When Everything Is Made in China

Businessweek ^ | JUNE 7, 2002 | Jeffrey E. Garten

[latourette]

America needs China today because China plays the role of "low-cost provider" for a wide range of goods that Japan, Korea, etc. can no longer play due to their higher wages. At any given time, America's consumers need some Third World country or other to produce the low-cost goods that contribute to and maintain Americans' high standard of living, which is the highest in the world. All in all, China is increasingly becoming strategically important to America in the most important way possible -- America's very economic livelihood. As such, it's conceivable that over the next few decades America will be more interested in protecting China from external or internal threats than in militarily containing or otherwise being aggressive towards China. There is a historical precedent for this called the Taiping Rebellion which occurred in China about 100 years ago. Some charismatic, Falun Gong-type religious group (whose leader thought he was Jesus Christ) threatened to overthrow the then-ruling Chinese emperor. The Western nations would not countenance it because it threatened their economic interests in China, so they helped the Chinese emperor put down the rebellion. Some Westerners even served in China's army to put down the rebellion. Such a scenario is not inconceivable in this day and age, given China's increasing economic importance to America. With so much Western, Japanese, Korean, etc. investment in China these days, the last thing foreign investors want to see in China is any regime change. With respect to tech investment in China in particular, where the West's computer products are increasingly being manufactured in China, America doesn't want to nuke its own tech factories in China but do the very opposite, i.e. make sure China remains safe and stable for decades to come. Intel's Chairman, Andy Grove, has said that in a few years 80-90% of all computer parts and components will be made in China. What's good for China is good for America, it seems.

[rebelsoldier]

Of course absolutely dependence on foreign labor, esepcially communist China who wants to nuke us and drive us out of Asia is horrendous and horribly destructive to our national security and economic stability. This kind of dependence is even far more dangerous than our reliance on foreign sources for fuel. There is no appreciable difference, yet whenever TRUE conservatives attack this wholesale dependency THEY are portrayed as lunatics, isolationists, bigots, and even "communists" by their alleged "own". The facts are clear: preferential trade with this totalitarian communist nation has not made it more democratic or free politically (as if this should be the purpose of trade in the first place), but an even stronger, more advanced enemy no less totalitarian and eager to use the fruits of "free trade" with us to blow us to bits. The entire mindless nonsense and insanity of the lie of "global trade" is that it simply isn't global, it's singular: China. If it were truly global as the proponents of profits over patriotism claim, where are all the goods and products made in say: Brazil, Germany, India, or even Canada for example? You won't find any not because these countries cannot produce goods, but because they cannot underbid China's hundreds of millions in child, prison, and "slave" labor or buy enough US Congressmen to make it possible.

[latourette]

they cannot underbid China's hundreds of millions in child, prison, and "slave" labor or buy enough US Congressmen to make it possible.

Just to be accurate, 67% of Republican Congressmen voted for China MFN while only 51% of Democrats this. This is not to say Democrats are angels, but that the fact of the matter is that Republicans from Nixon to Bush Jr. have been pro-China trade. It was Bush Jr. who signed off on China joining the WTO and thereby gave China permanent MFN status. The only difference between Clinton and Republicans on China may be that whereas China had to allegedly bribe Clinton to be pro-China trade, the Republicans all voted for China trade completely and absolutely voluntarily. As for "slave labor," Chinese dissident Harry Wu has said that there's about 8 mil. Chinese in laogai prisons at any given time. This is a small percentage of China's overall population. It's true that China has cheap labor but this cheap labor is not necessarily slave labor but just regular average workers who don't happen to make a lot of money by First World standards.

[rebelsoldier]

I know both political parties have sold out this nation to foreign interests against our collective best interests for bucketloads of campaign cash, legal and illegal. So what? My interests lie with the long term future of American industrial technology, not any politician's career or party's success. The security and continued stablity of the United States is my concern, not China's ability to mass produce low quality finished goods at low prices, especially when the nation is a self-avowed, military adversary of the US and an economic competitor that violates every damn last one of our mutual trade agreements in whole or part. This doesn't even include the betrayal of this trade relationship in military technology and security terms, which alone should disqualify them as not only a trade "partner", but as a member of any international alliance that includes them as a voting member.

As for China's labor policies, what they classify as volitional labor, would be considered in most civilized societies as abject servitude as I have personally known quite a few Chinese whose vocational paths had been predetermined by government assessment committees and assignments according to their "ability". Furthermore, Harry Wu's revelations were but a tip of the iceberg of subject labor, prison labor, child labor, and labor as penalty (not including prison labor proper). Yet even this isn't really the crux of the issue. Our national industrial base is, and wildly one-sided trade with this one nation to our detriment is the issue. That not only equals a dangerous trade dependency with China, but an undeserved enrichment of a totalitarian society at the expense of other more rational and democratic ones including our trusted and proven allies. We don't need to feed a shark waiting to bite our heads off at the first opportunity.