Trade With China - Good or Bad?
This entry was posted on 11/29/2007 12:33 PM and is filed under National.
There is a great deal of public concern over the recent quality failings seen in Chinese goods.
In the light of the dangerous toys and drugs and the artificial fixing of the yuan against the dollar, many people are angry. They are saying "China is not our friend. This year, BUY AMERICAN; if you're buying Chinese you are not helping our country".
I hear that the major importers whose brand names these Chinese products carry will initiate requirements that such goods bear quality/safety certification by an independent reputable 3rd party testing source.
Certainly we need such initiatives to preserve public safety. This approach would surely be preferable to yet another government bureaucracy hovering over all our ports employing yet another army of tax-dollar guzzling civil servants.
At the same time we need to recognize the clear economic benefits to our citizens that well controlled importation brings.
Many of us can remember the shoddy nature of Japanese goods imported after WWII, including the cheap and nasty automobiles that were seen as a threat to our domestic auto industry. Yet market forces drove the quality of these goods up and we all benefited from the effects of competition in better value and quality in our US produced products.
Sure, we now have a much reduced rust-belt manufacturing base but our unemployment is now less than it was then (despite the immigration of over 12 million illegals) and we have grown new industries which are applying cutting edge technology.
Furthermore, it is as well to recognize that much of the global economic, social
and political progress of the last several decades derives from hyperbolic growth
in world trade. It is a way of letting free markets build prosperity and share the wealth among all the world's peoples.
We do not trade with other nations on the basis of friendship or enmity but rather on the foundation of mutual advantage - the essence of any business dealing.
