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May 16, 2005
Trade War Continued
Chinese people like America, and they hate her, too. Many people in the other parts of the world share the smae emotion: love and hate simultaneously. More than one year ago, there was an article on Newsweek titled China, Trade And Progress, by Robert J. Samuelson. It began with F. Scott Fitzgerald's words, "The test of a first-class mind is the ability to hold two opposing views...at the same time". This was used to describe the reality of people's life and economic development in China.
The reason of this article being written was the trade complaint by AFL-CIO against China."The AFL-CIO says that repressive labor practices have depressed China's factory wages by 47 percent to 86 percent, lowered the prices of Chinese exports and cumulatively cost avout 727,000 U.S. jobs."
Now, one year later, on May 13, 2005 the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) today announced affirmative decisions in three self-initiated textile safeguard cases:cotton knit shirts and blouses (Category 338/339), cotton trousers (Category 347/348), and cotton and man-made fiber underwear (Category 352/652).
“Today CITA announced its decision to invoke textile safeguards based on market disruption and threat of market disruption due to the magnitude of increases in textile imports from China and China’s significant capacity to increase production and exports to the United States in these product categories,” said Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.(http://www.commerce.gov/opa/press/Secretary_Gutierrez/2005_Releases/May/13_CITA.htm)
Beijing reacts angrily as it uesd to in the past years. China's Ministry of Commerce immediately voiced its strong opposition to this decision, which it said had "run counter to World Trade Organization's agreements" and "set a very bad precedent."
Also,Textile manufacturers and exporters in China said on Sunday that they were outraged by the "hasty and unwise" decision of the United States to re-impose quotas on imports of three types of Chinese clothing, warning that such a decision would hurt both sides badly.(http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticle/newsrelease/commonnews/200505/20050500091422.html)
As a student major in Journalism in a business school in Shanghai, this conflicts between China and the U.S. is something common Chinese could not ignore but don't know how to do with it. Chinese know much more about the U.S. and the American life style than Americans do about China. This is inevitable as U.S. is the center of globalization. Most of the value and culture being spread in the wave of globalization are something about the American way of life.
The official media always say that Washington sitll thinks and acts when dealing with China as they did in the Cold War period, which means U.S. still feel very uncomfortable about China being a communist party.Wall Street Journal always say PRC(People's Republic of China) is governed in dictatorship.
However, a letter written by an Italian reader published on the April issue of Bloomberg Market said that China may become the biggest democratic power in the world. The author argued that China is nuturing its economy and democracy using dictatorship, just as Japan, Taiwan, Singapore did before.
People may laugh at that idea. Ridiculous? Not necessary. China is a country with thousands of years of history and culture. Chinese, however, are more influenced by other culture than its own due to historical reasons, such as Culture Revolution.
If one day, you try travel over China by train from one city to another city, every now and then, you will see bunch of people sitting together, discussing politics, both domestic and international. Deng Xiao Ping was a great man, who let Chinese people being able to see the whole world, through the media and pirate VCD, DVD. This is part of the plan. The government and the Party and the people are just players, Mr. Deng meant to let every player realize their own stakes and rights and gradually know how to fight for them. By implement the Reform and Open Policy and make the policy continue to be effective in the following years even after his death, Mr. Deng is changing the whole scenario of China. The key for Deng to implement was dictatorship.
No matter what, we are witnesses of the history, Chinese like America, the democracy and outstanding system of the society; Chinese hate America too sometimes, due to ideological problems. "We've got two opposing ideas on the brain, and- as Fitzgerald said- somehow we've still got to function."
Posted May 16, 2005 12:48 AM
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