China: We Are Socialists!
Beijing (FORTUNE) – Senior U.S. officials, led by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, arrived inside the Stalinist-style Great Hall of the People Thursday morning, briefed and breakfasted and eager to offer guidance to Chinese leaders on how to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the global economy
According to the English translation of her remarks, she repeated six times that China was “sticking to” its “new path of industrialization,” and three times that China was “continuing to improve” on reforms already in place. Substantial free-market change wasn’t part of the equation. “By following a path of building socialism with Chinese characteristics in an independent and self-reliant manner,” she said, “we have scored glorious achievements that attracted worldwide attention.”
At debate is China not playing by the rules of the trade agreement.
CNN-But Paulson said earlier this week China could and should do more to reduce its massive trade surplus and revalue its currency. And a WTO report released Monday complained bitterly about continued rampant counterfeiting and piracy, policies limiting imports and regulatory barriers to U.S. service companies
“We see troubling indications that China’s momentum toward reform has begun to slow,” US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, a participant in this week’s meeting, wrote in the Financial Times.
This has been my point, we expect a Communist China to play by free market civilized principals. China has made it clear they will play under their rules and socialist system unless we stand up and play hard ball. Do you think the American economy can afford not to demand that China follow civilized rules of trade?
John
We have woven ourselves into web where anything we try to do regarding China will hurt us.
I don’t see any way to solve this. Do you?
I would take the interest from the debt we owe China and pay U.S. companies damages that they win in U.S courts, from rampant counterfeiting, piracy and dumping. I would then stop all trade with China until they agreed to function within civilized trade rules.
We already know the EU would go along with this plan.
http://controlcongress.com/uncategorized/eu-to-link-labour-standards-to-trade-deals
Yeah, socialists with a strong immigration policy.
Leave China alone and work on generating revenue to pay down the debt by cutting needless fat in the military defense budget.
Gig China on what the rate of their expansion is doing to the environment (an issue that is obvious to everyone living there), fix the olympics so they refuse to be held in Bejing because of the polution.
Right-wing radio should start a campaign to boycott products produced in China, publish lists of what those products are, who sells them, etc.
Over the top actions will only lead to mutual hardship, whereas approaching this with a cold war mentality will bring us out on top as their problems (which they choose to ignore) grow and grow.
We have to get out of this mentality where extreme measures will lead to positive results. The Iraq War should have taught us that being the United States doesn’t mean anything when we’re battling nature…and China is an example of nature plus technology run amok.
The Michael Savage method of portraying life in China as miserable is old school, and complete nonsense. To picture life in China through our AMERICAN perceptions in an accurate way is impossible. Chinese people are getting along, doing their thing, and eventually they’ll get more power…it’s already happening.
This isn’t an appropriate situation for the neoconservative “we’re the adult and you’re the child” brand of foreign policy. They’ve been around a lot longer than we have, and don’t underestimate China’s capacity for stomaching pain through the suffering of their people…they’ll get by a lot longer than Americans would.
Case in point…their rivers are half water/half chemicals which makes a million people sick, and what happens? In America, one white girl goes missing in Aruba and it’s all we hear about for a month straight.
We’re not prepared for the worst case scenario that comes from going hard on China.
Al
why do you support child and slave labor? BTW you are wrong the NEOCONS and LIBCONS do support unfair trde with China.
U.S. Congressman SHERROD BROWN
CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION OF CORPORATIONS
NAMED IN SLAVE LABOR REPORT
Washington, DC — U.S. Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today called for an investigation into U.S. corporations’ importation of goods made by Chinese slave labor. Brown, a senior member of the International Relations Committee, called for answers into U.S. corporate practices before the House of Representatives votes on granting China permanent normal trade relations.
“We cannot afford to ignore the evidence unearthed by the National Labor Committee. Chinese laborers are working for pennies an hour while U.S. companies get rich. We need to know the truth behind U.S. corporations’ role in Chinese human rights abuses. We need answers now,” Brown said.
Brown called on the Department of Labor to conduct an extensive investigation into the working conditions of factories in China owned by American corporations or contracted by American corporations for product manufacturing. The demand for more information was made after the National Labor Committee released a report this week by Charles Kernaghan documenting human rights abuses in ten Chinese factories producing products for U.S. companies.
Brown noted the Department of Labor’s report should include an analysis of whether or not any U.S. laws are violated by practices pursued by U.S. companies overseas. He also called on the corporations lobbying on behalf of PNTR to open their Chinese facilities to human rights inspectors to prove their businesses are operating under humane conditions in China.
The report includes a description of Wal-Mart’s contract with the Qin Shi Factory to make their line of Kathie Lee handbags. Workers are held in indentured servitude as they work 14-hour shifts, 7 days a week, 30 days a month. They bring home 3 cents an hour, a total of $3.10 for a 98-hour workweek. Because they are charged for room and board, which consists of 16 people to a dorm room and two dismal meals a day, some employees end up owing the factory money at the end of the month.
Brown noted that 1,800 U.S. workers have lost their jobs as Huffy has moved production of their bicycles to China and Mexico. In 1998, the company fired 850 workers in Celina, Ohio, who earned $17 an hour. Now, they pay Chinese laborers 33 cents an hour to build bicycles 15 hours a day, seven days a week. This amount is less than 2 percent of the wage earned by Celina workers.
The findings in Kernaghan’s report illustrate why democratic countries in the developing world are losing ground to authoritarian countries. In the post-Cold War decade, democratic developing countries’ exports to the U.S. fell from 53.4 percent in 1989 to 34.9 percent in 1998, a nosedive of 18.5 percentage points. Democratic nations, such as India are losing out to countries like China, where workers are not free and work under the fear of totalitarian reprisals.
“This report proves what opponents of permanent normal trade relations have been saying all along. PNTR is not about gaining access to 1.2 billion Chinese customers. It’s about allowing U.S. corporations access to 1.2 billion low-wage workers. This report documents abuse by major U.S. corporations — Nike, Wal-Mart, Huffy, Timberland, and Alpine. While their CEO’s walk the halls of Congress lobbying for PNTR, their products are being assembled in Chinese sweatshops by indentured servants,” Brown said.
Brown joined Minority Whip David Bonior (D-MI), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Bernard Sanders (D-VT) in making his announcement.
June 27, 2006
Dr. Wenyi Wang, M.D., Ph.D
Dr. Charles Lee M.D. and
Falun Gong Practitioners
Dear Dr. Wang, Dr. Lee and Falun Gong Members:
I apologize that I cannot be there in person to welcome you. Unfortunately, my official duties require me to be here in Washington.
Like you, I am very concerned about reports of forced organ harvesting in China. And I know you have been very outspoken – so outspoken that people like Dr. Wang was escorted off of the South Lawn of the White House during a state visit by the Chinese leader.
I share your desire for a pluralistic, peaceful, and open China. I believe that through participation in forums like these, and continued efforts to share information about what is going on in China, you will help to bring that goal closer.
Again, I apologize that I could not be with you today.
Sincerely,
Tom Tancredo
Member of Congress
Posting date: 7/3/2006
Original article date: 7/3/2006
There you go again…someone disagrees with you and soon enough the walls are covered in doo-doo. Is a temper tantrum really the correct response here?
Yea John, I LOVE slave labor…I wish I had a few more child slaves to get the leaves raked up around here.
You don’t understand China, nor do you grasp the foreign policy game. First start with the understanding that it is none of our business to tell China what to do. Second realize that in order to get them to do what we want them to do, there has to be a carrot hung from a stick that they will follow. Third, you don’t insult the people you hope to persuade.
Your vision of China is millions of factories running 24/7, employed by 10 year olds missing fingers, no?
That’s the image you hope everyone else has though…much like your rhetoric on illegal immigrants.
Al
LIBCONS and NEOCONS think they change people. I think people change if they make the decision in their own life. What I believe is we need to focus on making sure we do the right thing. And if people see that they may change.
That means I would only enforce the original agreement with china. That means I would let companies sue in U.S. courts that China stole from and pay them from the interest we owe them on our debt.
I would stop taking in goods made by slave labor. By taking the goods you only enable them to keep enslaving people. BTW that is what they told us at the meeting, that they do not believe in civilized free market system, so why reward them?
I would insist they also follow basic environmental, health and safety rules. If not we stop buying the products. The EU is already heading in this direction it would not be a hard deal to put together.
You insist all you want John, and they’ll stop buying up our debt. What then?
What you don’t seem to understand is that we have no leverage in this situation. I honestly can’t fathom how you perceive that we do. China will not bend to our will, and insisting we attempt to make them do just that is foolish.
If they stop buying our debt we would have to balance a budget, that would be good.
[...] Does it concern you that China could defeat America over the defense of Taiwan which is a representative democracy verse socialist China? Do we have any leverage over China with out of control trade as well as bond debt with them? UPI-Researchers with the Rand Corporation in California say China could potentially best the United States in a military conflict over Taiwan. [...]