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The question for the evening is whether it is in the United States' long-term interests to maintain the bilateral trade relationship with China at the same level, or whether we should turn to other trading partners to fulfill our nation's need for manufactured consumer goods.
I was pondering recently in the wake of our nascent trade war with the People's Republic of China, and the fact that it is going to raise the cost of consumer goods of many Americans. The United States over the past four decades has become ever more dependent on trade with China. On the one hand it has helped lower the cost of living for the average American, while spuring the economic rise of one of the most destitute and backwards countries on the face of Earth into a new global superpower. On the other hand, our interdependent trade relationship with China has also spurred intellectual property theft, and China regaining its place from being the Sick Man of Asia into reestablishing what can only be called its Imperial hegemony over East Asia, and across the world. Many thought economic liberalization would come with political and social liberalization. Instead, we now see the rise of what can only be described as a bellicose, authoritarian, single-party fascist state which offers protectionism state-sponsored companies and in which the technological advances have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control the lives of its citizens more efficiently from establishing the Orwellian "social credit system" and concentration camps for Western Chinese Muslim Ugyhurs.
For all intents and purposes, in exchange for decades worth of low-cost consumer goods, the United States appears to have given the Peoples Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party the strength with which to subsume both its internal and its geopolitical rivals...the United States included. It reminds me of Aesop's Fable, The Eagle and the Arrow:
An Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt itself wounded to death. Slowly it fluttered down to the earth, with its life-blood pouring out of it. Looking down upon the Arrow with which it had been pierced, it found that the shaft of the Arrow had been feathered with one of its own plumes. "Alas!" it cried, as it died,
"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction."
Now, many here might say that the United States is not much better than China, and perhaps worse than China. That is not my argument for this evening. My question to everyone here is whether or not it is in the United States' interests to continue to maintain this bilateral trade agreement at the same level, or whether we are stacking the wood for our own funeral pyre by doing so. Personally, I think we should be looking at opening up and widening trading relationships with other developing nations which actually share many if not all of our democratic values, respect for rule of law and individual liberty, such as India. But I would like to hear what those who are interested in this topic have to say. Have a good night, everybody.
I was pondering recently in the wake of our nascent trade war with the People's Republic of China, and the fact that it is going to raise the cost of consumer goods of many Americans. The United States over the past four decades has become ever more dependent on trade with China. On the one hand it has helped lower the cost of living for the average American, while spuring the economic rise of one of the most destitute and backwards countries on the face of Earth into a new global superpower. On the other hand, our interdependent trade relationship with China has also spurred intellectual property theft, and China regaining its place from being the Sick Man of Asia into reestablishing what can only be called its Imperial hegemony over East Asia, and across the world. Many thought economic liberalization would come with political and social liberalization. Instead, we now see the rise of what can only be described as a bellicose, authoritarian, single-party fascist state which offers protectionism state-sponsored companies and in which the technological advances have allowed the Chinese Communist Party to control the lives of its citizens more efficiently from establishing the Orwellian "social credit system" and concentration camps for Western Chinese Muslim Ugyhurs.
For all intents and purposes, in exchange for decades worth of low-cost consumer goods, the United States appears to have given the Peoples Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party the strength with which to subsume both its internal and its geopolitical rivals...the United States included. It reminds me of Aesop's Fable, The Eagle and the Arrow:
An Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt itself wounded to death. Slowly it fluttered down to the earth, with its life-blood pouring out of it. Looking down upon the Arrow with which it had been pierced, it found that the shaft of the Arrow had been feathered with one of its own plumes. "Alas!" it cried, as it died,
"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction."
Now, many here might say that the United States is not much better than China, and perhaps worse than China. That is not my argument for this evening. My question to everyone here is whether or not it is in the United States' interests to continue to maintain this bilateral trade agreement at the same level, or whether we are stacking the wood for our own funeral pyre by doing so. Personally, I think we should be looking at opening up and widening trading relationships with other developing nations which actually share many if not all of our democratic values, respect for rule of law and individual liberty, such as India. But I would like to hear what those who are interested in this topic have to say. Have a good night, everybody.
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