The Future of China-US Relations
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-02-15/future-china-us-relations
China's expected next president, Xi Jinping, is making a closely watched visit to the U.S. this week. We discuss with a panel of experts what the impending leadership change could mean for the future of Sino-U.S. relations.
Guests
Kenneth Lieberthal
senior fellow and director of the John L. Thornton China Center at The Brookings Institution; former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council under President Clinton.
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
professor of history, Georgetown University; senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; author of the forthcoming book, "The China Threat: Myths, Memories and Realities in the 1950s."
Quansheng Zhao
professor of international relations and director of the Center for Asian Studies at American University.
Comments
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After seeing video and photographs of recent Chinese atrocities in Tibet, I have to wonder whether the topic will come up in discussions between President Obama and Xi Jinping. Regardless of territorial, political, or economic claims and justifications, how can any people who claim to be civilized justify two uniformed soldiers holding a young girl in a school uniform between them while a third shoots her from behind? These actions are as deplorable now in Tibet as they were in the 1940's during the Holocaust. How can China be accepted as an honorable player on the world stage when it insists on its right to pursue what could rightly be considered genocide?
Paul8777 may have forgotten that Newt Gingrich stumbled into a prevailing truth when he said "Yes, I'm grandiose. Our country is grandiose! America is Big People doing Big Things." When you ask the riddle: "How many Chinese soldiers does it take to shoot a girl student in the back?" I do not believe Mort Sahl would answer "Three." China's leadership is also intoxicated by grandiosity and will deliver the required platitude tongue in cheek:"There is always room for improvement in the area of human rights." Both Obama and Xi are content to keep it that way. Shooting a girl and keeping oppressed workers producing for Foxxconn are very much the same thing. Threatening Medicare while we plan to invade Iran is another piece of the same puzzle. The 1% is immune from prosecution to such a degree that government officials acting to enhance their revenue stream are heroes. "Hip-hip hurray for the grotesque and grandiose concentration of wealth and power!"
How much money do we owe China?
Can anyone explain why China pays only a 2.5% tariff on imported goods into the states and the US pays a 25% on US goods into China?
Recently Dr. Zbig said on the Diane Rehm show that it is important not to ever demonize China. Can you also talk about that
Were locked at the hip, one goes down the other goes with it. China needs massive economic growth to keep huge labor forces working. We need massive infusions of borrowed cash to keep entitlements and military spending flowing. As for the 1% nonsense, that's just something liberals like to keep in their mouths like chewing tobacco, and they need to spit regularly. Welcome to the spittoon.
Diane just brought up the US talking to China about human rights abuses. How can anyone take the US seriously about human rights issues with Abu Gharib under our belts and a huge pile of dead bodies, hundreds of thousands injured and millions displaced in Iraq that no one in the states talks about. It sounds like the Chinese leader said the US has no room to preach. No room on human rights
kathleen: China (in many guises) is said to hold 8% of our national debt. Chinese institutions holding these markers often have heavy western ownership. The bulk of this said debt is held by the 1% here, in their many guises. (includes the FED) Much of the national debt is owed to Medicare and Social Security because these funds have been borrowed for war adventures to enhance the revenue stream of the 1%. Here is how I see it. To financially colonize China our Oligarchy has taken their Elite in as junior partners in the Big Stateless Bucket Shop. China is a labor colony with little tendency to nationalistic action. In 1910 the urban Chinese were addicted to Opium. And today they are addicted to passing fads, ipads and Buicks. This is totally a class problem in a world where nation state concepts are being transcended by corporate financialism. A country is but a clamp to hold labor, resources and wealth in place while extortion and extraction proceeds. So talk of "currency manipulation" is a red herring, something billionaires in the carry trade might squabble over. And the debt... psst It's about as real as MERS (digital real estate registry). One of the best ways humanity could be set free is by a refusal to pay debts contracted by Elites in their name. (see Greece fry?)
Damn- I'm laughing like a maniac about the idea of "...creating jobs by being tough on China." But there's Bonehead Barry touring a padlock shop. O-o-o-h Buddy! I'm about to faint cause that's so high tech and cutting edge. (Wages are falling faster here than they are rising in China.)
And monte is still flying Old Glory on the raingutters of his Caravan.
(Old Glory clamps- made in China)
"Buy a lock, whether you need it or not, and keep the drudgery here."
It seems apparent Obama and many democrats do not believe debt and deficit spending is worth worrying about. Why is this?
how can we question China on human rights abuses, when we do not clean up our own atrocities from the previous and current adminstration - our torture program, extraordinary rendition, black sites etc...we cannot look forward or criticize others without prosecuting our past.
I have been calling the Rehm Team the Rehm Team for years. I am wondering if the new producer is part of the new filtering system on the Diane Rehm show blocking diverse opinions on the Iranian issue and no programs on the I/P issue as of late.
"Monique Nazareth, Producer
Monique Nazareth joined The Diane Rehm Show as a producer in October 2009. She moved to D.C. after working for almost 13 years as a producer on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Prior to joining Fresh Air, Nazareth worked at the Christian Science Monitor Radio as the associate producer of Weekend Edition, and a news assistant. She holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa with a double major in journalism and mass communications and a minor in Portuguese."
Fresh Air really has road blocks up about the I/P issue and Terri Gross herself repeats unsubstantiated claims about Iran. Wondering about Monique Nazareth. Is she part of a new roadblock on these issues?
Where is Dorie the previous phone screener on NPR? Dorie always allowed truly diverse opinions to make it through on the show? The new male screener is seriously gender lop sided. A seriously disproportionate amount of males get through especially on US international programs. Listen closely
More of a block up at the Diane Rehm show the last several years
So they can keep your income tax refund this year, huh monte?
Look, THEY don't worry about it (debt and deficts), neither the Democrats or the Republicans, nor their bipartisan Oligarch bribers (to them debt is an asset). They leave that WORRYING to gullible people like you.
I don't care about human rights in foreign countries that much when were just handing over our constitutional rights to the government here at home. It's perplexing how few caught on to this in last weeks fiasco over Obama-care.
Now that you mention it (again), kathleen, I'll admit I see all the bias you see at DRShow, and more. It is a fascinating laboratory demonstrating how consent is manufactured in the USA at NPR. Once you see them make the sausage you can never eat it again. But you can still participate in the food fight.
So the Pope ain't gonna pay for your pills, big deal.
Too bad China ain't Catholic.
Pancake Rankin wrote:
"They leave that WORRYING to gullible people like you."
I am curious? where do you think this borrowing and spending is leading. Surely you don't think all the social programs you like can be maintained?
monte: Please list the "social programs" you think I'd like and I'll check them off. I will add any you've forgotten.
Please place an asterisk beside the ones you are on.
(You might want to seek "all that other help out there" before you cut your umbilical.) Nobody is going to open a special bureau to assist older white men ahead of everyone else no matter who gains office.
I'm 37 years old, lucky to be in good health, living on a trust income provided by my forebears, and owe no loans, mortgages or consumer debts. I volunteer 50% of my waking hours helping poorer people but I know churches and people like me can't nearly meet the need. People are often corralled into a helpless situation without opportunity because a few hoard all wealth and opportunity. So whatcha gonna do? Maybe "let 'em die" (and you might be including yourself and your loved ones in that callous cruelty)? Hey, you have a choice, so why embrace evil?
Have you investigated the social safety net in China lately?
Obama and Dick Cheney both did not think deficits mattered. Hummm...
The simple fact of the matter is the Chinese have the American business sector over a barrel. They have discovered a means by which to use the American capital cycle to undermine the American business cycle. The Chinese offer venture capital, trained workers, the factory, and favorable freight rates from Chinese ports to where ever.... You, as the American business man know full well that in the long term, you're going to be forced out of the operation and it will become totally Chinese. You also know that all processes and designs are going to be copied and co-opted. That's okay because you are an American business man and you never intended to own the enterprise long term anyway, only build it to a point, sell it, and repeat the process all over again. And thus the Chinese win with the same procedure. Give the American business sector profits now, in exchange for owning the enterprise later. In other words, the Chinese offer the American business sector tactical gain, in exchange for strategic loss. The American business sector is unable to deal with this process, and is even less able to resist playing on Chinese terms. The Chinese don't have a Stalin or a Hitler to chase out American businessmen or start wars that keep American businessmen at home. We as Americans never imagined that open markets and fascism would in the long term destroy the very open markets Pax Americana would create because the American leadership cadres cannot see how they are being outmanevered by overseas cadres who can play using American rules against America.
Pancake Rankin, are you not capable of answering a simple question? Actually I was hoping you would have just answered the question! I wondered if you even thought about it.
Things like compassion and good intentions have little meaning when the money runs out from a wealth redistribution stand point. As far as my personal situation, I am not involved with any social welfare programs other than a few tax write offs for our adopted child and business losses. No SS or medicare. You do seem to be over the top self righteously indignant. Is there a guilt complex here because you have not earned your own money and perhaps you are trying to transfer your internal hostility towards yourself to others.
monte: You had an answer fixated in your closed mind before you asked. One day you bragged to Grady Lee Howard that you are racist. Today (Wednesday) you celebrate that you care nothing for human rights, except possibly your own. It is pointless to explain to you about the purposeful gutting of prosperity and social responsibility in our country because sadism seems to be something you relish. I believe you said you are at the end of your working life and not successful. You seem to have unlimited idle time to restate your received talking points like an answering machine. You just keep on admiring the rich people who defrauded us, and keep on butting your head against a wall of reason and pretty soon you'll keel over and no rich guys will even notice. Maybe the question to ask you is : What do you expect? Do you think you'll become a Master at the last minute? What would it matter anyway. The main thing wrong in America is that the worst people have temporarily won, but it won't last. China as it is cannot last either. They can only maintain the shell game for a limited time.
Andrew seems stuck in the sports metaphor of competing nation states and allied businesses. He probably gets real excited when team building time arrives at work. Just the mention of Stalin and Hitler out of context shows a stringent faith in Great Man Theory. Look, if you can't find a Strong Leader you have to follow Chainsaw Jack Welch and Mitt Romney I guess. American corporations use the Chinese government to impose labor discipline. They would not be there except on favorable terms. The bonus is labor discipline in the Homeland (here). American Empire did not so much create markets as dictate terms. The problem comes when the client local elite can no longer impose labor discipline and cheap resource extraction. Humanity is waking up to reality.
Andrew, set your alarm. We're through playing the Oligarchs' game.
P.R.". I believe you said you are at the end of your working life and not successful and other things"
I will not put personal information here, but if that's what you came away with with that long time ago post when I did. I don't know what to say. Good luck to you! By the way what is "Pancake Rankin" ? sounds like something you can find at the bottom of a nuclear reactor.
Pancake is the family name of several spouses intermarried with the Rankins over the last century. It appears on my birth certificate as one of my two middle names. Pancake women have been notable golfers and tennis players as well as accomplished scholars. I oppose nuclear power, because of toxicity and because of concentrated financial resources, as opposed to diversified generation. The word you may be recalling is "yellowcake." This false intelligence assertion sent Joe Wilson to Niger and later outed his wife as a CIA asset. It was one of the Bush Administration's greatest shames. Thanks for recalling it, monte. Too bad you're fearful to discuss your situation candidly, so that we might empathize with your torment.