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Subject: Beware an angry China
DragonReborn    4/8/2008 4:32:15 PM
h!!p://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/08/opinion/edbowring.php Here's a pretty good article on why China should not be goaded too harshly about Tibet and Darfur etc, what does everyone think!? P.s Im no PRC Troll! "Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull. Nationalism is more often aroused by setbacks than success, so the Tibet problems and the possible threats to a triumphal Olympics are stirring it in China. On the horizon is the possibility that these will combine with high inflation, stagnating exports and trade tensions with the United States to create a perfect nationalistic storm. The Chinese leadership faces a difficult balancing act. As its legitimacy is now based on national achievement, not communist ideology, it must appear in step with popular feeling. Yet stability at home and good relations abroad require keeping nationalist emotions in check. The paranoia about evil foreign designs that thrived under Mao and was discarded by Deng Xiaoping is still close to the surface. Almost all of China is offended that foreigners are so keen to lecture them and to encourage the petty boycotts that could spoil the Olympic party. It genuinely infuriates the Chinese that they are blamed for Darfur while their Western critics occupy Iraq. Beijing is happy to let such nationalist resentments vent in the sometimes violent language of Internet blogs and chat rooms. The anger, in turn, makes it easier for the government to pin the Tibetan problems on foreigners and Tibetan exiles headed by the Dalai Lama, to arrest human-rights advocates and crack down on foreign media. Beijing plays up the foreign threat - much like the U.S. government used the Al Qaeda threat as a justification for invading Iraq. For example, Beijing has raised the specter of Tibetan suicide squads organized by the "Dalai Lama clique" attacking the Olympics. Such acts cannot be ruled out. But a cooler government would quietly strengthen defenses rather than raise the temperature - and raise fears that terrorist outrages might be staged to discredit the Tibetans. Under pressure, officials have fallen back on Cultural Revolution language and lies. The Communist Party secretary in Tibet described the Dalai Lama as a "monster with a human face." Less dramatically, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said that the channel for dialogue with the Dalai Lama was open so long as he "abandoned claims for Tibet independence" and used his influence to "stop the violence in Tibet." In fact the Dalai Lama long ago accepted the principle of autonomy within China, so long as it was real autonomy. And he is at odds with many Tibetans who oppose his advocacy of peaceful means. Equally important is the way official Chinese media has depicted the violence in Tibet as attacks on Han Chinese. This predictably arouses the hackles of the Han, who comprise 90 percent of China's population, and who tend to view Tibet as a backwater they improve by their modernizing drive. They see no reason why Tibetans should be unhappy with Han migration and dominance of trade, and they resent that Tibetans do not feel grateful for the money poured in by the government. "The Communist Party is like a parent to the Tibetan people and is always considerate about what the children need," declared the Tibet party secretary. The party, he said, was the "real Buddha" for Tibetans. This racial/cultural aspect not only makes it even more difficult for China to resolve minority issues, it also raises the Han identity issue in a wider, international context. Racial mythology as well as cultural identity run strong, whether vis-à-vis immediate "barbarian" neighbors - be they Japanese, Mongol or Russian - or toward the Westerners who long lorded it over the Middle Kingdom. How will the Chinese react if the Olympics really do become noted more for demonstrations and boycotts by Tibetan-inspired foreigners than for the achievements of China's athletes and organizers? At whom will popular anger then be directed? If the party is spoiled, whether by Tibet or air pollution, the demand for top level scapegoats may be irresistible. Worse still is if this coincides with heightened trade tensions with the United States, which could arise as the U.S. economy enters a recession. If the Chinese come to perceive that the benefits of globalization have peaked, will the leadership retreat from 30 years of Deng-ist engagement? None of this has to happen. But ethnic pride and thwarted ambitions are powerful forces. It is worth recalling that foreign economic pressures, patriotic fervor and rising military power made a once liberal Japan into the expansionist, militarist and hyper-nationalist Japan of the 1930s. Tibetans have a strong case against Beijing. But mixing it in with the Olympics and Darfur is a red rag to a wounded young bull."
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       4/21/2008 12:57:23 PM
"Jack Cafferty is many things, but racist is not of these things. He is pretty much a standard issue media left-winger."

But it is about time someone stood up and said exactly what China is.  I don't listen to Rush or Malkin but what have they said?

 
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Zhang Fei       4/21/2008 4:59:54 PM
But it is about time someone stood up and said exactly what China is.  I don't listen to Rush or Malkin but what have they said?

A fair amount of stuff. Check out Malkin's website - she's covered the Tibet situation pretty extensively. In fact all conservative sites (including the Weekly Standard and the National Review) have. If you want red meat China coverage, you're not going to find it at the New Republic, Salon, Slate, Huffington's Post or the Daily Kos.

Parenthetical comments on why many conservatives are pro-free trade wrt China::

Why are many conservatives free traders with respect to China? There's a recognition in conservative circles that because of its poverty (and consequent low cost of land and labor) China will grow rapidly regardless of what we do, because they have opened up their economy. At the same time, there are limits to China's growth because it has continued to provide state-owned enterprises with unlimited funding, thereby flushing trillions of dollars in depositor money at the state-owned banks. However, those limits are far above what China has accomplished economically up to now.

The infrastructure requirements for development are pretty simple - transportation, power, water and telecommunications. It ain't exactly rocket science. But lots of less developed countries have failed to provide these basics to draw in foreign investors, and to get domestic capital productively invested. At the same time, lots of more affluent countries in East Asia do have good basic infrastructure. China's challenge, if it is to overtake these countries, is to provide something more than basic infrastructure, over and above what other East Asian countries already have. This is the part that is rocket science. Unfortunately for China, this is something no government bureaucrat can plan for.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       4/21/2008 6:03:09 PM
Shortsighted greed is another reason.
 
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Zhang Fei       4/21/2008 8:16:52 PM
Shortsighted greed is another reason.

Just how well did protectionistic policies work out for the Qing dynasty? The Communist dynasty? The real short-sighted greed is the greed of the mercantilists who stand to profit from a short-sighted policy of import substitution. Just look at the dismal economic records of the basket cases in Asia, Latin America and Africa that have made this their policy. The fact is that import substitution merely pads the pockets of favored domestic industries at the expense of domestic consumers. Long-term, it makes these pampered industries less and less competitive worldwide, thereby increasing the cost to domestic consumers, and consequently dragging down the entire economy.

If we slap huge tariffs on products assembled in China, this will drive down the price of Chinese goods internationally, due to overcapacity in China. In the long run, this means that foreign companies will have access to cheaper (Chinese) inputs than American companies and be able to underprice our products all over the world because they have lower expenses. More importantly, it will be cheaper for US companies to set up offices outside of the US, because they will then have access to cheaper Chinese imports. In a global economy where US companies in strategic knowledge-intensive industries compete mainly against non-Chinese companies, it's self-defeating to handicap our companies in this way.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       4/22/2008 2:19:15 AM
The same short sighted judgment by so-called "conservatives" that measures all corporate performance in terms of quarters, lend money to people who can't afford the payments (which is a felony btw), leverage paper on top of paper then go to taxpayers for a bailout (Bear Stearns). 

Protectionism against everyone would be bad for the US, but blocking out one country would be easy for us to get around.

 
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