Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Move over, let me do that...

Congress - without much supporting evidence of economic expertise - has decided it needs to mess with the Chinese economy. After all, it's barely growing at 12%. So we Americans should decide what their currency is worth.
The administration unleashed its admonition as Paulson visited China once again, pursuing his favored course -- high-level talks with Chinese counterparts on a range of trade issues. Paulson has maintained that this Strategic Economic Dialogue remains the best channel for persuading China to allow its currency to float freely and to respect the norms of international trade.

Since the dialogue was launched in December to fanfare in Beijing, however, the main achievements have been minor deals, such as additional airline routes and promises of more talk. Growing numbers of lawmakers from both parties have joined a chorus of aggrieved manufacturers and labor unions, who maintain that China artificially depresses the value of the yuan to keep its goods unfairly cheap on world markets, costing American jobs. [More]
Danger here, methinks. China is already pursuing a vigorous foreign policy program in the Mideast to secure energy, they have a growing naval presence and just incidentally hold a mountain of US debt. We're not going to push those 1.3B folks around like Grenada. The leadership in China has a short fuse when it comes to outside interference. Like the administration, Congress seems to me to be headed for biting off far more than they can masticate.

1 comment:

KevinJ said...

I agree with your comments on
China although I feel Bush and his
administration shares most of the blame by indebting our country up to the nose with foreign countries,
in particular China, to finance
this totally nnecessary counter-
productive adventure in Iraq largely done because Iraq is sitting on the second largest reserves of easily accessible oil
which Bush and his cronies will
never get access to no matter how
many lifes and billions he wastes
over there to get it. Meanwhile
China is using its goodwill diplomacy
and their economic strength to forge
good relations with countries that
can supply them with their growing
energy needs which is what this
country should be doing instead
of squandering our military force
as Bush is now doing.... Of course
its continually denied that it
isn't about oil but do you think for one minute that Bush and his
cronies would have invaded and occupied Iraq if they were some
agricultural country without vast
oil resources?? I think not!!