A moral issue, eh? I suggest the ultimate morality is preserving the U.S. and our individual liberty...which is conditioned by our reciprocal obligations and duties. Be ready for war, With the communists. That would be moral. Then you have to justify yourself as an American, not a citizen of the World.
Would you favor protectionism that saved US jobs at the cost of Chinese jobs?
Would you favor the Chinese Communists being annointed THE industrial super-pwer, and the U.S. relegated to second or third-tier status?
I'm trying to understand your position.
Good, its not hard.
Which is it? Would you rather see the US closed or the Chinese more open?
It doesn't have to be either/or. But we do have to "take care of business" and ensure that we retain industrial and R&D primacy, and prevent hemmhoraging of vital capabilities to an extremely dangerous military enemy. And we have to preserve enough of the bottom tiers of the industrial pyramid so that we can retain our own capabilities in depth. We cannot afford to maintain those bottom tiers as "cottage industries" so the most-efficient, least-cost approach is to make sure that we have policies in place which promote manufactures in general. The general revenue tariff, combined with terminating income tax and capital gains tax does this.
Are you saying the problem with free trade is that it can't work? Or just hasn't worked?
Define 'Work' and precisely who does it 'work' for? I believe in the economic efficiency of free markets, but I am first and foremost a constitutionalist for our national security.
Would you be OK with free trade if the Chinese dropped all tariffs?
It would be a start, that would go a ways towards demolishing the Chinese Communist tyranny. But it likely won't happen, as we have seen. Even with a 100-to-1 labor cost advantage, they have erected huge tariff barriers. And if you have read the Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian, you also understand the PLA is really the force behind all of their industry with military potential. And that the technologies we are transferring are winding up in their military industrial infrastructure and arsenals. Those technologies were supposedly to be 'non-sensitive' but we find out later that China can extort or steal just about everything there is to grab. The culture of overconfidence on our part plays to their strengths.
Would you also acknowledge that for some Americans free trade is great?
Temporarily, in the case of China. The import lobby does great.
On one hand you seem to be upset with the Chinese because they have tariffs and at the same time want the US to implement our own.
It demonstrates that we are not in a free trade environment, contrary to the protestations of the China import lobbyists. They then claim that the uneven effects of the tilted playing field (which they fail to acknowledge) are really "just the breaks" of "free trade."
These apologists then step out of their zones of supposed expertise, and also tend to seriously exaggerate our military/societal readiness for a conflict to the death with China, and understate China's. They show clear signs of cognitive dissonance, of which appeasement behavior is a classic example...just as did Neville Chamberlain or the Isolationists prior to WW-II or the later unilateral anti-U.S. anti-nuclear movement.
What would make you happier: everybody has tariffs or nobody has tariffs?
Everybody does have tariffs, albeit for the U.S. being essentially far more open than our competition.
If you argue that the Chinese should be somehow converted into free traders I'm with you. If you think that we should use the threat of tariffs to get the Chinese to open markets that is one point.
That separates you from the Import Lobbyists who screamed bloody murder when that was proposed.
But if you think the problem is not that the Chinese are close[d] but that we are open I just can't agree.
We will have to disagree then. The objective evidence is on my side, however. China maintains a 5-to-1 trade imbalance advantage over the U.S. Real free trade would mean that they would be buying vastly more from us than they do... Their whole approach is one of economic warfare, as Chi Haotian explained. To reiterate a pertinent portion of his statement to their General Staff:
After the June 4 riot was suppressed, we have been thinking about how to prevent China from peaceful evolution and how to maintain the Communist Party’s leadership. We thought it over and over but did not come up with any good ideas. If we do not have good ideas, China will inevitably change peacefully, and we will all become criminals in history. After some deep pondering, we finally come to this conclusion: Only by turning our developed national strength into the force of a fist striking outward—only by leading people to go out —can we win forever the Chinese people’s support and love for the Communist Party. Our Party will then stand on invincible ground, and the Chinese people will have to depend on the Communist Party. They will forever follow the Communist Party with their hearts and minds, as was written in a couplet frequently seen in the countryside some years ago: “Listen to Chairman Mao, Follow the Communist Party!” Therefore, the June 4 riot made us realize that we must combine economic development with preparation for war and leading the people to go out! Therefore, since then, our national defense policy has taken a 180 degree turn and we have since emphasized more and more “combining peace and war.” Our economic development is all about preparing for the need of war! Publicly we still emphasize economic development as our center, but in reality, economic development has war as its center! We have made a tremendous effort to construct “The Great Wall Project” to build up, along our coastal and land frontiers as well as around large and medium-sized cities, a solid underground “Great Wall” that can withstand a nuclear war. We are also storing all necessary war materials. Therefore, we will not hesitate to fight a Third World War, so as to lead the people to go out and to ensure the Party’s leadership position. In any event, we, the CCP, will never step down from the stage of history! We’d rather have the whole world, or even the entire globe, share life and death with us than step down from the stage of history!!! Isn’t there a ‘nuclear bondage’ theory? It means that since nuclear weapons have bound the security of the entire world, all will die together if death is inevitable. In my view, there is another kind of bondage, and that is, the fate our Party is tied up with that of the whole world. If we, the CCP, are finished, China will be finished, and the world will be finished.
Our Party’s historical mission is to lead the Chinese people to go out. If we take the long view, we will see that history led us on this path. First, China’s long history has resulted in the world’s largest population, including Chinese in China as well as overseas. Second, once we open our doors, the profit-seeking western capitalists will invest capital and technology in China to assist our development, so that they can occupy the biggest market in the world. Third, our numerous overseas Chinese help us create the most favorable environment for the introduction of foreign capital, foreign technology and advanced experience into China. Thus, it is guaranteed that our reform and open-door policy will achieve tremendous success. Fourth, China’s great economic expansion will inevitably lead to the shrinkage of per-capita living space for the Chinese people, and this will encourage China to turn outward in search for new living space. Fifth, China’s great economic expansion will inevitably come with a significant development in our military forces, creating conditions for our expansion overseas. Even since Napoleon’s time, the West has been has been alert for the possible awakening of the sleeping lion that is China. Now, the sleeping lion is standing up and advancing into the world, and has become unstoppable!
This kind of scheming needs to be confronted head on, rather than excused, or blindly pretended to be either unreal or irrelevant last gasps of the monstrous Maoist Communists. We need to be doing everything we can to effectuate regime change. Firmly placing the Chi-Comms into the ash heap of history.
While we still can.
