China-bashing by the Dems

Maybe it's just because it's election season and linking opponents to sinister furriners is a hardly honorable but time-tested tactic. But the curious thing is that this cycle the Democrats and liberals (modern American style, not classical), who in the recent past worked hard to associate themsleves with cosmopolitanism, openness to the other and all that are sounding like jingoists. Union preferences have something to do with it, of course; U.S. unions are always angling for protection from foreign companies in the fear that downward pressure might be put on wages.

The upshot is that we have the Obama administration sounding for all the world, as this Register editorial explains, like late-1990s neoconservatives, when those unworthies were casting about for a credible enemy to justify continuing to build up the military-industrial complex and throwing America's weight around the world. The Yellow Peril! Barbara Boxer claiming she yearns to see more "made in America" goods! Very strange if you took stated beliefs seriously, but perfectly understandable in the context of political opportunism in an election year.

I talked to Cato's main trade guy, Dan Griswold (former editorial page editor at Freedom's Colorado Springs paper, but that was a long time ago). He just wrote an excellent piece on the "shipping jobs overseas" canard, and he says it seems more like election-year blustering than a serious move to start a trade war with China. I hope he's right, but anti-trade and fear-of-trade sentiment cuts across ideological lines appealing to know-nothings on both "left" and "right." I'm afraid it will persist after the election is over.

Google takes on China

It will take a while for all the implications to play themselves out, but Google's decision, in effect, to defy the Chinese government's censorship rules last week strikes me as pretty consequential. It's become likely, as news has trickled out, that the immediate catalyst was the discovery not only that Gmail accounts of possible Chinese dissidents had been hacked, but that some 33 U.S. companies, including large defense contractors, had been hacked.

Google made the decision to lie down with the dog of the Chinese government, agreeing when it entered the Chinese market to censor certain things (like the 1989 unpleasantness at Tiananmen Square) from its search engine for Chinese customers. Its decision to defy that censorship order may or may not be the final outcome. Google might leave China, or China just might have to become more open and less censorious. I figure the latter has to happen sooner or later, but it could be quite a bit later.

Risking a trade war with China

China and the U.S. may be so economically co-dependent -- the U.S. gobblement needs China keep financing its deficit and China needs U.S. consumers to keep buying its exports -- to keep financing that they will back off before it gets too serious, but the decision last September to impose a 35% tariff on cheap Chinese auto tires has begun a series of tit-for-tat petty restrictions by both countries, as this Register editorial outlines. It's all so foolish and childish. But then that's almost the definition of government.

Taiwan less dangerous now

Here is the Register's editorial on last weekend's elections in Taiwan. The short version is that with the victory by the Kuomintang (KMT), which used the be the one available party but has been out of power for eight years, tension between Taiwan and the mainland should ratchet down. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had been edging ever closer to a formal declaration of independence from mainland China, thus upsetting the delicate balance of make-believe that has undergirded stability. The mainland claims Taiwan is a renegade province, of course, and Taipei still pretends it's the real government of all of China. Taiwan has de facto independence, but formal indendence could trigger military action by the mainland that could involve the U.S.

I talked to Ted Carpenter, who wrote a recent book on Taiwan, and he told me a few other things we couldn't fit into the editorial. For example, KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou had to promise not to propose reunification. The crackdown in Tibet probably reduced the KMT margin of victory by six percent of so, but at 58% it was still decisive. Ted also offered a bit of an explanation for China's insistence on having every bit of territory it traditionally held, which still strikes me as an example of statist irrationality (why keep constantly troublesome Tibet?). In addition to constant propaganda from state-controlled media, of course, during the 19th century China was ruled by decentralized warlords, and the European colonial powers took advantage of that to establish local footholds. So there's at least a semi-understandable reason for China being so insistent on being unified. But I still think it's irrational.

Trouble in Tibet

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the crackdown by mainland China in Tibet. Bloody and tragic. The editorial makes a point I haven't seen made elsewhere, namely that nation-states can sometimes be downright insane when it comes to the lust for control over territory. Tibetans are ethnically distinct from Han Chinese, and while it paid tribute to some Chinese emperors in timess past, it was essentially autonomous because of distance, and for most of the 20th century because of troubles in China that were something of a distraction. The Tibetans hate Chinese rule and give the Chinese nothing but trouble and grief, and there's no economic benefit to China from controlling Tibet -- quite the contrary. Hanging on to Tibet wrecks China's image in the world, which for the first time in a while it cares about. If Chinese leaders were thinking rationally they'd let Tibet (and Taiwan) have uncontested independence, ridding nthemselves of headaches. But they're in charge of nation-states, which tends to reduce one's IQ by at least 50 points.