There are two types of “free trade” supporters:
The first type, is like Mitt Romney: amoral (I did not say immoral) about trade and business - Gordon Gecko-ish about jobs. It’s just business, and those who lose their jobs don’t matter. If employees or America suffer, that’s just the way it is.
To those, I can only express my respectful disagreement, and say that amorality about the effects of “free trade” is the reason I support import tariffs - because import tariffs are also amoral. They benefit America without making any decisions about business.
There’s a second type of “free trade” supporter though, and I think it’s time to explain something to the second type.
The second type of “free trade” supporter believes that “free trade” will create freedom and democracy in places like China.
There seems to be a lot of this belief, right here on this board.
Let me attempt to disavow FReepers of that naive belief. China in it’s 5000 years of history, has been consistently ruled (not governed) by a central, omnipotent government of one type or another.
Chinese do not yearn for democracy. Chinese believe in clarity, of control relationships. The boss is clearly defined, and the boss is powerful.
The government is the same way. Before there was the CCP, there was the Emperor. Always there has been the central authority, more powerful than Americans can imagine.
If Chinese were yearning for Democracy and freedom, somewhere in those 5000 years, they would have happened upon democracy themselves. It has not happened, because that’s not what Chinese seek.
For Americans to believe that sending our jobs, money, technology and factories to China will somehow create a democratic, free society in China is WRONG.
Once one realizes that basic assumption of “free trade”, as a policy of engaging China is flawed, and incorrect - one inescapable conclusion only, becomes inevitable:
“Free trade” will not benefit America.
“Free trade” will not create freedom around the world.
“Free trade” will only make China, controlled from the central government, with no desire or possibility of becoming a democracy - a global superpower which will inevitably challenge America.
“Free trade” is not a good thing. It is national suicide.
Its also important to note that these countries spend major $$ lobbying Congress for laws friendly to off shoring those jobs.
So you support domestic production content laws as a condition of access to US markets?
China no longer publishes the figures for how many riots take place each year, but most people put the figure at around 80,000 and the vast majority go totally unnoticed.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/malcolmmoore/10122566/Tens_of_thousands_of_Chinese_fight_the_police_in_Shishou/
Chinese authorities use the term “mass incident” to describe a riots, demonstrations and group protests, petitions, and strikes, both peaceful and violent. The term appears to cover group actions ranging from minor work stoppages to serious riots. Sometimes the term is used to describe a group protest involving more than 100 people. Once regarded as taboo and still illegal, they occur surprisingly often. There were about 180,000 in 2010, according to Sun Liping, a Tsinghua University sociologist. That was up from 87,000 in 2005, according to the Ministry of Public Security. According to the New York Times authorities recorded 127,000 so-called mass incidents in 2010 but most were too small to gain wide notice. According to figures from the China Academy of Social Sciences fights over land account for 65 percent of rural “mass conflicts” and is also a serious problem in cities
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=305&catid=8&subcatid=49
Sitting in her Nanjing hotel reading anti-government posts on her Blackberry and laptop, Ying Chan, the dean of Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication at Shantou University said: “In totalitarian states in the past, meetings among dissidents happened under a veil of secrecy. But here I was following the actions of these free-thinking strangers in real time without ever setting foot outside. In the age of the microblog, every mobile handset and computer is a news broadcast station, a node in a vast information network.
“The traditional one-way flow of information — from official media to the audience — is being altered by the multi-way flow of information online because of social media,” says Bu Zhong, assistant professor at Penn State University. “The compromises that we’ve seen lately show how officials are learning to handle crises in the age of social media — suppression does not always work anymore. What’s happening today was not conceivable in China 10 or 20 years ago.”