Going Down Exactly the Wrong Road — Provoking China Militarily in the Pacific, while Simultaneously Doing Nothing to Challenge China’s Theft of the American Economy — a Policy that Only a Geopolitical Fool (and a Multi-National Corporate Plutocrat) Would Like

21 November 2011

After three years in office, President Obama still seems not to have learned anything important about substantive leadership

President Obama last week provocatively sent China a message that America was going to militarily challenge whatever aims the People’s Republic holds in the Pacific. He sent 2,500 U.S. Marines to Australia:

Mr Obama said the US was "stepping up its commitment to the entire Asia-Pacific", not excluding China.

"The main message that I've said, not only publicly but also privately to China, is that with their rise comes increased responsibility," he said.

"It is important for them to play by the rules of the road."

Had this (arguably necessary) provocative geopolitical strategy some chance of ultimate success, the President’s ploy might have made sense.

Unfortunately, he (and we) have completely ignored concentrating on the underlying economic measures that are much more necessary to preserving American power.

The President’s show-boat maneuvering in the Pacific actually worsens America’s already over-extended military and economic situation.

A premise

It is fundamentally impossible to maintain military power, and geographic reach, without a very strong economy in support.

Instead (and self-destructively), the United States has been literally giving China the most strategically important parts of our economic infrastruture.

The “U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission” 2011 Report to Congress documents the escalating economic threat

The President and Congress have been sitting on their argumentative, complacent, and Plutocrat-enriching butts for years. Meanwhile China’s (often illegal) machinations have successfully stolen much of the economic power that gave the United States super-power status in the past.

As a measure intended to track the progress of our sinking economic ship, Congress established the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2000. The Commission tracks changes, and makes recommendations, regarding the balance of power between the two nations.

The Commission’s November 2011 Report to Congress paints a painful picture of what “We the People” have allowed to happen to our prospects for a decent future.

Economics columnist Robert Kuttner capably summarized the 2011 Report’s meaning

I turn here to Robert Kuttner because the Commission’s Report is itself not particularly well-written. Mr. Kuttner did an admirable job of summarizing its findings, and their implications, in an admirably less verbose way.

First, says Kuttner, China is determined to take U.S. jobs and technology. It does so with the lure of cheap wages and State-provided capital. Foreign businesses are also required to take a Chinese corporate partner, who must then be allowed access to the foreign corporation’s advanced technology:

Even then, you must produce mainly for export back to the U.S., not for sale in China.

Worse still, U.S. industry has been happy to take these deals, which makes them a domestic ally of the China lobby.

While our government periodically makes half-hearted complaints that the Chinese currency, the Renminbi, is seriously undervalued, American corporations like that just fine -- because it makes their exports to the U.S. from Chinese factories even cheaper.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which fights industrial policy at home, lobbies fiercely against any pressure from Washington against Beijing's mercantilism.

So while the Obama administration flails around with small-bore military gestures and bipartisan free trade deals with smaller countries, it does not dare to challenge the grand bargain America's corporations have made with China, or China's own illicit policies.

Kuttner’s summary of this mess is accurate

Plutocrats’ exportation of our economy to China, with serial Presidents’ and Congress’ active approval, was one of the main reasons I established this website.

As a lawyer, I was irritated at the brazen way China steals intellectual property and infuriated by our Government’s surreptitious participation in the theft.

As a former blue collar worker, I remain interminably angry with the way Fat Cats have bought our (now falsely) democratic institutions for the purpose of assisting the People’s Republic with the whole-hog transportation of American jobs to China.

Another premise

A nation without manufacturing and secret technology is in no position to wage large-scale self-defensive war.

That we permit our leaders to continue with the wholesale dismantlement of American economic power is a sign of the depth of our self-deluding and self-destructive insanity.

Leadership is about more than cementing one’s personal well-being

There is a big difference between pretending to lead (in order to win political elections) and actually leading in a way that enhances America’s future prospects. President Obama is good at the former and terrible at the latter.

In essence, we have a president who seems willing to sacrifice the nation’s future good for his personal political well-being.

President Obama, of course, is not alone in demonstrating this selfish quality. Virtually all our leaders do. And we let them.

The moral? — Dealing with China means protecting and enhancing our economy first

Militarism is not the answer to America’s problems. It’s one of their main causes.

PeteFree.com

Going Down Exactly the Wrong Road — Provoking China Militarily in the Pacific, while Simultaneously Doing Nothing to Challenge China’s Theft of the American Economy — a Policy that Only a Geopolitical Fool (and a Multi-National Corporate Plutocrat) Would Like