What a hoot. The Chinese Communists invaded Washington on Monday demanding not that we sacrifice our freedoms but rather that we balance our budget. Creditors get to make that kind of call. And the Marxists of Beijing, who have turned out to be the world's most prudent bankers, are worried about their assets invested in our banana republic.
"China has a huge amount of investment in the United States, mainly in the form of Treasury bonds. We are concerned about the security of our financial assets" was the way China's assistant finance minister put it. Briefing reporters at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, he added, "We sincerely hope the U.S. fiscal deficit will be reduced, year after year." Quite sincerely, one suspects, given a U.S. budget shortfall this year that is slated to reach $1.85 trillion.
Suddenly, it was U.S. officials who were promising deep reform to their disgraced economic system rather than demanding it from incompetent foreigners. President Barack Obama's economic team of Clinton-era holdovers, who a decade ago had hectored China on the virtues of fiscal responsibility, now were falling over themselves to reassure the Chinese that their $1.5 trillion stake in U.S. government-issued securities is safe, and that they should buy more at this week's $200 billion Treasury auction. If they don't, we're in big trouble.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner promised to behave, saying the U.S. is "committed to taking the necessary measures to bring our fiscal deficits down to a more sustainable level once recovery is firmly established." Now let's hope that the Chinese Communists and their natural allies among congressional deficit hawks will be able to keep him to his word.
And don't blame any of this on peacenik liberals. The new conciliatory--nay, deferential--tone toward China precedes the Obama administration, having begun in bilateral talks during the last years of the Bush administration as the U.S. economy began its ignominious downfall. It was George W. Bush's treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, who set the course when the former Goldman Sachs chairman realized how dependent were his Wall Street buddies on Chinese goodwill.
But from all of this adversity may come something good: recognition that the United States is not the repository of all wisdom. Maybe the Chinese have found a model different from ours that also works? Might there not be an Arab, Latin or Indian one that also qualifies and need not be overthrown?
The tone of this week's talks, ironically held at the Reagan Building and co-chaired by Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, finally signaled the end of the Cold War assumption that regimes with labels like communist and capitalist could not form profitable partnerships. On the contrary, as Secretary Clinton noted, it is time to move from "a multipolar world to a multipartner world." And President Obama in opening the conference made clear that the partnership between China and the U.S. is decisive: "The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world."
Mark it as a historic Rip van Winkle moment. For those who recall the rhetoric of the Cold War, the idea that we would someday be cooperating with Chinese Communists because they had humbled us economically rather than militarily is a startling turnabout. How did they get to be better capitalists than us, and being that they are good capitalists, why are we still spending hundreds of billions a year on high-tech military weapons to counter a potential Chinese military threat when the weapons they are using are all market-driven deployments?
A recognition that our tension with China is not military in nature came at this week's conference in an announcement by Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, that agreement had been reached with his Chinese counterparts on improving relations: "A statement was made by a Chinese delegation official yesterday [Monday] that no country can develop sound policy if they try and do so in isolation. And I think that's a great way of addressing the sense that all of us feel, the desire, to get back together again and discuss exercises, discuss personnel exchanges, discuss responses to humanitarian assistance crises and the provision of disaster relief."
Not bad for a start, and maybe we can help solve our economic problems by selling our latest high-tech weapons to China as we do to the rest of the world. Or better yet, we could do some serious damage to our deficits, and our dependence on the Chinese, by sharply cutting expensive weapons programs now that the Cold War is finally over.
So wait for China to start seizing and nationalizing these shiny new factories corporate america built.
They already duplicate most american products.
Steal the concept then take the factories.
A kind of justice, really, as we never thought we would be the victims of our own snake oil economic policies.
Do you think for one minute that the US government would hesitate to seize foreign property if the situation were reversed?
They exert enormous pressure on government contractors to cut costs and improve performance. Corporate executives dread their meetings with government bureaucrats. GE's Jeff Immelt has said that dealing with the Chinese government is nothing like dealing with the U.S. government. There's no good-ole-boy's club where government and business insiders pat each other on the back. They're shrewd and detail-oriented. They exert leverage and they don't have much patience for excuses.
The Chinese compete against the world. Americans compete against each other. We have no strategy for competing in a global economy. All we have is a strategy for sophisticated investors to profit from our uncompetitiveness.
How bad can it get?
When are we going to wake up?
I am glad Joe McCarthy isn't around to witness our follies -- Our capitalist system owing nearly 800,000,000,000 dollars to a Communist government.
Of course, in the Dixiepub's mind, there's still that very real prejudice they harbor against people of color, especially black and yellow. So, I guess we'll have to wait until they evolve into something other than racists for them to appreciate Obama's worth in international relations.
Did I say evolve, as in evolution? Yet another barrier to over come ;>).
In fact, Chinese communism has more in common with 1790 US governance than the system envisioned by Marx and put into practice by Lenin.
1. Everyone is a communist, so they are all part of the communist party.
2. Local communist party members (everyone) pick representatives. Those reps get together and appoint regional reps, who appoint national reps, who pick the leader.
Communism has just replaced Confucianism as the philosophy that everyone pays lip service to while doing what they always have done (and actually Confucianism gets more respect).
Good to be back on HUFFPO. (from China)
They will only began to grow more open as the years go by, until they have reached a level that provides both security for the government and freedom for the people.
The man is in the pharmaceutical business... a trivial business case analysis will tell you that with public health care in place pharmaceutical companies would make more, not less money... and still, the ideology in this business man trumps his ability to see an earnings opportunity.
That's the reality of the American electorate for you... 47% voting for McCain/Palin. Today it might be back to 51%... we just might have caught a lucky break in the public's permanent delusion.
Polls have shown FOR DECADES that a 60%+ majority would embrace a much stronger social safety net.
As usual, you no earthly idea of what you speak.
:-)
w-i-s-h-f-u-l t-h-i-n-k-i-n-g.
We will see, won't we? And it seems that things would be better if the Chinese don't fall into recession. At least short term.
Wishful thinking is that I could get HuffPo to update my email so I could get notice when people respond to my email.
We pannicked the nation with the "red-scare" by having our school children run drills to hide under their desks.
We engage in a witchhunt run by McCarthy to find and weed out the communists in our government and society. Many people's lives were ruined in the process.
We shifted vital resources away from human needs to play soldier and enrich the soldiers.
We divide the world into warring camps, the precursor to "with us or against us," the capitalists vs the communists, NATO vs WARSAW PACT.
Now all these communist haters have been transformed into communist lovers, after these capitalists SOLD our countries resources to the Communists Chinese.
Which begs the question:
Was communism ever really a threat?
As someone who was born in a communist country, let me answer that for you. Yes. It was a real threat. Any ideology which is not self sufficient but wants to expand beyond the boundaries of its own realm is a threat. That, by the way, is just as valid for US style capitalism. You can ask the people in the Muslim world about that. Especially the people in Afghanistan got a quadruple whammy: USSR style Communism, followed by Capitalist sponsored religious fundamentalism of the like of the Taliban, followed by a CIA war against our former "allies" followed by a lengthy but inefficient occupation by a military sent in to make up for the sins of the past...
:-)
:-)