The China Bashing Tonight by Our Candidates (Not All) Was Shameless.

[David Zephyr]

Tonight was not a good moment for Democrats who want to win back favor in the eyes of the international community. The rest of the world, now gazing for nearly seven long years at the dangerous, cowboy warmongering and imperialistic meddling by the current Bush Administration, has certainly held their breath in collective hope that a new president, a Democrat, might promise a more mature, reasoned and "neighborly" approach to international affairs.

How wearisome the world has grown with our national leadership's craven need to always blame some other nation for our own leadership's failings. It's pathetic. It's sickening.

What a nation of name-calling crybabies we are becoming! In fact, it's our default reaction to everything now both abroad and at home:

- Defame the French because they don't buy into our fabricated "intelligence" to make war for oil. "Freedom Fries" instead of French Fries. Yeah, that's how diplomacy should work!

- Call Germany "Old Europe" when, after they've helped us out in Afghanistan, but correctly hold back on invading Iraq! That will show them!

- Use the word "evil" every chance we can on the international stage: "Evil do-ers!" "The Axis of Evil!"

- Domestically, all of America's woes are blamed on undocumented workers who pick our crops, build our homes, care for our sick and aged. "Illegals!" "Build a wall!"

And now it's China's turn to be blamed for our loss of jobs and our once enviable manufacturing base and for lending us all the money we needed for our warmongering abroad and covetous addictions at home.

I have news for people: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush ALL allowed the trade imbalance that now exists between the United States and China to become what it is. The bold moves by Deng Xiaoping in creating the first "enterprise zones" in the 1980's triggered what became a breathtaking pace by China toward opening up its former centrally planned economy.

The fact that the majority of greedy CEO's, in order to line their own pockets, sought to bust unions, off-shore and outsource was not the fault of the Chinese. The fact that the trade policies of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II put the government into the business of helping American corporations to close down U.S. factories can not be rationally blamed on China. The fact that our current president is financing his wars and mortgaging our future away for the next fifty years is not because the Chinese bankers have cheated us unfairly. The fact that Americans continue to shop at Wal-Mart for cheap goods is hardly a Chinese plot against us.

Our elected leadership has let the American people down for nearly thirty years now. From our gas guzzling vehicles, we cry about the Arab oil prices. We yell at the television made in China when we hear about the national debt ballooning.

And sadly, tonight several of our Democratic Candidates took the cheap shot of blaming the Chinese for our own failures. What shameless, nativistic weaklings we are becoming!

It's the Mexicans' fault! It's the French's fault! It's the German's fault! It's the Arabs fault! It's the fault of the Chinese! Why? Because it can't be our fault? We can't say that, can we?

How do you blame China for doing what's best for their people? How do you blame them for beating us at our own religion of capitalism? Apparently with great ease, if you are certain candidates within the Democratic Party.

Leadership steps up to the plate and takes responsibility for problems. It seeks solutions that work rather than sloganeering and blame fixing.

Woe unto all of us on the planet if the only alternative to the Republican Party in the world's only super military power also falls into the drug-like comfort of xenophobia. Exploiting Americans by pushing the foreign bogeyman when troubles come our way should not have a home within the Democratic Party.

[Mythsaje]

1. Tell your children to learn Chinese...

It's not fear-mongering, it's just a damned good idea to know the language of the future rulers of the world.

[FrenchieCat]

37. My daughter went to a Chinese School for two years and learned a lot

of Mandarin. She's 17 years old and speaks fluent French and English (reads and writes too) and some Mandarin (reads and writes).

She's set to go when it is time! :)

[silverojo]

43. Memo to college students:

Major in Chinese, and minor in Spanish...the languages of American business!

[msongs]

2. gee, you forgot to include any examples of china bashing. oh well nt.

[David Zephyr]

8. "I do not want to eat bad food from China." - Hillary Clinton

Hell, I don't want to eat bad food from anywhere, be it Bangor or Beijing.

I didn't forget to include examples. I chose not to include them. I just hope for better from Democrats.

[brentspeak]

20. What are they supposed to say?

"As President, I wouldn't want to hurt China's feelings by using my authority to prevent their dangerous food products (and various other items) from ending up on our shores. I think that it's more important to maintain a bizarre politically-correct wimpiness than it is to ensure the health and safety of the American public."

:crazy: :crazy:

[emilyg]

35. Or have children play with toys that have lead

[billyoc]

3. Yeah, they're just misunderstood.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. They are well on their way to owning our economy

but you are right it was China Bashing to explain the STRATEGIC situation, at both the economic and the military level

This is not them bashing... but China does have that potencial

[kurth]

5. It's the fault of the Chinese government for treating their people like shit

and for letting their business people treat us like shit.

[Old and In the Way]

13. Really?

In the 80's, China's per capita income was $100.00/year. No person I've ever met in China wants to go back to the good old days of communism. They love their capitalism. China does have problems with rising expectations...the interior provinces aren't enjoying the boom like the coastal provinces and their uncontrolled growth has obviously created major pollution and environmental problems. But it beats eating grass and mice to subsist.

[marions ghost]

15. but our business people

seem to have no problem with that :shrug:

[Nomad559]

17. Some American companies

are also at fault for the treatment of Chinese workers.

iPod maker admits breaking Chinese labor laws; says Apple approved sweatshop labor
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9988

"Apple Computer is getting into a deep PR mess over the antics of one of its Chinese partners," Nick Farrell reports for The Inquirer.

"After denying that it was running a sweatshop that would be familiar to Charles Dickens, Apple's Ipod manufacturer, Foxconn has finally admitted that it broken Chinese labour laws," Farrell reports.

[AdHocSolver]

39. Yeh, it is better that our own business people "treat us like shit", rather than the Chinese. n/t

[still_one]

6. I didn't see the debate so I will take your word for it

However, I couldn't agree more with your thoughts

It is amazing how no one accepts responsibility.

Some say they voted for the IWR because they were misled, but the truth is it was political expedency
Some say they voted for the patriot act for the same raason. What about the bankrupcy bill? Were you misled on that one also

Who allowed NAFTA, and negotiated the trade agreements? Our representatives did

When Bill Clinton first took office, high on his list was political reform, but it was Congress who refused to go with it. The money from the lobbyists was too strong

If our representatives do not do their job, then it is OUR responsibility to elect ones that will

[David Zephyr]

10. Agreed.

"If our representatives do not do their job, then it is OUR responsibility to elect ones that will."

I think it was Der Spiegel that headlined after the 2004 election: "How can 250 million people be so dumb?" Or something like that.

The world is no longer just blaming Bush. Democrats should not fall into the easy, but easy trap of blaming other nations for our own self-inflicted woes.

I appreciate your comments. You got what I was saying.

[RB TexLa]

7. There are NeoKnowNothings on both sides

The sentiment is equally disgusting if it is dished out liberally or conservatively.

[Old and In the Way]

9. I argree wholeheartedly with your assessment.

I've been in manufacturing all my life and was laid off a few times due to structural economic changes - textiles, machine tools, and life safety products. So the last time it occurred, I decided to start my own consulting/rep business. Interestingly, my biggest customers are not US based. But I do work with tier 2 and 3 OEMs that don't have the investment capital, expertise, or interest in brinkand norter operations.

Clinton's trade policies where buffered by the internet economy of the 90's. While that did eventually bust, as all good things must, I think Al Gore would have used that $400BB surplus and started to address the need to get off our ME oil addiction. That would have required retooling and rebuilding our infrastructure to reflect the reality of a post-industrial economy. Unfortunately, Big Oil and SCOTUS had other plans.

Now, we're just SOL.

[Solon]

11. So because you were lucky we're supposed to forget about the majority who are not?

I hate selfish people.

[Old and In the Way]

33. Me too!

I worked 25 years in the trenches and paid my dues, my friend. I make no apologies for my life or career. I do business. Where I live, outsourcing is nothing new. Our textile industry got moved to the South 50 years ago. Machine tools went in the 80's. My last job, I got an option to move my family 1/2 way across the country or take the package. I chose the latter.

But let me share something that I did do in my last job. I developed a business plan to bring a plastic injection molding operation into my factory at n/c to our operation. Took me 2 years of management presentations and cost analysis to make my case. That move created a dozen jobs...but more importantly, it became a strategic advantage for this company and it's still in operation today. The plant manager, who I count as a personal friend, thinks that this program was a linch pin in maintaining the 400 local jobs at the plant, 8 years later.

[David Zephyr]

12. Excellent comments, Old and In the Way!

Oh, to have that surplus in Gore's "lockbox" today, huh?

[brentspeak]

14. Wait a minute, rewind: You said that China is "doing what's best for its own people"??

China is not "doing what's best for its own people"; China is doing what's best for its tiny cabal of government leaders and for a few fat cats at the top.

What would you call Tiananmen Square? Doing what was best for China's own people?

:crazy: :crazy:

[piedmont]

18. And apparently the Chinese can do what's best for their own people but when we do it it's xenophobia

:wtf:

[brentspeak]

22. You spotted that contradiction, too

[David Zephyr]

31. Our government and corporations are not doing what's best for us.

Blaming China is a cop-out, but it apparently makes some people feel smug.

[spoony]

45. It isn't a cop-out. Maybe not a complete picture, but not a cop-out.

I don't think anyone here is letting US corps off the hook when we also point a finger at the country currently poisoning us, our children, and our pets. Dunno about you but I have plenty of fingers.

[piedmont]

51. Exactly right. No one is blaming only China, and China also isn't blameless.

And the xenophobia charge is ad hominem bullshit.

[parkia00]

48. Did you know....

There is something called a middle class in China. These species drive cars and live in apartment with power, water and other modern appliances. They are generally university graduates and business people. And it's rather odd that if you ask them if they want to go back 20 years ago and live the poorer life back then, many would say that prefer things now. They are strange that way. And to top it all of, there are quite a few of them around. Don't believe me, go to China and see for your self.

China bashers love to paint the country as being split into 99% poor peasant folk and the 1% rich and powerful that enslaves the rest of the people. It makes their argument so much more powerful. Ironically many of these "armchair China experts" have never been to China. If they did, maybe they would open their eyes a little bit more and see what's there instead of seeing what they want to see. Maybe you are not one of these. As for bringing up Tiananmen Square, you are using one incident as a base to portray what China is like. If I followed that way of thinking, I can use the Kent State shootings to prove that the United States is a authoritarian regime.

[David Zephyr]

50. Thanks for your insight, parkia00

"China bashers love to paint the country as being split into 99% poor peasant folk and the 1% rich and powerful". Ain't that the truth.

I began traveling to China in 1985 and have made over two dozen trips there since. The middle class that you speak of is thriving and vibrant and growing. Of course, this doesn't square with preconceived ideas, does it. Your post was helpful. Your comments about Kent State also provide perspective.

[treestar]

49. That was many years ago now, and does not relate to the topic at hand

The point is we have this tendency in our culture to blame others.

We need to quit the China bashing and think up something constructive. It's tempting to be the victim. It certainly has its allure, as our culture has made clear.

But other people are not going to vaporize into thin air because we feel victimized. We have to wake up and start competing and paying attention.

Americans feel entitled to be on top without work. We can see it in the attitude towards immigrants and outsourcing. It's like if these people would just go away and vaporize and no longer exist, we could still have it all without competing.

[piedmont]

16. Expressing the desire to help one's own people and one's own nation is NOT xenophobia.

Planting your head firmly in the sand and ignoring the growing trade imbalance with a power we are at odds with ideologically is not open-minded liberalism. The Chinese DO protect their markets with tariffs and currency manipulation, and DO have a major problem with poisonous food counterfeiting, as well as counterfeiting and infringement of other goods. To proclaim that we should do less business with the Chinese for our own good is simply common sense. And the way to fix this problem is one of taking action of own, encouraging Americans to buy American, economically dissuading companies from off-shoring American jobs, drastically ramping up inspection of Chinese goods, and challenging Chinese currency manipulation.

[David Zephyr]

23. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Your "points":

TRADE IMBALANCE: Why doesn't our government generate policies that reduce the trade imbalance. The Chinese are not to blame, WE are.

MARKET PROTECTION: Why doesn't our government protect our markets and workers like every nation on earth does with theirs? The Chinese are not to blame, WE are.

POISONING: Why doesn't our government care about near systematic pharmaceutical poisoning of our citizens with rushed-to-the-market, FDA drugs that cause heart attacks, blindness, autism in children, and yes, narcotic addition to "prescribed medications" and so much more? The Chinese are not to be blamed for that, WE are.

How easy it is to blame others for our own failures. Sadly, it works, doesn't it?

[brentspeak]

25. Who ever said that our government hasn't been stupid for letting the Chinese walk all over us?

That doesn't exonerate China from it's own grotesque abuses, though.

I gotta say, I'm still shaking my head over your comment that "China is doing what's best for their own people".

[piedmont]

32. Read my post over again and don't be so arrogant.

I clearly stated that the solutions to our problems with the Chinese necessitate American action, as anyone with common sense, including some of the candidates, understands. Talking about our trade problems with China is not equal to "blaming China," except when we're talking about actual Chinese wrong-doing, such as poisonous foods and children's toys.

"POISONING: Why doesn't our government care about near systematic pharmaceutical poisoning of our citizens with rushed-to-the-market, FDA drugs that cause heart attacks, blindness, autism in children, and yes, narcotic addition to "prescribed medications" and so much more? The Chinese are not to be blamed for that, WE are."

This is a non-sequitur. Try again. The topic at hand is Chinese-made goods containing poisons because of:
1) lack of Chinese government regulation of their manufacturing.
2) rampant counterfeiting of value-added foods and other products.
3) Agriculture and aquaculture practices that were banned in this country decades ago.

[AdHocSolver]

40. The FDA is supposed to protect Americans from tainted food, even imported tainted food.

The reason it doesn't is because the American companies that import this stuff don't test it since they look only on whether it increases profit. If we didn't buy the stuff, they wouldn't ship it here. If we didn't buy the stuff, they would find ways to produce the goods that wouldn't harm us so that we would buy them.

[Old and In the Way]

41. From the little I know, I don't think China has evolved a very strong

consumer protection program, especially in their own domestic market. I suspect that leaded paints are still OK for their domestic market (since their structures are mainly brick and tile, I don't think they use a lot of paint like we do). Export factories are totally different. There is no, none government inspection. The only thing the government cares about is tracking the $. Product quality is negotiated between the supplier and the customer, outside of 3rd party agency requirements, like UL, CSA, FM. The controlling document s/b the drawings and/or Purchase Orders. If the paint was specified to be lead-free, then the factory was negligent and screwed up or was cutting costs. When I heard the story break, I questioned why the customer (Fisher-Price?) wasn't checking for this. I would have thought that they have a quality assurance system that audits the products it makes/imports. To have 100's of thousands of toys imported without doing a relatively simple paint analysis done is pretty troubling. Even ship-to-stock programs have product audits. Regardless of where the product is made, the company that is selling to the consumer is ultimately responsible for product quality.

Same thing with food....where's our FDA or the corporate quality program in this story? Food is one thing I'd always be careful about importing from China....they seem to have a totally different concept on what is edible.

[Selatius]

19. When was the last Democratic frontrunner who admitted he fucked up royally on free trade?

The free trade bandwagon parroted by the right wing and the DLCers in the Democratic Party is to blame for the utter collapse of American manufacturing and textiles since 1980. Hell, the problem started even before then in the late 1960s, festered in the 1970s, and then started going full-bore in the 1980s and far worse in the 1990s.

[David Zephyr]

24. Bingo!

:thumbsup:

[madrchsod]

27. no one is going to admitt it was a mistake

as long as the money flows into their campaign coffers. they are bought off by the highest bidder and at least hillary admitted she was

[HughMoran]

21. Yep, we allowed Chinese folks to take out jobs - making 50 cents an hour.

It's not their fault, it's our fault for sure.

[lovuian]

26. In the coming WWIII China will be our enemy thats what our

future world leaders are talking about

and they probably will be

[madrchsod]

28. maybe...

i won`t be around but i do think it will be china-india in a future war this century.

[piedmont]

34. They had two or three in the 20th century. nt

[David Zephyr]

29. WWIII with China, huh? You have quite a crystal ball there. I'm sorry for you.

.

[lovuian]

38. I'm not creating it You just said you observed the hostility

and bashing of our future world leaders toward China

and you fear and anger is justified because you can see conflict in the future

I'm just saying the Possiblity of WWIII with China would make sense after your observation

I appreciate your sorrow for me thank you

[David Zephyr]

52. Well, I do have a very thick head, lovuian.

America seems not be able to squeak by a few decades before another enemy must be invented.

[spoony]

44. Perhaps WWIII is an economic war

and is already happening, assisted by profiteers here of course.

[Robbien]

30. Blame Canada.

You forgot that. I went to a funeral in the great lakes region where the car in front of me in the funeral procession blamed our nice neighbors to the north for our stuff.

Oh yeah, right. Just what I needed at a dear loved one's funeral.

[Palladin]

36. China's response? Pull the plug

In response to the posturings of US politicians, the Chinese have let it be known that if there's any undue pressure on them, they will unload their US dollar debt. Not a damn thing that Hillary or Cheney or Joe Sixpack can do about it. I do believe they would do it too. Lieberman is over there in Beijing right now trying to deliver a "message" but the Chinese leadership have essentially told him to take a hike. They won't meet with the chap. He's just another blowhard alligator mouth mosquito ass neocon to them.
Maybe this former US government will self-destruct after all..............they can't say they haven't been warned.

[bridgit]

42. That's just expediency, here in California we have a recall in progress...

for 10's of thousands of tons of ginger tainted with a pesticide that is illegal here in the states in the quantities in which it has been found having be grown in China, painted toys with lead based paint, tainted toothpaste, pet food, pharmaceuticals; it is a long, impressive list and growing...

This is serious stuff, if China is to position themselves as the garment maker of the world, the farmer of the world, the computer chip maker of the world, the food stuff/pharma ingredient/chemical compound makers of the world, CD/DVD bootleggers to the world, etc, they do need to get their arms all the way around product integrity

Their head-long rush toward the almighty dollar via cheap, tainted products, and the manipulation of their currency is even more wanton than some of our corporations and that is some scary shit

Love'ya China :hi: love the whole Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon thing, just try to tighten a little here & there and all will be just peachy

[LeftishBrit]

46. Great post!

There is a LONG list of things that China has done, domestically and internationally, that I would strongly criticize. However, blaming other countries for everything that goes wrong and setting up 'bogeynations' is both bigoted and a great way for leaders to avoid responsibility; not that far off the attitude of a 6-year-old: "It's not my fault - Tommy made me do it!"

There's too much of it in Britain too: the Left tend to blame America for everything, and the Right blame Europe for everything.

[David Zephyr]

53. Britain, too?

It's amusing today to read that the U.S. government expects China to keep bankrolling its debt, its wars and to not protect their own interests. Bush's cheap dollar, Bush's wars-without-end, Bush's stupid tax-cuts for billionaires, Bush's slavery to Arabian oil, Bush's addiction to underwriting defense contractors is the problem. The fact that the Chinese market their products to us and loan us money with a return on investment expected only shows that they are better at capitalism than we are here in the U.S.

As I always say to people: "Do Your Part to Support World Communism, Shop at Wal-Mart!"

[LeftishBrit]

54. In Britain, the xenophobia tends to be directed less at China

It tends to be Europe, the Middle East, or sometimes America.

[Klukie]

47. Spot on post...

Blaming China for all our woes is like blaming individuals for the illegal immigration problem. US greed has created these troubles, plain and simple.