'.
So you don't think they will somehow find a cheaper alternative to Chinese goods over at WalMart or Target? I do. You must not think very highly of their managements.
Economic adjustments are not automatic, and while you squander billions of dollars of investment in productive facilities by government fiat it's the American consumers and the companies they invest their savings in who will feel the pinch.
You guys should have thought of that before you tried to make the U.S. dependent on an enemy nation.
You guys? You missed the most important aspect of Washington's address - the desire on the part of some to constantly create enemies as justification for enlarging the sphere of the state. Already in this thread you want to prop up China as an enemy in order to exert control from Washington, D.C. over the rights of Americans to trade as they see fit.
Best to shut them down now before the currency is totally debauched and our last industry destroyed.
The debasement of the U.S. currency is a function of government debt. China is powerless to debase our currency, it's because of the GOP controlled Congress's profligacy that our currency is made worth less and less. I wish the GOP was honest about smaller government.
I suspect that it is really YOUR standard of living you are worrying about, not some selfless concern for your fellow American.
My living standard is tied to the cost of goods as any other American.
if indeed you really are one.
Oh boy, already moved into baseless personal attacks. This is going downhill fast. I wish you didn't feel the need to distract from the subject of what the policies you propose would do to American's standard of living.
In any event, I would surmise you likely make your living by importing from China.
You're wrong.
I reiterate. We don't currently have free trade.
I know that, I just don't share your assumption that creating more trade barriers will make trade more free.
Trade requires that they honor and respect property rights. Newsflash: They are still communist. I bet you haven't read their "Constitution."
Does it protect property rights like our Constitution did for the citizens of New London, Connecticut? I'm honestly not interested in how their government, or any other government, treats it's citizens and observes their rights. I'd rather keep the U.S. a free place for the lovers of liberty to flee the repression in the rest of the world.
Let me distill the difference in our positions, as I see it. You think we can achieve a better standard of living for Americans by letting the U.S. government manage our trade, erecting barriers as seen fit by politicians who are flooded with money and perks by lobbyists each looking to carve advantages for themselves at the expense of 300 million American consumers. You think the communist Chinese planners who can't figure out how many shoes to make have the knowledge and foresight to properly manage their nation's production via subsidy and trade restrictions to outperform free market economies in generating wealth. You probably also confuse the number of people employed in a particular economic sector as indicative of that sector's productive capacity. You probably don't realize that manufacturing as a portion of the labor force is shrinking globally (even in China), while the amount of goods produced is increasing (particularly in the U.S.). I fear that you percieve the employment of labor as a game of musical chairs, and feel like tomorrow a chinaman might be sitting in yours. In my view the number and type of labors consumers seek are unlimited, and it is the process of the market to determine who will fill which roles and at what rates.
I am not directly concerned about the U.S. jobs...except as they represent skilled labor capacity for America, its competitiveness and national security capability. I am primarily concerned about U.S. security and the essential industry base necessary thereto.
Big, big, big difference. And you have totally missed the boat thereby. Your worrying about the ephemeral "wealth" or "consumer choices" of the U.S. as measured by paper estimates, but not real production, will be shown to be the phantasm it is when the dollar prop is kicked out that is holding it up. When the Pacific Rim states stop buying U.S. treasuries and sell off, and buy things that are tangible...like Unocal.
And American Consumers will not be buying many foreign goods then. Because they will be too poor, only being able to buy things with collapsed U.S. dollars. Where, or where is your concern for these future American consumers? [sound of crickets chirping from Free Trader's side]
You make so many mistakes they are too numerous. You don't have a clue about Hong Kong for instance:
Do you think Hong Kong achieved it's wage power by restricting trade with the world?
They import from the Mainland, which restricts everything that would allow general wages to rise. Hence, it is not benefitting from free trade, but the artifical construct, and it is an enabler to Bejing's design. Its wages, however, were generally established while it was still free as a British colonial province. Freedom was why its wages got to where they were, but not much longer, as the squeeze of the communists is now being felt. As they seek to impose their general regime upon them as well.
Stick to what I say, don't construct strawmen and then argue against them.
Rather difficult to do, since you started out shrieking about devastation to our poor, poor, poor, poor consumers... well, gee, how did they suddenly get so poor, Mr. Free Trader?
Agreed, our government can only ensure it doesn't interfere with us....How other people are restricted in their ability to trade is beyond the purview of our government.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Tariffs, imposts and duties are how "our government" was supposed to be funded. And that is what is in the original constitution. You likely have never studied Alexander Hamilton, the Founder, who was the architect of American commerce and manufactures. He has been properly named by a number of historians the "greatest" American...and that was compared to all the other great Founders.
You guys? You missed the most important aspect of Washington's address - the desire on the part of some to constantly create enemies as justification for enlarging the sphere of the state. Already in this thread you want to prop up China as an enemy in order to exert control from Washington, D.C. over the rights of Americans to trade as they see fit.
B'zzt. Wrong again. Nice try. But it won't fly. That is NOT the most important part. The whole context of George Washington's Farewell Address (which you failed to even attribute to him) had to be read to see what he was really worried about...and that was FOREIGN INFLUENCE, BUDDY. Your disengenous, UNAMERICAN misrepresentation of Washington is what I knew you would try, and it has been pre-empted by my reprinting his whole speech. We don't need to "create" enemies. They are there already (remember 9-11? Did you know that China cheered it on, just like Saddam, and then sent weapons to the Taliban free of charge post-9-11? And rushed to put in the fiberoptic SAM control system in Baghdad?), and China our biggest enemy, is getting stronger. And we are financing it.
It would appear likely you have not read this:
Beijing devoted to weakening 'enemy' U.S., defector says
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 27, 2005
China's communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.
Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.
"The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival," Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.
All Chinese government officials are ordered to gather information about the United States, "no matter how trivial," he said. "The United States occupies a unique place in China's diplomacy," Mr. Chen said.
A pro-democracy activist who took part in the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Mr. Chen, 37, spent 10 years as a Foreign Ministry official. He said he defected and sought political asylum in Australia to highlight repression of the Chinese people by their government and the ruling Communist Party, as well as the repression of dissidents such as democracy activists and the Falun Gong spiritual group.
Most Chinese government activity in the United States involves information-gathering carried out by military-related intelligence officers or civilians linked to the Ministry of State Security, Mr. Chen said.
"I know that China once got a heavy load of confidential documents from the United States and sent it back to China through the Cosco ship," Mr. Chen said, referring to the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Co. The information was "very useful" to China's military and related to "aircraft technology," he said.
The Chinese also send political police abroad to monitor overseas Chinese and others in North America who Beijing considers opponents of the regime, he said.
China's government has targeted Australia as part of its "money diplomacy" and is working hard to persuade Australia not to send troops to help the United States in any conflict over the Republic of China (Taiwan), Mr. Chen said.
China has sought to influence Australia's government through high-level political visits and favorable trade and by offering contracts on energy-related products. The goal is to force Australia to become part of a China-dominated "grand neighboring region" in Asia and to "force a wedge between the U.S. and Australia," he said.
The U.S. government has a close intelligence relationship with Australia and has been working to build stronger military ties, as the Pentagon shifts its global strategy toward Asia with the planned deployment of more arms in the western Pacific region to counter a Chinese military buildup.
Mr. Chen said he is "frustrated" that the Australian government in May turned down his request for political asylum, a move he thinks was linked to Australian government fears of upsetting Beijing.
Mr. Chen also said he fears that Chinese agents could kidnap him, as they have done with other exile dissidents. He said he prefers to stay in Australia with his wife and child, but also could seek asylum in the United States if Australia threatens to send him back to China, which he fears would endanger his life.
Two other Chinese government officials also defected recently in Australia and have revealed Chinese government spying activities.
Mr. Chen also provided new insights into the closed world of China's ruling power structure and political tensions between President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin.
Mr. Hu is not fully in control of the government and military, and Mr. Jiang continues to wield power behind the scenes through allies in the armed forces, he said.
"Hu is still in the shadow of Jiang and will be until Jiang dies," Mr. Chen said.
The Chinese leader, however, launched his own version of Chinese ideology at the end of last year that calls for education in advancing the Communist Party. Asked whether Mr. Hu will bring democratic reform to China, Mr. Chen said the Chinese leader is the beneficiary of the dictatorship and, therefore, is unlikely to make changes.
"For the past 16 years, a lot of people have been looking to see if the Communist Party can change from the top down to the low levels, but nothing changes," Mr. Chen said.
On China's military buildup, Mr. Chen said Beijing is following the strategy of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged China to "bide our time, build our capabilities" -- military as well as economic and political. "What that means is that when the day is mature, the Chinese government will strike back," he said.
Mr. Chen said the danger of a war over Taiwan is growing.
"That is possible as Chinese society is getting more unstable," he said. "Once any serious civil disobedience occurs, the government may call for a war across the Taiwan Strait to gather [political] strength from people."
Or THIS:
FINANCING OUR OWN DESTRUCTION
JUNE 27, 2005
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2005 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
The United States appears to have a determined policy of self-destruction, a policy pursued by elements in business, government, and the intelligence community. The result of this policy, if left unchecked, will be the end of the United States as we now know it.
The growing military, political, and economic power of Communist China is familiar to regular readers of International News Analysis, the in-depth print report, and INA Today. Because of U.S. investment in China and consumer purchases of Chinese products, China is becoming a military and economic rival to the U.S.
Few news reports have informed the public that China could be a potential threat to the U.S., and no major broadcast media gave any warning to the public until Chinese business interests [connected to the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA)] made a bid for two prominent U.S. corporations, UNOCAL and Maytag.
Official U.S. government policy has encouraged strong economic ties with China in hopes of building free market structures and, eventually, a democratic government. A pro-China element in the U.S. intelligence community, recently documented in an article by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, has enthusiastically supported this approach, and at the same time consistently underreported China's military growth.
Instead of a democratic movement burgeoning in China, the reality is that a Communist military colossus is growing, supported by a powerful economic machine, controlled in large part by the PLA. China will soon be able to project its will throughout the Asia-Pacific region, overwhelm the democratically ruled island of Taiwan, threaten the Philippines and Japan, and even insert a military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Chinese defectors state that China is already in an aggressive espionage war with Western nations. Former Beijing University professor Yuan Hongbing declared that Beijing is seeking to make Australia a "political colony of China," according to an AFP report. The Communist Party of China "will use their ideology to influence Australia's politics" and gradually force Australia "to betray its fundamental principles of freedom and democracy," Yuan stated.
Two other defectors, both Chinese diplomats, have stated that China has a network of more that 1,000 spies in Canada, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Service. U.S. officials have expressed concern over 3,000 "front corporations" operating in the service of Chinese intelligence service on American soil.
If American military lives are lost at the hands of a technically sophisticated, aggressive Chinese armed force, much of the blame for American deaths will fall upon the business interests who sent U.S. investment and jobs to China. These shortsighted U.S. business interests helped to build the economy which is financing the modernization of the Chinese military.
Bucking the broadcast blackout on negative news regarding China, CNN's Lou Dobbs did condemn U.S. corporate assistance to Communist China's suppression of the Chinese people in a segment titled, "Dot.commies."
Unfortunately the U.S. is making the same mistake in policy toward the Communist government of Vietnam as it did toward China. In an attempt to play power politics, the Bush administration is seeking to balance China's growing power with U.S. friendship and economic assistance to Vietnam.
The idea put forth is that Vietnam has interests at odds with those of China. Over the centuries China and Vietnam have had tense, and sometimes hostile, relations. The U.S. wants to build up Vietnam as a counterbalance to China - a force we helped create in the first place.
During the June 21st White House visit of Phan Van Khai, Prime Minister of Vietnam, U.S. President Bush and his administration expressed determination for close relations with Vietnam, and announced measures leading to significant economic and military ties.
Unfortunately, this approach is not based in reality.
Not mentioned by any media or government official was Vietnam's renewed alliance with China, and Hanoi's support for anti-American, pro-Communist youth groups.
Eight months before Bush's meeting with Khai, China's official Xinhua news agency reported that relations between China and Vietnam were developing "rapidly, comprehensively and profoundly."
A joint communique issued by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Khai stated that China and Vietnam were strengthening "political mutual trust," increasing "economic and trade cooperation," and establishing "positive progress in the resolution of problems left over by history."
Xinhua estimated that trade between China and Vietnam will reach 10 billion dollars by 2010.
And Vietnam is engaged in anti-American politics.
In February 2005, Hanoi hosted a preparatory meeting of communist youth organizations from around the world. The Hanoi meeting set the agenda for the "16th World Festival of Youth and Students," which will be held August 2005 in the now Marxist-dominated nation of Venezuela.
Recalling the most vehement moments of the Cold War, the theme of the "Festival" is: "For peace and solidarity, we fight imperialism and war."
Among the expected 15,000 "youth" will be some 300 representatives from the U.S.
The reality is that Vietnam is a close ally of China, Hanoi remains committed to Communism, and that the U.S. is again arming a potential enemy.
Copyright 2005 International News Analysis Today
The overwhelming, incontestable general evidence (CFR's Colin Powell notwithstanding) is that China is in fact not merely a "competitor" or "rival" but an out and out enemy....biding its time achieving an unopposed "peaceful rise" until it can bare all its fangs and claws.