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China Gets Cold Feet For Foreign Investment
The Washington Post ^ | Friday, February 2, 2007 | Ariana Eunjung Cha

Posted on 02/02/2007 12:34:50 PM PST by MinorityRepublican

SHANGHAI -- "I know you don't know that you don't know."

Those insulting words, thrown out by a Chinese man to a Westerner, are the punchline of an Internet commercial that ends with a beautiful Chinese bride jilting her confused Western fiance for the Chinese hero.

The wildly popular video was created by Baidu, a Chinese search engine, to poke fun at its U.S. competitor, Google. It is but one of the growing signs that China is rethinking its stance on foreign companies and investment within its borders.

Since the mid-1990s, China has aggressively courted foreign investment, crediting capital from abroad with helping it become a world economic power. In recent months, however, the Chinese government, saying it needs to protect homegrown companies from unfair competition, has thrown a multitude of new regulations at foreign firms seeking to do business in China.

While some believe the new restrictions -- which affect several sectors, including real estate, retailing, shipbuilding, banking and insurance -- may be only temporary measures to control growth, others worry that there's a larger political issue: that economic nationalism or even protectionism is rising.

"A mood of self-questioning has swept over China," said Barry Naughton, an economist at the University of California at San Diego. In a report published in the China Leadership Monitor, Naughton said he believes the regulations are a response to government fears of a "loss of economic sovereignty."

China's shifting policies on foreign companies have prompted several U.S. firms, which complain that the new rules are too restrictive and overly complex, to reassess their plans in China.

Last month, eBay said it would close its Web site in China, saying it was facing difficulties because Chinese regulations limit the types of financial transactions foreign companies can conduct.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; globalism; trade
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1 posted on 02/02/2007 12:34:53 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-5G98g3-DI


2 posted on 02/02/2007 12:42:28 PM PST by fishtank
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To: MinorityRepublican
Let's hope this will induce us to get into the "mood of self-questioning" periodically and determine just how wrong this open borders policy is for our country.
3 posted on 02/02/2007 12:46:16 PM PST by B4Ranch (Press "1" for English, or Press "2" and you will be disconnected until you learn to speak English.)
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To: B4Ranch
[TRANSLATION]

"We've leached you for all the money we can, now we are going to go back on our supposedly good word and close up our markets to your goods and investments."

[/TRANSLATION]

4 posted on 02/02/2007 12:55:25 PM PST by 50sDad (Liberals: Whining about your good time for a hundred years!)
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To: MinorityRepublican
In a report published in the China Leadership Monitor, Naughton said he believes the regulations are a response to government fears of a "loss of economic sovereignty."

[TRANSLATION]

"If we let you get any further involved in the trade within our borders, your messy democratic freedom of thought might start to interfere with the way we bully and threaten our people into submission."

[/TRANSLATION]

5 posted on 02/02/2007 12:58:38 PM PST by 50sDad (Liberals: Whining about your good time for a hundred years!)
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To: MinorityRepublican

That little video thing could also be related to their shame that Europeans surpassed them in the 1800's, and in some ways practically took over their country. Now that they are on the rise, they might want to bring a little shame to Europeans (and by extension, the West). In any case, it's rather petty. Europeans and Westerners today aren't responsible for what their countries' governments did more than a century ago.


6 posted on 02/02/2007 1:22:13 PM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu ( WND, NewsMax, Townhall.com, Brietbart.com, and Drudge Report are not valid news sources.)
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To: 50sDad

But remember that they are our friends, just like the Muslims are.


7 posted on 02/02/2007 1:28:05 PM PST by B4Ranch (Press "1" for English, or Press "2" and you will be disconnected until you learn to speak English.)
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To: Jedi Master Pikachu
China has a very long memory.

They will be the World's Superpower in 25 years or less.

I won't be surprised to see the Chinese start colonizing Africa.

8 posted on 02/02/2007 1:28:55 PM PST by MinorityRepublican (Everyone that doesn't like what America and President Bush has done for Iraq can all go to HELL)
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To: MinorityRepublican; Jedi Master Pikachu

The video ad was mostly a word play on word boundaries. Chinese writing doesn't use spaces for separate words (Ancient Latin didn't either), so it's difficult for computers to identify word boundaries unless it could understand the full context.

Google search isn't optimized for the Chinese language, so often gives nonsensical results, particularly when there are conflicts and ambiguities in the partitioning of a word.

That's the main reason why most Chinese use Baidu for search. The Chinese prefer Baidu because it's better for the Chinese language, it has really nothing to do with economic nationalism. Most Chinese in the cities use Crest toothpaste.


9 posted on 02/02/2007 1:29:14 PM PST by jonassen
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To: MinorityRepublican

Hahaha an chinese chick dump a westerner for a small sausage?No way. I think they got a complex. ;)


10 posted on 02/02/2007 1:35:55 PM PST by MARKUSPRIME
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To: MinorityRepublican
Actually, this article illustrates why China is destined to be little more than a dysfunctional slave camp for the foreseeable future.

Conventional wisdom is that China pegs their currency to the U.S. dollar in order to maintain it at an artificially low level (in order to be competitive in terms of labor costs). The reality is that China's currency is over-valued, because these restrictions on foreign ownership of Chinese assets make their currency completely worthless.

11 posted on 02/02/2007 1:40:49 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: Alberta's Child

It's not overvalued nor undervalued if it's pegged. It just doesn't really exist. The Chinese essentially are using US dollars, the yuan is just a proxy currency for USD right now. But to say that it's completely worthless is misleading too. Once they cut the peg, it wouldn't be worthless anymore. Would you say the Euro is worthless now? no.


12 posted on 02/02/2007 1:50:05 PM PST by jonassen
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To: MinorityRepublican

China is quite an enigma, isn't it?

At every turn, they are doing the exact opposite of what the free trade lobby tells us is good for us and yet as a nation they continue to grow their economy and prosper.

An interesting dillema which begs the question "if manufacturing is so last century, why do the Chinese seem to want it so much in this one?"


13 posted on 02/02/2007 1:59:24 PM PST by Old_Mil (http://www.gohunter08.com/)
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To: Old_Mil
An interesting dillema which begs the question "if manufacturing is so last century, why do the Chinese seem to want it so much in this one?"

Because every country has to go first from an agricultural society to a manufacturing society, before becoming service and information based. China is still largely an agricultural society. There are still 700 million Chinese farmers. That's a mindblowing number.
14 posted on 02/02/2007 2:09:49 PM PST by jonassen
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To: MARKUSPRIME

That's somewhat of a racist comment, wouldn't you say?


15 posted on 02/02/2007 3:28:28 PM PST by canon5d
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To: jonassen

Facts and intelligent analysis takes half the fun out of these discussions... ( On a more serious note: thanks for the insights!)


16 posted on 02/02/2007 3:56:33 PM PST by GOPJ (Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels...Crighton)
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To: MinorityRepublican
They will be the World's Superpower in 25 years or less. I won't be surprised to see the Chinese start colonizing Africa.

I doubt it. While China has a lot of people, the average age is increasing and that's not the demographic that seeks to colonize.

17 posted on 02/02/2007 4:34:51 PM PST by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: Moonman62

But China will have a lot of unmarried men by then, which is the perfect demographic that seeks to colonize.

I doubt the Chinese could stomach colonizing Africa though. There are 740 million Africans on the continent. It would take the entire population of China to assimilate them.


18 posted on 02/02/2007 6:17:15 PM PST by jonassen
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To: canon5d

The same can be said for that commercial and the mainland chinese mentality toward their race as a whole. Sorry the PC stuff doesnt fly here.


19 posted on 02/03/2007 4:18:09 AM PST by MARKUSPRIME
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To: jonassen
But to say that it's completely worthless is misleading too. Once they cut the peg, it wouldn't be worthless anymore.

If China cut the peg tomorrow, their currency would be worthless. With all of the restrictions on foreign ownership listed in this article, who in their right mind would ever accept Chinese yuan in payment for their products?

20 posted on 02/03/2007 8:11:03 AM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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