Posted on 07/19/2002 10:29:32 PM PDT by AIG
NEW YORK - A decade ago it was Japan that touched off nationalistic fears among Americans who worry about being out-competed by Asian industrialists. Now it is China's turn to generate the scare stories. The reflex cannot be helped, but nor should it be indulged in any policy sense. China's rise is inevitable and should not be viewed as a threat.
Consider this front-page story in today's New York Times: "China Emerges as Rival to U.S. in Asian Trade." That sort of headline will become commonplace in the next few years as China increases its dominance of East Asia's economy. Yet at the same time, U.S. exporters will benefit from the growth of China's internal market, and U.S. consumers will benefit by buying China's low-priced and increasingly high-quality exports.
China's rise does call for an adaptive response from Washington, which must find a graceful way to accommodate itself to the new regional superpower. But in terms of trade, the key policy already is in place--China was last year ushered into the World Trade Organization, under whose auspices this formerly closed society will be fully integrated into the global economy.
Of course, there's still the little matter of Taiwan, which the U.S. is pledged (in vague terms) to defend. The best-case scenario: China's embrace of capitalism forces it to evolve into a full-fledged democracy, as people who gain economic control over their lives insist on political control as well. If that happens, Taiwan will end up clamoring to merge with the mainland in order to avoid the fate of China's other small neighbors, which will find themselves overshadowed by the revitalized Middle Kingdom.
Let's minimize the hand-wringing over this situation. Would anybody seriously prefer that China had remained shackled to the Maoist precepts that kept its economy small and weak? In any case, that's not an option. China's emergence is a fact to be recognized rather than fretted over. And it is also an opportunity, because America with its flexible economic system is well positioned to adapt to new realities and benefit from them.
The supposed threat from Japan generated a lot of concern in the early '90s, yet nowadays the scare headlines are all about Japan's economic decline, which is seen as bad for the United States. If China's economy runs into serious trouble, that too will be bad news for America.
But China, even if it stumbles along the way, is a much better bet than Japan to eventually achieve regional dominance, both politically and economically. This will make some Americans nervous. They may as well start getting used to the idea now--and make plans to take advantage of it.
Might be true, if they were the only ones doing it. Which THAT underscores the issue.
BTW most products in Wal Mart are not "Wal Mart" stuff. They are brand names who market their products inside of Wal Mart.
Those sub contractors of Wal Mart are the ones buying from China.
There are middle men in there...
Size does matter though. Thats true. Who wouldn't give a good price if you are promised $10 million in sales?
Just so you know though, if something cheaper comes along (potential free trade agreements or something) then China might not be the best or cheapest anymore...
Now I am going to sleep.
Eventually, Africa might take China's place as the world's source of cheap labor, but by then China will already be a First World country and no longer need exports as much. China will have better things to do.
Let me recite to you what one of the founders of this nation said about those "moral principles" and how they relate to this nation and its constitution:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798It isn't that we don't make money, or that we don't want to make money and get ahead economically. Far from it. It is simply that, like the exercise of any of our other rights and liberties, the thing that gives these things true meaning, the basic underlying cause for their true success are the moral principles and the blessings from heaven. Something the leaders in the PRC, or any other nation that basis its foundation on principles not including those mentioned by Adams above will never understand or concieve. It is precisely why the recent court issue regarding the "One nation under God" is such a large issue to so many Americans.
But, we have been over this ground already at length. I would once again refer you back to:
on that previous thread.
Here are Patrick Henry's words:
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." Patrick Henry... and Sam Adams words:
"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." - Samuel AdamsBased on my own life's experience in working in this free society for almost thirty years now, based on the travels that career has afforded me overseas to the Far East, the sub-continent, Europe, and other places ... based on having raised five children in this free society (even with its many issues) ... I must say that these wise men were 100% correct ... and I thank God for it. So, pardon me if I continue to vigorously disagree with you on this fundamental issue to my dying breath.
As I have said, for the PRC and others to misunderstand this is a dangerous strategic miscalculation on their part.
The rate of return still won't be anything to brag on though.
These corporations are elitists who practice slash and burn economics. Why not 'cut one tree, plant one tree', I am no environmentalist, but it makes sense.
In smaller economies around the Asia Pac, labor is a BIG deal. Putting workers in Singapore or Japan, or Taiwan out of work in favor of $1 a hour labor is shooting ourselves in the foot. Hong Kong is example #1, but they are by far not the only example. The small economies of Asia are NOT America. What works here won't work there.
Even if we don't put them entirely out of work, but cut their wages by half, that is still shooting ourselves. China does NOT replace those consumers.
Big brother takes the money and does what it wants to with it. The CCP is focused soley on job creation. Which means social stability. And they are doing so at Asia's expense, and even the US's expense. Instead of one labor problem, there are now two or three. China's employment problems are endless. By choosing China they are creating several more problems and solving none of them.
If those other places are going to have service sector jobs, what exact does that mean? When the factory moves to China, the engineering job tends to migrate there also. Same is true for banking, real estate, and whatever. When the core goes, the perifferals go with it. Asia isn't America. They are going to cause a depression in Asia, if not civil unrest. If not both.
It would be far better to burn China to the ground and save 90% of our Asia market, than to save the 10% and burn the 90%.
Moving to China is a BAD idea. Moving there is only helping a few eliteists in the short term. No one has thought out their moves and how to keep from killing the chicken in favor of the egg.
If I go out and dig ditches for $6 an hour, then I am in the service sector.
VRN
I still love the press making out the USCC/Pentagon reports' findings to be some sort of new revalation when freepers have been talking about the same stuff for years!
Says who?
From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.-Madison,Federalist #10.
You yourself provide the classic,textbook case against "democracy",with a hindsight not afforded Mr.Madison.
America and France during the American and French Revolutions had majority middle-class populations which rebelled against high taxes, and these countries' revolutions were led by their middle-class or "bourgeoisie" classes.
The American revolution was specifically for a republican form of government,whereas the French was of the "democratic" variety,i.e.,one of "turbulence and contention...and as short in (it's) life as violent in (it's) death.We got the Constitutional Convention and they got the Reign of Terror.We got Washington and they got Napolean.They had no great thinkers like Madison,who identified the innate difficulty of drawing a government on men,who would at the same time be legislators and subjects of the same legislation.
I've often wondered how those who believe that this country is a "democracy" deal with the veto,or the US senate(filibuster and federal representation,e.g.),or the electoral college,among other unique,republican(small r) aspects of the American system of government.
Such elections are immaterial to those truths and principles. As Adams said, it will be the people, and the virtue diffused amongst them that will make the difference. If we lose that, then as a people we will make the choices that lead away from our strength.
Like a large ship is turned relatively slowly from its path, it will take some time for the impact and consequence to be evident ... but it will come as sure as night follows day of we depart from the principles mentioned in that post.
I trust that there will always be enough virtue and moral character (as defined by the founding of this nation) to prevent it. But make no mistake, that is what gives it the opportunity to excel, and gives meaning to it.
'nuff said.
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