Tag Archive for 'china'

If you aren’t concerned about China, you must be a redneck! My words, not Navarro’s. But some people do think China Sucks.

Peter Navarro is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine and the author of numerous books, the most recent of which is “The Coming China Wars.” I caught a C-Span Book Review featuring Peter and with all the bad publicity China has been getting recently over its sorry products, I thought it would be a good idea to find out more. I also had a personal motivitaion. My youngest son spent 6 weeks in Kunming, China this summer studying Chinese. I expect he will go on to master this most difficult language and according to Peter that will probably be a good career choice.

Take a look at Peter’s YouTube commentary about China and you will see why we ought to be more concerned about China than we are. Not only is China killing Americans (food, toys, products), but it’s killing Chinese, as well. Not only is capitalism alive and well in this great bastion of communism, but it is pure capitalism. Cut-throat, money-is-everything, don’t-care-who-you-hurt, capitalism.

Peter tells the story of how this began so many decades ago, where it is going and what it is going to take to stop the natural progression of these events. Unfortunately, the ultimate remedy may lie in the hands of Washington power feeders who take money from the manufacturers of America who make money on products from China. Don’t expect them to bite the hand that feeds them.

Now, I am as proud of American capitalism as the next entrepreneur, but one of the main differences between Chinese and American capitalism is government regulation. If you are a Republican, if you hate government, if you think there is too much regulation, then take a trip to China and see what America could be without government regulation. Now, this is not an endorsement of government regulation. There may be too much and too many bureaucrats, but I can at least drink the water just about anywhere in America, except maybe after a flood or a hurricane. You can’t in China and you can’t in Mexico.

While I realize the issues of trade are complicated, there is one thing that is pretty simple: China doesn’t care if it sends bad products over here! The real question is why don’t we? We as consumers may care because their sorry products run the risk of killing us, but why, after all that has happened in the last few months, isn’t Congress up in arms? (After all, China killed the same kind of dogs that Vick is alleged to have killed!) Why aren’t they, our leaders, passing laws right and left to make sure that China doesn’t sell or ship substandard products to America?

Why? Because many of those Senators and Congressman are taking money from American businesses and manufacturers who make tons of money trading with China. Free trade to them is money, while to you and me it may be death. Walmart, that store you think you love, is going to kill us and our economy because it prefers cheap, shoddy products from China to well made American goods that would support an American family. It isn’t just cheap labor that China offers, it’s cheap manufacturing. Manufacturing without quality assurance. Manufacturing without the expense of safety precautions. It is exactly the type of manufacturing big business would have down the street in America if it were not for government regulation. (The next time you tell your kid to put on a seatbelt, first, thank the lawyers who sued the car manufacturers hundreds of times, and then liberal Democrats!)

Yes, the Chinese government shares a lot of blame, but everything in China is made possible by an American business. In the name of staying competitive, business convinces us that a few of us, our children and our pets have to die every now and then from lead paint and bad dog food. It is a small price after all! Wait until the cheap Chinese steel we put in our bridges and buildings starts to break and maybe we will decide that free trade and competition just isn’t worth the cost.