"Threats spawn anger that morphs into enmity and overwhelms greed.", Modern American Proverb.
This is the emotional slippery slope that the Chinese leadership needs to worry about. Americans are greedy, no doubt; or simply clueless. For two decades, Americans have been living large on the backs of cheap Chinese labor, especially female factory hands, and borrowing Chinese money. But there is a point at which even American greed can be overcome by provocation and the Chinese leadership is getting pretty close to that tipping point.
I, for one, don’t care anymore what the leadership in Beijing thinks. I no longer feel that I have much at stake playing nice with China. The Chinese Government stands for things that I can’t support. The Chinese economy may be booming but that doesn’t help me here in America get a decent job. If anything, it may be time to cut the Chinese off and deny them unfettered access to the American market. Without our market, their economy would hit the wall and a wave of outsourced jobs would flood back into America and our political allies. We should be buying from ourselves and our allies – Germany, France, England, Korea, Japan, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Mexico and Columbia, to name a few – not from a totalitarian foreign power.
I also don’t think that we need Chinese cash. Chinese reserves depress real interest rates and distort the cost of money. I haven’t lent the US Government any money for years because the returns are too low. Tidal waves of Chinese money cause American investors to take on riskier and riskier investments just to get a decent return. They helped trigger the culture of debt that led to the financial crisis. Cheap money depresses our saving rate because it makes no sense to lend money to the government or a bank at ¼ of a percent.
All of this begs the question, “Why are Americans buying so many things from China? Why are we borrowing from China? It is not in the national interest to strength this emerging imperialist power by expanding its exports. Or paying it interest on the accumulated surplus labor of its workers. Why doesn’t our Government act responsibility and start closing the funnel. Economic prosperity is not going to change the Chinese Communist Party. It is only going to give them the tools to extend China’s power.
China is not longer a victim of colonialism; it is now a colonial power. It occupies Tibet and oppresses the Uyghur. It wants to deprive the Taiwanese of their freedom. Pit-by-pit, its state owned enterprises are locking up the natural resources that it needs to feed its lust for power. Unhampered by a tradition of fair play, the Chinese are bribing their way to economic control in the developing world. They steal intellectual property under the guise of redressing an historical wrong committed generations ago by the British narco-imperialistists. Get over it, the British Empire no longer exits. World War I made sure of that.
I, for one, am going to try not to buy anything made in China for the next month. This is going to take discipline but I am going to try. If every American boycotted Chinese goods for just one month, the Chinese leadership would feel a chill wind blowing across the Pacific. I urge the leaders of American industry, i.e, Walmart and Target, to change their sourcing policies and give the consumer a choice: Made in America; Made by an American Ally, or Made Outside Our System of Values. I think they would be surprised at the response.
Finally, the US Navy should stop protecting Chinese shipping. Let the pirates in the Strait of Malacca or off the coast of Somalia or in the Persian Gulf have a field day with the Chinese merchant fleet. That would remind the Chinese that America’s naval umbrella is the underpinning of world trade and peace. We don’t ask for much – no tribute or tithing – just a little respect for our values of fairness, freedom and preserving the environment.