Defending China

The politicians like to put all blames on China, as they cannot fix our problems. It is not fair though Chinese are not angels.

* China is stealing our trade/military secrets.
Each country has to protect their trades, intelligent properties and technologies secrets. Do you think CIA and all the US spies are not paid to do same? I blame China or any country for stealing our secrets, but also blame ourselves for not protecting them.

* Free trade.
Free trade concept (and many other concepts) are great in concept, but are hard to implement. Most likely, US will restrict some items from China, China will do the same, each will agree to take the restrictions out to save face, will announce victories in both side... It has happened many times.

* Chinese steal all of our jobs.
First, I want to make the point that China is one of the low-wage countries. We can stop Chinese goods, but we need to stop other low-wage countries. Twenty dollar wage will not compete with $2 wage for the same job.

We have to let go some industries as there are no future and protect some industries that we have future like farming, making movies, high tech... Cheap consumer goods are not highly profitable, but high techs are.

Free trade has more advantages than disadvantages. The richer Chinese or Indians will afford now to buy our farm products, high tech products...

We could close ourselves out and can live with full employment and at lower living standard. It is our choice. I do not choose this way.

* China's military expansion.
There is no comparison of our military might over China unless you have been blinded. We have a carrier powered by two nuclear generators while China has a experimental carrier. Have you compared how much US's military budget and China's - better comparison is using a percentage of the GNP.

* China have not helped the poor countries.
China is still a poor country by the GNP per capita. I do not expect a lot of help in global disasters from them. They declined aids from the largest earthquake in Tong Shen in recent history. Their aids to Africa is quite substantial. Though there are no strings attached, it is quite easy to understand they're looking for commodities in Africa. However, I like their approach: better to teach folks how to fish than giving them fish.

* Human rights.
China does not have human rights. However, if you compare their human rights record 30 years ago, it has been improved by leaps and bounds.

Freedom and human rights are funny concept and there are different yardsticks. Ask any Iraq or Afgan. folks to see whether they welcome US' intervention for fighting for their freedom, and you could be surprised. Do we fight these wars for freedom, oil, or just a modern-day crusade? I feel sorry for our losses esp. the fallen heroes and I still try to find out what we gain.

We select our government, so we have to blame ourselves too. Politicians just want to buy votes and do not want to upset the voters who do not want to bite the bullet. It is easy to spend money we do not have and encourage other countries to do so.

To conclude, China has its own problems and US has its own. We should not blame others as a easy fix solution.

(c) TonyP4 2011. Written in 9/8/11. Updated 9/8/11.

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Disclaimer: All my posts are for informational purposes only. I'm not a professional investment counselor. Seek one before you make any investment decision.