Is Bill Clinton to blame for the "New China Syndrome?"

[Democrats_win]

The newest (Nov 2015) Harper's Magazine ranks Bill Clinton's work in giving China most favored nation status (MFNS) as a bigger strategic blunder than bush's Iraq war. Do you think Clinton is solely responsible for this?

The magazine describes the "New China Syndrome" as the autocratic Chinese government trying to "shake down" companies like Google, Apple and Wal-Mart. This is occurring while they're flexing their military muscle with maneuvers such as the man-made islands in the South China Sea. The "Syndrome" includes the idea that China could stop shipments of prescription drugs to America which would be devastating to many Americans. The magazine does suggest that America's oligarchs who wanted this Chinese trade ended up "letting the wolf in." It even explains how American oligarchs, using modern libertarianism rhetoric, caused Americans to make decisions based on the false idea of "individual freedom." In fact the magazine suggests that we tame our oligarchs first because they are the more immediate enemy.

This situation is similar to Clinton ending the Glass-Steagall Act, in which he was 'led to the trough' by Citibank and Phil Gramm. George H.W. Bush was leading America to giving China most favored nation status (MFNS). In fact, after the Tiananmen Square massacre he was careful to only give China a slap on the wrist. Wall Street was demanding that America give them MFNS. It was really a natural progression. If Clinton didn't do it, he would have been standing in the way of this progression.

What made China different? They are not a friendly democratic nation but a very wise autocratic one. In the past, Harper's magazine explains, America was always careful to make sure that trade agreements would do no harm to our country: country above company. This has been the policy since Jefferson and the British-French war. Harper's even (wrongly?) credits Reagan for applying this policy against Japan involving cars and semiconductors.

check out the article
http://harpers.org/archive/2015/11/the-new-china-syndrome

[still_one]

1. Relating it to a bigger blunder than the Iraq war, is outrageous. Millions of lives were needlessly

lost because of that garbage.

Criticizing the most favored trade status is an important issue to discuss, but relating this to the Iraq war which destabilized the entire middle east, and caused needless death and suffering, minimizes what happened in that war, and is as outrageous as Netanyahu saying that Hitler was not going to exterminate the Jews if it wasn't for the Mufti of Jerusalem. Both are a distortion of reality

[denverbill]

2. Good article. Thanks for posting.

It really doesn't matter who gets the blame. What matters is whether or not the people who believe this libertarian bullshit are going to finally wake up and realize what they have done by implement their 'theory'. Just as NAFTA was fine between the US and Canada, two relatively prosperous democracies, it's been a disaster for Mexican farmers and American factory workers. It's worked out fine for American corporations and Carlos Slim.