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.
You're weaseling on the word 'prohibitive' again. Whatever legislative handle you want to hide behind doesn't change your goal, to use the power of the government to manage who Americans can trade with.
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.
Why shouldn't the Chinese and other Asian countries that willingly picked up the U.S. government's debt trade it for something tangible? They sent us tangible goods for paper, now they want something tangible for the paper. This should come as no suprise. The threat to the value of the dollar stems from the orgy of spending (and the credit creation it underpins) from Washington, D.C. The Chinese can't be blamed for the failure of the GOP to control spending, and the failure of the American public to hold their overspending politicians accountable.
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]
I've already expressed concern about how the U.S. government is devaluing the dollar and creating claims on future tax resources with it's reckless spending, but these are matters wholly independent of China. China didn't force the U.S. taxpayer into the SSI ponzi scheme, China didn't force us to pass Medicare, prescription drug giveaways, or any of the other billions of dollars in largesse. The devaluation of the dollar can't be pinned on the Chinese, or anywhere except Washington, D.C.
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
How did Hong Kong manage to increase wages and wealth without adopting the kind of tariffs you propose for the U.S.?
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?
Because the government taxes everthing they do. They work until around May just to pay the taxes, and then the government borrows beyond that to place them further in the hole. Couple that with K Street seeking to place roadblocks on their ability to trade to their advantage, and a Federal Reserve that has created an environment of negative real interest rates to encourage further indebtedness (used to prop up a consumption level that wages don't support). None of this can be blamed on China.
How other people are restricted in their ability to trade is beyond the purview of our government.
WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
So the U.S. Congress can set China's tariff rates? Why don't they just eliminate them then, instead of asking China's government to do it? Methinks you missed the point.
Tariffs, imposts and duties are how "our government" was supposed to be funded.
Yep, and the government is only supposed to do what is detailed in Article I, Section 8. But dispensing over 1 trillion in largesse means taking ever larger sums from more and more sources.
You likely have never studied Alexander Hamilton, the Founder, who was the architect of American commerce and manufactures.
I have, and I have little use for that mercantilist. Maybe if he had a clue what kind of Leviathan the Federal government would become he'd have not been so eager to see it created. The concerns he dismissed with respect to usurpation have long come to pass. Even the effort to allay those concerns, the 10th amendment, is a dead letter.
The whole context of George Washington's Farewell Address (which you failed to even attribute to him)
Pardon me for assuming Freepers would be familiar with it absent a cite.
he was really worried about...and that was FOREIGN INFLUENCE, BUDDY.
Liberty was what concerned him. Foreign influence was an aspect of the threat to liberty. For example, people insisting that the U.S. must adopt Israel's interests and enemies as her own.
Shown in context:
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils? Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.