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• Does China Really Need a New Organics Label?
• Photo: beijing_found, by Jim O’Connell
• Beijing Officials Raise Flood Death Toll
• Beijing Flood in Cartoons
• Bo Xilai’s Wife Charged with Heywood Killing (Updated)
• Beijing Flood Stories Cut from Southern Weekend
• Sensitive Words: Beijing Flood
• The Daily Twit – 7/26/12: The Rain that Wasn’t, More Net Restrictions, and Beijing Homicide
• CNOOC-Nexen Politics Continues to Entertain
• The Empty Rhetoric of “Get Tough on China”

Does China Really Need a New Organics Label? Posted: 27 Jul 2012 12:26 AM PDT Shanghai's product quality watchdog has given more than 70 organic product makers approval to start using a new label this month that aims to help buyers distinguish true organic products from the phonies, local officials announced at a press conference Thursday. The new labels carry a unique code that consumers can type into a government website to determine whether the product meets government standards for organic goods. "Only products that were manufactured before July 1 are allowed to have the old labels now. Organic products made since have to carry the new label to get on the shelves," said an official surnamed Li from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision. (Global Times) What's the reason for the new label? Well, lots of cheating, that's why. It's been too easy to either fake a label (i.e., lie about the product's origin) or pay a certification firm to grease the wheels for an approval. Not good. If my shopping habits are indicative of anything, I stopped paying any attention to the organic label long ago, assuming everyone was bullshitting. I assume that the new label is more difficult to fake, which is a good thing. Moreover, consumers will be able to check a public database to verify whether a product sporting such a label has actually been certified. Sounds great. However, I'd feel a lot better if in the past we had seen any tough enforcement against certification bodies or violators of the old labeling system. Transparency and anti-counterfeiting measures are a great place to start, but ultimately this is going to come down to specific enforcement, which means administrative resources. So are local governments, starting with Shanghai, willing to spend money policing a new system or will it fall into disrepair like the old one? I hope that we aren't having this same discussion five years from now as the government unveils Organic Label #3, no doubt in 3D or with some other accompanying bells and whistles. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: food labeling, organic

Photo: beijing_found, by Jim O’Connell Posted: 26 Jul 2012 11:09 PM PDT © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Beijing Officials Raise Flood Death Toll Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:51 PM PDT Facing mounting public criticism and a crisis of credibility over the city's response to the weekend's flooding, Beijing officials raised the death toll from 37 to 77 on Thursday evening. From The Wall Street Journal: City workers are still carrying out search efforts, which have been impeded by mudslides that followed Saturday's storm, the Beijing municipal government said in a statement posted to its official account on the Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo late Thursday night. Of the 77 dead, the vast majority drowned, with five electrocuted and one struck by lightning, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, quoting Beijing flood-control spokesman Pan Anjun. A further sharp increase in the death toll "is not likely" because the search is drawing to an end, Mr. Pan said, according to Xinhua, though he added "we will not give up searching just yet." Xinhua reports that a second storm bypassed Beijing on Wednesday and struck the nearby city of Tianjin instead, flooding roads and stopping air traffic. Angry bloggers have blasted Beijing's response to the floods on a scale not seen since last summer's Wenzhou high-speed rail disaster, according to The Financial Times, and The Los Angeles Times reports that online censors have scrambled to control the information flow as suspicious netizens have posted their own death toll figures. TIME's Austin Ramzy explores the sensitivity with which official death toll statistics are guarded in China: Experience with scrubbed numbers has left many in China wary of official statistics, particularly when they deal with human life. During the SARS epidemic mainland Chinese officials were slow to tell the outside world about the then-mysterious disease, which helped fan its global spread. When a handful of cases arrived in Beijing, the government said they were under control, even as the disease spread rapidly through the capital's hospitals. It was not until a single doctor spoke out that it was revealed that the total cases were several times what the government had claimed. … In response to the Beijing floods volunteers have launched their own investigation into the death toll. A spreadsheet posted online now list the names of 26 dead and two missing. Based on reports of other dead it lists an unconfirmed total of 42. "Officials have been very eager to release numbers in terms of how much property is damaged, but people are asking, 'If you're so quick to say how many animals are dead, what about the humans?'" says Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. "There is some disconnect by officials in the sense they don't want to draw too much attention to Beijing. A larger number would show Beijing in a bad light." Dikötter says that in terms of scale, there is no comparison between recent disasters and the massive calamities in the Mao era like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. But despite pledges of openness, the official instinct to tightly control information remains. "This is a very well rehearsed machine that's been in place for some decades," he says. "It can't help itself. It wants to control information. That's the default mode. Even if in some cases (the information) might not seem be all that shocking, that just what it does. It's like brushing its teeth in the morning, that's what you do. You don't think about it too much." See also previous CDT coverage of the flooding in Beijing. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Beijing, beijing flood 2012, death toll, disaster relief, microblogging, netizens, online public opinion Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Beijing Flood in Cartoons Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:01 PM PDT Political cartoonists have taken on the Beijing flood, posting images on Weibo and blogs that crystallize the major complaints to arise from this natural-and-man-made disaster: Cars stalled by the heavy rain Saturday were ticketed for parking violations. (Dashix) —How come my house flooded, but yours is okay? —Well, maybe you owe money for the sewers… (Pearl Forest) Beijing's drainage system was built decades ago, and has not been cleaned or expanded to keep up with the booming population. Netizens are galled at the Beijing municipal government's calls  for donations to local charities. Many want to know why such a rich country has to "beg" for money. In Kuang Biao's cartoon, a greedy red box sporting the five stars and bright red of the Chinese flag holds up a sign for donations, impervious to being egged. A donation box. The hand is generously giving "my ass." Calls on Weibo to "donate my ass" went viral yesterday. The meme is now censored from Weibo searches. Parody of CCTV spin by Big Red Machine. Piranhas escaped into Guangxi's Liu River earlier this month. The propaganda machine has clamped down on news and online commentary on the floods, as well as the horrific Wenzhou train crash of July 23, 2011. (Peaceful House Pearl Shimao) © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: beijing flood 2012, cartoons, CCTV, meme, political cartoons Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Bo Xilai’s Wife Charged with Heywood Killing (Updated) Posted: 26 Jul 2012 09:58 AM PDT Xinhua reports that Gu Kailai, wife of Bo Xilai, and Zhang Xiaojun, a family aide, have been charged with the "intentional homicide" of British businessman Neil Heywood. Heywood's death in November last year led to Bo's sudden fall from grace in February, cutting short his expected ascent to the highest levels of the Party and national government. Bogu Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun were recently charged with intentional homicide by the Hefei Municipal Procuratorate in Anhui province, Xinhua learned from authorities Thursday. […] Investigation results show that Bogu Kailai, one of the defendants, and her son surnamed Bo had conflicts with the British citizen Neil Heywood over economic interests. Worrying about Neil Heywood's threat to her son's personal security, Bogu Kailai along with Zhang Xiaojun, the other defendant, poisoned Neil Heywood to death. The facts of the two defendants' crime are clear, and the evidence is irrefutable and substantial. Therefore, the two defendants should be charged with intentional homicide. Xinhua uses the unconventional compound family name "Bogu", apparently to emphasise the connection between husband and wife. Bo's own case is not mentioned, but the announcement of Gu's charges may indicate that it will soon reach a conclusion. From CNN: "This was expected," said Joseph Fewsmith, an international relations professor at Boston University and a long-time China watcher, referring to the murder charges. […] "There was a desire on the part of the Chinese Communist Party to get this case settled. It's not yet, but it is out of the party and into the hands of criminal courts — well before the 18th Party Congress. We should expect a resolution of the Bo Xilai case within the next couple weeks," Fewsmith said. "With these cases being dealt with at this time, I expect there to be smooth sailing to the 18th Party congress. There may be some bargaining to go, but most of it has been done." As in the case of Chen Guangcheng's nephew Chen Kegui, CNN reports that the family's own choice of lawyers has been pushed aside by government appointees. New York University law professor Jerome Cohen recently argued that frequent obstruction of criminal suspects' legal defence "make[s] a mockery of China's claims to have established 'a socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics'". Update, 18:52 PST: Tea Leaf Nation has collected social media reactions to the premiere of "Season 2 of China's hottest political drama". Some netizens have debated the charges' credibility or speculated about the outcome, while others questioned whether "a battle among the gods" really has anything to do with them. Others, though, have been keen to analyse the big political picture: @雨过天晴merry tweets, "I knew this matter would become a criminal case and dilute the political infighting." @持之以恒创新改变生活 is not fazed by the political inflighting, "Fight it out. How can there be reform if there is not infighting." @扑鸟个通 tweets, "Although it might be political persecution, but I think it's a good thing that Bo loses out. His 'red movement' makes me scared." @大字半斗 gives his summary, "1) The indictment is low profile and shows they want a 'cold treatment.' 2) They emphasize the murder and the motive, but not the US$60 million [rumored to be the amount involved in Gu's corrupt dealings] and the ideological differences [between Bo Xilai and other leaders], 3) Left open the possibility for Gu to get out of a death sentence, and left space for Bo Xilai to re-emerge onto the political stage, so it is a happy ending for all." The Guardian's Tania Branigan also explored the political context, and argued that far from highlighting the "Bogu" marriage as suggested above, the authorities may hope to separate the two cases as far as possible. Some think that is because any hint of a connection between a leader and a murder would sully the reputation of the party as a whole. But Professor Steve Tsang, director of the China policy institute at Nottingham University, argued: "I think [the absence of new information about Bo] probably confirms that they can relatively easily agree as to what to do with her – but have not yet fully agreed on what to do with him." Other analysts point out the party faces a dilemma in terms of public perception: Go too easy on Gu, and it could be taken as yet more evidence that powerful figures get an easy ride. Come down hard, and it could look like a political vendetta. The timing of the announcement may have been intended to avoid too much public attention to any aspect of the case. From Keith Richburg at The Washington Post: One analyst of China's elite politics, Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution in Washington, noted that the timing of Thursday's announcement, just 24 hours before the opening of the London Olympics, would likely mean less public attention would be paid to the development here in China, where Bo maintains some popular support, and also in Britain, Heywood's native country. The timing "will likely reduce some of the coverage internationally," Li said, as well as among China's active microblogging community. "Maybe 75 percent of the netizens will be turning to TV to look at the Olympics," he said. But a Global Times editorial suggested that public attention to Gu's trial should actually be encouraged: […] A trial held according to law will strengthen the Chinese people's confidence in the country's legal system. […] Legal departments should disclose enough information regarding the trial to satisfy the public's demands. The more details are revealed, the more it will help build public confidence in China's legal framework. It will be a landmark trial. So far, it has sent a message to society that nobody, regardless of his or her status and power, can be exempt from punishment if he or she behaves unscrupulously, especially if he harms another person's life. The obstruction of the family's choice of lawyers and the fact that state media have already declared the evidence to be "irrefutable and substantial" (see above) suggest that the legal proceedings may in fact be less than exemplary. Suspicions are rife that the prosecution has become a political tool. From Andrew Jacobs at The New York Times: Although no one has presented any compelling evidence to rebut the official narrative that Ms. Gu, 53, played a role in the death of the businessman, many wonder if party leaders are using her case to deflect public disgust over the kind of corruption and abuse of power that critics say was embodied by her husband. Mr. Bo, who was suspended last April from the Politburo and has not been heard from since, has so far remained in a parallel justice system reserved for the party elite. His fate was not mentioned in the brief statement announcing his wife's trial. "Throughout Chinese history, whenever there's a political struggle, whenever someone has to fall, they blame the wife," said Hung Huang, the publisher of a fashion magazine whose own mother, Mao Zedong's former English tutor, spent two years under house arrest after she was accused of collaborating with the Gang of Four. Chinese history is sprinkled with tales of cunning women whose outsize ambitions led them — and sometimes the men in their lives — to ruination. Jiang Qing, Mao's wife, took much of the blame for the calamitous decade of the Cultural Revolution, a point driven home in a televised show trial that electrified the nation. And Chinese schoolchildren can readily recite the crimes of Empress Dowager Cixi, who is portrayed as a rapacious, homicidal leader whose machinations helped topple the Qing dynasty. See more on Bo Xilai, Gu Kailai and Neil Heywood via CDT, or refresh your memory with Olga Khazan's summary at The Washington Post. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chen Guangcheng, criminal rights, gu kailai, Jerome cohen, Joseph Fewsmith, legal defense, murder, Neil Heywood Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Beijing Flood Stories Cut from Southern Weekend Posted: 26 Jul 2012 08:43 AM PDT Eight pages of reporting on the Beijing flood were pulled from today's edition of Southern Weekend before going to press. Several of the paper's editors have voiced their anger on Weibo, while some reporters have posted photos of the missing copy, complete with the handwritten remarks of censors. Weibo posts from Southern Weekend staff have been deleted en masse by Sina. CDT Chinese collected these posts and images from Weibo: YanLieshan: @CatStreet: Eight Pages Pulled from Southern Weekend: Seven reporters travelled over 2000 km to Beijing to urgently interview the family members of 24 victims. The Party's control on media never fail! 鄢烈山： @貓居住過的街道：【南方周末八个版在付印前被撤】——七个记者，在北京跑了超过2000公里，加急采访了24名死难者家属。 党管媒体绝不动摇！ TheEastIsDumb: If it's going to be like this, we may as well stop publication. Everyone go get married and have kids, or just go to the square and feed the pigeons or something. 东方愚：再这样下去就可以休刊了。大家回去结个婚生个娃，或到广场上喂喂鸽子什么的。 SuddenDawn: This morning the editors at Southern Weekend announced that higher authorities demanded the eight pages on the Beijing flood be removed. That's how today's paper got four broadsheet-sized skylights. 蓦然晓：南方周末编辑今早表示有关beijing暴雨的八个版面在付印前被上级要求撤下，结果就变成了今早开了4个版面的天窗 Censor's comments in red on Southern Weekend's flood stories. Text in screen capture: ZhangYuqun: 7 reporters travelled over 2000 km to Beijing. Interviewed the family members of 24 victims. Filed yesterday and collapsed into bed. Then wake up to this news. I just want to say 2000 times: f**k. //@QingmoC: He sank to the bottom of the water, trapped in the turbulent flow among the shrimp and fish. He rammed his hands and head into the car window. His wife brought a hammer, but it was useless. She saw her husband had gone silent, suffocated to death. He is Ding Zhijian, a victim of the Beijing flood. Today, his story was not published in the paper. @SouthernWeekend 张 育群:7个同事。在北京跑了超过2000公里。采访了24个死难者家属。昨天写完稿就趴床上睡觉了。早上醒来看到消息。只想说2000遍。草尼玛 //@青陌C：他被淹水底，囚于乱流急水，困于虾鱼之间，他用手与头骨撞击车窗。妻子拿着无用的铁锤，最终看着丈夫无声地窒息而亡。他是北京大雨中死亡的 丁志健。他是今晚未曾问世的新闻纸。@南方周末 A "skylight" of advertisements in today's edition of Southern Weekend. Via CDT Chinese. If you would like to reuse this content, please follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 agreement. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: beijing flood 2012, censorship, nanfang zhoumo, sina, sina weibo, Southern Weekend, weibo Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Sensitive Words: Beijing Flood Posted: 26 Jul 2012 07:11 AM PDT As of July 26, the following search terms are blocked on Weibo (not including the "search for user" function): •    mayor (市长) •    briefing (通报): A Beijing spokesperson announced the new official death toll, revised up to 77. •    death toll (死亡人数) •    Fangshan + death (房山+死亡): The Fangshan district is one of the most severely hit by the flood. •    Beijing + death (北京+死亡) •    Beijing + Ji Lin (北京+吉林): Refers to Ji Lin, one of Beijing's vice mayors, who resigned yesterday along with Mayor Guo Jinlong. •    secretary + resign (书记+辞职) •    secretary + leave class (书记+下课): Refers to leaving office. •    Li Shixiang (李士祥): Another vice mayor. •    Anshun (安顺): Wang Anshun has taken over as acting mayor. •    Jinlong (金龙): Guo Jinlong •    Zhang Gaoli (张高丽): Party Committee Secretary of Tianjin, accused by netizens of covering up the cause of the Tianjin mall fire in June. Many have been comparing Zhang to Guo over the past few days. See also yesterday's list of sensitive words related to the flood. Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search.  CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese's latest sensitive words post. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Beijing, beijing flood 2012, blocked words, Fangshan, filtered words, Guo Jinlong, Ji Lin, sensitive words, sina weibo, Tianjin mall fire, Wang Anshun, weibo, Zhang Gaoli Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The Daily Twit – 7/26/12: The Rain that Wasn’t, More Net Restrictions, and Beijing Homicide Posted: 26 Jul 2012 06:38 AM PDT Well, the big rainstorm that was supposed to bring Deluge #2 last night gave us a miss and made residents of Tianjin miserable instead. Here in the nation's capital, there was still a lot of talk about the floods, the body count, and the government: LA Times: China flooding gives government another credibility crisis – A deadly rainstorm in Beijing has led to accusations that officials underreported the toll and failed to ensure the city's infrastructure can handle flooding. NPR: 'China's Katrina': Second City Flooded; Corruption, Incompetence Blamed — Outrage in China about the dozens of deaths last weekend when Beijing's drainage system couldn't cope with heavy rains and much of the city was flooded has been followed by more frustration and anger today. CNN: Mayor of Beijing's worst flood-hit district apologizes — News update plus a photo gallery. In other news: Chinese Law Prof Blog: Olympic uniforms, Congressional fashion statements, and the WTO – Excellent discussion of the WTO law aspects of the Olympic uniform "scandal." Reuters: China labels U.S. helicopter allegations fictitious – Did China develop its domestic attack helicopter on its own or was it helped by restricted tech exports from the U.S.? New Yorker: Q. & A.: The Cybersecurity Bill, China, and Innovation – Evan Osnos talks with Adam Segal about cybersecurity issues. Global Times: Beijing police launch Internet restrictions – The police chief of Beijing has warned that Web users who "attack" leaders of the Communist Party of China and the country, or the current system will be severely punished, raising concerns over control of online speech. (You know, I would have thought this warning was unnecessary, but maybe that's just me.) China Daily: Cybercrime flourishes in new areas – Apparently there's been a recent surge in weapons and porn activity on the Net. The cops are all over it. My only suggestion is that they might want to go after the guns before the naked breasts. Priorities! Rhodium Group: Chinese FDI in the United States: Q1 and Q2 2012 Update – Excellent short briefing on Chinese outward investment to the U.S. Everyone always talks about this, here's a real analysis. Jack Perkowski: Why Nexen Is Different: The Politics Of Supply – An explanation of why this deal is different from UNOCAL and Potash, and why regulatory approval will be forthcoming. Reuters: Shell ups China presence with CNOOC tie-up – Shell said it agreed to two partnership deals with CNOOC, one to explore for oil and gas in the Yinggehai basin in the South China Sea, and one to look for hydrocarbons off the coast of Gabon. Just as I was writing this, the news broke that Bogu Kailai had been formally charged with homicide. No doubt this will be the big story for tomorrow. In the meantime, you can read this: China says Bo's wife indicted for homicide: Xinhua. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags:

CNOOC-Nexen Politics Continues to Entertain Posted: 26 Jul 2012 03:54 AM PDT The latest political spin in the U.S. over the CNOOC-Nexen energy deal comes to us courtesy of Congressman Randy Forbes, another proud China basher: Congressman Randy Forbes, a Republican who has been wary of China's military and economic power, said he is alarmed by a bid by China's state oil company CNOOC for Canadian oil company Nexen. But Forbes said there is not much he can do about it. "Whatever we would do would simply be talking in the wind, because we don't have any legal authority to stop this action," Forbes told Reuters. In 2005, Forbes, co-founder of the 42-member Congressional China Caucus, spearheaded congressional opposition to CNOOC's failed takeover of energy company Unocal. In his view, the CNOOC-Nexen deal would seal up Canadian energy resources that the United States could use, and give China access to offshore drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico. "We're allowing China to be right off our coast, essentially, taking energy and fuel that we could have been having and using for domestic use here in the United States," Forbes said. "More than a foot in the door, this is a body in the door for the Chinese in the North American energy market, and it's one that came about because of U.S. procrastination and a lack of diligence," he said. Forbes blames the deal on President Barack Obama because of his decision in January to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project designed to carry crude from Canadian oilsands to Texas refineries. So much to love here. I particularly enjoy the unmentioned regret that the U.S. can't simply order the Canadians to do what it wants by fiat. Such a pity. Also giggle-worthy is the fact that Forbes' China group in the House, the Congressional China Caucus, is actually a China-bashing group, which proudly led the charge against CNOOC in its bid for UNOCAL. You'd think maybe the "China Caucus" would be a group interested in US-China relations or something. Imagine if the Congressional Black Caucus was a front group for a bunch of racists and you see what I mean. (More on the China Caucus some day in the near future – I feel some research coming upon me.) Forbes is also a member of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, and although it's not in my nature, I won't use this opportunity to piss all over that group. I also got a kick out of the whole "right off our shores" mentality Forbes used. Echoes of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oooh, Canadian petroleum engineers working for Chinese shareholders thousands of miles away. Scary! And finally, I chuckled out loud reading about how that oil that will be extracted by China could have been used by the U.S. instead. Forbes probably thinks the word "fungible" means "of or pertaining to mushrooms." Forbes should have a chat with his friends that are in the pocket of Big Oil; he certainly doesn't seem to understand how the global petroleum market works. Just for the record, Forbes is not in the pocket of the petroleum industry. No, he's a whore for the defense industry, and we all know that the defense contractors desperately need the US vs. China meme to justify expenditures on heavy armaments. Without the China boogeyman, there aren't a lot of other big bad guys out there with which to scare the American public (and jack up the defense budget). I hope these guys keep this stuff going. I can always use a good laugh. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: CNOOC, Nexen, Randy Forbes

The Empty Rhetoric of “Get Tough on China” Posted: 26 Jul 2012 02:46 AM PDT Matt Miller at the Washington Post wants a more aggressive China policy: If our presidential candidates can't say "boo" to the National Rifle Association, how will they ever stand up to China? As the campaign tiptoes back to its pre-Aurora trajectory, Democrats feel the drumbeat on Bain and taxes proves their side finally knows how to get tough. Republicans feel equally manly now that their man is slamming the White House for paying off cronies and leaking classified data on drones. But a better question beyond these macho attempts to manipulate media coverage is this: Who's got the guts to finally get tough on China? Before I get to the specifics, I really wish Miller, who is after all writing a column in one of America's most respected newspapers (well, it used to be), would avoid using juvenile language like "getting tough" and "who's got the guts" when talking about the most important bilateral relationship in the world. The subject deserves better than B-movie dialog. John Wayne would have made a really shitty Secretary of State. Moreover, it's clear that Miller is taking it for granted that China has somehow being riding roughshod over the U.S. in terms of trade and other issues. This is common with some China critics, although few of them actually can point to specific policies or bilateral areas where China has somehow taken advantage of the U.S. Sometimes WTO accession will be cited as something that the wily Chinese slipped in when the U.S. wasn't looking. I seem to remember an alternate reality, where the U.S. was pulling out all the diplomatic stops to get that deal through, but maybe I was insane during 1999 and forgot what really happened. I think the mentality is that since China has been growing faster than the U.S. and enjoys a sizable trade surplus with America, some sort of skullduggery must have taken place. Like all the U.S. politicians who insist that "U.S. workers can out-compete anyone in the world," the assumption here is that China used underhanded means to get where it is today. The reality is, of course, that China is a big place, it opened up to the world after years of a closed-door policy, and grew rapidly because of high levels of investment and low wages. Doesn't take a rocket science to figure out why China grew fast. And yes, some of that growth was due to counterfeit products, lax environmental standards and so on. But that doesn't nearly account for the vast majority of growth here. Chinese anti-U.S. rhetoric, which is more in-your-face jingoism, is much easier to dismiss. It usually doesn't involve a policy argument, more like "The U.S. wants China to fail," or "The U.S. is subverting Chinese political stability from within." Rather black-and-white silliness. The type of argument Miller engages in is more difficult to deal with, since he talks policy and cites studies and experts. Sounds quite reasonable, almost scholarly, albeit completely misguided. Let's take a closer look. What does Miller rely on to make his case? Two experts. First, an economist from an organization that has been very aggressive in its own right when it comes to China policy: The question is unavoidable in the wake of a new report by Joseph Gagnon of the Peterson Institute entitled "Combating Widespread Currency Manipulation ." Miller goes on a bit about currency manipulation, nothing we haven't discussed umpteen times before on this blog. But did he really have to go with someone from the Peterson Institute? These guys, particularly Fred Bergsten, have been savagely beating the RMB drum for years now. Perhaps Miller already made up his mind on this issue and then went to a source that he knew would back up his viewpoint. Lame. I don't know anything about Joseph Gagnon, but the source gives me pause. Here's expert number two: Worse, both parties have caved for years in the face of China's bare-faced mercantilism — thanks to risk aversion and negotiating incompetence that have betrayed American workers. That's the case made by H.W. Brock in an important yet underappreciated book published this year: "American Gridlock: Why The Right And Left Are Both Wrong ." Brock reckons that the yuan's value in dollar terms is arguably one-sixth of what it should be. He calls Washington's failure to do anything about it a "political disgrace." Miller also includes some additional detail here that I left out. I figured it wasn't really necessary. All you have to do is read that "one-sixth of what it should be" line to realize that this Brock guy, at least on this issue, is in very lonely territory. I haven't read any serious economist, government, or institution make that claim, at least not recently. In fact, even the IMF has "softened" its position on the RMB: The International Monetary Fund said the Chinese yuan was only "moderately undervalued" against a basket of currencies in an annual assessment released on Wednesday, suggesting a lessening of international pressure on Beijing over its foreign exchange and trade policies. And just what is Miller's solution to all this? Some of it is simple hand-wringing. The U.S. should have done X, Y & Z when it could, and maybe now it's too late. But he also suggests that perhaps a WTO case or a punitive tariff might be in order, both ridiculous policy moves in terms of law as well as US-China relations. During this campaign season, I've seen quite a few "let's get tough on China" columns from Americans. Although I generally don't like any of them, at least some commentators martial some decent arguments. Miller apparently thinks that if he throws anything together with the words "China," "currency manipulation," "tough," "jobs," and "mercantilist," no one will notice that he forgot to set out a decent argument. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags:

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