Second Opinion 22/3/2012 Stephen Vines
The once fairly respectable game of China bashing is acquiring a bad name. Let me explain – there have long been reasonable grounds for criticizing the policies of China’s Communist government ranging from unfair trade practices to repression of its own people, however some of the criticism, especially on the trade side, is increasingly looking like rank hypocrisy.
Much of this hypocrisy emanates from the United States where the political class is heavily submerged in a presidential election campaign. At times like these rhetoric looms large and foreigner bashing tends to be popular. Thus when speaking of the poor state of the domestic economy the candidates chose the soft option of alleging this is all because of unfair competition with foreign countries. The argument goes that the great American industrial powerhouse would still be buoyant were it not for these devious foreigners hell bent on cheating by flooding the US with exports, while erecting barriers to American imports. Then these accusers suddenly develop an acute social conscience and start noticing that foreign workers are paid peanuts and suffer under harsh conditions while producing export goods. Tune in to some of the US presidential candidate debates and you will hear all this and more. And the level of rhetoric is ratcheting up as promises are lavishly made of ways in which the would-be presidents intend to punish these terrible foreigners for taking away American jobs. Reality is studiously ignored; were it otherwise it would have to be admitted that the Chinese government is far from being the only government trying to depress the value of its currency and thus keep it at a competitive level. Indeed you need look no further than the White House to see another government attempting to do exactly the same thing.
While it is perfectly true that the costs of production are lower in China than in the industrialized world, they are even lower in places such as Bangladesh and the goods produced in these places are avidly sought by American consumers who flock to buy them. They have a choice, Americans can buy American made goods, if they can find them, but they will almost always need to pay more. Most chose to pay less, indeed in these tough times many Americans would be deprived of a whole variety products if they could not be obtained by way of cheap imports. Also, and here things get too complicated to be embraced by the rhetoric of an election campaign, many American companies are now making a substantial part of their profits by establishing factories in China: companies like General Motors, retailers such as McDonald's and then there are firms, such as , which rely heavily on Chinese production to make their goods which produce the bulk of their profits by adding value and international property to the production process. Meanwhile as China expands its trade with the rest of the world, the nation’s increasingly affluent consumers are demanding and obtaining foreign goods – so it looks very much as though China’s impressive trade surpluses will soon be a thing of the past. On the political front there are many genuine overseas campaigners supporting China’s democracy movement and fighting for human rights but their cause is hardly helped by the rank hypocrisy from American politicians who only focus on the human rights issue when it suits their purpose and they apply blatant double standards by, for example, ignoring the dire state of human rights in Saudi Arabia, while insisting that other nations should behave better. What’s happening is not, as apologists for the Chinese government like to say, that things in China are constantly getting better on all fronts. It is rather the case that the quality of criticism of Chinese policies is getting worse. Only the very smug and very stupid can believe that one trend cancels out the other. It does not; two bad developments don’t produce a good one.
Stephen Vines is a journalist, broadcaster and businessman who has lived in Hong Kong for more than two decades.
Vying for votes by lying about trade.
刊於1150期《壹週刊》
The once fairly respectable game of China bashing is acquiring a bad name. Let me explain – there have long been reasonable grounds for criticizing the policies of China’s Communist government ranging from unfair trade practices to repression of its own people, however some of the criticism, especially on the trade side, is increasingly looking like rank hypocrisy.
Much of this hypocrisy emanates from the United States where the political class is heavily submerged in a presidential election campaign. At times like these rhetoric looms large and foreigner bashing tends to be popular. Thus when speaking of the poor state of the domestic economy the candidates chose the soft option of alleging this is all because of unfair competition with foreign countries. The argument goes that the great American industrial powerhouse would still be buoyant were it not for these devious foreigners hell bent on cheating by flooding the US with exports, while erecting barriers to American imports. Then these accusers suddenly develop an acute social conscience and start noticing that foreign workers are paid peanuts and suffer under harsh conditions while producing export goods. Tune in to some of the US presidential candidate debates and you will hear all this and more. And the level of rhetoric is ratcheting up as promises are lavishly made of ways in which the would-be presidents intend to punish these terrible foreigners for taking away American jobs. Reality is studiously ignored; were it otherwise it would have to be admitted that the Chinese government is far from being the only government trying to depress the value of its currency and thus keep it at a competitive level. Indeed you need look no further than the White House to see another government attempting to do exactly the same thing.
While it is perfectly true that the costs of production are lower in China than in the industrialized world, they are even lower in places such as Bangladesh and the goods produced in these places are avidly sought by American consumers who flock to buy them. They have a choice, Americans can buy American made goods, if they can find them, but they will almost always need to pay more. Most chose to pay less, indeed in these tough times many Americans would be deprived of a whole variety products if they could not be obtained by way of cheap imports. Also, and here things get too complicated to be embraced by the rhetoric of an election campaign, many American companies are now making a substantial part of their profits by establishing factories in China: companies like General Motors, retailers such as McDonald's and then there are firms, such as , which rely heavily on Chinese production to make their goods which produce the bulk of their profits by adding value and international property to the production process. Meanwhile as China expands its trade with the rest of the world, the nation’s increasingly affluent consumers are demanding and obtaining foreign goods – so it looks very much as though China’s impressive trade surpluses will soon be a thing of the past. On the political front there are many genuine overseas campaigners supporting China’s democracy movement and fighting for human rights but their cause is hardly helped by the rank hypocrisy from American politicians who only focus on the human rights issue when it suits their purpose and they apply blatant double standards by, for example, ignoring the dire state of human rights in Saudi Arabia, while insisting that other nations should behave better. What’s happening is not, as apologists for the Chinese government like to say, that things in China are constantly getting better on all fronts. It is rather the case that the quality of criticism of Chinese policies is getting worse. Only the very smug and very stupid can believe that one trend cancels out the other. It does not; two bad developments don’t produce a good one.
Stephen Vines is a journalist, broadcaster and businessman who has lived in Hong Kong for more than two decades.
Vying for votes by lying about trade.
刊於1150期《壹週刊》
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