Chapter 40 guide
★ Previous attacks on Wall Street and greedy corporations have now been shifted to China.
★China is still a poor country, while the United States is the richest country in the world.The competition between China and the United States is not on the same level at all. Why do Americans always regard China as a threat?
★The huge demand of China's middle class provides opportunities for the United States and multinational companies. In the long run, the status quo of the United States as the largest consumer country is likely to be changed.
★China's influence is not only reflected in the formation of the United States and "Central America". From Brazil to Australia, from South Korea to Japan, the economic development has been driven by China's demand.
Every year, 150 billion U.S. dollars flow from American pockets into Chinese wallets through Wal-Mart, Nike, Home Depot, Motorola, Intel and other companies. The money is used to build the maglev train that connects Shanghai’s new airport with downtown and leads to Tibet. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway with the highest altitude in the world.The money China earns from the lower and middle classes of the United States is used to build power stations and ports in Dalian and Tianjin.There is also a lot of money flowing into the hands of tens of millions of Chinese urban dwellers, who in turn use the money they earn to buy Nike sneakers, Wal-Mart's spicy chicken feet, Tesco's soap and Procter & Gamble's Olay.The middle class in China will patronize the McDonald's fast food restaurant on the way home from get off work. The TVs they watch after returning home are Chinese brands, such as TCL, but the screens used in the TVs are produced by Corning Corporation of the United States.
Through the above example, can you understand what happened between China and the United States?So how did the dispute between China and the United States come about?Through the elaboration of this chapter, you will understand what is the core of the trade dispute between China and the United States, and why there are so many contradictions and disputes between China and the United States that are constantly cut and unreasonable.
On a cold winter's day, Senator John Kerry came to Virginia to campaign for the upcoming primary for the Democratic nominee.In his speech, Kerry strongly condemned the transfer of jobs overseas, arguing that it harms the interests of ordinary American workers. “We will abolish benefits, remove incentives, and try to fill the gaps between Benedict Arnold-style ‘traitorous CEOs’ and companies that give jobs to other countries. Loopholes created by the system.” These critical remarks won Kerry many voters’ support, and he eventually won the party’s nomination for the presidential race.During the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, Kerry continued to attack companies that moved jobs overseas.Although he seldom named China, the direction in his words was already quite obvious.Every newspaper that published Kerry's remarks and other media that released news about him pointed this out very clearly, believing that the main reason for the decline in American job opportunities is China.
The relentless attacks on "traitor CEOs" have boosted Kerry's popularity.Many Americans generally feel insecure because global trade liberalization is at the expense of the American people, making multinational corporations and Wall Street richer, while the middle and lower classes are getting poorer and poorer.Later, Kerry divided the targets of his attack.Instead of blindly blaming all companies that outsource jobs and participate in global trade, he only attacks companies that take advantage of US tax loopholes to close US factories, cut US jobs, and hire foreigners for production.Kerry realized that the loss of domestic jobs in the United States was only one aspect of the problem. The other aspect of the problem was the low-cost consumer goods that the American people expected.Kerry maintained this view until his unsuccessful presidential bid in November 2004.
Like the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in the streets of Seattle in 1999, the 2004 presidential campaign speeches reminded people of the populist dissatisfaction with reality, although that is a dusty past.At the time, populists railed against Wall Street and claimed that the "fat cats of the East" were eating the fruits of the American people's labor.The populist perspective describes the salient features of American politics and society in the second half of the 20th century.Moreover, these views prevailed both under Roosevelt's New Deal and during the New Wave of radical politics in the 1970s.The difference in 2004, however, is that the previous attacks on Wall Street and greedy corporations have now shifted to China. 10 years ago, the opposition to Mexico and NAFTA, in today's view, is just a rehearsal for resisting China's rise 10 years later.At that time, people were only worried that the Mexicans would take the jobs of the Americans, but no one would think that Mexico could replace the United States as the world's leading power with a low-cost advantage.Today, however, Americans' attitude toward China is entirely based on fear of China's rise.
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