View Full Version : Bush Policies accelerating China's rise in power
This is nothing new.. many of us have been saying this for months or years... Good to see the press starting to report on it , as well
Don't think Bush doesn't know about it either.. His father was the Ambassador to China before he became CIA director.. The Bush family has very close ties with the Chinese.
Thomas L. Friedman: Bush's energy policy is a gift for China
By Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times
Friday, March 18, 2005
WASHINGTON Bush officials have always been eager to pose as the tough guys willing to make the tough decisions. On Iraq and Afghanistan, they did. But when it comes to China, the Bush administration is engaged in one of the greatest acts of unilateral disarmament ever seen in U.S. foreign policy
National security is about so much more than just military deployments. It is also about tax, energy and competitiveness policies. And if you look at all these areas, the Bush team has not only been steadily eroding America's leverage and room for maneuver vis-à-vis its biggest long-term competitor - China - but it has actually been making us more dependent than ever on Beijing. Indeed, if the Bush policies were wrapped into a single legislative bill it could be called "The U.S.-China Dependency Act."
The excessive tax cuts for the rich, combined with a total lack of discipline on spending, have helped China become the second-largest holder of U.S. debt, with a little under $200 billion. No, I don't think China will start dumping its T-bills on a whim. But don't tell me that as China buys up more and more American debt - and that is the only way we can finance the tax holiday the Bush team wants to make permanent - it won't limit our room to maneuver with Beijing, should it take aggressive steps toward Taiwan.
What China might do with all its U.S. T-bills in the event of a clash over Taiwan is a total wild card that we have put in Beijing's hands. On energy, the Bush team's obsession with drilling in the Alaskan wilderness to increase supply is mind-boggling. "I am sure China will be thrilled with the Bush decision to drill in Alaska," said the noted energy economist Philip Verleger Jr. "Oil in Alaska cannot easily or efficiently be shipped to our Gulf Coast refineries. The logical markets are on the West Coast of the United States and in Asia. Consumers in China and Japan, not the U.S., will be the real beneficiaries of any big Alaska find.
"With a big find, China and Japan will be able to increase imports from a dependable supplier - the U.S. - while consumers in the U.S. will still be at the mercy of unreliable suppliers, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It is simple geography. Also, a big find will lead to lower prices in the short term, promoting more emissions and more warming."
Moreover, focusing exclusively on squeezing out a little more supply will only discourage conservation, Verleger added, setting the stage for higher prices again in three or four years - "when exhausting oil reserves and burgeoning demand from China and India will drive the price of oil to well above $100 a barrel." That will put even more money in the pockets of some of the world's worst governments.
That's why America urgently needs what I call a "geo-green" strategy, which combines geopolitics with environmentalism. Geo-greenism starts with a $1-per-gallon gasoline tax, which would help close the U.S. budget gap and force the U.S. auto industry to convert more of its fleet to hybrid and ethanol technology, thereby reducing the amount of money going to Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran for oil. It would also reduce U.S. dependence on China to finance its debt and the chances that America will end up in a global struggle with China for energy.
Finally, on competition policy, the Bush team and Congress cut the budget of the National Science Foundation for this fiscal year by $105 million. I could not put it better than Congressman Vernon Ehlers of Michigan, one of the few dissenting Republicans, who said: "This decision shows dangerous disregard for our nation's future at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research. We cannot hope to fight jobs lost to international competition without a well-trained and educated work force."
Moreover, at a time when China is encouraging its new companies to offer employees stock options to get Chinese innovators to stay at home and start new firms, the Bush team has been mutely going along with a change in accounting standards that will force U.S. companies to expense stock options by June 2005. This is likely to dampen the growth of our own high-tech companies and encourage U.S.-educated Indian and Chinese techies to go back home.
I am not a China basher. We need to engage China and help accommodate its rising power in the world system, but the only way to do that is from a position of strength. But everything the Bush team is doing is ensuring that it will be from a position of weakness.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/03/17/opinion/edfried.html
While Bush bogs down our troops and wastes our money in Iraq, the real threat continues to shore up its alliances and hoard cash.. waiting....
Bman
Published on 6 Jan 2005 by Current Concerns. Archived on 21 Feb 2005.
Running into a ‘BRIC wall’ with Eurasia?
by F. William Engdahl
In response to the bold moves by the Bush Administration to move its NATO and direct US military presence into the vital energy choke points of Eurasia, the major Eurasian powers are taking definite steps aimed at self-survival in energy, even military defense.
We can see a South-South pattern of major trade and economic deals. At the heart of it are Beijing and Moscow, New Delhi, Brasilia, and Teheran most recently. In 2002 four countries signed a trade and cooperation agreement, calling it BRIC-- Brazil-Russia-India-China.
Ironically, their self-defense measures are likely to put the countries of Eurasia (leaving France, Germany and the EU aside) on a collision course with Washington. Their efforts present the kind of geopolitical challenge which Bush declared Verboten in his September 2002 Bush National Security paper, the so-called Bush Doctrine.
China-Russian military steps
On December 27, Beijing and Moscow announced their first ever joint military exercises, in China. The timing was a message to Washington regarding the intervention in Ukraine. Russia is responding to pressure on its Western borders by turning to alliances to the East. This could have major strategic implications.
China is playing it deftly at present, with no provocative rhetoric aimed at Washington. Putin sees it as a step to his long-sought triangle Moscow-Beijing-New Delhi. China, still under the US-imposed 1989 Tiananmen Square arms embargo, is Moscow’s largest arms buyer. For China, a Russian alliance has a strategic dimension of greater access to Russian energy. A major question is to what extent Berlin and even Paris, now shift away from or decide to develop closer energy and strategic cooperation with Russia.
China moving to secure strategic raw materials
Ultimately, in the context of the looming Peak Oil, or global oil depletion, Russia and China and the EU, possibly aided by Iran, will inevitably seek strategic energy security in face of a now-obvious US bid to control all major oil choke points. Russia and the Caspian states, with Iran, comprise the only obvious energy alternative for China, India and the EU. All the cat-and-mouse political games between Paris and Washington and Berlin and Moscow to Beijing, revolve around this harsh reality. It defines what some have called a ‘new Cold War,’ a cold war over energy.
Last September, China announced it would buy Noranda, Canada’s biggest mining company, for $5.5 billion. Strategic priority for China is, of course, energy security. Last year China passed Japan to become world number two oil importer after USA.
China has been courting Putin to get a major share of the troubled Yukos oil empire. This week Putin suggested a minority in Yukos will be sold to China and to India.
China in September threatened a UN veto to block US sanctions on Sudan over the Darfur crisis. China National Petroleum Company built the Sudan oil pipeline, from the region around Darfur, to a Red Sea port where it is shipped to China. The Greater Nile Oil Project, 40% owned by China, produces 330,000 barrels a day. China has invested $3 billion in Sudan oil since 1999. China lost huge oil contracts in Iraq after the US took Baghdad in March 2003. It is clear why Beijing sees a geopolitical pattern to US intervention against dictators or human rights abusers. Some 7% of China’s energy comes from Sudan.
In December China bid for a major stake in Canada’s huge oil tar sands in Alberta Province. Canada PM Paul Martin has been invited to Beijing end of this month. Alberta tar oil reserves are huge, but energy intensive to extract oil from, and hence costly. The fact China makes a bid now for such difficult reserves indicates the urgency of their global search for secure energy. A pipeline would go to Canada’s West Coast to a new terminal to ship to China.
In November China President Hu Jintao made a trip to Brazil, Argentina and other South American states where he signed deals potentially worth $100 billion. These were designed as door-openers to participations in oil and gas projects there. After Hugo Chavez was in Beijing in December, China companies will invest $350 million in Venezuelan oilfields, and agreed to import 120,000 barrels of crude a month. Argentina and China deals could total $20 billion in rails and oil and gas.
Brazil signed 11 bilateral deals with China for $10 billion in energy and transportation. This move into the direct backyard of Washington is new for China, and it has raised eyebrows in Washington which long considered Brazil as its own ‘sphere of interest.’
These deals come on the heels of the $100 billion China-Iran natural gas deal signed last fall. The deal could total $200 billion over 25 years. China will import 10 million tons of Iran LNG a year. The deal involves construction of 87 new LNG tankers in the next 5 years. Iran has the second largest gas reserves in the world. The Beijing deal flouts the US Iran Sanctions Act. Iran clearly hopes the major deal will lead to more bold moves by EU investors to flout the sanctions.
Before 2003, China’s main oil came from the Middle East. Since Iraq’s fall, China has re-evaluated, and begun a feverish pace of oil diversification. Now Sudan and Angola provide a major share, with West Africa supplying 19% of imports. The recent trip of Bush in July 2003 to West Africa caused alarm in Beijing, especially when Sudan was also made a ‘human rights’ target of Washington at the same time, and when Washington attempted again to oust Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in August 2004 via referendum. Beijing sees this as a global “oil cold war” in every respect.
China has also been eager to sign a deal with Putin for a pipeline to bring oil from Russia to China. Japan successfully outbid China to win a China bypass route to Russia’s Far East port Nakhodka. On January 1 Putin signed a deal from east Siberia to the Pacific Ocean to serve Japan oil imports, but still open is if Russia will build a branch line to China. Clearly Russia is keen to keep maximum flexibility and not become over-dependent on China. Despite this, the closer cooperation between the two is clear.
At the end of December, Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko announced that China’s CNPC would be allowed to buy up to a 20% stake in the Yukos subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz which Rosneft acquired in December.
Brazil, Russia, India oil deals
At year-end, Russia signed a deal with Brazil. Gazprom will build an LNG plant in Brazil. Petrobras will jointly explore for oil and gas in Brazil with two Russian companies. Another $3 billion deal includes Russia building an oil refinery in Brazil.
Early in 2004 India invited Brazil President Lula to New Delhi where they spoke of a South-South ‘new trade geometry.’ Preferential tariffs were agreed between India and Mercosur. Brazil will export biofuel to India and sugar as well as oil.
India also this month signed a $40 billion joint deal with Russia and Iran for long-term energy. It includes a 25-year import of Iran natural gas to India and development of Iran oilfields. India will get a 20% stake in Iran’s largest oilfield, Yadavaran and Jufeir that yields 300,000 barrels a day. China’s CNPC is the main operator of Yadavaran. Now India has 20%, Iran 30% and China 50% of that giant field. Iran is clearly seeking powerful allies against US pressures.
India is also bidding to buy part of Russian oil giant, Yukos. Last October in Delhi China’s ambassador proposed joint energy cooperation of the two former Cold War rivals, India and China, something not anticipated in Washington. India’s Petroleum Minister M.S. Aiyar was in Moscow in October talking about a ‘strategic alliance’. This month India, under Aiyar also hosted the first roundtable of Asian energy ministers, including from the Persian Gulf and China. He proposed a common regional petroleum market, and an Asian benchmark crude, a potential blow to the US British oil giants and their control via NYMEX and Brent. Iran proposed an Asian Bank for Energy Finance to fund the projects.
On 10 November 2004 the India Daily reported, “Russian President Putin is taking a lead role in the most powerful coalition of regional and superpowers in the world. The coalition consists of India, China, Russia and Brazil. This will change the superpower supremacy of America…” The coalition includes the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) of China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Iran is now in the process of unofficially becoming a member of SCO via the mammoth energy deals. Brazil got an IAEA approval to develop its uranium enrichment last November just after the visit to Brazil from Putin. Is Russia to help as it is with Iran’s nuclear enrichment?
Now, in this context of the BRIC, India and China just agreed to closer defense cooperation as India’s Army chief was in Beijing late last year, the first time in a decade. China PM Wen Jiabao goes to Delhi this year. This came amid announcement last month that China and Russia will hold joint military manoeuvres in China.
Bush to try to woo Germany, France?
Little wonder that the Bush Administration is exercising classic Balance of Power diplomacy to counter these moves. Bush will visit Germany next month to meet Schroeder, and Bush has personally invited Chirac to the White House later this year. He clearly hopes to woo them away from the Russia-China axis. German industry and business community is divided on Russia. They do not want to anger the US, yet they realize the German economy is increasingly forced to turn to Russia for critical oil and gas. When Schroeder met Putin in Oslo last September, Schroeder asked Putin to allow Ruhrgas (E.ON) to increase her 6% stake in Gazprom to 20%. Two weeks earlier, according to German press, Schroeder was in London for secret talks to see if BP would join in a pipeline to the Baltic to bring Siberian gas to Germany without going via Ukraine.
The pattern of strategic energy deals signals that a major confrontation is building between the major countries of Eurasia and Washington, precisely what Brzezinski predicted in 1997 in his book, The Grand Chessboard.
http://www.energybulletin.net/4444.html
Shinywalrus
03-18-2005, 09:25 PM
A decent article and some interesting thoughts. One wonders, however, why someone would make themselves seem petty and foolish in one of the first lines of an editorial by spouting tired drivel like "Tax cuts for the rich!"
Nevermind that the long-run tax revenues net of the drop from a tax cut of this sort come considerably closer to $0 than the amount of debt that was originally used to finance them.
To me, the argument about Alaska being a gift to China/Japan seems very stretched. Oil is commoditized, so differences in delivery efficiency are absorbed almost wholly by the producer, not the consumer.
There are much better arguments to support criticism of Bush's policies vis a vis China than this. For one, giving up the hard line on our support of Taiwan gave shelter and cause for Chinese edicts like their most recent.
undertaker
03-18-2005, 09:35 PM
"Moreover, at a time when China is encouraging its new companies to offer employees stock options to get Chinese innovators to stay at home and start new firms, the Bush team has been mutely going along with a change in accounting standards that will force U.S. companies to expense stock options by June 2005. This is likely to dampen the growth of our own high-tech companies and encourage U.S.-educated Indian and Chinese techies to go back home."
To tax or not to tax [the "rich"]? Aye, that's the question.
Orson
undertaker
03-18-2005, 09:42 PM
"
That's why America urgently needs what I call a "geo-green" strategy, which combines geopolitics with environmentalism. Geo-greenism starts with a $1-per-gallon gasoline tax, which would help close the U.S. budget gap and force the U.S. auto industry to convert more of its fleet to hybrid and ethanol technology, thereby reducing the amount of money going to Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran for oil. It would also reduce U.S. dependence on China to finance its debt and the chances that America will end up in a global struggle with China for energy."
Say what?
Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it returns. Ethanol costs approx. 3.00/gal. to produce and contains about 50% of the btu value of gasoline.
Orson
undertaker
03-18-2005, 09:50 PM
"
The excessive tax cuts for the rich, combined with a total lack of discipline on spending, have helped China become the second-largest holder of U.S. debt, with a little under $200 billion. No, I don't think China will start dumping its T-bills on a whim. But don't tell me that as China buys up more and more American debt - and that is the only way we can finance the tax holiday the Bush team wants to make permanent - it won't limit our room to maneuver with Beijing, should it take aggressive steps toward Taiwan.
If it comes to it, I don't think the US would repay those same treasury notes in the case of war. After all, why pay off your debts to your enemy?
Orson
Atlas
03-18-2005, 09:58 PM
Here's an in issue where individuals hold complete sway versus gov't policy.
Banshee's 1 point solution:
STOP BUYING CHINESE CRAP. LOOK AT THE LABELS AND BUY STUFF MANUFACTURED HERE!
TA DAH!
:happy_08:
Shipwrx
03-18-2005, 10:03 PM
Here's an in issue where individuals hold complete sway versus gov't policy.
Banshee's 1 point solution:
STOP BUYING CHINESE CRAP. LOOK AT THE LABELS AND BUY STUFF MANUFACTURED HERE!
TA DAH!
:happy_08:
What???? and put Walmart out of business?? gee where would we employ all of those people??
Atlas
03-18-2005, 10:19 PM
What???? and put Walmart out of business?? gee where would we employ all of those people??
Good christ, what was I thinking. We can't condemn them to a life of abject misery in a us owned and staffed mill, shoe plant, steel plant.
Then we'd be keeping them as slave labor to paid health care, pensions and profit sharing. Maybe even xmas bonuses, which are probably an unconstitutional exercise of religious freedom.
This is not a left or right, conservative or liberal issue. This is plain ole capitalism versus communisim and you don't eradicate communism by throwing cold hard k-gash at it. Buy American!
"
If it comes to it, I don't think the US would repay those same treasury notes in the case of war. After all, why pay off your debts to your enemy?
Orson
You're talking about the US defaulting on Treasury debt.. I don't think any of us could imagine the implications of that in term of the effect on the world's financial markets.. "COLLAPSE" is the only word I can think of and I fear that vastly understates the reality of the effect it would have.
Bman
WhoAmI
03-18-2005, 11:44 PM
Why is it that people claim Bush is friends with anyone who makes money? If North Korea started to rise in power economically then people would claim either George W. or his father are best friends with whoever might be the leader at that time. Didn't Clinton accept some donations from the Chinese?
Why is it that people claim Bush is friends with anyone who makes money? If North Korea started to rise in power economically then people would claim either George W. or his father are best friends with whoever might be the leader at that time. Didn't Clinton accept some donations from the Chinese?
Yes.. Clinton and Bush are not OPPOSITES, but rather different "seasonings" in the same poisonous dish.. So many people try to "justify" Bush by saying, "well.. Clinton did the same thing"...
That's the point... Bush is not a good President.
Bman
WhoAmI
03-19-2005, 12:02 AM
Yes.. Clinton and Bush are not OPPOSITES, but rather different "seasonings" in the same poisonous dish.. So many people try to "justify" Bush by saying, "well.. Clinton did the same thing"...
That's the point... Bush is not a good President.
Bman
No, he's not a good president but I just don't believe that he's best buddies with everyone who is making money in the world as some others tend to suggest.
Bag Sniper
03-19-2005, 12:24 AM
There are much better arguments to support criticism of Bush's policies vis a vis China than this. For one, giving up the hard line on our support of Taiwan gave shelter and cause for Chinese edicts like their most recent.
Orson is the only one here with valid counterpoints .... I like Friedman though ... the best stand up comic using text ...
But Shiny ... point of serious correction needed here .... it wasn't Dubya who gave up the hardline of support for Taiwan (as an independant China) ... think hard .... think .... <buzzer> ... it was Richard Nixon who changed that plank of asian foreign policy *and* that change was what opened up the door to dialogue with Bejing starting with Nixon's state visit to Bejing in the early 70's. Historical stuff really ....
That policy change was largely ignored (not spoken of) in American political circles for decades afterward ... until .... think hard again .... think ... <buzzer> .... Bill Clinton reaffirmed it during his misadministration ....
The major difference between the two admins was Nixon suggested China/Taiwan get together and discuss the issue of independance (vague memory there) yet Clinton came right out and *said* Taiwan belonged to the mainland .... the latter presidency not only cemented the consternation and justification for China to get more ... ah .. rude .... in dealing with Taiwan .... but it got him a shitload of clandestine campaign $$$$$$ to boot ...
When dealing with Clintonisms it's difficult to know for sure if, when Clinton was saying Taiwan, he meant Taiwan the government/people/national assets or he was refering to Taiwan the island ....
But for me knowing asian negotiation practices China understood the Taiwan of Clinton-speak to mean what they wanted it to mean and to Bejing it meant all the above .... and hence our current wall splattered shit mess ....
undertaker
03-19-2005, 12:33 AM
You're talking about the US defaulting on Treasury debt.. I don't think any of us could imagine the implications of that in term of the effect on the world's financial markets.. "COLLAPSE" is the only word I can think of and I fear that vastly understates the reality of the effect it would have.
Bman
It's been done already time and again. In fact most of the world has done it at some time or other. The US has not, but it would, before paying for it's own destruction. Besides, the Chinese government, when it became a Communist country defaulted on all Western debt, mainly held by the US. Perhaps we owe them one or maybe we could just apply their debt against our debt.
If the Chinese wish to play economic hardball, debt repudiation would be a very viable option. And of course a trade embargo would be a nice touch.
Every child in China could then have their own Beany Baby.
Of course the countries still trading with China might have a problem receiving payment for the commodities they are selling to China as Chinese exports fell precipitously.
Rather chilling scenario, is it not?
China has more to lose than anyone if they fuck with the system. The question remains whether the old line Chinese hard-liners can get beyond their out of dated ideology or instead think themselves and their system invulnerable.
Right now they are showing massive growth year to year, but are they smart enough or realistic enough to understand that such growth does have a limit?
The Japanese saw such growth rates until they kidded themselves into believing it would continue forever. It did not.
It did not for Germany England, Spain, France or the United States or any other country in history.
In short, fuck with the world economic system at your own risk.
Orson
It's been done already time and again. In fact most of the world has done it at some time or other. The US has not, but it would, before paying for it's own destruction. Besides, the Chinese government, when it became a Communist country defaulted on all Western debt, mainly held by the US. Perhaps we owe them one or maybe we could just apply their debt against our debt.
Yeah, but the US dollar is the world's reserve currency right now.. That's a big difference compared to say, Argentina which just defaulted a few years ago collapsing its currency
In any case, I do agree with you that it would be painful for everyone to mess with the world's economy.. which is why I don't think anyone will.. Its a Financial Cold War, in essence..
But that means BOTH sides (US and China) are hamstrung in what they can do.... The US can't attack Iran, for instance, unless China lets them.. On the other hand, China can't really mess with Taiwan, unless the US lets them.... etc, etc
Bman
Bag Sniper
03-19-2005, 12:59 AM
It's been done already time and again. In fact most of the world has done it at some time or other. The US has not, but it would, before paying for it's own destruction. Besides, the Chinese government, when it became a Communist country defaulted on all Western debt, mainly held by the US. Perhaps we owe them one or maybe we could just apply their debt against our debt.
If the Chinese wish to play economic hardball, debt repudiation would be a very viable option. And of course a trade embargo would be a nice touch.
Every child in China could then have their own Beany Baby.
Of course the countries still trading with China might have a problem receiving payment for the commodities they are selling to China as Chinese exports fell precipitously.
Rather chilling scenario, is it not?
China has more to lose than anyone if they fuck with the system. The question remains whether the old line Chinese hard-liners can get beyond their out of dated ideology or instead think themselves and their system invulnerable.
Right now they are showing massive growth year to year, but are they smart enough or realistic enough to understand that such growth does have a limit?
The Japanese saw such growth rates until they kidded themselves into believing it would continue forever. It did not.
It did not for Germany England, Spain, France or the United States or any other country in history.
In short, fuck with the world economic system at your own risk.
Orson
Another star is born .... you're on a role .... keep going ...
Bag Sniper
03-19-2005, 01:12 AM
Yeah, but the US dollar is the world's reserve currency right now.. That's a big difference compared to say, Argentina which just defaulted a few years ago collapsing its currency
Yes it is ... and it's a silly comparison ... why did you make it ?
In any case, I do agree with you that it would be painful for everyone to mess with the world's economy .. which is why I don't think anyone will.. Its a Financial Cold War, in essence..
You should have said "US economy" ... not "worlds economy" to continue your point ... but I understand how that would have been counter productive to your *initial* arguement ..... hence the reason you chose the words you did ....
But that means BOTH sides (US and China) are hamstrung in what they can do.... The US can't attack Iran, for instance, unless China lets them.. On the other hand, China can't really mess with Taiwan, unless the US lets them.... etc, etc
And so you are saying ... what ? China doesn't want US to nail Iran ... which we will if need be ... so China will treat Iran in the same fashion as it controls the DPRK ? No ... it will not ... China could care less for Iran ... the DPRK on the other hand is on China's border and there's nothing more (these days) than a goofy Asian handshake alliance agreement in place left over from the 50's mentality on both sides .... trust me ... Iran ain't fuck to the Chinese ... and they won't risk crap over the US nailing the Iranians .. when they know full well the crude will flow anyway ... no matter what ....
Hell the Chinese will most likely benefit more if we take out the Iranians .... more Chinese workers for the infrastructure of the industry perhaps ....
Shinywalrus
03-19-2005, 08:35 AM
Orson is the only one here with valid counterpoints .... I like Friedman though ... the best stand up comic using text ...
But Shiny ... point of serious correction needed here .... it wasn't Dubya who gave up the hardline of support for Taiwan (as an independant China) ... think hard .... think .... <buzzer> ... it was Richard Nixon who changed that plank of asian foreign policy *and* that change was what opened up the door to dialogue with Bejing starting with Nixon's state visit to Bejing in the early 70's. Historical stuff really ....
That policy change was largely ignored (not spoken of) in American political circles for decades afterward ... until .... think hard again .... think ... <buzzer> .... Bill Clinton reaffirmed it during his misadministration ....
The major difference between the two admins was Nixon suggested China/Taiwan get together and discuss the issue of independance (vague memory there) yet Clinton came right out and *said* Taiwan belonged to the mainland .... the latter presidency not only cemented the consternation and justification for China to get more ... ah .. rude .... in dealing with Taiwan .... but it got him a shitload of clandestine campaign $$$$$$ to boot ...
When dealing with Clintonisms it's difficult to know for sure if, when Clinton was saying Taiwan, he meant Taiwan the government/people/national assets or he was refering to Taiwan the island ....
But for me knowing asian negotiation practices China understood the Taiwan of Clinton-speak to mean what they wanted it to mean and to Bejing it meant all the above .... and hence our current wall splattered shit mess ....
I see the history of Taiwan/China fairly similarly, really. The difference is that I'm not willing to give Bush a free ride just because he was being consistent with Clinton's policies. Who did it first is irrelevant to me.
Bush made statements in his time during governor and his campaign that do NOT jive with his reaffirmation of Clinton's position on one-China.
It's very disappointing, as his election should have been a catalyst for a harder line on China's grossly unfair trade laws, its human rights violations and its violation of Taiwanese sovereignty.
Shinywalrus
03-19-2005, 08:42 AM
You're talking about the US defaulting on Treasury debt.. I don't think any of us could imagine the implications of that in term of the effect on the world's financial markets.. "COLLAPSE" is the only word I can think of and I fear that vastly understates the reality of the effect it would have.
Bman
First off, we need to rationalize this. A sell-off of $200 billion would have a powerful effect on interest rates, as you say, but ultimately would not be a collapse by any stretch of the imagination. And let's not kid ourselves, we have powerful carrots to prevent China from doing this.
And IF relations with China become so bad (near war, perhaps?) that China is not interested in our carrots, it's quite likely that friendly nations would build up their own reserves of US debt to counter-balance the effects. Remember, these nations are highly correlated with the US market, and European leaders, for all their criticism, have a vested interest in seeing the US market succeed. Additionally, a war-time default on exclusively Chinese-held debt would probably not drive up interest rates nearly as far as in other circumstances.
To say that Bush's policies have had ANYTHING to do with China's rise in power is goofy. To say, however, that they (particularly excessive spending on nonsense like Medicare/Medicaid, additional outlays if he actually considers SS privatization as an ADD-ON instead of a substitute, inability to force China to rethink its trade laws and the administrations faultering on support of Taiwan) could have a detrimental effect in the future if we don't start changing our course, however, is a very real problem we need to pay attention to.
First off, we need to rationalize this. A sell-off of $200 billion would have a powerful effect on interest rates, as you say, but ultimately would not be a collapse by any stretch of the imagination. And let's not kid ourselves, we have powerful carrots to prevent China from doing this.
First off, I'm not the one suggesting the US default on its debt as an option. I was RESPONDING to that suggestion... not making it... You and Bag Sniper both seemed to miss that point.
To say that Bush's policies have had ANYTHING to do with China's rise in power is goofy. To say, however, that they (particularly excessive spending on nonsense like Medicare/Medicaid, additional outlays if he actually considers SS privatization as an ADD-ON instead of a substitute, inability to force China to rethink its trade laws and the administrations faultering on support of Taiwan) could have a detrimental effect in the future if we don't start changing our course, however, is a very real problem we need to pay attention to.
I disagree.. The policies have Bush have accelerated and aided China's rise to power.. as the author of the orginal article in this thread points out. I tend to agree with him
Bman
Yes it is ... and it's a silly comparison ... why did you make it ?
.
Can't you follow the thread?
Orson suggested that the US could always default on its debt, if push came to shove. I made the point that such a move would bring about a WORLDWIDE financial collapse.. He countered that MANY countries have defaulted on their debt and that as such, he didn't seem to indicate that it would be a big deal.
I countered that the US isn't Argentina.. it would be much more serious if the US defaulted on its debt, for the reason that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency.
Its getting tedious explaining all this like I'm talking to two year old.. Simply read the thread and try to keep up
Bman
Nothing to see here... . Stay asleep people.. Keep voting Republican!
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
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Chinese dragon awakens
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 26, 2005
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Part I
China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials.
U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.
China's military buildup includes an array of new high-technology weapons, such as warships, submarines, missiles and a maneuverable warhead designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses. Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan.
"There's a growing consensus that at some point in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a fundamental shift in the sophistication, breadth and re-sorting of Chinese defense planning," said Richard Lawless, a senior China-policy maker in the Pentagon. "And what we're seeing now is a manifestation of that change in the number of new systems that are being deployed, the sophistication of those systems and the interoperability of the systems."
China's economy has been growing at a rate of at least 10 percent for each of the past 10 years, providing the country's military with the needed funds for modernization.
The combination of a vibrant centralized economy, growing military and increasingly fervent nationalism has transformed China into what many defense officials view as a fascist state.
"We may be seeing in China the first true fascist society on the model of Nazi Germany, where you have this incredible resource base in a commercial economy with strong nationalism, which the military was able to reach into and ramp up incredible production," a senior defense official said.
For Pentagon officials, alarm bells have been going off for the past two years as China's military began rapidly building and buying new troop- and weapon-carrying ships and submarines.
The release of an official Chinese government report in December called the situation on the Taiwan Strait "grim" and said the country's military could "crush" Taiwan.
Earlier this year, Beijing passed an anti-secession law, a unilateral measure that upset the fragile political status quo across the Taiwan Strait. The law gives Chinese leaders a legal basis they previously did not have to conduct a military attack on Taiwan, U.S. officials said.
The war fears come despite the fact that China is hosting the Olympic Games in 2008 and, therefore, some officials say, would be reluctant to invoke the international condemnation that a military attack on Taiwan would cause.
Army of the future
In the past, some defense specialists insisted a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a "million-man swim" across the Taiwan Strait because of the country's lack of troop-carrying ships.
"We left the million-man swim behind in about 1998, 1999," the senior Pentagon official said. "And in fact, what people are saying now, whether or not that construct was ever useful, is that it's a moot point, because in just amphibious lift alone, the Chinese are doubling or even quadrupling their capability on an annual basis."
Asked about a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan, the official put it bluntly: "In the '07-'08 time frame, a capability will be there that a year ago we would have said was very, very unlikely. We now assess that as being very likely to be there."
Air Force Gen. Paul V. Hester, head of the Pacific Air Forces, said the U.S. military has been watching China's military buildup but has found it difficult to penetrate Beijing's "veil" of secrecy over it.
While military modernization itself is not a major worry, "what does provide you a pause for interest and concern is the amount of modernization, the kind of modernization and the size of the modernization," he said during a recent breakfast meeting with reporters.
China is building capabilities such as aerial refueling and airborne warning and control aircraft that can be used for regional defense and long-range power projection, Gen. Hester said.
It also is developing a maneuverable re-entry vehicle, or MARV, for its nuclear warheads. The weapon is designed to counter U.S. strategic-missile defenses, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The warhead would be used on China's new DF-31 long-range missiles and its new submarine missile, the JL-2.
Work being done on China's weapons and reconnaissance systems will give its military the capability to reach 1,000 miles into the sea, "which gives them the visibility on the movement of not only our airplanes in the air, but also our forces at sea," Gen. Hester said.
Beijing also has built a new tank for its large armed forces. It is known as the Type 99 and appears similar in design to Germany's Leopard 2 main battle tank. The tank is outfitted with new artillery, anti-aircraft and machine guns, advanced fire-control systems and improved engines.
The country's air power is growing through the purchase of new fighters from Russia, such as Su-30 fighter-bombers, as well as the development of its own fighter jets, such as the J-10.
Gen. Hester compared Chinese warplanes with those of the former Soviet Union, which were less capable than their U.S. counterparts, but still very deadly.
"They have great equipment. The fighters are very technologically advanced, and what we know about them gives us pause for concern against ours," he said.
Missiles also are a worry.
"It is their surface-to-air missiles, their [advanced] SAMs and their surface-to-surface missiles, and the precision, more importantly, of those surface-to-surface missiles that provide, obviously, the ability to pinpoint targets that we might have out in the region, or our friends and allies might have," Gen. Hester said.
The advances give the Chinese military "the ability ... to reach out and touch parts of the United States -- Guam, Hawaii and the mainland of the United States," he said.
To better deal with possible future conflicts in Asia, the Pentagon is modernizing U.S. military facilities on the Western Pacific island of Guam and planning to move more forces there.
The Air Force will regularly rotate Air Expeditionary Force units to Guam and also will station the new long-range unmanned aerial vehicle known as Global Hawk on the island, he said.
It also has stationed B-2 stealth bombers on Guam temporarily and is expected to deploy B-1 bombers there, in addition to the B-52s now deployed there, Gen. Hester said.
Projecting power
China's rulers have adopted what is known as the "two-island chain" strategy of extending control over large areas of the Pacific, covering inner and outer chains of islands stretching from Japan to Indonesia.
"Clearly, they are still influenced by this first and second island chain," the intelligence official said.
The official said China's buildup goes beyond what would be needed to fight a war against Taiwan.
The conclusion of this official is that China wants a "blue-water" navy capable of projecting power far beyond the two island chains.
"If you look at the technical capabilities of the weapons platforms that they're fielding, the sea-keeping capabilities, the size, sensors and weapons fit, this capability transcends the baseline that is required to deal with a Taiwan situation militarily," the intelligence official said.
"So they are positioned then, if [Taiwan is] resolved one way or the other, to really become a regional military power as well."
The dispatch of a Han-class submarine late last year to waters near Guam, Taiwan and Japan was an indication of the Chinese military's drive to expand its oceangoing capabilities, the officials said. The submarine surfaced in Japanese waters, triggering an emergency deployment of Japan's naval forces.
Beijing later issued an apology for the incursion, but the political damage was done. Within months, Japan began adopting a tougher political posture toward China in its defense policies and public statements. A recent Japanese government defense report called China a strategic national security concern. It was the first time China was named specifically in a Japanese defense report.
Energy supply a factor
For China, Taiwan is not the only issue behind the buildup of military forces. Beijing also is facing a major energy shortage that, according to one Pentagon study, could lead it to use military force to seize territory with oil and gas resources.
The report produced for the Office of Net Assessment, which conducts assessments of future threats, was made public in January and warned that China's need for oil, gas and other energy resources is driving the country toward becoming an expansionist power.
China "is looking not only to build a blue-water navy to control the sea lanes [from the Middle East], but also to develop undersea mines and missile capabilities to deter the potential disruption of its energy supplies from potential threats, including the U.S. Navy, especially in the case of a conflict with Taiwan," the report said.
The report said China believes the United States already controls the sea routes from the oil-rich Persian Gulf through the Malacca Strait. Chinese President Hu Jintao has called this strategic vulnerability to disrupted energy supplies Beijing's "Malacca Dilemma."
To prevent any disruption, China has adopted a "string of pearls" strategy that calls for both offensive and defensive measures stretching along the oil-shipment sea lanes from China's coast to the Middle East.
The "pearls" include the Chinese-financed seaport being built at Gwadar, on the coast of western Pakistan, and commercial and military efforts to establish bases or diplomatic ties in Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand and disputed islands in the South China Sea.
The report stated that China's ability to use these pearls for a "credible" military action is not certain.
Pentagon intelligence officials, however, say the rapid Chinese naval buildup includes the capability to project power to these sea lanes in the future.
"They are not doing a lot of surface patrols or any other kind of security evolutions that far afield," the intelligence official said. "There's no evidence of [Chinese military basing there] yet, but we do need to keep an eye toward that expansion."
The report also highlighted the vulnerability of China's oil and gas infrastructure to a crippling U.S. attack.
"The U.S. military could severely cripple Chinese resistance [during a conflict over Taiwan] by blocking its energy supply, whereas the [People's Liberation Army navy] poses little threat to United States' energy security," it said.
China views the United States as "a potential threat because of its military superiority, its willingness to disrupt China's energy imports, its perceived encirclement of China and its disposition toward manipulating international politics," the report said.
'Mercantilist measures'
The report stated that China will resort "to extreme, offensive and mercantilist measures when other strategies fail, to mitigate its vulnerabilities, such as seizing control of energy resources in neighboring states."
U.S. officials have said two likely targets for China are the Russian Far East, which has vast oil and gas deposits, and Southeast Asia, which also has oil and gas resources.
Michael Pillsbury, a former Pentagon official and specialist on China's military, said the internal U.S. government debate on the issue and excessive Chinese secrecy about its military buildup "has cost us 10 years to figure out what to do"
"Everybody is starting to acknowledge the hard facts," Mr. Pillsbury said. "The China military buildup has been accelerating since 1999. As the buildup has gotten worse, China is trying hard to mask it."
Richard Fisher, vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said that in 10 years, the Chinese army has shifted from a defensive force to an advanced military soon capable of operations ranging from space warfare to global non-nuclear cruise-missile strikes.
"Let's all wake up. The post-Cold War peace is over," Mr. Fisher said. "We are now in an arms race with a new superpower whose goal is to contain and overtake the United States."
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050626-122138-1088r
China will rule the seas due vto our government policies and trade.
ANTI-CHRIST SUPERSTAR
06-26-2005, 12:50 PM
duh i told u guys this a long time ago
Atlas
06-27-2005, 11:16 PM
Every president since nixon have kowtowed to what clearly is our rival
Every president since nixon have kowtowed to what clearly is our rival
How is that relevant to TODAY, when China has reached a point that it could become a threat in the very near future?
In the years up until Bush the First, you may recall the US had bigger fish to worry about... Namely, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. China wasn't a threat then, nor were they a major trading partner.
Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.... three of the worst Presidents in US history, are to blame for allowing the Chinese to become what they are today.. an up and coming threat to America.
Atlas
06-27-2005, 11:33 PM
How is that relevant to TODAY, when China has reached a point that it could become a threat in the very near future?
In the years up until Bush the First, you may recall the US had bigger fish to worry about... Namely, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. China wasn't a threat then, nor were they a major trading partner.
Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.... three of the worst Presidents in US history, are to blame for allowing the Chinese to become what they are today.. an up and coming threat to America.
You underestimate the chinese, who fought us to a standstill in Korea filty years ago. This is one long continous struggle. Only the occidental mind thinks of battles with the Chinese in terms of years and not decades or centuries. They have survived five thousand years by playing chess, not checkers
You underestimate the chinese, who fought us to a standstill in Korea filty years ago. This is one long continous struggle. Only the occidental mind thinks of battles with the Chinese in terms of years and not decades or centuries. They have survived five thousand years by playing chess, not checkers
Actually, I'm NOT underestimating the Chinese.. I see them as every bit the threat that the USSR was..
Its our government's leadership that is underestimating them.. not me
Atlas
06-27-2005, 11:44 PM
Actually, I'm NOT underestimating the Chinese.. I see them as every bit the threat that the USSR was..
Its our government's leadership that is underestimating them.. not me
My point is they were a threat long before bush 1
Bag Sniper
06-28-2005, 12:01 AM
BUSH policies ...
BUSH policies ...........
Ah ... let's examine CLINTON CASH policies ..... er from COMMUNIST CHINA ... er .. bank deposits ... uhm ... donations ... ah gifts .....
gurgle ... tonsil penetrations .....
Atlas
06-28-2005, 12:04 AM
BUSH policies ...
BUSH policies ...........
Ah ... let's examine CLINTON CASH policies ..... er from COMMUNIST CHINA ... er .. bank deposits ... uhm ... donations ... ah gifts .....
gurgle ... tonsil penetrations .....
Those were just a few monks dropping cash and checks from their begging bowls. Man, you are jaded :rolleyes:
My point is they were a threat long before bush 1
They didn't have the military capability to be much of a threat up until now..Apparently they still don't.. but they're getting close
BUSH policies ...
BUSH policies ...........
Ah ... let's examine CLINTON CASH policies ..... er from COMMUNIST CHINA ... er .. bank deposits ... uhm ... donations ... ah gifts .....
gurgle ... tonsil penetrations .....
Maybe you could explain how Bush's policy toward China differs in any way, shape or form from Clinton's?
Hence, my statment earlier:
Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.... three of the worst Presidents in US history, are to blame for allowing the Chinese to become what they are today.. an up and coming threat to America.
Atlas
06-28-2005, 12:23 AM
They didn't have the military capability to be much of a threat up until now..Apparently they still don't.. but they're getting close
They have nuclear subs with ballistic missiles, they have icbm's with MIRV's which they allegedly stole the plans for from the US, if the media has it right.
I'm not disagreeing with you on the propostion that Bush1,Clinton,and Bush 2 have not improved the policies of nixon,carter and reagan
We should have worked harder to prop up chiang kai shek
China would win war with U.S.: warning
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Asian allies are becoming increasingly skeptical of the U.S. military and are quietly warning the Bush administration not to enter into a military confrontation with China.
The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, Insight magazine online reported in its Nov. 21-27 issue.
Most Asian officials have expressed their views privately. However, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.
"If each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives," Ishihara told the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the exception of the Marines, were "extremely incompetent" and would be unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. He said China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and American cities -- even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation.
Ishihara said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051122-055819-6609r
Simon666
11-23-2005, 11:29 AM
Most Asian officials have expressed their views privately. However, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.
Ishihara is a notorious idiot and nothing he says should be taken too seriously. Japanese Chinese and Koreans are scum, the Nanjing massacre never occured, and old women without functioning reproductive systems are useless, according to his previous public comments.
He has also advocated:
Rounding up foreigners into detainment camps during an earthquake, because foreigners would run loose and riot in such an event.
Using the military to prepare for mass abortions after the mass-rapings which he assumed would occur by foreigners who would travel to Japan during the last World Cup.
The list probably goes on, but basically this guy is a nationalist who relies on the shock value of his statements for popularity.
Ishihara is a notorious idiot and nothing he says should be taken too seriously. Japanese Chinese and Koreans are scum, the Nanjing massacre never occured, and old women without functioning reproductive systems are useless, according to his previous public comments.
He has also advocated:
Rounding up foreigners into detainment camps during an earthquake, because foreigners would run loose and riot in such an event.
Using the military to prepare for mass abortions after the mass-rapings which he assumed would occur by foreigners who would travel to Japan during the last World Cup.
The list probably goes on, but basically this guy is a nationalist who relies on the shock value of his statements for popularity.
Thanks for the background. I had never heard of him. That certainly casts his statements in a light of incredibility.
Even so, there are others saying the same thing and from a logical point of view, it only makes sense that the US couldn't defeat China in a war...
Of course that doesn't even address the half a trillion in debt that we owe them and their ability to use that as leverage on the world financial markets.
Simon666
11-23-2005, 11:45 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintaro_Ishihara
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintaro_Ishihara
Seems disturbing that a guy like that is governor of Tokyo, a fairly sophisticated and metropolitan area and home to 10 percent of Japan's population.
Simon666
11-23-2005, 12:01 PM
Seems disturbing that a guy like that is governor of Tokyo, a fairly sophisticated and metropolitan area and home to 10 percent of Japan's population.
Hey, it's disturbing Bush can get president.
Hey, it's disturbing Bush can get president.
Indeed. I suppose we give far too much credit to the ability of the "masses" to choose wisely.
Bush is merely a puppet for some rich people and some Jews.
LANMaster
11-23-2005, 03:48 PM
The typical Democrat solution to every problem? Raise taxes on everyone.
That's why America urgently needs what I call a "geo-green" strategy, which combines geopolitics with environmentalism. Geo-greenism starts with a $1-per-gallon gasoline tax, which would help close the U.S. budget gap and force the U.S. auto industry to convert more of its fleet to hybrid and ethanol technology, thereby reducing the amount of money going to Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran for oil.
That's the biggest bunch of BS I have ever heard in my life.
That money won't do ANYTHING to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It would ONLY serve to raise the prices on all goods which require fuel to transport, thereby not only raising the price of fuel to everyone, but also raising the cost of living across the board.
Want to reduce our dependency on foreign oil? Drill in ANWR. It is 1/10 of 1% of the reserve. Ecological effect is neglegable at best.
The pipeline actually enhanced the ecology of Alaska, much to the shegrin of the greenies out there.
Want to encourage advances in transportation fuel efficiency? Offer tax breaks to consumers who purchase the vehicles and tax breaks to companies who manufacture them, based solely on their unit sales.
Therefore, you provide and incentive to SELL and an incentice to BUY.
Confiscatory and punitive tax policy has never worked .... ever.
Also, Banshee has an exceptional point below about foreign trade imbalances. Green to you.
Don't like Wal-Mart? Stop shopping there.
Don't like foreign made products? Stop buying them.
Don't like dependence on Middle Eastern oil? Buy your gas from Sonoco. (Venezuelan)
Learn which of the oil companies purchase their oil from the ME and those who don't.
Educate yourself, rather than assuming you can tax a problem away.
Here's an in issue where individuals hold complete sway versus gov't policy.
Banshee's 1 point solution:
STOP BUYING CHINESE CRAP. LOOK AT THE LABELS AND BUY STUFF MANUFACTURED HERE!
TA DAH!
:happy_08:
LANMaster
11-23-2005, 03:51 PM
Indeed. I suppose we give far too much credit to the ability of the "masses" to choose wisely.
Typical Liberal arrogance, with all due respect.
I'm glad that John Kerry is not in charge, though I would have preferred a better Republican.
LANMaster
11-23-2005, 03:56 PM
Bush is merely a puppet for some rich people and some Jews.
:rolleyes: Yeah .... that's why Bush is the first US Pres. to push for a Palestinian State ... ever.
Atlas
11-23-2005, 10:56 PM
China would win war with U.S.: warning
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Asian allies are becoming increasingly skeptical of the U.S. military and are quietly warning the Bush administration not to enter into a military confrontation with China.
The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, Insight magazine online reported in its Nov. 21-27 issue.
Most Asian officials have expressed their views privately. However, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.
"If each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives," Ishihara told the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the exception of the Marines, were "extremely incompetent" and would be unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. He said China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and American cities -- even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation.
Ishihara said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051122-055819-6609r
The overwhelming majority of "experts" said Saddam Hussein had wmd's in Iraq and that the Iraqi army was a formidable force that would stop our conventional army with conventional and non conventional arms
"After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw."
Hmmm didn't happen in Iraq
Dubya Gump
11-23-2005, 10:57 PM
well of course i have been saying this for years so yeah big surprise...not
Military strength a key part of energy security - Chinese official
By Erik Dahl
Beijing. February 22. INTERFAX-CHINA - Strengthening China's military capability will be a key part of its efforts to improve energy security, said a government official in Beijing.
China's should focus on boosting its naval capacity in order to ensure safe shipments and defend them in the event of "terrorism, military emergency or a blockade," said Che Changbo, Deputy Director General of the Oil and Gas Strategy Research Center for the Ministry of Land and Resources.
When reliance on oil imports reaches 30%, it hits a "danger line", said Che, but China's dependency has already reached 42%. While other countries have a higher dependency rate than China, they also use better shipping routes and have the military strength to protect them.
The official, speaking at the "2006 Petroleum and Gas Transport in China" conference, offered several other suggestions to improve China's energy security.
Energy-intensive industries, such as oil refining and the petrochemical industry, needlessly increase domestic energy consumption and threaten China's energy security. They should therefore be moved overseas, he said.
"China should not export energy intensive products, which lets other countries take advantage of us," Che Changbo, Deputy Director General of Oil and Gas Strategy Research Center for the Ministry of Land and Resources, said.
The government will develop a set of policies and incentives to encourage companies to "go global" and move energy intensive processing to energy-rich countries, Che told Interfax.
The government may also place restrictions on energy imports.
China will also look at alternative transport routes that would avoid the security dangers involved with sea transportation, such as the Iran-Pakistan-China pipeline.
http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=10288&slug=MILITARY
Agence France Presse -- English
February 28, 2006 Tuesday 5:41 PM GMT
China poised to attain superpower status: US intelligence czar
WASHINGTON, Feb 28 2006
The US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, warned Tuesday that China's steady military and economic expansion may ultimately lead to Beijing attaining superpower status on a par with the United States.
"Globalization is causing a shift of momentum and energy to greater Asia, where China has steadily expanding reach and may become a peer competitor to the United States at some point," Negroponte said at a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on global security threats.
"Consistent high rates of economic growth, driven by exploding foreign trade, have increased Beijing's political influence abroad and fueled a military modernization program that has steadily increased Beijing's force projection capabilities," the US intelligence czar said.
In the foreign policy domain, China is focused for now on other Asian nations "where Beijing hopes to make economic inroads to increase political influence and to prevent a backlash against its rise," said Negroponte.
But he suggested however that China's sphere of influence likely will broaden over time.
"Beijing also has expanded diplomatic and economic interaction with other major powers, especially Russia and the European Union, and begun to increase its presence in Africa and Latin America," he said.
On the military front, Negroponte noted that China is "vigorously" pursuing a modernization program of its weapons systems.
China's runaway economic expansion is slowed however by "a number of difficult economic and legal problems," including corruption, a faulty education system, and environmental degradation.
"Beijing's biggest challenge is to sustain growth, sufficient to keep unemployment and rural discontent from rising to destabilizing levels, and to maintain increases in living standards," said Negroponte.
"Indeed, China's rise may be hobbled by systemic problems and the Communist Party's resistance to demands for political participation that economic growth generates," he said.
"Beijing's determination to repress real or perceived challenges, from dispossessed peasants to religious organizations, could lead to serious instability at home and less effective policies abroad."
At the same hearing, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, said China's military wishlist includes efforts "to expand and modernize all categories of its ballistic missile forces, to increase survivability and war-fighting capabilities, to enhance their deterrence value and to overcome ballistic missile defenses."
Michael Hayden, the deputy director of national security, said China's military buildup may exceed what is needed to protect their own security, and may be designed to build the country's image at home and overseas.
"They have this perception, there's almost a momentum in Chinese thinking, that great powers -- and they clearly want to be viewed as a great power -- great powers need certain things.
"They're not necessarily tied to a specific military event, either proposed or expected, but simply become the trappings of -- I'll use the word -- their global legitimacy.
"It's one of the most fascinating aspects in looking at Chinese actions," Hayden added
death2aq
03-02-2006, 09:25 AM
Military strength a key part of energy security - Chinese official
By Erik Dahl
Beijing. February 22. INTERFAX-CHINA - Strengthening China's military capability will be a key part of its efforts to improve energy security, said a government official in Beijing.
China's should focus on boosting its naval capacity in order to ensure safe shipments and defend them in the event of "terrorism, military emergency or a blockade," said Che Changbo, Deputy Director General of the Oil and Gas Strategy Research Center for the Ministry of Land and Resources.
When reliance on oil imports reaches 30%, it hits a "danger line", said Che, but China's dependency has already reached 42%. While other countries have a higher dependency rate than China, they also use better shipping routes and have the military strength to protect them.
The official, speaking at the "2006 Petroleum and Gas Transport in China" conference, offered several other suggestions to improve China's energy security.
Energy-intensive industries, such as oil refining and the petrochemical industry, needlessly increase domestic energy consumption and threaten China's energy security. They should therefore be moved overseas, he said.
"China should not export energy intensive products, which lets other countries take advantage of us," Che Changbo, Deputy Director General of Oil and Gas Strategy Research Center for the Ministry of Land and Resources, said.
The government will develop a set of policies and incentives to encourage companies to "go global" and move energy intensive processing to energy-rich countries, Che told Interfax.
The government may also place restrictions on energy imports.
China will also look at alternative transport routes that would avoid the security dangers involved with sea transportation, such as the Iran-Pakistan-China pipeline.
http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=10288&slug=MILITARY
I wonder what else flows through that pipeline.
I wonder what else flows through that pipeline.
Port Security Workers?
death2aq
03-02-2006, 09:26 AM
Agence France Presse -- English
February 28, 2006 Tuesday 5:41 PM GMT
China poised to attain superpower status: US intelligence czar
WASHINGTON, Feb 28 2006
The US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, warned Tuesday that China's steady military and economic expansion may ultimately lead to Beijing attaining superpower status on a par with the United States.
"Globalization is causing a shift of momentum and energy to greater Asia, where China has steadily expanding reach and may become a peer competitor to the United States at some point," Negroponte said at a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on global security threats.
"Consistent high rates of economic growth, driven by exploding foreign trade, have increased Beijing's political influence abroad and fueled a military modernization program that has steadily increased Beijing's force projection capabilities," the US intelligence czar said.
In the foreign policy domain, China is focused for now on other Asian nations "where Beijing hopes to make economic inroads to increase political influence and to prevent a backlash against its rise," said Negroponte.
But he suggested however that China's sphere of influence likely will broaden over time.
"Beijing also has expanded diplomatic and economic interaction with other major powers, especially Russia and the European Union, and begun to increase its presence in Africa and Latin America," he said.
On the military front, Negroponte noted that China is "vigorously" pursuing a modernization program of its weapons systems.
China's runaway economic expansion is slowed however by "a number of difficult economic and legal problems," including corruption, a faulty education system, and environmental degradation.
"Beijing's biggest challenge is to sustain growth, sufficient to keep unemployment and rural discontent from rising to destabilizing levels, and to maintain increases in living standards," said Negroponte.
"Indeed, China's rise may be hobbled by systemic problems and the Communist Party's resistance to demands for political participation that economic growth generates," he said.
"Beijing's determination to repress real or perceived challenges, from dispossessed peasants to religious organizations, could lead to serious instability at home and less effective policies abroad."
At the same hearing, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, said China's military wishlist includes efforts "to expand and modernize all categories of its ballistic missile forces, to increase survivability and war-fighting capabilities, to enhance their deterrence value and to overcome ballistic missile defenses."
Michael Hayden, the deputy director of national security, said China's military buildup may exceed what is needed to protect their own security, and may be designed to build the country's image at home and overseas.
"They have this perception, there's almost a momentum in Chinese thinking, that great powers -- and they clearly want to be viewed as a great power -- great powers need certain things.
"They're not necessarily tied to a specific military event, either proposed or expected, but simply become the trappings of -- I'll use the word -- their global legitimacy.
"It's one of the most fascinating aspects in looking at Chinese actions," Hayden added
Exporting goods copied from who?
death2aq
03-02-2006, 09:29 AM
Exporting goods copied from who?
I just thought of something. We Americans would do well to massively overhaul the labor unions now so that we can get back to making cheap products again. It shows that people want items at bargain prices, and they will buy counterfiet in order to get those bargains. So, we need to start a massive revolution if we are going to keep things in the United States.
I just thought of something. We Americans would do well to massively overhaul the labor unions now so that we can get back to making cheap products again. It shows that people want items at bargain prices, and they will buy counterfiet in order to get those bargains. So, we need to start a massive revolution if we are going to keep things in the United States.
Why do we need to overall the labor unions?
Do you think most factory workers are overpaid, or do you think that stockholders in these companies are overpaid?
In other words, who is more overpaid.. the American workers, or the Wall Street folks who are always pissing and moaning about how well paid the workers are?
SEVIL DOG
03-02-2006, 09:52 AM
This is old news, super power....hmmm just not yet,but your right soon maybe in 15 years. They have enough man power, funny thing I hope the world press holds them underneath the same microscope they do the USA. I know that will never happen. I remember Clinton campign was funded by China.....:happy_11:
orrery
03-02-2006, 09:57 AM
This is nothing new.. many of us have been saying this for months or years... Good to see the press starting to report on it , as well
Hear hear Bman!!!!!!! Bravo!!!!
This has been the case for decades and I'm glad to hear someone is speaking up against it!
SEVIL DOG
03-02-2006, 10:00 AM
Why do we need to overall the labor unions?
Do you think most factory workers are overpaid, or do you think that stockholders in these companies are overpaid?
In other words, who is more overpaid.. the American workers, or the Wall Street folks who are always pissing and moaning about how well paid the workers are?
I have a friend who lives in Michigan, (Detroit the most liberal city in the nation & the poorest in the nation). He put it perfectly! "In this Country people get paid to much" In other countries people get paid to little. I grew up in Michigan, but left for the Marines in 1986, came back on leave and I saw baggers striking regarding a super market chain, not enough wages....hmmm hire mexicans! My Brotheris an Engineer for a major world auto company, he had to go to an European country to help redesign the assembly line, because the company was not producing profit, that meant laying off people, heavly union people.
Hear hear Bman!!!!!!! Bravo!!!!
This has been the case for decades and I'm glad to hear someone is speaking up against it!
Thank you, sir
We need to STOP BORROWING money from the Chinese.
The Bible itself warns that the borrower will always be a slave to the lender
Why don't the US people understand that and demand accountability of our government?
We don't WANT to be slaves to the Chinese, do we?
THEN STOP BORROWING MONEY FROM THEM..
And the real kickers is that money is borrowed, so that Bush can send out checks and pat himself on the back for "cutting taxes"
Well, what kind of a tax cut is that, when you have to borrow the money for the tax cut from the Chinese????
Geez
I have a friend who lives in Michigan, (Detroit the most liberal city in the nation & the poorest in the nation). He put it perfectly! "In this Country people get paid to much" In other countries people get paid to little. I grew up in Michigan, but left for the Marines in 1986, came back on leave and I saw baggers striking regarding a super market chain, not enough wages....hmmm hire mexicans! My Brotheris an Engineer for a major world auto company, he had to go to an European country to help redesign the assembly line, because the company was not producing profit, that meant laying off people, heavly union people.
Well, perhaps people do get paid too much in America
But I'd argue its the Wall Street Investors who are making unreasonable demands of these companies, not the factory line workers
Los Angeles Times
May 24, 2006 Wednesday
Home Edition
Chinese Threat Is Expanding, Pentagon Says;
An annual report states that Beijing's military upgrades may destabilize East Asia.
Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON
A Pentagon report on Chinese military modernization issued Tuesday reveals growing American concern over China's ability not only to threaten Taiwan, but also to throw its power around throughout East Asia and confront other U.S. allies.
This year's edition of the annual report highlights apprehension among U.S. military officials that China is gearing up to confront Japan, and demands an explanation for Beijing's naval, air and missile buildup.
"They are very worried the Chinese are posturing for a maritime confrontation with Japan," said James Mulvenon, deputy director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, an independent research firm in Washington.
Although many analysts share the Bush administration's concern that the growth of the Chinese military could upset the balance of power in East Asia, they were more skeptical about the report's estimate of China's overall military spending.
The Pentagon cited a Defense Intelligence Agency estimate that put China's 2006 military spending between $70 billion and $105 billion. Independent analysts say that China clearly spends more than its official figure of $35 billion, but some, such as Mulvenon, said the actual figure was more likely to be no more than $50 billion.
Analysts also expressed doubt that China's efforts posed an immediate threat to the U.S. Navy in the Pacific.
"The Pentagon believes the Chinese modernization is designed to create a dominant position in East Asia and displace the United States," said Ted Galen Carpenter, the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. "That might be a long-term goal, but you would have to measure that in decades, not years."
Soon after it took office in 2001, the Bush administration began to question China's military upgrades. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the threat from China fell by the wayside as a leading U.S. worry. This year's report reflects the administration's renewed concern, said Carpenter, the author of the book "America's Coming War With China."
"It's a resumption of what we saw in the first months of the administration," he said. "We are seeing a return to that focus. China is the most likely strategic competitor for this country."
Congress requires the Pentagon to produce an annual assessment of China's military power. This year's 50-page document dwells much more than previous versions on China's ability to strike not just at Taiwan but also across East Asia. And the report notes that relations between China and Japan are worsening, largely over conflicts involving potential energy reserves in the East China Sea.
"The pace and scope of China's military buildup already place regional military balances at risk," the report says. "Current trends in China's military modernization could provide China with a force capable of prosecuting a range of military operations in Asia -- well beyond Taiwan -- potentially posing a credible threat to modern militaries operating in the region."
"Modern militaries," independent defense analysts say, could mean the Japanese military or U.S. Navy. The worry for American policymakers is that a more aggressive Chinese military presence could set off a destabilizing arms race in Asia.
The report cites several key expansions in Chinese military power over the last year, including an increase in the number of short-range missiles that could be used against Taiwan. The report also discusses China's acquisitions of tanker aircraft that could increase the range of its fighter planes.
"There is a much clearer focus in this year's report on China's ability to project military power in the Asia region and its ability to constrain the U.S. military in the Western Pacific," said Evan S. Medeiros, a Rand Corp. expert on China.
In some respects, this year's report is catching up with what independent experts have already written. In the past, the Pentagon has looked skeptically on reports that China intends to deploy an aircraft carrier.
This year's report offers new details on aircraft carrier developments and essentially concludes that China's intentions remain an open question, arguing that Beijing could be preparing a carrier bought from Russia as an operational vessel or, as China has asserted, a recreational casino.
Previous Pentagon reports have also been equivocal about China's intention to field missiles capable of striking ships at sea. This year's report is far clearer, stating that "one area of apparent investment" involves ballistic missiles with guidance systems that allow them to "strike surface ships on the high seas."
"This capability," the report goes on to say, "would have particular significance for regional stability, owing to the preemptive and coercive options that it would provide China's leaders."
The Pentagon's most important target audience may not be Congress. Instead, military officials may be hoping for attention from other East Asian nations. The Pentagon report reflects growing concern that other allies have not focused on the potential threat from China or the possibility of a military confrontation with Japan, Mulvenon said.
"The Pentagon is trying to press the case that Chinese modernization poses a potential threat to regional stability," he said.
Buchanan.. on the money AGAIN!
Great read
And Who Isolated Us?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted 02/02/2007 ET
"I'm concerned about protectionism, isolationism."
Those were the first words President Bush spoke as he sat down Wednesday at an editorial board meeting at The Wall Street Journal.
Reading his remarks calls forth only sadness. For neither the president nor his acolytes at the Journal appear to have learned anything from the disasters their ideas have visited upon the party and country.
Can Bush not see that the isolation of America is a result of the war he launched on a nation that, no matter how odious its regime, did not threaten us? Can he not see clearly now the idiocy of the Journal's 10-year crusade for a "MacArthur Regency" in Baghdad? Has this president learned nothing? And, if not, what does that portend for Iran?
As for protectionism, does Bush not see the link between the rise of economic nationalism in America, the rout of his party in November and the humongous trade deficits he has been running up?
When the trade figures for 2006 come in, it will be revealed that the United States ran the greatest trade deficit in history, close to $800 billion, near 7 percent of GDP. And the greatest trade deficit with any one country will be recorded -- a trade deficit with China of nearly $230 billion.
Because China fixes its currency 40 percent below where it would float in a free market, Beijing is siphoning factories, technologies and jobs out of our country at a prodigious rate. For two decades, China's annual growth has been consistent at 9-10 percent. Beijing has accumulated $1 trillion in hard currency reserves, most of it in dollar-denominated instruments.
A good slice of that trade surplus, and of the billions Beijing collects in annual interest on that share of our national debt it holds, is used to finance the greatest military buildup in Asia since Japan in the 1930s. Our "strategic partner" just sent us a message in the clear. Using a land-based ballistic missile, Beijing blasted a satellite out of the sky, 500 miles above the earth.
Does President Bush not understand the correlation between his trade policy, our sinking dollar and the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs on his watch? Economic patriotism is on the march because economic globalism is failing America.
We are being skinned alive by our trading partners. While we have eliminated tariffs, they impose value-added taxes of up to 20 percent on U.S. goods entering the country and rebate the VAT on goods they export to the United States. This system operates like a 40 percent tariff on U.S. goods. That is why we are running record trade deficits with Canada, the European Union, Japan and Free Asia.
Bush has now begun his campaign for renewal of "fast track" authority, which expires in July. Under fast track, Congress agrees to give up its constitutional right to amend trade treaties.
But to give Bush a blank check to negotiate trade treaties after his record trade deficits makes as much sense as giving him a blank check to launch another war. Some adult has got to grab the steering wheel here.
In closing, the president delivered a little disquisition on history to the editors. Reading it, one has the sinking feeling of that professor of Civil War history who, at semester's end, was asked by one of his students, "Sir, why were all the major Civil War battles fought in national parks?"
Said Bush: "Sometimes, nativism, isolationism and protectionism all run hand in hand. We've got to be careful about that in the United States. The 1920s was a period of high tariff, high tax, no immigration. And the lesson of the 20s ought to be a reminder of what is possible for future presidents."
What is President Bush talking about?
Under Harding-Coolidge and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, tariffs were indeed doubled to 38 percent, but imports were only 4 percent of GDP and most imports came in duty-free. And Wilson's wartime income tax rates were not raised, but slashed from Wilson's 72 percent to 25 percent.
When Harding took office, the unemployment rate was 12 percent. When Coolidge went home, it was 3 percent and America was producing 42 percent of the world's manufactures. Between 1922 and 1927, the economy grew at 7 percent a year, the largest peacetime growth ever. They were not called The Roaring Twenties for nothing, Mr. Bush.
As for "nativism," the immigration law of 1924 simply cut back immigration to 160,000 a year, and declared that the racial and ethnic profile of America was fine and should not be altered. Sam Gompers agreed. A. Philip Randolph wanted immigration stopped.
Thanks to that law, by the 1950s, almost all immigrants and their children had been fully assimilated and Americanized. What was wrong with that, Mr. President? Or do you and your Journal acolytes simply not like the country you grew up in?
Ronald Reagan, who loved Cal Cooldige, went to Eureka College. Bush, who thinks the Republican Era of the 1920s a disaster, was educated at Yale and Harvard. Maybe that's the problem.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=19253
brit28
02-06-2007, 10:24 AM
Buchanan.. on the money AGAIN!
Great read
And Who Isolated Us?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted 02/02/2007 ET
"I'm concerned about protectionism, isolationism."
Those were the first words President Bush spoke as he sat down Wednesday at an editorial board meeting at The Wall Street Journal.
Reading his remarks calls forth only sadness. For neither the president nor his acolytes at the Journal appear to have learned anything from the disasters their ideas have visited upon the party and country.
Can Bush not see that the isolation of America is a result of the war he launched on a nation that, no matter how odious its regime, did not threaten us? Can he not see clearly now the idiocy of the Journal's 10-year crusade for a "MacArthur Regency" in Baghdad? Has this president learned nothing? And, if not, what does that portend for Iran?
As for protectionism, does Bush not see the link between the rise of economic nationalism in America, the rout of his party in November and the humongous trade deficits he has been running up?
When the trade figures for 2006 come in, it will be revealed that the United States ran the greatest trade deficit in history, close to $800 billion, near 7 percent of GDP. And the greatest trade deficit with any one country will be recorded -- a trade deficit with China of nearly $230 billion.
Because China fixes its currency 40 percent below where it would float in a free market, Beijing is siphoning factories, technologies and jobs out of our country at a prodigious rate. For two decades, China's annual growth has been consistent at 9-10 percent. Beijing has accumulated $1 trillion in hard currency reserves, most of it in dollar-denominated instruments.
A good slice of that trade surplus, and of the billions Beijing collects in annual interest on that share of our national debt it holds, is used to finance the greatest military buildup in Asia since Japan in the 1930s. Our "strategic partner" just sent us a message in the clear. Using a land-based ballistic missile, Beijing blasted a satellite out of the sky, 500 miles above the earth.
Does President Bush not understand the correlation between his trade policy, our sinking dollar and the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs on his watch? Economic patriotism is on the march because economic globalism is failing America.
We are being skinned alive by our trading partners. While we have eliminated tariffs, they impose value-added taxes of up to 20 percent on U.S. goods entering the country and rebate the VAT on goods they export to the United States. This system operates like a 40 percent tariff on U.S. goods. That is why we are running record trade deficits with Canada, the European Union, Japan and Free Asia.
Bush has now begun his campaign for renewal of "fast track" authority, which expires in July. Under fast track, Congress agrees to give up its constitutional right to amend trade treaties.
But to give Bush a blank check to negotiate trade treaties after his record trade deficits makes as much sense as giving him a blank check to launch another war. Some adult has got to grab the steering wheel here.
In closing, the president delivered a little disquisition on history to the editors. Reading it, one has the sinking feeling of that professor of Civil War history who, at semester's end, was asked by one of his students, "Sir, why were all the major Civil War battles fought in national parks?"
Said Bush: "Sometimes, nativism, isolationism and protectionism all run hand in hand. We've got to be careful about that in the United States. The 1920s was a period of high tariff, high tax, no immigration. And the lesson of the 20s ought to be a reminder of what is possible for future presidents."
What is President Bush talking about?
Under Harding-Coolidge and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, tariffs were indeed doubled to 38 percent, but imports were only 4 percent of GDP and most imports came in duty-free. And Wilson's wartime income tax rates were not raised, but slashed from Wilson's 72 percent to 25 percent.
When Harding took office, the unemployment rate was 12 percent. When Coolidge went home, it was 3 percent and America was producing 42 percent of the world's manufactures. Between 1922 and 1927, the economy grew at 7 percent a year, the largest peacetime growth ever. They were not called The Roaring Twenties for nothing, Mr. Bush.
As for "nativism," the immigration law of 1924 simply cut back immigration to 160,000 a year, and declared that the racial and ethnic profile of America was fine and should not be altered. Sam Gompers agreed. A. Philip Randolph wanted immigration stopped.
Thanks to that law, by the 1950s, almost all immigrants and their children had been fully assimilated and Americanized. What was wrong with that, Mr. President? Or do you and your Journal acolytes simply not like the country you grew up in?
Ronald Reagan, who loved Cal Cooldige, went to Eureka College. Bush, who thinks the Republican Era of the 1920s a disaster, was educated at Yale and Harvard. Maybe that's the problem.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=19253
So what you xenophobic fuckwit???
China is going to be ALL OVER the rest of us in 20 yrs, as is India... nothing you can do, and it isnt bush's fault.... its just they fucking work harder than we do...
I for one am glad of it.
Every civilisation fails and thank fuck for the world.... our is on the way out.
So what you xenophobic fuckwit???
China is going to be ALL OVER the rest of us in 20 yrs, as is India... nothing you can do, and it isnt bush's fault.... its just they fucking work harder than we do...
I for one am glad of it.
Every civilisation fails and thank fuck for the world.... our is on the way out.
An interesting opinion that I don't share with you.
The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
January 19, 2007 Friday
All Editions
COMMENTARY - America prey to China's mercantilism
PETER MORICI
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - AMERICANS OFFER to the world a simple idea: The progress of mankind is best served by 1em-powering individuals and competition. Universal suffrage and free elections, private enterprise and free markets best promote peaceful cooperation among nations, personal liberty and dignity, and material progress for all. U.S. international economic policy is plainly revealed by advocacy for the World Trade Organization and the various trade agreements that deepen cooperation with developing countries, such as Mexico and Chile, and nations in transition from socialism, such as China and Russia.
The premise undergirding free trade is simple. Let each nation and individual specialize in what it does best and everyone prospers. More imports raise living standards by providing cheaper goods, and more exports raise productivity and create higher-paying jobs.
Increasingly, however, free trade is under attack by what former Bush administration Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and his colleagues call "populist protectionism."
In Brazil, India and China, state-directed capitalism holds sway, and these nations block progress in World Trade Organization negotiations by refusing to open their markets. U.S. workers, deprived by the rapidly rising trade deficits of opportunities to replace jobs lost to imports with better jobs in export industries, wonder where the promise of free trade has gone. They lobby Congress to slow globalization.
To counter populist protectionism in Latin America and at home, Mr. Zoellick suggests deepening commercial integration with the 12 nations with which the United States has negotiated free-trade agreements through an Association of American Free Trade Agreements (AAFTA). Such an institution could extend free trade to such nonparticipating countries as Brazil, reinforce cooperation on immigration, labor rights and the environment, and assist businesses in building out markets on a hemispheric scale.
But what Mr. Zoellick and the trade-policy establishment fail to understand is that free trade is under attack because the U.S. government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has failed to make free-trade agreements work as they should. Most significantly, the United States and the European Union substantially opened their markets by admitting China to the WTO.
Now, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and others have concluded that China subsidizes exports by maintaining an artificially undervalued yuan. More broadly, China engages in a myriad of industrial policies that promote exports, block imports and create huge trade surpluses. Instead of standing up to China, the Bush administration has engaged in endless diplomacy bordering on appeasement.
[B]Observing that China's growth is surging at better than 10 percent annually while its inflation remains contained at less than 2 percent, other developing countries are attracted to China's brand of state-managed capitalism. China's authoritarian rule, coupled with its growing and prosperous working class, throws cold water on the American thesis that democracy and free markets are the best prescription for raising millions beset by poverty in the developing world.
But China is succeeding because Washington lets Americans fall prey to its mercantilism. U.S. workers displaced by imports from China are not finding good paying jobs making exports to be sold in the Middle Kingdom, because Washington tolerates China's mercantilism. Instead, these workers are forced into low-paying service-industry jobs, where health insurance and other fringe benefits are scarce. Top corporate managers, investment bankers and other professionals, who engineer and arrange financing for outsourcing, enjoy rapidly rising incomes, but many ordinary working Americans are poorer for the game.
For the moment, Americans live beyond their means by borrowing from the Chinese and other foreigners, but that debt grows by more than $50 billion each month and has reached $6 trillion. The United States doesn't need more trade agreements; it needs to make the ones it has work better. Americans who embrace that position are not populist protectionists; rather they want something done about malignant Chinese protectionism.
Mr. Zoellick and his colleagues, by tarring those who disagree with them as protectionist, display an arrogant disregard for their ideas and integrity, and a disturbing neglect for the conditions of ordinary working people whose lives have been degraded by the trade agreements gone awry. An AAFTA and a free-trade agreement with a country like Brazil would plague American workers with another China. Bent on exporting, without importing, Brazil would deprive even more American workers of well-paying jobs without offering them prospects for rewarding employment through equally increased exports.
Before Mr. Zoellick and his colleagues propose any more trade agreements, they should suggest a strategy to get China and others to live up to their commitments under the trade agreements we already have.
Peter Morici, an occasonal contributor, is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission (pmorici@rhsmith.umd.edu*).
bigearth
02-09-2007, 12:50 PM
beats me why our governments are allowing chinese "businesses" to buy up our companies and assets?
why don't we just say "you ain't buying shit, until you are a free society"?
it's like letting adolf hitler build up a nice property portfolio amongst us, whilst operating the gas lever with the other hand?
it's wrong.
beats me why our governments are allowing chinese "businesses" to buy up our companies and assets?
why don't we just say "you ain't buying shit, until you are a free society"?
it's like letting adolf hitler build up a nice property portfolio amongst us, whilst operating the gas lever with the other hand?
it's wrong.
Because of our current accounts deficit, we have no choice but to sell our assets to foreigners, borrow money from foreigners, or print more of our own, to fund the deficit.
Those are the only choices we have.
Until we address the unfair trade policies that have contributed most to the current accounts deficit, this situation will continue
Hence, the title of this thread.
US trade gap surges to new high
13/02/2007 16:51
Washington - The US trade deficit surged to a record $763.6bn in 2006 owing to new highs for oil prices and the country's commercial shortfall with China, the government said Tuesday.
The commerce department said the December gap alone was $61.2bn, up from $58.1bn in November and higher than the Wall Street forecast of $59.5bn. It was the highest monthly total since September's $64.4bn.
The annual figure was up from $716.7bn in 2005, registering the fifth consecutive year of a record as oil prices struck new highs above $78 in mid-2006.
Still, the rise in the annual deficit was only 6.5%, an improvement over the double-digit gains of the four previous years.
Exports rose 12.8% last year to $1.438 trillion while imports grew 10.5% to $2.201 trillion.
One of the few bright spots in last year's trade picture was services, which registered their highest surplus since 2000 at $72.5bn.
The US deficit with China grew to a new high of $232.5bn in 2006, up from $201.5bn the year before.
That could accentuate political protests against the US administration, which is trying to persuade China to move on trade disputes such as its currency exchange rate and market access for American goods.
The annual US deficit with Japan also hit a new high at $88.4bn, up 7.2%, which in turn is likely to intensify criticism among US lawmakers about the yen's weakness against the dollar.
But against the European Union, the US deficit fell 4.7% to $116.6bn over a year that saw the euro strengthen sharply against the dollar.
And with Canada, the US trade gap fell 7.2% to $72.8bn
http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/print_article.asp?articleid=1518-1783_2068725
Donpeyote
02-13-2007, 12:07 PM
wITHIN 15-20 YEARS (we will be buying our Warships and Aircraft carriers from them) but until then we are the Worlds only Superpower !:happy_12:
bigearth
02-13-2007, 12:29 PM
Because of our current accounts deficit, we have no choice but to sell our assets to foreigners, borrow money from foreigners, or print more of our own, to fund the deficit.
Those are the only choices we have.
Until we address the unfair trade policies that have contributed most to the current accounts deficit, this situation will continue
Hence, the title of this thread.
roger that, i'll take your word for it.
i'm no economist...but i think america shouldn't have it's debt with china.
why don't you let us nice, friendly europeans do it?!
how much is it, btw?
bigearth
02-13-2007, 12:30 PM
wITHIN 15-20 YEARS (we will be buying our Warships and Aircraft carriers from them) but until then we are the Worlds only Superpower !:happy_12:
that's a worrying thought...(erm, the first bit, not the second!)
So what you xenophobic fuckwit???
China is going to be ALL OVER the rest of us in 20 yrs, as is India... nothing you can do, and it isnt bush's fault.... its just they fucking work harder than we do...
I for one am glad of it.
Every civilisation fails and thank fuck for the world.... our is on the way out.
Self-loathing piece of shit...
My God, where does one find such notions that they deserve to fail as a people?
roger that, i'll take your word for it.
i'm no economist...but i think america shouldn't have it's debt with china.
why don't you let us nice, friendly europeans do it?!
how much is it, btw?
There are two different numbers that people often confuse
The first is the current accounts deficit... Think of this as your "year to year" cash flow. To sum it up, if you spend more money than you take in, you have to borrow money from someone.
That's what the US has been doing for 20 some years. This isn't JUST the government, although the government's borrowing is a part of the equation. This number is a sum of the entire country's cash flow. When your expenditures exceed your income, you have three choices to make up for the shortfall:
1. borrow money to make up the difference.
2. Sell some assets to raise money to make up the difference, or
3 (unique to governments). Print more money to make up the difference
In the US we use all three methods to make up for our cash flow imbalance. We borrow money from abroad (especially the government), we SELL ASSETS (especially stocks and real estate) to foreigners, and we of course print more money (devaluing our money and putting an upward force on inflation).
When you ask "how much" do we owe, I assume you're asking how much as a nation we owe to foreigners.
The sum total of a nation's public and private debt, owed to foreigners is called the EXTERNAL DEBT
The current US EXTERNAL DEBT is $10 TRILLION DOLLARS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
Of course people in the US hold foreign debt as well.. We hold something like 7.5 Trillion of their debt.
When you ask, why doesn't the US borrow more money from Europe, the answer is simple.
You've got your own current account problems and some of your nations are debtor nations as well. In short.. you don't have enough money to lend us, although there are some big lenders to the US in Europe. I believe Germany is one such nation (I'll check that)
Bottom line, though.. only the Japanese and Chinese have enough surplus cash to significantly fund the US insatiable appetitie for debt.
bigearth
02-13-2007, 07:50 PM
thx for the good explanation...:)
i guess with america holding around $7tr of foreign debt, that leaves 'only' $3tr?
that's not so bad?
(yes germans do have a lot of money)
Bman, what are the first steps to correct this? In your opinion?
involved
02-13-2007, 07:59 PM
Every civilisation fails and thank fuck for the world.... our is on the way out.
Eternal optimist.
Bman, what are the first steps to correct this? In your opinion?
I believe a FAIR TRADE tariff policy would be effective. This was actually proposed by Upstate NY businessman Jack Davis, who ran as a Democrat in my district in November against embattled Tom Reynolds... Reynolds did squeak out a victory and I was pretty bummed about that.. Davis is like an old style conservative, actually.
Anyway, Davis came up with the Fair Trade policy.. His website is still up
http://www.jackdavis.org/new/
I'd suggest you take a look at some of his articles on his website.. he's outstanding in my opinion.
Basically his Fair Trade idea in a nutshell is this.. If a country has a trade imbalance with the US, they have to pay a tariff.. .the bigger the trade deficit, the bigger the tariff..
For a country like China with a huge trade surplus with the US, the tariff would be high.. For countries that import as much from us as we do from them, the tariff would be zero... it would be linked to the size of the trade imbalance.
NORMALLY this sort of thing would be "corrected" by a free market through currency exchange.. One country's currency would appreciate due to its surpluses while the other's declined.. .that would help to close the trade gap because the weaker currency (of the nation with the big deficit) would make their goods cheaper and the nation with the strong currency's products would get more and more expensive. Eventually trade would even out.
This isn't the case with China, however as they refuse to allow their currency to fluctuate in the marketplace. Its a "fixed" exchange rate, which they keep artificially low to ensure that their goods remain among the cheapest in the world.. that boosts their exports and discourages Chinese citizens from buying imports.
Because of this, the Free Trade Tariff would be used, to correct the situation
Here's Davis's explanation:
Balanced Trade - Not Free Trade
by Jack Davis, Chairman
Save American Jobs Association
Balanced trade described in simple terms is, if a country desires to sell products to the United States, they are required to buy an equal dollar amount of products or services from the United States...
For a nation to be strong it must grow, dig, or manufacture a product.
America has become a nation of consumers of foreign products.
Because of this, America has suffered a serious loss of jobs, farms and industries.
Free trade agreements, NAFTA and WTO are destroying America.
There have been 20 years of continuous trade deficits. The trade deficit is now 3.8 trillion dollars. Last year's deficit was 435 billion dollars and increasing.
The federal budget deficit is 7 trillion dollars, a new record and increasing.
The promised outlays for social security and medicare benefits is 51 trillion dollars. Medicare will be bankrupt by 2019 and social security bankrupt by 2042.
There are 15 million unemployed Americans and a huge number of underemployed. Payroll jobs are down to 130.4 million - the lowest in four years.
If you operate a machine or sit at a desk, your job is not safe.
Any person that believes free trade is good for Americans still believes in the tooth fairy.
America needs Balanced Trade. Balanced trade described in simple terms is, if a country desires to sell products to the United States, they are required to buy an equal dollar amount of products or services from the United States.
The United States cannot force another country to do something they don't want to do (example: Iraq).
Historically, the proven method of controlling imports is with tariffs.
To obtain this balance, the United States will charge a balancing tariff (tax) on imported products. The tariff percentage amounts are variable and will be increased in five-percent increments until the trade balance is obtained.
If the United States exports more dollars in trade than it imports from a specific country, the tariff will be reduced until the trade balance is obtained or the tariff is zero.
The ideal Balanced Trade is equal trade with zero tariffs.
Since Red China has the greatest imbalance of trade, 124 billion dollars in 2003, we should apply a ten-percent balancing tariff on their total value of exports. In 2003 this was 152.4 billion dollars.
If ten percent were not sufficient, it would be increased to 15 percent then 20 percent and increased until the balance of trade is obtained. A tariff of 20 percent would provide the U.S. government with 30.5 billion dollars in 2003.
America imported products and services valued at 1.259 trillion dollars in 2003. This produced a trade deficit of 535 billion dollars. A ten-percent tariff on this would have provided the government with 126 billion dollars.
Select your favorite government program; Drugs for the Needy, Education, Social Security, Medicare, National Defense, Reducing the National Debt or Reducing Income Taxes, etc. Here are the funds.
If American purchasers choose not to buy Chinese products at the higher prices, good. BUY AMERICAN. This will put the American factories and their employees back to work.
The tax revenue to the government will also increase because American workers and American companies who manufacture the product have paid income taxes, social security taxes and medicare taxes.
Just placing the duty on Red Chinese products will send a strong message to all the other nations: You will be next. America is serious about balanced trade. Start buying American products.
Owners and managers of United States factories will see the prospects of growth and profits. They will begin hiring and investing in plants and equipment.
Then all Americans will prosper.
http://www.jackdavis.org/new/speeches/balanced.asp
Here's an in issue where individuals hold complete sway versus gov't policy.
Banshee's 1 point solution:
STOP BUYING CHINESE CRAP. LOOK AT THE LABELS AND BUY STUFF MANUFACTURED HERE!
TA DAH!
:happy_08:
Wouldnt it be nice if people would do that. Im just waiting for the day they bring in a $4,000 Chinese car that goes and puts the final nail in the coffin for American cars.
Simon666
02-14-2007, 03:16 AM
Wouldnt it be nice if people would do that. Im just waiting for the day they bring in a $4,000 Chinese car that goes and puts the final nail in the coffin for American cars.
It won't put the final nail in the coffin for American cars, but:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/18/xin_40120118003318806521.jpg
Chery QQ, costs about 4000 $ in China.
http://www.rodavante.com/Admin/Images/clients/rv/raccar/matiz.jpg
Chevrolet Matiz.
"Intellectual property" is still a concept without translation in Chinese.
It won't put the final nail in the coffin for American cars, but:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/18/xin_40120118003318806521.jpg
Chery QQ, costs about 4000 $ in China.
http://www.rodavante.com/Admin/Images/clients/rv/raccar/matiz.jpg
Chevrolet Matiz.
"Intellectual property" is still a concept without translation in Chinese.
The Chery is coming to America...
The International Herald Tribune
July 5, 2007 Thursday
Chrysler to sell compact from China;
MARKETPLACE by Bloomberg
Tian Ying and Jeff Green - Bloomberg News
BEIJING
Chrysler Group will introduce a Chinese-made small car in the United States next year that could sell for about half the price of its least expensive model, executives said Wednesday.
The carmaker will begin selling the Chery Automobile A1 hatchback in the first quarter of 2008, said the president of Chery, Yin Tongyao. The A1, with a 1.3-liter engine, starts at 53,800 yuan, or $7,100, in China. The least expensive Chrysler model in the United States is the $13,850 Dodge Caliber. Yin did not say how much the A1 would cost in the United States.
Chrysler, set to be the first U.S. automaker to import cars from China, also plans to close a plant at home after reporting a loss last year and slipping to fourth place in U.S. sales. Working with Chery will allow the company to add models able to compete with the Toyota Yaris with less investment.
''It can be very unprofitable to develop new small-car platforms on your own,'' said Rebecca Lindland, a forecaster for Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Chrysler plans to sell current and future Chery models worldwide. The U.S. automaker aims to begin selling Chery-made vehicles under its Dodge brand in Latin America and Eastern Europe by the end of the year, said the Chrysler chief executive, Tom LaSorda.
The least expensive car listed on the U.S. price comparison Web site cars.com is the Chevrolet Aveo from General Motors. The 2007 model costs between $9,995 and $13,925, according to the GM Web site.
Asian carmakers won a record U.S. market share of 42.7 percent last month as higher fuel prices and rising environmental concerns spurred demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.
On Tuesday, Chrysler reported a 1.4 percent decline in U.S. sales in June, while Toyota gained 10 percent and Honda 11 percent.
Chrysler plans to introduce 32 models from 2006 to 2010, an increase from 21 between 2000 and 2004, though five-year product is to fall from $41.9 billion to about $30 billion for the same periods.
''As part of Chrysler's global transformation, we are finding new ways to bring vehicles to market - faster, more efficiently, with less costs and the same high quality standards,'' LaSorda said. ''I have no concerns'' about the safety of Chery vehicles, he added.
The company will decide on any possible equity cooperation with Chery in the future, LaSorda said.
Chery plans to increase sales 29 percent this year following a 60 percent increase last year, it said in January. The company sold about 305,000 vehicles, including 50,000 abroad, in 2006.
In the first five months of this year, the Chinese automaker had a 4.8 percent share of its home vehicle market, the world's second-largest behind the United States.
Chinese automakers have begun to seek overseas sales as increasing competition at home crimps profits.
Vehicle exports from China rose 80 percent from a year earlier to 47,000 in May. Last year, the tally almost doubled to 342,400, according to the customs bureau.
bigearth
07-06-2007, 09:49 AM
thing is, it was a dihatsu originally...chevvy just stuck their badge on it...;)
maybe we need a new system of displaying information on labels so that consumers can make informed decisions?
TARGET IRAN
US sanctions send Iran into Asia's arms
By China Hand
From a Western-centric point of view, the United States and its allies are pushing Iran into a corner in its efforts to rein in what Washington considers Iran's move towards becoming a nuclear power. A broader perspective would indicate that we might simply be driving Iran into the arms of Asia.
On March 24, Iran's official media reported that Iran will apply for full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), headed by China and Russia and containing a fistful of continental Asian states.
Connoisseurs of irony will find fodder in Iran's reported appreciation of the SCO's goals of "anti-terror, anti-extremism, and anti-splittism" as well as its discovery of the deep cultural affinity between Iran and Asia. But consider this:
The two largest customers for Iranian oil are China and Japan.
China has surpassed Germany as Iran’s biggest trading partner.
The main market for Iran's gasoline purchases has switched to Singapore.
The main investors in Iran's energy industry - led by China - are all Asian.
In a development that may involve substance as well as symbolism, China will host the next round of G5+1 (UN Security Council members plus Germany) talks in Shanghai on April 16 concerning Iran's nuclear program. China's Assistant Foreign Minister for the region, Zhai Jun, visited Tehran on April 9, presumably to give the Iranian government a heads up on China’s position going into the G5+1 conference.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki took the opportunity of Zhai's visit to lobby for "an Asian union" including Iran and China, presumably a step even beyond membership in the SCO.
If Iran's state media is reporting Zhai's remarks correctly, China is not spurning Iran's advances: Zhai said that China is prepared to cooperate with Iran in the area of key industries such as oil and gas. "Iran’s growth of power in the region and the international arena is to Beijing's interest," he stated.
Iran’s rediscovery of its Asian side - and its turn away from Europe, which has long served as a focus of Iranian aspirations, economics, and diplomacy - is the most important and perhaps least expected consequence of the network of national financial sanctions that the Bush administration has labored to pile atop the toothless UN sanctions against Iran.
American efforts to isolate Iran through the international financial system provide an object lesson in the iron law of unintended consequences. Instead of briskly destroying the Iranian Death Star with the help of the US coalition of the willing, the Americans appear to be engaged in global whack-a-mole, with a continuously expanding supply of holes and moles, and Uncle Sam demanding more and bigger hammers so he can win the game.
The United States has devoted immense efforts over the past two years to achieve international adoption of what is essentially a US national sanction regime that goes beyond the global consensus reflected in the UN Security Council resolutions. The results have been, at best, mixed.
In its last year in office, the George W Bush administration has apparently embarked on a risky path to escalate its way out of the difficulties, contradictions, ambiguities - and perceived ineffectiveness that dog its Iran sanctions policy. As the US is well aware, the sanctions chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Aside from the United States, Israel, the UK, and France, it has weak links all the way across. One of the weakest links is, of course, China.
China is a major trade and energy partner of Iran, and has labored consistently to limit and dilute UN Security Council sanctions against Iran for its uranium-enrichment related activities. As a result, to US frustration, Security Council sanctions remain highly targeted, directly addressing individuals and organizations involved in enrichment activity, and specifically preclude military action.
There were attempts in the Western press to present the latest Security Council vote (14-0 with Indonesia abstaining) as a sign of united world resolve to pressure the Iranians for refusing to give the IAEA the answers it wants about its allegedly abandoned weapons program, or suspend uranium enrichment. However, the Chinese quickly went on the record to counter the Western interpretation with its own.
Courtesy of Xinhua, here’s what Chinese-language coverage had to say (translations by China Matters):
The resolution emphasized diplomatic efforts, resumed dialogue and negotiations with Iran ... balance between sanctions and encouragement of negotiations.
There are strict limits on targets of sanctions ... sanctions are "reversible", temporarily or even permanently if Iran takes positive steps to implement the Security Council resolution.
Different countries have different interpretations of the resolution ... roots [of deadlock] are in the severe lack of mutual trust between the United States and Iran. If this problem is not resolved, then there will be no breakthrough on the Iran nuclear question.
In other words, there is no support for meaningful international sanctions that would pressure the Iran regime.
Call for vigiliance
In the wake of this less than decisive outcome at the United Nations, the US Treasury Department, exploiting a generalized call in the resolution for "vigilance" regarding financial dealings with Iran, announced a broadening of national measures against Iran on March 20.
From the Financial Times: "The [US] Treasury department has issued a warning of the risks of doing business with 51 state-owned and seven privately held Iranian banks - in effect the whole of Iran’s banking sector. The list includes institutions specializing in export financing and foreign investment, as well as Iranian state-owned banks located as far away as Venezuela, Hong Kong and the UK."
The prospect of the United States implicating the entire Iranian banking sector as an accessory in terrorist financing and proliferation, thereby cutting it off from the Western financial system, is a source of real anxiety for Iran.
However, the looming US sanction also looks like an attempt to deal with the unintended consequences of its financial campaign against Iran: Iran’s abandonment of the dollar and total disconnection from the US financial system in Iran’s economy, coupled with the wholesale shift of Iranian trade and finance away from the United States, first to Europe and now to Asia.
The Asian trend is symbolized by the announcement of Iran’s oil minister this January that, following successful negotiations with customers in China and Japan, the entirety of Iran’s energy sales - over $50 billion per annum - are now conducted in euros and Japanese yen, and none in US dollars.
Sometimes it looks as if the United States, and not Iran, is getting boxed into a corner. America’s difficulties can best be illustrated by looking at the intertwined cases of Germany and China. Depending on how you look at it, Germany is either the keystone - or the weakest link - of the US campaign to isolate Iran, insofar as maintaining a European united front against Tehran is concerned.
Here’s how Der Spiegel reported the situation in July 2007: "But the US government is no longer content with United Nations economic sanctions on Tehran - Washington wants more ... American officials are irked that German companies are still doing business worth billions with Tehran. In particular, Washington has little understanding for the export guarantees Berlin still offers firms, effectively helping the mullah regime to buy new ships and power plant technologies.
"[The Treasury Department’s Deputy Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey] demanded Germany cut its so-called Hermes export credit insurance coverage when it came to deals with Iran ... Levey told the officials that Washington wanted Germany to scale back all of its other economic ties with Iran as quickly as possible.
"But Levey ran into resistance from the Germans, who said his demands were understandable coming from a country that has no trade with Iran. Germany, however, exports more than 4 billion euros (US$5.45 billion) in goods to the country each year, creating thousands of jobs ... Besides, explained the Germans, the Hermes cover has been excluded from UN sanctions against Iran. In short, Levey could forget his request - Germany would stick to the UN resolutions, but would do no more.
"The United States did not take no for an answer. The US was also not shy about going around the [Angela] Merkel government to go directly to Germany’s financial institutions and lean on them to follow US policy regardless of what their government’s official position was - something the Merkel government most certainly resented."
Again from Der Spiegel: "And Levey hasn’t just been knocking on the doors of government ministries while in Europe - he’s also been visiting the continent’s captains of industry. While in Germany he went to the country’s financial center, Frankfurt, to try to persuade the bankers there not to do business with Iran. German financial institutions feel the United States government has been engaging in 'downright blackmail', according to one banker. Anti-terror officials from the US Treasury are constantly showing up to demand they cut their traditionally good relations with Iran. The underlying threat from the men from Washington is that they wouldn’t want to support terrorism, would they?
"But there are no plans to stop financing German exports to Iran. 'Of course our member institutions respect all sanctions set out in the UN resolutions,' says a spokesman for the Association of German Banks. However, that didn’t stop Deutsche Bank, along with German industrial heavyweights BASF and Siemens, from being put on a list by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for having contacts with Iran."
Business continues
German attitudes toward the sanction regime are clear from another Spiegel article:
[T]he economics department of the German Foreign Ministry has collected revealing data which [German Foreign Minister] Steinmeier will use to back up his argument against EU sanctions. Several French companies in the automobile, energy and financial sectors - including Peugeot, Renault, Total, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale - have hardly reduced the level of business they do with Iran, according to the Foreign Ministry data. German exports to Iran, in contrast, have dramatically declined.
Even more explosive is the data that reveals US hypocrisy over sanctions. The German Foreign Ministry accuses American firms of bypassing the boycott against Iran, which has been in place since 1979, by creating front companies in Dubai to carry out their business. German politicians have long internally accused the United States of knowingly tolerating the practice. Microsoft software is present in Iran, as is Caterpillar heavy equipment. And it's difficult to overlook the presence of brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola in Tehran.
Despite this attitude, German defiance did not survive the summer. In November 2007, Siemens announced it would sign no new contracts with Iran (while executing its existing agreements).
German banks took concrete actions to limit trade with Iran in Fall 2007 to cut back, as this report from a Chinese exporter message board indicates:
I have checked with Commerzbank AG and Dresdner Bank AG and it seems to be true that by order of their board of directors from the beginning of October 2007 only welfare operations would be supported by them and not even usual commercial businesses like deliveries of garments would be done.
The German government continued to wind down its Hermes export credit program. According to the February 28 International
Herald Tribune, the consequences of German participation, no matter how grudging, in US-led pressure on Iran on Germany’s bottom line was unmistakable: "German exports to Iran have dropped drastically in the past two years amid increasing concern over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, according to a new report from the German Economy Ministry."
The report shows a drop in German exports to 3.2 billion euros in 2007 from 4.3 billion euros in 2005. Meanwhile, government guarantees that exporters will be paid for their goods sold to Iran have more than halved, to 503.4 million euros in 2007 from 1.16 billion euros in 2006. No doubt an occasion for triumphant high-fives at the US Treasury Department. The mood in Germany, however, was assuredly less joyful.
The Summer 2007 Der Spiegel article pointed out: "Were Germany to end its Hermes export guarantees, German locomotives might no longer be delivered to Iran, but Chinese and Russian companies would gladly step into the breach. The Americans would end up gaining nothing, while the German economy would stand to lose a lot."
Over in Asia, China was undoubtedly pleased to see Germany surrender the Iranian market under US duress. Chinese exports to Iran have skyrocketed at exactly the same time that Germany’s sagged. China has displaced Germany as Iran’s biggest trading partner, with trade of about $20 billion, not including the significant sanction-evading trade through Dubai (many, many billions more).
In a development that Germany undoubtedly noted, on March 26, two weeks after Tehran announced it was making a 90 million euros progress payment toward a 2006 contract it signed with Siemens for 150 locomotives, Tehran Urban & Suburban Railway Co signed a new 360 million euros contract with China Northern Locomotive & Rolling Stock Industry Group for 455 metro cars and 160 double-deck coaches. Another 455 coaches are under tender.
Trends like these create new problems and responsibilities for the United States. Now the onus is on the Bush administration to show Berlin that it is able to live up to its self-elected role of global sanctions cop, and prevent others from profiting by Germany’s participation in the network of national, US-led sanctions against Iran.
Invitation to China
The sanctions regime certainly won’t flourish if the Europeans see it as nothing more than an invitation for China to eat their lunch. Treasury Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt acknowledged the issue in October 2007: "We hear from the business community that it's a concern of theirs - to act responsibly, only to see someone else act irresponsibly," Kimmitt said in Brussels after talks with four EU commissioners. "The Russians and Chinese have been signatories to each of the UN Security Council resolutions and I would think, whether it be in the financial sector or other sectors, someone else stepping in would be very inappropriate and very counter to what the Security Council has called on the world community to do."
The trouble has always been, of course, that China and Russia have always insisted on following the UN sanctions to the letter and no further - heeding annexes listing a few dozen companies and individuals and hundreds of items of equipment and materials - but declining to endorse the open-ended statement of principles and broad call to action that the US is trying to read into the resolutions.
The headline of a June 2007 report in the Wall Street Journal - which noted a 70% surge in Chinese exports to Iran over the previous year - says it all: "China-Iran Trade Surge Vexes US"
What to do?
More specifically - and awkwardly - how could the United States extend its reach beyond its own borders and perform the apparently sovereignty-affronting task of interfering in Iran's third-country trade with China without the legal cover of UN Security Council sanctions?
Beyond pressure on allied governments to restrict their export credit facilities to Iran, apparently, the solution chosen by the Treasury Department was to attack Iran’s ability to use the most common financial instrument in international trade - the Letter of Credit or LC - in its import and export dealings with China and other business partners.
The Letter of Credit system relies on a network of cross-border banking relationships that offer payment guarantees and financing to importers and exporters. To a significant extent, the LC is the underpinning of the Asian export miracle since the 1950s and, until recently, it was the backbone of billions of dollars of non-oil trade between China and Iran. The United States has labored mightily to disrupt this system as far as Iran and Asia are concerned and create the risk that both Iranian and export-country banks would be unable to meet their payment obligations because of US harassment.
Typically, a bank will have ties with fewer than 100 international banks - and the names are published in a directory that no doubt saved the officers at Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence a good amount of heavy lifting. Since dollar-denominated Letters of Credit largely clear through New York, the Treasury Department was able to convince Iran’s correspondent banks worldwide that handling an Iranian LC made them liable to penalties for violation of US national sanctions.
The US government has in the past imposed sizable penalties for violation of US sanctions - ABN-Amro was hit with an $80 million fine in 2005 - so the risk was genuine and significant. The US also made it clear that U-turn transactions - by which intermediary banks in third countries could strip out references to Iran in dollar-denominated LCs - would be grounds for enforcement actions.
The compliance departments of international banks - responsible for controlling the risk when the bank puts its own assets and reputation on the line in an LC transaction - inserted boilerplate clauses in their LC undertakings not to pay or process Iran-related credits.
On the supply side, Stuart Levey and the US Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI) jawboned the Chinese government and, in a reprise of the German end-around, also bypassed the Chinese government to pressure Chinese banks directly with the threat of legal proceedings against their US operations if they were caught handling Iranian LCs.
The result was a significant dent in LC-based business between China and Iran as many Chinese banks reportedly decided the risk of US penalties outweighed the benefits of handling Iranian LCs.
Iran sent five delegations to China to try to achieve a workout - and even proposed establishment of a China-Iran bank that would presumably clear all transactions internally without going through New York - but the Chinese demurred. China’s attitude toward the US sanctions campaign against Iran could be characterized as one of grudging outward compliance combined with energetic evasion.
The lesson of Iran sanctions appears to be Trade Will Find a Way - to China - and, if not directly to China, then through Dubai.
The Financial Times reported: "Chinese banks have become very nervous and are reluctant to deal with Iran directly," said a second businessman. "They prefer to work with Iranians who import goods to Iran through Dubai to pretend they export goods to UAE rather than Iran."
Chinese exporter message boards for the last three years make interesting reading. One finds detailed and impassioned accounts of Chinese exporters - and their equally anxious Iranian customers - laboring to work around sanctions, embargoes, and blocked LCs, and deal with the problem of Iranian banks that want to pay them but are unable to move US dollars.
Advice on the message boards was virtually unanimous. Go Dubai. Go euro. And go T/T.
Go Dubai, as in route Iran business through the Middle East entrepot located across the Straits of Hormuz in the United Arab Emirates.
In response to the US sanctions against Iran, there has been a rush of thousands of Iranian businesses and hundreds of billions of dollars of Iranian capital to incorporate in Dubai, which plays the role of free-wheeling Hong Kong to Iran’s socialist PRC, and transact Iran’s business under UAE cover through the banks there.
Next: Dubai's role in Iran trade
China Hand is the author of the Asian affairs website China Matters.
(Republished with permission from Japan Focus)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JD11Ak01.html
Mars S
04-11-2008, 04:23 PM
So, let me get this straight. Bush is causing China to become a world power.
And their multi-billion population with a vast number (a multiple of our entire work force) of technologically adept citizens has NOTHING to do with it?
Thats crazy talk.
So, let me get this straight. Bush is causing China to become a world power.
And their multi-billion population with a vast number (a multiple of our entire work force) of technologically adept citizens has NOTHING to do with it?
Thats crazy talk.
I'm not sure anyone is saying that China has NOTHING to do with it
I"m pretty sure the gist of the thread was that Bush's policies are accelerating China's rise to power.. to become the world's new superpower.
Which you may, or my not view as a good thing.
There's a school of thought that most Americas would view the rise of a communist government to becoming a world superpower as a bad thing. Many people are old enough to remember the Cold War and wish to avoid a repeat of it
In that context, one must express dismay that the polices of the US government seem designed to accelerate that rise to power, rather than to retard and delay it
Mars S
04-13-2008, 09:00 AM
I'm not sure anyone is saying that China has NOTHING to do with it
I"m pretty sure the gist of the thread was that Bush's policies are accelerating China's rise to power.. to become the world's new superpower.
Which you may, or my not view as a good thing.
There's a school of thought that most Americas would view the rise of a communist government to becoming a world superpower as a bad thing. Many people are old enough to remember the Cold War and wish to avoid a repeat of it
In that context, one must express dismay that the polices of the US government seem designed to accelerate that rise to power, rather than to retard and delay it
One "may" express dismay, but why? IF Bush's policies are contributing to the acceleration of the growth, thats NOT a bad thing since it translates into increased trade. It also forces China to accomodate other nation's interests and concerns. It ultimately must cause them to become more democratic if not free market oriented.
One "may" express dismay, but why? IF Bush's policies are contributing to the acceleration of the growth, thats NOT a bad thing since it translates into increased trade. It also forces China to accomodate other nation's interests and concerns. It ultimately must cause them to become more democratic if not free market oriented.
I disagree on all counts.
End of US era - now China calls the tune
October 13, 2008
The world order is changing, because China is propping up the US.
SO THE Group of Seven leaders have vowed to "take all necessary steps" to stop the world's financial immolation. That's good news. But first they are doing whatever is necessary to secure for themselves what is left of their toasted assets.
Last week Gordon Brown's priority was to use money laundering and terrorism laws to seize the British vaults of a bankrupt Icelandic bank. He says he will seize more Icelandic assets "wherever is necessary" to secure £20 billion ($52 billion) invested by Britons and British local governments.
International insolvency practitioners call it ring fencing - where rich countries, usually the United States, can lock down their borders to seize assets and jump in front of equally entitled but less muscular international creditors. That is why the US will get the lion's share of the leftovers of bankrupt investment banks like Lehmans.
But Iceland and Lehmans are sideshows in the new world of international financial cooperation and brinkmanship. The match-up that matters is between the mother of all debtors, the United States Government, and its primary financier, the Chinese Government.
By now China has accumulated more than $US2 trillion ($3 trillion) in foreign exchange reserves. The holdings are not transparent. Australian officials, for example, have no idea how much Australian currency is held by China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
But experts in both China and the US estimate that 70 per cent of China's foreign assets are held in the form of loans to the US Government and its agencies. That means America's official debt to the Chinese Government is worth 10 per cent of America's GDP, 40 per cent of China's GDP and more than twice as much as the combined value of all of the companies on the Australian Stock Exchange.
To understand both the raw power and vulnerability of China's international balance sheet you only need to look carefully at the demise and partial rescue of the US government agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Freddie and Fannie own or guarantee almost half of all American mortgages. To pay for these toxic loans that fuelled the US housing bubble they issued $US5 trillion in "agency" bonds.
In recent years it has been foreign governments that have footed the bill, accumulating about $US1 trillion of Fannie and Freddie agency bonds, according to Brad Setser, the sovereign wealth guru at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He estimates China alone holds between $US500 billion and $US600 billion.
Foreign governments, especially China, became even more important in funding bad US mortgages after the private sector financial system began to seize up a year ago.
But by July even they had taken fright. US Treasury data shows foreigners - read foreign central banks - bought $US34.3 billion of US Treasury bonds in the month but sold $US57.7 billion of agency bonds. China was selling Freddie and Fannie bonds (as well as US corporate bonds and US equities) and only buying US Treasury bonds because they were explicitly guaranteed by the US Government.
By August the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, began to realise that the biggest players in the American mortgage market were unviable. The foreign governments that had been funding them were turning off the tap.
The Washington Post reported that officials of the People's Bank of China told the US Treasury they expected it to "do whatever is necessary" to protect China's investments in Freddie and Fannie.
The US Treasury promptly gave guarantees to China and the agency bond holders that had lent to Freddie and Fannie, while allowing shareholders to lose everything.
Last month China again tested its new-found financial leverage. The Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan reportedly sought an assurance from Paulson that Chinese investors would no longer face political opposition when investing in US companies. Paulson would have gladly given that assurance if he had the political credibility to do so.
For 60 years the US has shaped the global financial system and occasionally made threats to get what it wants. In August a new era began.
Now China stands between the US and national bankruptcy. Like a creditor that has invested all its savings in a single stricken business, China cannot extricate itself without seriously harming itself.
Its challenge is to extract the advantages it can while keeping the US national enterprise alive.
The prospect of losing $US400 billion, perhaps even as much as $US600 billion in Freddie and Fannie was a severe shock to the Chinese political and financial system.
A former senior adviser to the Chinese central bank puts it this way: "If these two companies went bankrupt, then all mortgage bonds will go down. So we will lose $US400 billion in one go."
The former adviser believes China has a long fight ahead of it to save its assets.
"The bonds have been taken over by the Government so they are temporarily safe. Temporarily. China's assets are still in danger at least of devaluation, even default, so China should join other countries on how to stabilise this situation."
The risk is that governments can miscalculate, they can misread each other and they can be pushed off course by domestic politics, even in an authoritarian country like China.
The overriding comfort for the world is that it makes no sense for China to abandon its US government investments. Even a hint that it might do so would send investors rushing for the door, causing the US dollar to tumble, US long-term rates to shoot through the roof and the value of China's foreign reserves to evaporate.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/end-of-us-era--now-china-calls-the-tune-20081012-4z57.html#
pambo
10-14-2008, 12:53 AM
You need a leader who speaks mandarin.
SCHICK
10-14-2008, 07:12 AM
You need a leader who speaks mandarin.
:add09:They need a leader.
pambo
10-14-2008, 09:04 PM
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/19/business/AS-China-Bank-of-China-Rothschild.php
Bank of China buys into Rothschild bank
BEIJING: Bank of China Ltd. is buying a stake in French bank LCF Rothschild and says the two will develop private banking and asset-management services for China's newly rich.
China's fast-growing banking industry is eager to expand its foreign ties, and the latest deal announced late Thursday came despite industry turmoil following the failure of Wall Street house Lehman Brothers.
Bank of China said it will buy a 20 percent stake in La Compagnie Financiere Edmond de Rothschild for 236.3 million euros (US$340 million) and the two will develop private banking and asset-management services.
"This partnership forms part of Bank of China's global development strategy," Bank of China chairman Xiao Gang said in a statement. "We expect to further strengthen our asset management operations and product design capabilities in private banking business, and widen the product and service offerings to our clients."
Beijing-based Bank of China said it sees a promising future for private banking and other services for China's newly affluent amid rapid economic growth.
"With the rapidly growing global demand for wealth management services, private banking and asset management are becoming increasingly important parts of the Chinese financial services industry," the statement said.
Bank of China said it hoped the deal would strengthen its presence in Europe. China's top banks are among the world's largest in financial terms but inexperienced at consumer services. They have formed ties with foreign partners to introduce credit cards and other products.
Bank of China and LCFR said they also would cooperate in developing services outside China and France.
Bank of China is the country's No. 3 commercial lender by assets but has its biggest foreign exposure. It said the latest deal was the first of its kind by a Chinese bank in an economy that uses the euro currency.
The deal expands Bank of China's European ties just two months after it bought 30 percent of Swiss-based Heritage Fund Management SA in July for 60 million yuan (US$9 million).
Founded in 1953, LCFR is controlled by the Rothschild family, which has a 250-year history in European banking. LCFR says it has nearly 30 billion euros (US$45 billion) under management.
LCFR chairman Benjamin de Rothschild, quoted in the Bank of China statement, said, "This agreement opens up a new era of development for La Compagnie Financiere Edmond de Rothschild in the tradition of innovation and international expansion of our group."
You need a leader who speaks mandarin.
Hell, I'd settle for one that speaks ENGLISH
Baby steps.. .baby steps first
China Tops Japan in U.S. Debt Holdings
Beijing Gains Sway Over U.S. Economy
By Anthony Faiola and Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 19, 2008; D01
China passed Japan to become the U.S. government's largest foreign creditor in September, the Treasury Department announced yesterday, reflecting the dramatic expansion of Beijing's economic influence over the American economy.
China's new status -- it now owns nearly $1 out of every $10 in U.S. public debt -- means Washington will be increasingly forced to rely on Beijing as it seeks to raise money to cover the cost of a $700 billion bailout. China, in fact, may be the government's largest creditor, period.
The Treasury does not keep records on domestic bond holders. But analysts said China's holdings are so vast that the existence of a larger stakeholder in the United States now seems unlikely.
The growing dependence on Chinese cash is granting Beijing extraordinary sway over the U.S. economy. Analysts say a decision by China to move out of U.S. government bonds, for economic or political reasons, could lead a herd of other investors to follow suit. That would drive up the cost of U.S. borrowing, jeopardizing Washington's ability to fund, among other things, a stimulus package to jump-start the economy. If China were to stop buying or, worse, start selling U.S. debt, it would also quickly raise interest rates on a variety of loans in the United States, analysts say.
Additionally, the more China invests in U.S. debt, the harder it becomes for U.S. companies to sell their products overseas. That's because China's purchase of U.S. bonds makes the dollar stronger, particularly against the Chinese yuan, which has been kept artificially weak to boost Chinese exports. The relatively weak yuan remains one of the biggest obstacles to U.S. companies tapping the market in China, particularly lucrative now as Beijing embarks on $586 billion in infrastructure and other stimulus spending to keep its economy humming amid the global crisis.
In the United States, Chinese influence is reflected in terms as basic as home mortgage rates. Since the U.S. government seized Fannie Mae (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Fannie+Mae?tid=informline) and Freddie Mac (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Freddie+Mac+Holdings?tid=informline) in September, China, which maintains the world's largest cash reserves of roughly $1.9 trillion, has shed about $50 billion in the companies' debt and mortgage bonds, according to people who track the data. With China shying away from buying more, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have had to pay more to borrow and have gotten less for mortgage bonds, pushing up rates for people seeking home loans just as the U.S. government is trying to bring them down.
"This is a sign of the growing interdependence between the Chinese and U.S. economies, but also a sign of a relationship that is not healthy in the long term," said Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Cornell+University?tid=informline) and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Brookings+Institution?tid=informline) in Washington.
"There are inconsistent policies on both sides of the Pacific that are working against a more flexible Chinese exchange rate and the reduction of China's large trade surplus. This is a problem for the United States."
In good times, U.S. companies tapped China as a bargain-basement manufacturing hub, helping lift hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty. But China's torrid growth has also caused severe environmental damage from a rapid rise in pollution and industrial waste, even as it improved American lifestyles by putting cheaper televisions and microwave ovens within easier reach for consumers. In recent years, Chinese cash also became part of a massive surge in foreign capital to the United States that brought down interest rates and eased the credit terms that American financial institutions charged.
Now, in bad times, China is effectively co-financing the $1 trillion annual U.S. deficit and massive government bailout of the financial system. It is doing so in part with money earned from exports to the United States, which last year imported five times as much as it exported to China.
The surge in Chinese buying is part of a rush by panicked investors into U.S. Treasurys, an indication that lending to the U.S. government is still seen as among the safest investments in uncertain times.
"It is occurring in an environment where global investment prospects are less enticing," said Lawrence Goodman, head of emerging market strategy at Bank of America (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bank+of+America+Corporation?tid=informline). "There is a movement for foreigners to seek safer haven investments like Treasurys versus more risk-oriented foreign investments."
China's investment in U.S. Treasury (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Department+of+the+Treasury?tid=informline) bonds surged by $43.6 billion to $585 billion in September, pulling ahead of the Japan, which now holds $573.2 billion worth. Overall, analysts say China's holdings may be $800 billion or more. China is thought to be purchasing U.S. debt through third countries, purchases that are not immediately recorded by the Treasury as being held by China, analysts say.
In contrast to Japan, one of the United States' closest allies, China is seen as less benevolent to U.S. interests.
Many economists are concerned about U.S. reliance on China for funding. By buying Treasury bonds, which are denominated in dollars, China is able to keep the dollar strong compared with the yuan. As a result, Chinese exports are cheaper relative to U.S. exports.
That is a friction point at a time when the United States needs manufacturing companies to be competitive in the global marketplace to combat the economic downturn. U.S. labor unions are already pushing the incoming Obama (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Barack+Obama?tid=informline) administration to urge the Chinese to take steps to strengthen the yuan, which could involve a broad sell-off by China of U.S. Treasury bonds.
"This is an unhealthy relationship," said Brad W. Setser, geoeconomics fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S+Council+on+Foreign+Relations?tid=informline). "The U.S. relies too heavily on subsidized financing from a non-democratic government. And China is still a poor country that has in turn invested too much of its national savings in the United States. There remains an underlying financial vulnerability if China were to scale back its purchases. It could deliver a shock to the United States."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803558_pf.html
Buchanan nails it
Metrics of National Decline
by Patrick J. Buchanan (http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Patrick+J.+Buchanan) (more by this author) (http://www.humanevents.com/search.php?author_name=Patrick J.+Buchanan)
Posted 02/17/2009 ET
Updated 02/17/2009 ET
"Bush Boom Continues" trilled the headline over the Lawrence Kudlow column, as George W. Bush closed out his seventh year in office.
"You can call it Goldilocks 2.0," purred Kudlow.
Yes, you could. But what a difference 12 months can make.
Final returns are now in on the eight years of George Bush. Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services has crunched the numbers. And, pace Kudlow, the only relevant comparison is to Herbert Hoover.
From January 2008, right after Kudlow's column ran, through January 2009, the U.S. economy lost 3.5 million jobs. The private sector loss of 3.65 million jobs was slightly offset by 148,000 jobs created by federal, state and local governments. Say what you will, the Bush years were boom times for Big Government.
And the private sector? Beginning and ending in recession, the Bush presidency added a net of 407,000 private sector jobs over eight years, less than 51,000 a year, the worst eight-year record since 1927-35, which includes the first six years of the Great Depression.
By January 2009, the average workweek had fallen to 33.3 hours, the lowest since record keeping began in 1964.
From Jan. 31, 2001, through Jan. 31, 2009, 4.4 million manufacturing jobs, 26 percent of all of the manufacturing jobs in the United States, disappeared.
Semiconductors and electronic component producers lost 42 percent of their jobs. Communications equipment producers lost 48 percent of their jobs. Textile and apparel producers lost, respectively, 63 percent and 61 percent of their jobs.
As a source of American jobs, manufacturing, for the first time in our history, fell below health care and education in 2001, below retail sales in 2002, below local government in 2006, below leisure and hospitality, i.e., restaurants and bars, in 2008.
Between this unprecedented loss in manufacturing capacity and jobs, and the $3.5 trillion in trade deficits in manufactured goods alone, run up by George W. Bush, the correlation is absolute.
Last week, final trade figures for 2008 came in. They make for riveting reading for Americans who yet believe that manufacturing is an indispensable element of national power.
With China exporting five times the dollar volume in goods to us as she imports from us, Beijing's trade surplus with the United States set yet another world record: $266 billion.
In those critical items the Commerce Department defines as advanced technology products (ATP), our trade deficit with China in 2008 reached an astonishing $72 billion. Since Bush took office, our total trade deficit with China in ATP exceeds $300 billion.
Which of us, China or America, has the trade profile of a mature industrial and technological power?
Americans deplore our deepening dependence on foreign regimes for the vital necessity of oil. Are they unaware that the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods, $440 billion, is $89 billion greater than our all-time record trade deficit of $351 billion in crude oil?
Why is a dependence on Canada, Mexico, Venezuela or Saudi Arabia for oil a greater peril than a reliance on China and Asia for vital necessities upon which our prosperity and military depend?
A week ago, the Washington Times ("Volcker Blames Recession on Trade Imbalances") reported that ex-Fed Chair Paul Volcker told Congress the "massive trade-related imbalances in the United States economy were the source of the financial crisis."
Pressed by Sen. Chris Dodd, Volcker said, "Go back to the imbalances in the economy. The United States has been consuming more than it has been producing for many years."
What "imbalances" was Volcker referring to? Perhaps these.
Since 1982, the United States has run $5.7 trillion in trade deficits in manufactured goods, and $2.1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and automobiles. In the Bush years alone, the United States ran more than $1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and cars.
These statistics, these realities -- factories closing in the United States, manufacturing jobs being outsourced in the millions to China and Asia, enormous, endless trade deficits in goods -- testify to a painful truth: America is a receding and declining world power.
And in dealing with this systemic crisis, Obama's stimulus package is as irrelevant as were the Bush tax cuts.
How do we correct those "trade-related imbalances" of which Volcker spoke? We must export more and import less, save more and spend less, produce more and consume less. We need to emulate the ants and behave less like the grasshoppers of summer.
But how do you tell that to two generations of Americans who have been raised in an era of entitlement?
America needs an Industrial Policy.
But how do you tell that to Americans indoctrinated in the hoary myth that Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley caused the Great Depression and anything that sounds like America First risks a rerun of the 1930s?
<FONT size=2>Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of
wentzville
02-23-2009, 11:31 AM
I believe that half of all manufacturing in China is done by American companies.
Bronkowitz
02-23-2009, 11:32 AM
I wonder why Protectionist Pat only talks about manufacturing jobs and not manufacturing output. Prolly because he would have to divulge that manufacturing output continues to rise even as manufacturing jobs disappear. (That's called efficiency, folks.)
The truth is that manufacturing jobs, as a percentage of all jobs in the US, has been on the decline for the past 50 years. That's long before China rose to economic power for those of you trying to do the math on your fingers.
The truth is also that China has seen a decrease in manufacturing jobs as well, just like all industrialized nations have. Hmmm, I wonder who China's outsourcing their yobs to...
I'm starting to think there are actually four categories: lies, damn lies, statistics, and Protectionist Pat's statistics.
As for trade imbalances, I have one with my grocer. I keep receiving goods from him, and all he gets in return are my dollars. The fucker is screwing me over.
I believe that half of all manufacturing in China is done by American companies.
that choose to employ Chinese workers and pay taxes to Red China, rather than operate in the US
that's what passes for "American" these days.
Atlas
02-23-2009, 11:34 AM
Buchanan is like scrambled eggs...sliding all over your plate
America's economic decline starts in about the seventies, wen our disatrous trade policies start allowing unlimited imports, while failing to secure equal access to those same foreign markets.
I'm fine with trade, but for instance, any of the countries where we get lots of imported manufactured gods from, most prevent imports of our agricultural goods, where we'd have a signifiant advantage
I wonder why Protectionist Pat only talks about manufacturing jobs and not manufacturing output. Prolly because he would have to divulge that manufacturing output continues to rise even as manufacturing jobs disappear. (That's called efficiency, folks.)
The truth is that manufacturing jobs, as a percentage of all jobs in the US, has been on the decline for the past 50 years. That's long before China rose to economic power for those of you trying to do the math on your fingers.
The truth is also that China has seen a decrease in manufacturing jobs as well, just like all industrialized nations have. Hmmm, I wonder who China's outsourcing their yobs to...
I'm starting to think there are actually four categories: lies, damn lies, statistics, and Protectionist Pat's statistics.
As for trade imbalances, I have one with my grocer. I keep receiving goods from him, and all he gets in return are my dollars. The fucker is screwing me over.
Its not the trade imbalance that's the problem. Its the CURRENT ACCOUNTS deficit. The trade imbalance is the largest component of the current accounts deficit, however.
If you run a current accounts deficit, you spend more money than you take in.
You can only maintain that by 1. Selling your assets or 2. Borrowing money. (of if you're the Federal government, by printing money)
The monsterous current accounts deficit is finally catching up with the US
Buchanan is like scrambled eggs...sliding all over your plate
America's economic decline starts in about the seventies, wen our disatrous trade policies start allowing unlimited imports, while failing to secure equal access to those same foreign markets.
that's unfair to Reagan
Reagan put a quota on Japanese car imports, which caused the Japanese car makers to open plants in America, resulting in 10s of thousands of US manufacturing jobs.
wentzville
02-23-2009, 11:40 AM
that choose to employ Chinese workers and pay taxes to Red China, rather than operate in the US
that's what passes for "American" these days.
You simply cannot compete with the Chinese worker, and you will never be able to afford anything manufactured here, by American workers. This is about business, not about liberal nonsense, or bleeding heart rhetoric. In business you do what you have to do to survive, and we are not the only ones using these cheap chinese workers. Perhaps if we had not destroyed our dollar, then things would be different, but I support business doing what they need to do to survive and succeed.
wentzville
02-23-2009, 11:42 AM
that's unfair to Reagan
Reagan put a quota on Japanese car imports, which caused the Japanese car makers to open plants in America, resulting in 10s of thousands of US manufacturing jobs.
Well that is one area where we can compete, but try manufacturing thousands of other goods here, you simply could not compete.
Atlas
02-23-2009, 11:42 AM
that's unfair to Reagan
Reagan put a quota on Japanese car imports, which caused the Japanese car makers to open plants in America, resulting in 10s of thousands of US manufacturing jobs.
Bullshit. It didn't create any jobs, it simply took middle class, union jobs in the northeast, and moved them down to lower middle class non union jobs in the southeast.
There's no net plus. The loss of american jobs went to japanese manufacturers, with the porfits going back to Japan, while the same number of autoworkers now make about half of what they did previously.
The failure of all those presidents negotiating trade treaties was the failure to get truly open markets on both. Not just for one industry, but for all.
You simply cannot compete with the Chinese worker, and you will never be able to afford anything manufactured here, by American workers. This is about business, not about liberal nonsense, or bleeding heart rhetoric. In business you do what you have to do to survive, and we are not the only ones using these cheap chinese workers. Perhaps if we had not destroyed our dollar, then things would be different, but I support business doing what they need to do to survive and succeed.
ahh, but you see, its not about business solely.
its about national security, etc.
As pat points out, we're more dependant on China than we are the Saudis.
that's not sustainable
Bullshit. It didn't create any jobs, it simply took middle class, union jobs in the northeast, and moved them down to lower middle class non union jobs in the southeast.
Show me something to back this up.
Or, I'll just research it myself.
Atlas
02-23-2009, 11:45 AM
You simply cannot compete with the Chinese worker, and you will never be able to afford anything manufactured here, by American workers. This is about business, not about liberal nonsense, or bleeding heart rhetoric. In business you do what you have to do to survive, and we are not the only ones using these cheap chinese workers. Perhaps if we had not destroyed our dollar, then things would be different, but I support business doing what they need to do to survive and succeed.
Thats what people have said for the last thirty years. You're now reaping what has been sown.
You drive your toyota, feel all superior, and now you're going to pay over 100 billion, maybe 130 to bailout auto industries because the national economy can't sustain the job losses.
Pay me now, or pay me later.
Ronald Reagan: Trade Realist
Alan Tonelson
Monday, June 07, 2004
Alan Tonelson is a Research Fellow at the U.S. Business & Industry Educational Foundation and the author of The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards (Westview Press).
Lost in the flood of Ronald Reagan retrospectives and testimonials is a crucial fact with special relevance for all Americans today: To a great extent, Ronald Reagan was a trade realist.
The conventional wisdom about Reagan as free enterprise, free market champion is largely true. But on trade policy, Reagan acted decisively in five instances to save major American industries from predatory foreign competition. Moreover, as I detailed in a 1994 article in Foreign Affairs, in each case, the temporary import relief succeeded spectacularly, resulting in improved performance by these industries and avoiding the captive market prices that conventional economics teaches will always flow from restricting foreign competition.
Reagan's best-known protective policy was a tariff placed in 1983 on imported motorcycles at the request of American icon Harley-Davidson.
The tariffs were to last five years, but the company's comeback proceeded so quickly that it relinquished the final months of import relief. Moreover, the tariffs encouraged Japanese rivals like Honda and Kawasaki to build or expand factories in the United States and create still more jobs for American workers.
Yet in many ways, the Harley tariffs were the least important examples of Reagan's trade realism. Far more significant and beneficial for the U.S. economy were Reagan trade policies that helped revitalize the auto, machine tool, semiconductor, and steel industries.
Reagan's tactics were flexible. In autos, machine tools, and steel, his administration subjected foreign producers to so-called voluntary export restraints. In semiconductors, Reagan officials negotiated an agreement to secure a specific share of the Japanese market for U.S. companies, and then imposed tariffs on Japanese electronics imports when Tokyo briefly refused to keep a promise to halt semiconductor dumping[/URL].
Reagan's results, however, uniformly clashed with conventional economic theory, which holds that protected industries always become fat and lazy price gougers. All four of the industries protected saw their productivity rise vigorously. All four improved quality so dramatically that they won back market share at home and abroad. All four boosted capital and R & D spending. All four held the line and then some on prices. And all four excelled largely because the import relief enabled them to attract the investment needed to retool. After all, why would capital markets steer money towards industries that seemed doomed to succumb to foreign mercantilism (http://javascript<b></b>: goGlossary(266))?
In addition, like the Harley-Davidson tariffs, the steel and auto trade restrictions drew Japanese, German, and Korean investment into the United States. Not only were jobs created; in the case of steel, cutting-edge technology was transferred to joint venture's with American partners set up in the United States.
Reagan was a trade realist in another vital sense -- understanding the need for carefully regulating trade with current and prospective adversaries. Indeed, soon after his inauguration, Reagan became convinced that the Soviet Union had run into a series of potentially crippling economic problems, and he implemented a policy of strategic denial that undoubtedly played a role in hastening communism's demise.
Reagan also recognized that, although preserving a system of multilateral controls is essential, U.S. leadership is also essential to keep those controls strong. Accepting the lowest common denominator -- especially from shortsighted allied governments out to make a quick buck -- just wasn't an acceptable option to him.
Reagan's trade policies were far from perfect. For example, he never systematically confronted Japanese, Korean, or European protectionismhttp://www.americaneconomicalert.org/images/but_glossary.gif (http://javascript<b></b>: goGlossary(310)), apparently convinced that U.S. allies would in some way defect from the free world if he pressed them too hard on economics. He permitted the U.S. dollar to remain far too strong for far too long, and consequently did much needless damage to the U.S. industrial base by the time he approved a major devaluation in late 1985.
Nonetheless, when major American industries were on the ropes, a combination of national security fears, electoral concerns, and outrage at inequitable, illegal competition prompted Reagan to act, and American manufacturing was unquestionably the stronger for it. Tragically, this is a crucial aspect of his legacy that all three of Reagan's White House successors have rejected, frittering away American manufacturing and jobs in one ill-advised free trade (http://javascript<b></b>: goGlossary(260)) agreement after another.
[URL]http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=1134
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=1134
wentzville
02-23-2009, 11:49 AM
ahh, but you see, its not about business solely.
its about national security, etc.
As pat points out, we're more dependant on China than we are the Saudis.
that's not sustainable
Hardly, they are much more dependant on this country, how are they doing today, now that we have slowed?
wentzville
02-23-2009, 11:51 AM
Thats what people have said for the last thirty years. You're now reaping what has been sown.
You drive your toyota, feel all superior, and now you're going to pay over 100 billion, maybe 130 to bailout auto industries because the national economy can't sustain the job losses.
Pay me now, or pay me later.
We don't have to bail them out, this is a false choice. I love that analogy they use about needing these plants to make tanks or something, I can just see them going on strike when we need them most, LOL.:add09:
Atlas
02-23-2009, 11:54 AM
Reagans toughest challenge was trying to balance the cold war, which he won, with trade wars, where he probably would liked to have been tougher, but he had to balance.
Japan for instance. For all their dumping of cars, electronics, film, tools etc. were we able to sell rice there? No, strict protectionism. Our trade with them was a net plus for them, a net loss for us.
Atlas
02-23-2009, 11:55 AM
We don't have to bail them out, this is a false choice. I love that analogy they use about needing these plants to make tanks or something, I can just see them going on strike when we need them most, LOL.:add09:
It's about one job out of ten. If the industry tanks, you'll be digging your hand back in your pocket to support them on unemplyment and welfare.
Youre paying either way.
Bronkowitz
02-23-2009, 11:55 AM
Japan for instance. For all their dumping of cars, electronics, film, tools etc. were we able to sell rice there? No, strict protectionism. Our trade with them was a net plus for them, a net loss for us.
And Japan has been doing sooooooo well economically for the past decade and a half. Damn them for screwing us! ;)
Atlas
02-23-2009, 11:56 AM
And Japan has been doing sooooooo well economically for the past decade and a half. Damn them for screwing us! ;)
They did very well indeed, until the socialists in the Diet tried exactly what we're going to be doing here. They're still in a net gain for having traded with us.
Bronkowitz
02-23-2009, 11:57 AM
They did very well indeed, until the socialists in the Diet tried exactly what we're going to be doing here
Such is the nature of socialism. Free shit now, pay big later. And this is what protectionists want.
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