Made in China
Filed Under China, Commentary | Posted on July 10, 2007
Lhasa Rising has a great post titled “Unraveling ‘Made in China’” on the Tibet Will Be Free blog. A couple of excerpts:
Carcinogenic shrimp? Lead-laced children’s toys? Toxic toothpaste? Defective car tires? We are shocked, shocked to see that “Made in China” goods turn out to be substandard, dangerous, or even deadly. Yet the stories keep coming, unraveling like the end of a “Made in China” sweater.
… Unfortunately, the problems with “Made in China” goods are not unforeseeable flukes. Rather, they’re exactly what one should expect from the government, economic system, and development strategy of China today. The recent unraveling of “Made in China” is entirely predictable. As with the mounting pressure surrounding the Beijing 2008 Olympics, we’re seeing how the Chinese government is utterly failing when the system it has created is held up to close scrutiny.
Remember Wal-Mart’s “Buy America” promotional strategy during the 1980’s? That strategy was quietly replaced, after Sam Walton’s death, with an agressive “Buy China” approach. In 2004, ChinaDaily reported that Wal-Mart’s inventory of Chinese-produced goods had reached $18 billion with a 20% annual growth rate, and quoted Xu Jun, Wal-Mart China’s director of external affairs as saying, “If Wal-Mart were an individual economy, it would rank as China’s eighth-biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada.”
Internet giant Google launched google.cn in 2006, agreeing with the PRC “to remove certain sensitive information from our search results.” Google justified their decision to “compromise our mission” with this statement: “We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there.”
No doubt Wal-Mart and other U.S. retailers have similar justifications for doing business with the country with the worst human rights record in the world. This has been the prevailing theory since the 1970s when the U.S. government turned its back on Taiwan and normalized relations with the PRC: by developing strong economic ties with China, we’ll promote capitalism which will turn into democracy. This theory has been in practice for 35 years now, and the overwhelming question I have is, “How’s that working out for you?”
At the end of April, 2007, China held $414 billion, or 19%, of the U.S. debt, second only to Japan, and nearly 4 times more than #3, the U.K. Many worry that U.S. monetary indebtedness to the PRC weakens our trade and diplomatic efforts with China.
According to Amnesty International’s 2007 Report on China, this summarizes the current state of human rights in China:
An increased number of lawyers and journalists were harassed, detained, and jailed. Thousands of people who pursued their faith outside officially sanctioned churches were subjected to harassment and many to detention and imprisonment. Thousands of people were sentenced to death or executed. Migrants from rural areas were deprived of basic rights. Severe repression of Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region continued, and freedom of expression and religion continued to be severely restricted in Tibet and among Tibetans elsewhere.
According to the Brookings Institution:
Although most Western oil companies have withdrawn from Sudan under pressure from human rights organizations, Chinese companies have turned a blind eye to the brutal way in which Sudan forced 200,000 to 300,000 of its citizens from oil-rich lands without compensation. Nor have these companies shown concern that Sudan uses oil revenue to purchase arms for its wars against its black African population.
The publication Buying the Dragon’s Teeth: How Your Money Empowers a Cruel and Dangerous Communist Regime in China, and Undermines Labor, Industry and Freedom Worldwide lists the following rationale for a global boycott of Chinese products:
Three Direct Reasons Not To Buy “MADE IN CHINA” Products
- Products Made in Forced Labor Camps
- Products Manufactured by the Chinese Military
- Products Made by a Disenfranchised Labor Force
More Reasons Not to Buy “MADE IN CHINA” Products
- Sweeping Repression of All Religions
- Nationwide Forced Abortions and Sterilizations
- Indiscriminate and Widespread Use of the Death Penalty
- Commercial Harvesting of Transplant Organs of Executed Prisoners
- Routine Torture of Prisoners
- State Psychiatric Persecution of Political Prisoners
- Military Occupation and Cultural Genocide in Tibet
- Draconian Repression in East Turkestan
- World’s Tightest Internet Censorship
- Spread of Nuclear Weapons to Rogue States and Terrorists
- China Does Not Play by the Usual Rules of Business
(If you need more than headlines, you can read the entire book online.)
It seems more than obvious to me that U.S. strategy toward China is not working to promote democracy or improve human rights. Rather, it’s working to weaken our economy and diplomatic position; promote genocide in Darfur, Tibet, and elsewhere; support torture and repression; and endanger ourselves and our children with poisoned food and toxic playthings.
I’m not fooling myself. I know that my puny little personal boycott of Chinese products (and Mao Tse Wal-Mart) has no impact whatsoever on any of these issues. It’s expensive, and in many cases, it’s downright impossible to find a given product that’s not made in China (it took over a month to find a rubber spatula that wasn’t made in China.) But, I sleep better at night knowing that my hard-earned dollars aren’t contributing to the suffering of millions of people under the influence of Chinese repression.
How are you sleeping?
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Phayul.com reports today (http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=17184):