Shopping the Jobs Away

While visiting Minnesota, Mr. Zhou Wenzhong, the new Chinese ambassador to the United States, stated that the major reason for the growth of Chinese textile imports to the U.S. was the American consumer. He also remarked that the “safeguards" that the U.S. was starting to apply on textiles were unfair to Chinese exporters.

Ambassador Wenzhong is definitely right about the part that the American consumer is responsible for the rise in Chinese exports. If we want to stop the flood of Chinese products into our country, all we have to do is just stop buying "Made in China". However, we all know that this will not happen, since we as a nation are addicted to ultra cheep Chinese goods. Now I guess we have to live with the fact that we have financed the power that in the end will overtake us.

It is pretty ironic that Americans will keep shopping until we drop, and China will be right there to pick up what is left.

People of Europe Feel China's Might

Europe has all of a sudden encountered a problem with that great trade partner known as China. Apparently, the end of quotas on textiles has shown Europe that a communist controlled economy can whoop a capitalist economy’s behind in a market system any day of the week, or in this case the first quarter of this year. As I had predicted earlier the end to the quotas has signaled the end of the European textile manufacturing industry.

Now seeing their cushy factory jobs leaving for China the Europeans, the French and Germans in particular, have started to demand measures be taken to protect their textile industries. In an ironic twist the giant bureaucracy known as the European Union, is moving very slowly on this, thus leading to losses of large amounts of jobs (20,000 in Spain, just in the first Quarter).

While the EU listens to a specially setup commission, which issued recommendations that should be taken to control Chinese textile imports; the United States has already begun to take actions to protect its own textile industry.
I just love it when the people that advocate for large bureaucracies end up getting burned by them.

This again shows that in order for China to be allowed to trade in the free market system it should first be required to give up the tight control of the economy, which gives it an unfair advantage over other countries.

North Korea: A Ventriloquist Act by China

Once again by refusing to take action against the Stalinist regime in North Korea China is showing the world that it uses the DRP as its puppet. As I posted earlier China is refusing to shut off the oil to the Koreans, but now they are saying they are even against the implementations of any sanctions or other such actions in order to try to bring the North back to the negotiation table.

And why should they want to? China is not in the business to do anything to jeopardize such an important diplomatic trump card as nuclear armed North Korea. I absolutely don't blame them for refusing to take actions that might lead to the overthrow of their puppet government in North. I sure wouldn't!

What does amaze me is how we call Kim Jong Il, the ruler of North Korea, an insane mad man, yet we call the Chinese leadership, which created, helped, and now controls Kim, a partner that we depend on to try to disarm the North Koreans. It is thanks to the Chinese that Kim now possesses a nuclear arsenal, and we expect them to help us take away that arsenal. That is insane? I just don't understand why we don't blame the source of the problem?

This whole situation makes it look like a brilliant ventriloquist act by China. It uses North Korea as it's dummy, while we in the rest of the world act like little kids who believe that dummy is for real. That just begs me to ask the question of who are the real dummies in the world. Because it certainly not the Chinese.

US Autos Dig Their Own Grave

Once again I am going to use the automotive industry to illustrate the threat that is posed by communist China. This time National Public Radio has done a surprisingly good piece on the American automotive industry helping to dig their own graves, by moving production to China.

First let’s start by saying that the automotive parts and automobile building industries of the United States have in the last decade been moving production to China in order to save on costs. It was an obvious decision when you see that the average Chinese worker makes $1.50 an hour. In a free market system this is going to happen, but what China is doing is using its ability to control every facet of the economy to force strong US industries to build up weaker Chinese ones.

In the automotive industry, that is requiring international companies to setup training and research centers in China in order to be given permission to produce and sell parts or cars in China. This allows the PRC to receive home grown automotive workers and engineers that it never had before, yet that possess the latest industry knowledge and know-how. In addition, they get a modern, upgraded production infrastructure that will soon allow them to build their own vehicles that are similar or even better quality wise then foreign producers.

It is China's goal to make the automotive industry one of the pillars of their economy. They wish to be able to not only sell Chinese cars in China, but sell Chinese made cars in foreign markets. Even though, they only had $8 billion in foreign sales, the PRC envisions Chinese companies ruling the Auto industry in the near future, and it is using American producers to achieve this goal.

The only solution that I can see is removing China from trading in the free market system and using protective measures (i.e. tariffs, quotas) to defend home industries against competition of the Chinese. They should only be allowed to reenter the free market system after the Communist party gives up its control of the economy, or else the free market countries will never be able to compete with China.

North Korea: China's puppet government

I just do not understand why President Bush insists on involving China in negotiations to disarm North Korea. When every time we try to do something to punish North Korea for breaking one agreement after another, China steps in and insists that the punishment is too severe or is too damaging to their infrastructure or their economy. This was shown to be true once again, when China turned down a request by the US to shut off the supply of fuel to North Korea in order to force the Stalinist state to come to the six party talks.

There should be no one who is surprised at this since North Korea is just another diplomatic weapon for China to use against the West. I recommend everyone read this very good article from two years ago by WorldNetDaily talking about how China uses North Korea as a political pawn. In one example that is given, China agreed not to veto the American resolution against Iraq in return for an American guarantee not to conduct a preemptive attack on North Korea.

It just angers me to know that the American government, no matter whether of the left or the right, just keeps letting China off the hook for creating a nuclear armed North Korea. Since most everyone knows that without the blessing from the Chinese the North Koreans would never acquire nukes. In addition, it frustrates me how nobody in the main stream media covers this story, which is by far one if not the most important world issues out there.

Tibet, Tiananmen, and Taiwan

Just read this very interesting article about a recent movie about the Dalai Lama and Tibet. It brought to mind a forgotten region of the world, Tibet, which the entire world has recently just given up to the Chinese without even a protest. It used to be that the whole world would be infuriated when China tried to repress Tibet, but now that is a forgotten thought and the Tibetan Buddhists have been left to fend for themselves.

Just a couple of weeks ago the Indians, the last major country to recognize Tibet as an independent state, have agreed to give up their recognition of Tibet in order to build a closer financial relationship with China. India is just the last of the world nations to give in to Chinese pressure to stop supporting an independent Tibet, but by doing so it has sent a message to the Buddhists of Tibet that the country that gives refuge to the Dalai Lama has decided to stop backing them.

Tibet is a perfect example of what China plans to do with Taiwan. First, after taking it over it realizes that the rest of the world will protest and yell, but in a short span of time they will be more interested in tapping the mythological giant Chinese market. Thus Taiwan will be forgotten like Tibet has been, and like the brutal massacre of Chinese college students at Tiananmen Square.

Don't believe me, than just read this article about the Europeans pushing for an end to the sales of weapons ban it has enforced on China since the brutal human rights violations that occurred at Tiananmen Square.

Purchasing Power

This year China’s economy has become 64% the size of that of the United States economy if you use Purchasing Power Parity. These numbers are according to The Economic Times, which got them from Defense and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, a group that advises Congress. Currently that makes China number two, way ahead of number three Japan. China's GDP is $7.512 trillion, which is behind the US at $11.728 trillion and ahead of Japan at $3.719 trillion. What is miraculous about these numbers is that it was achieved just in the last two decades.

The rapid growth is attributed to large amount of foreign investment and personal Chinese savings. The Chinese savings rate was 42% in 2002, which makes it one of the highest in the world. This is something that the US can learn from, because we have one of the lowest savings rates in the world, and this is and will be a big cause in our economic downturn.
Just thought I would give some more news about the rapid growth of the next world superpower.

China Strategy for Canada

Yesterday, CAW President Buzz Hargrove went before the Canadian House of Commons Sub-Committee on International Trade to point out that Canada needs to develop a new strategy to deal with the emergence of China. Mr. Hargrove presented that Canada has already lost 160,000 manufacturing jobs, and is threatened with the loss of large amounts of white as well as blue color jobs in the years to come. He attributed this loss of jobs in Canada to the ever increasing trade imbalance with China. Part of the problem as he sees it is that Canada’s attempt to have a complete free market policy at any cost, is leading to it loosing in competition to Asian countries that do not follow a true free market system.

In other economic news, Lenovo Group of China has finalized its acquisition of IBM's PC making business. This is a deal that I talked about in more details in an earlier post. Hopefully it will be as big a financial looser for Lenovo as it was for IBM.

Freedom of the Press

China this week has arrested a journalist for allegedly revealing state secrets. The state secret was apparently notes the reporter took at a newspaper meeting. He then e-mailed these notes to several international publications.

This is not the first reporter to be arrested in China. Currently China for the sixths straight year is the country with the most reporters in jail, 42. This is according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Thankfully we don't have that in America or all of our media would be in jail due to treason. Oh wait, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Just kidding! Seriously, we need an independent media as the fourth branch of government, in order to check and balance the other three.