Chinese New Century.
China must remain united, and be reunited, from Tibet to Taiwan. The alternative does not bear thinking about.
And we must eschew all economic - which will inevitably become social, cultural and political - dependence on her. She has quite enough consumers of her own to keep her workers busy. And we have quite enough consumers of our own to keep our workers busy.
Meanwhile, Right Democrat has this:
The China Currency Coalition ("CCC") has commended the Obama Administration and Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner for recognizing that China is manipulating its currency.
"This is a battle we have been fighting for over four years," said CCC Co-Chairman Richard L. Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO. "China's manipulation of its currency since 1994 continues to take an enormous toll on working families and manufacturing in the United States. It has contributed to our severe economic problems. We are pleased and appreciative that the Obama Administration intends to act aggressively on this important issue."
"This is a very important step toward resolution of this problem," said Doug Bartlett, Co-Chair of the Coalition, owner of Bartlett Manufacturing Company, Inc. in Cary, Illinois, and a Board member of the U.S. Business and Industry Council. "By the same token, it is important to note that under existing law, recognition that a country manipulates its currency only requires that the U.S. Administration engage in talks with China about the matter. Such talks have been going on between the Treasury Department and Chinese officials for years, with virtually no effect," he said.
"The view of the China Currency Coalition is that Congressional legislation allowing U.S. companies and workers to petition for trade remedies remains urgently needed. The CCC is working with Members of Congress to make this happen," Bartlett said.
In the CCC's view, the mercantilist currency practices of a number of countries, not China alone, are the antithesis of free and fair trade. For that reason, it welcomes the strong language used by Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner that "countries like China cannot continue to get a free pass for undermining fair trade principles."
The CCC also welcomes Mr. Geithner's statement that "the new economic team will forge an integrated strategy on how best to achieve currency realignment in the current economic environment," Mr. Trumka added. "The members of our Coalition stand ready to work closely with the Obama Administration to achieve that goal. It is long overdue and badly needed, especially at a time of global economic crises. We cannot imagine how global economic growth can resume on a sound and stable footing without addressing the source of fundamental imbalance."
About the China Currency Coalition
The China Currency Coalition is an alliance of industry, agriculture, services, and worker organizations whose mission is to support U.S. manufacturing and production by seeking an end to Chinese currency undervaluation. Additional information on the Coalition can be found on its website: www.chinacurrencycoalition.org.
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"The alternative does not bear thinking about."
ReplyDeleteDemocracy?
Democracy for the whole of Chian would be an excellent thing.
ReplyDeleteEthnic cleansing such as would make the partition of India look like a Parish Council boundary dispute would not.
Neither Taiwan nor Tibet has ever existed as an independent country, and neither the Taiwanese "government" nor the Dalai Lama (never mind that overwhelming majority of Tibetans whose life expectancy was half of what it is now before he was kicked out) even wants independence,
But once the separatist geni was out of the bottle in China, there would be no putting it back in again.
Tibet, at least, may be compared in some ways to Scotland. It is discernably different. Taiwan, on the other hand, might as well be the Duc d'Orleans given Orleans itself from which to pretend to be the King of France, or our own Royal Family deposed and set up in Osborne House to reign over the Isle of Wight while pretending to reign over Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
You are completely and utterly wrong about Taiwan. There is virtually no sensible definition in which it is 'part' of China other than China says it is. It has existed as an independent country several times in its history, and it is to your discredit that you do not recognise that.
ReplyDeleteCulturally, ethnically and above all, politically, it was a world away from mainland China. I say 'was' because the pro-unity policies of the incumbent president have messed that up.
It's also a country where it is possible to practice religious faith in freedom: the unity with China will be catastrophic for Taiwan's many Catholics.
The British and American governments certainly do not believe any such thing, and nor does anyone else beyond the very craziest neoconservative circles and their Taiwanese separatist hired help.
ReplyDeleteAlthough a small number of aborigines of Indonesian origin do exist (and are recognised as one of the 56 ethnic groups of China), the term "Taiwanese" as an ethnicity is usually used merely to refer to those who had migrated to Taiwan from mainland China, either from Guangdong (Kwangtung) before the nineteenth century, or from Fujian in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as distinct from those who took refuge there, also from mainland China, after the War. But that is it. That is the sum total of the difference.
Everyone knows that Taiwan has always been part of China and that the current de facto separation was an accident at the end of the War, not wanted by either side then or now. So everyone knows that there will be reunion eventually. It is just a matter of the terms. Including, of course, religious freedom.
Even if the independence lobby on Taiwan ever got anywhere, no one would ever risk the entirely deserved economic and military wrath of China by recognising Taiwanese independence.
Least of all would the United States do so. As much as anything else, Kosovo merely threatened that strongly Hispanic areas along the Mexican border might one day declare UDI. Taiwan, on the other hand, would set a precedent for absolutely any discontented United State, no matter how much like the national mainstream in ethnic terms, to secede.