Interview With Cultural Revolution Worker

Interview From "Discovering China: The Middle Kindom"

I interviewed Chen Zuen, who experienced the Cultural Revolution at a factory in Shanghai when he was young. When I exchanged letters with him, Mr. Kikuchi, my schoolteacher, helped me. Although Mr. Chen was busy editing and writing "History of Shanghai", he spared much time for my questions. I wish to express my deep appreciation to Mr. Chen and Mr. Kikuchi, and I hope that you can learn the Cultural Revolution more.

Question

1. What does revolutionary activity mean?
   
   
2. How did conventions of criticism against party's high-place leader or intellectuals?
   
   
3. Did worker begun to work normally just after the end of the Cultural Revolution?
   
   
4. What impact did the Cultural Revolution have on the household economy in those days?
   
   
5. What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?
   
   
6. What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?
   
   
7. When reaction did the people show when the Cultural Revolution was over?
   
   

Question 1: I heard workers were ordered to take part in revolutionary activities working at the same time at Shanghai. What does revolutionary activity mean? Was it possible to do both revolutionary activities and work at the same time?

Answer 1: The Cultural Revolution at Shanghai was caused by the Red Guards first. They were all the students of junior and senior high school and college in those days. They took the influence of Beijing, and showed "rebellion" for slogan, trying to destroy "four olds", that is old thought, old culture, old manner and old custom. For this reason, they robbed a prosperity of others arbitrarily, beaten many people and thrusted many people. Taking the other cruel ways, they criticized many people for "a monster of cow and a snake". That had great impact on society.

At the same time the Red Guards rebelled, they advertised the reason of rebels to workers at factory, and tempted them to battle against those who had authority. CCP didn't hope that the Red Guard went to factories and then tempted workers, because destruction of the order of production must lead to the great impact on economic of China.

The Cultural Revolution, however, had been excessive then, so the control of CCP didn't effect. A part of workers who wasn't able to concentrate on their work began to rebel, and made headquarters in factory. They battled to dig out the capital-roaders and "a monster of cow and a snake"and tried to reform the rule that had been existing since before. Among another group, a part of party's members and Communist Youth League was dissatisfied with what rebels was doing, so established a conservative group. In this way, the conflict between two group arose in factory.

The organization of rebels of worker at Shanghai was the Worker's General Headquarters, called WGH. On the other hand, the conservative one was "the Scarlet Guards". Before "January Revolution" Mao had supported in 1967, the Scarlet Guards had been already destroyed, so Shanghai got to be the world of rebels. So was the condition in factories. Revolutionary Activities in those days arose among the struggle with authorities, the criticism against the thought, consciousness and culture of bourgeois, and oppression against those who thought freely. Production was had a great impact by carrying out the revolutionary campaigns constantly at factories. But considering the situation of all area of China, that of Shanghai was the best.

There is a lot of factor for the fact. First, stuff of workers at Shanghai, on the whole, was the best among the all area of China. There were a lot of people of workers at Shanghai who complained about the situation, and desired liberty of thought by working entirely. Second, CCP imposed a lot of important work on the workers at Shanghai because CCP needed the help from abroad. So CCP encouraged the workers to not only carry out revolution, but also make a point of production.

Question 2: How did conventions of criticism against party's high-place leader or intellectuals? And when were the conventions of criticism held the most frequently?

Answer 2: To criticize the party's high-place leaders and intellectuals, the following ways were mainly adopted:

1. The criticism was carried out through media such as wall newspapers or broadcasting in factories. Against those who had a power to influence on all the China, articles of criticism was informed through mainly newspapers and radio.

2. Some kinds of convention was held. The smallest convention was carried out in small group of production in each factory, and the number of the participants was about fifteen. The biggest one was held at a center of convention or square at Shanghai and the some air of it was broadcasted on TV directly. More than several hundreds thousands people took part in the convention. In the convention of criticism, those who were criticized were covered with triangle hat. Some pregnant women was bound their hands. At even the most generous case, the people being criticized was forced to bow down their head, stopping over. It was in the latter half of 1966 and 1967 that the conventions of criticism were held the most frequently. After 1971, the year of Lin Biao Incident, such conventions got to be not seen so much frequently.

Question 3: Did worker begun to work normally just after the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 3: Even after the Cultural Revolution was over, the activity that the people examined "Gang of Four" and purged the influence was often carried out, so the order of work was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution was not normal. However, the more effort to tidy the confusion and put it right the people made, the more rapidly the situation of work was improved.

Question 4: What impact did the Cultural Revolution have on the household economy in those days?

Answer 4: The outbreak of the Cultural Revolution operated against the production, so supply of materials were decreased relatively. Although the common people got the conventional wage, they lacked the material badly. For example, the stuffs like a watch and bicycle was all supplied with the exchange with tickets, and just decided amount of food was given up to the people. And chicken egg and fish was also decided the amount. Food of foreign countries was not seen at the home of common people. The color of clothes was all brown or the color of grass.

Because China experienced disasters in succession for three years (it means disasters after Great Leap Forward), it cannot be said that the life in the Cultural Revolution was hard compared with the life when disasters occurred. But the Cultural Revolution made the mentally suffering. For instance, there were no book, no music and no art. It was these things rather than the lack of material that still remain in the mind of the people for unforgettable memory,

Question 5: What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?

Answer 5: Imperatives of the Revolutionary Committees was informed to students and workers via many organizations. For example, imperatives from Shanghai Revolutionary Committee was first told to the each division as division of education, that of electricity, and so on. And schools and factories lying at more under place was informed the imperatives from the each division. And from each school and factory, imperatives was told to each faculty and working place, where the leader of each group told the message to common students or workers. If emergency or big incident had occurred and it needn't be secret, it was told to the people directly with wallpapers, radio or television. As far as the many instruction of Mao was concerned, the way that it was told in advance was taken, so students and workers had been waiting in front of TV from a lot of time before the broadcasting started. And after they listened to the information from announcer, they took to the streets to celebrate the instruction.

Question 6: Even among workers, did many people worship Mao enthusiastically?

Answer 6: Workers were more matured than young Red Guard, so the workers who worshipped Mao enthusiastic were not so much. But the great number of people believed Mao sincerely in those days. During the Cultural Revolution, each home was displaying a portrait of Mao, and having the Quotation of Mao. And before the people works, they studied the Mao's Quotation, and in the working place, Mao's figure was laid. The Lin Biao Incident intended the failure of the Cultural Revolution. From around this time, the people's trust for Mao began to shake.

Question 7: It is said that a lot of people mourned when the Cultural Revolution was over by the death of Mao, but in fact what reaction did the people show then? And, how did you take the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 7: The end of the Cultural Revolution must be fatality of history. The death of Mao had impact on the end of the Cultural Revolution, but it was not absolute factor. When Zhou Enlai died a lot of Chinese mourned very deeply, and Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square occurred in 1976. This spontaneous the mass movement implied the people's suspicion about the Cultural Revolution, and outburst of rage against "Gang of Four". The Chinese objected to despotism and Cult of individual, and desired that China was going forward reform and the world sincerely. Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square had a large ground of the masses, which reflected the feeling behind the people. In this sense, I think that when Mao died in 1976, the people grieved, but the feeling was not the same with that for the death of Zhou.

The end of the Cultural Revolution was the end of a hard decade. It cannot help looking at the statistic to know how damage the Cultural Revolution gave to China. The Chinese who underwent the hardship of the Cultural Revolution was all pleased with the end, and they will learn instruction, and never allowed such a tragedy to happen again.

When The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, I was working as a propagandist at a famous factory. The Factory epitomized the Cultural Revolution at Shanghai. The workers of this factory and I was pleased with the birth of new times, feeling the extremely liberty. The feeling was like a smile of the Mona Lisa who said farewell to Middle Ages, and it was the smile arisen sincerely.

Interview With Cultural Revolution Worker

Interview From "Discovering China: The Middle Kindom"

I interviewed Chen Zuen, who experienced the Cultural Revolution at a factory in Shanghai when he was young. When I exchanged letters with him, Mr. Kikuchi, my schoolteacher, helped me. Although Mr. Chen was busy editing and writing "History of Shanghai", he spared much time for my questions. I wish to express my deep appreciation to Mr. Chen and Mr. Kikuchi, and I hope that you can learn the Cultural Revolution more.

Question

1. What does revolutionary activity mean?
   
   
2. How did conventions of criticism against party's high-place leader or intellectuals?
   
   
3. Did worker begun to work normally just after the end of the Cultural Revolution?
   
   
4. What impact did the Cultural Revolution have on the household economy in those days?
   
   
5. What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?
   
   
6. What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?
   
   
7. When reaction did the people show when the Cultural Revolution was over?
   
   

Question 1: I heard workers were ordered to take part in revolutionary activities working at the same time at Shanghai. What does revolutionary activity mean? Was it possible to do both revolutionary activities and work at the same time?

Answer 1: The Cultural Revolution at Shanghai was caused by the Red Guards first. They were all the students of junior and senior high school and college in those days. They took the influence of Beijing, and showed "rebellion" for slogan, trying to destroy "four olds", that is old thought, old culture, old manner and old custom. For this reason, they robbed a prosperity of others arbitrarily, beaten many people and thrusted many people. Taking the other cruel ways, they criticized many people for "a monster of cow and a snake". That had great impact on society.

At the same time the Red Guards rebelled, they advertised the reason of rebels to workers at factory, and tempted them to battle against those who had authority. CCP didn't hope that the Red Guard went to factories and then tempted workers, because destruction of the order of production must lead to the great impact on economic of China.

The Cultural Revolution, however, had been excessive then, so the control of CCP didn't effect. A part of workers who wasn't able to concentrate on their work began to rebel, and made headquarters in factory. They battled to dig out the capital-roaders and "a monster of cow and a snake"and tried to reform the rule that had been existing since before. Among another group, a part of party's members and Communist Youth League was dissatisfied with what rebels was doing, so established a conservative group. In this way, the conflict between two group arose in factory.

The organization of rebels of worker at Shanghai was the Worker's General Headquarters, called WGH. On the other hand, the conservative one was "the Scarlet Guards". Before "January Revolution" Mao had supported in 1967, the Scarlet Guards had been already destroyed, so Shanghai got to be the world of rebels. So was the condition in factories. Revolutionary Activities in those days arose among the struggle with authorities, the criticism against the thought, consciousness and culture of bourgeois, and oppression against those who thought freely. Production was had a great impact by carrying out the revolutionary campaigns constantly at factories. But considering the situation of all area of China, that of Shanghai was the best.

There is a lot of factor for the fact. First, stuff of workers at Shanghai, on the whole, was the best among the all area of China. There were a lot of people of workers at Shanghai who complained about the situation, and desired liberty of thought by working entirely. Second, CCP imposed a lot of important work on the workers at Shanghai because CCP needed the help from abroad. So CCP encouraged the workers to not only carry out revolution, but also make a point of production.

Question 2: How did conventions of criticism against party's high-place leader or intellectuals? And when were the conventions of criticism held the most frequently?

Answer 2: To criticize the party's high-place leaders and intellectuals, the following ways were mainly adopted:

1. The criticism was carried out through media such as wall newspapers or broadcasting in factories. Against those who had a power to influence on all the China, articles of criticism was informed through mainly newspapers and radio.

2. Some kinds of convention was held. The smallest convention was carried out in small group of production in each factory, and the number of the participants was about fifteen. The biggest one was held at a center of convention or square at Shanghai and the some air of it was broadcasted on TV directly. More than several hundreds thousands people took part in the convention. In the convention of criticism, those who were criticized were covered with triangle hat. Some pregnant women was bound their hands. At even the most generous case, the people being criticized was forced to bow down their head, stopping over. It was in the latter half of 1966 and 1967 that the conventions of criticism were held the most frequently. After 1971, the year of Lin Biao Incident, such conventions got to be not seen so much frequently.

Question 3: Did worker begun to work normally just after the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 3: Even after the Cultural Revolution was over, the activity that the people examined "Gang of Four" and purged the influence was often carried out, so the order of work was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution was not normal. However, the more effort to tidy the confusion and put it right the people made, the more rapidly the situation of work was improved.

Question 4: What impact did the Cultural Revolution have on the household economy in those days?

Answer 4: The outbreak of the Cultural Revolution operated against the production, so supply of materials were decreased relatively. Although the common people got the conventional wage, they lacked the material badly. For example, the stuffs like a watch and bicycle was all supplied with the exchange with tickets, and just decided amount of food was given up to the people. And chicken egg and fish was also decided the amount. Food of foreign countries was not seen at the home of common people. The color of clothes was all brown or the color of grass.

Because China experienced disasters in succession for three years (it means disasters after Great Leap Forward), it cannot be said that the life in the Cultural Revolution was hard compared with the life when disasters occurred. But the Cultural Revolution made the mentally suffering. For instance, there were no book, no music and no art. It was these things rather than the lack of material that still remain in the mind of the people for unforgettable memory,

Question 5: What was the way that the imperatives of the Revolutionary Committee informed the workers and students at Shanghai?

Answer 5: Imperatives of the Revolutionary Committees was informed to students and workers via many organizations. For example, imperatives from Shanghai Revolutionary Committee was first told to the each division as division of education, that of electricity, and so on. And schools and factories lying at more under place was informed the imperatives from the each division. And from each school and factory, imperatives was told to each faculty and working place, where the leader of each group told the message to common students or workers. If emergency or big incident had occurred and it needn't be secret, it was told to the people directly with wallpapers, radio or television. As far as the many instruction of Mao was concerned, the way that it was told in advance was taken, so students and workers had been waiting in front of TV from a lot of time before the broadcasting started. And after they listened to the information from announcer, they took to the streets to celebrate the instruction.

Question 6: Even among workers, did many people worship Mao enthusiastically?

Answer 6: Workers were more matured than young Red Guard, so the workers who worshipped Mao enthusiastic were not so much. But the great number of people believed Mao sincerely in those days. During the Cultural Revolution, each home was displaying a portrait of Mao, and having the Quotation of Mao. And before the people works, they studied the Mao's Quotation, and in the working place, Mao's figure was laid. The Lin Biao Incident intended the failure of the Cultural Revolution. From around this time, the people's trust for Mao began to shake.

Question 7: It is said that a lot of people mourned when the Cultural Revolution was over by the death of Mao, but in fact what reaction did the people show then? And, how did you take the end of the Cultural Revolution?

Answer 7: The end of the Cultural Revolution must be fatality of history. The death of Mao had impact on the end of the Cultural Revolution, but it was not absolute factor. When Zhou Enlai died a lot of Chinese mourned very deeply, and Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square occurred in 1976. This spontaneous the mass movement implied the people's suspicion about the Cultural Revolution, and outburst of rage against "Gang of Four". The Chinese objected to despotism and Cult of individual, and desired that China was going forward reform and the world sincerely. Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square had a large ground of the masses, which reflected the feeling behind the people. In this sense, I think that when Mao died in 1976, the people grieved, but the feeling was not the same with that for the death of Zhou.

The end of the Cultural Revolution was the end of a hard decade. It cannot help looking at the statistic to know how damage the Cultural Revolution gave to China. The Chinese who underwent the hardship of the Cultural Revolution was all pleased with the end, and they will learn instruction, and never allowed such a tragedy to happen again.

When The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, I was working as a propagandist at a famous factory. The Factory epitomized the Cultural Revolution at Shanghai. The workers of this factory and I was pleased with the birth of new times, feeling the extremely liberty. The feeling was like a smile of the Mona Lisa who said farewell to Middle Ages, and it was the smile arisen sincerely.

Now This Is What I Am Talking About

I have spent so much time reading the blogs and posts of those with a vested interest in furthering the China fallacy that I was beginning to get hypnotized by the lure of this fantasy of a bottomless pit of profit and opportunity. When you step back and realize that local municipals and Provinces are all but officially mandated to give data to fuel the psychology of investment demanded by the CCP, the numbers lose their hold on your projections.

Look, if a Province is willing to round up the local pregnant women and force them to have abortions against their will, fudging a few economic numbers is far from their list of no-nos. In fact, it is on the "to do" list.

Below is a great article that sheds some sanity on the gold rush to China:

VIEW: Blinded by China’s false statistics —Jonathan Power

McKinsey, the management consultancy, reports that only 10 percent of China's graduating engineers are good enough to work for foreign companies. It is not surprising that China's software industry lags behind India's because of its fragmented structure and poor management

Beware of extrapolation, a British Chancellor of the Exchequer once remarked: it can make you go blind. It’s about time this little piece of wisdom was applied to China. But there seems to be a mental block that inhabits newsrooms, academic common rooms and the bureaucracies of many governments. This is despite the pioneering research done by the likes of Professor Lester Thurow and the conclusion of long-time Hong Kong-based China watcher, economist Jim Walker, of Asia’s leading independent investment bank, CSLA, both of whom have rigorously deflated the wild claims of China’s official growth statistics, which once again recently got the big headline treatment. Walker concludes that official GDP statistics are a “fantasy world”.

In China’s provinces, the statistics are notoriously unreliable, as local officials inflate them to avoid being punished for poor management of the economy. For its part, the central statistical office calculates GDP through counting increases in value-added production even though much of its statistical information comes from state-owned enterprises that provide poor data. Walker routinely deducts 2 percent from official Chinese growth statistics. This summer, in a little noticed announcement, the Asian Development Bank lopped 40 percent off previous Chinese income per head statistics. That is some revision.

Even if we use Chinese statistics, the overall rate of progress between 1978 and 2003 is not overwhelming. In that period China’s per capita GDP grew at a compound rate of 6.1 percent. This gives an increase of 337 percent over a quarter of a century. Compare this with Japan’s, which increased by 490 percent between 1950 and 1973. Both South Korea and Taiwan have done even better the former with 7.6 percent compound growth a year between 1962 and 1990 and Taiwan with 6.3 percent between 1958 and 1990, the years when they were bursting through the industrialisation sound barrier.

The statistics we do have show up some near-insuperable problems. One is that 40 percent of Chinese bank loans are considered “bad”, a gigantic misallocation of capital. Another is that China could grow old before it grows rich. Not very long ago China was one of the world’s most youthful countries. But the one-child policy has had an enormous impact. As early as 2015 China’s working age population will begin to fall. By 2040, just a decade before China hopes to be a middle-income country, it will have 100 million citizens over 80. That is more than the current worldwide total.

Arnaud de Meyer, deputy dean of INSEAD, the European business school, author of a study on Asian innovation, writes that in relation to its huge development needs, China may already have too little skilled manpower. McKinsey, the management consultancy, reports that only 10 percent of China’s graduating engineers are good enough to work for foreign companies. It is not surprising that China’s software industry lags behind India’s because of its fragmented structure and poor management.

India is far ahead in this regard. India has “an enviable pool of high quality talented professionals”, reports a study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Moreover, wages among professionals are much lower in India than China. Living costs in Chinese cities are much higher than in India’s.

It is not surprising that foreign direct investment is now falling in China, albeit from very high levels (and at the same time capital flight is on a fast rise), while India’s is increasing. If one looks at the non-ethnic Chinese component of foreign investment, China does less well than booming Brazil.

US companies earn something over $8 billion a year from their business and investments in China. But they earn around $7 billion from Australia, a market of only 19 million people and over $9 billion from Taiwan and South Korea with a combined population of 90 million. From Mexico, they earn over $14 billion. Moreover, the American companies that have made big money from China are those like Wal-Mart, the retailer. They are the ones who buy from it rather than the ones who invest in it.

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, has taken a lot of flack from China and from her Social Democratic partners in government for talking to the Dalai Lama and being vocal about Chinese human rights failings. She should have no fear - China needs Germany much more than vice-versa.

It has always been strange. It is quite pathetic that Western countries regularly betray each other, and, in so doing, the human rights activists inside China, in an effort to better position themselves in this quite modest marketplace. If Western governments could stand shoulder to shoulder and say once and mean it: “stop using economic and trade threats, you are in no position to do so, it is unacceptable behaviour”, Beijing would get the message.

But perhaps after years of propaganda on China’s “remarkable future progress”, we are already blind.

When the US Sneezes the World Catches a Cold, Then It Buys Tissues Made in China

The idea that any country can do international business in a vacuum is not a workable thesis. At some point in time all things come to equilibrium. It's OK if you piss in the pool in your own back yard, but if you piss in the public pool eventually everybody will be swimming in it. People don't like that and it is a good way to have your membership revoked.

Entering Iraq wasn't like taking a leak in the pool, it was a "Caddyshack" sized dookie that left people climbing the ladders for escape. Pictures from Abu Grhaib were just the type of imagery the world needed to justify finding somebody new to play with. This is not surprising as an increasingly oil addicted world learns the perks of distancing itself from an increasingly demonized Bush.

But addictions are a funny thing. More often than not the dependence is more of a psychological need than an actual physical need. Perhaps not with the life blood of oil, but when it comes to the markets and market psychology this is a dangerous realization.

It appears that the psychological hold that the US has had has begun to wane as more and more countries reevaluate their financial ties and dependence on the ebbs and flows of the US market.

Take the IMF position on the sinking dollar and the crushing sub prime lending collapse. In a recent thestar.com article about the link between the US and Canadian markets, the paper writes:

"(T)he U.S. slowdown has had little discernible effect on growth in most other countries," the International Monetary Fund wrote in its world economic outlook in April.

Under the heading Decoupling the Train? the IMF parsed the main points at hand: the slowdown in the U.S. was sectorally isolated to housing; trade linkages with the U.S. had become less important for "many" other countries; and domestic demand in both emerging and advanced economies could be more resilient than in prior U.S. downturns.

The decoupling thesis caught like brush fire, with a key accelerant being the Chinese economy. With China contributing more than 30 per cent to global GDP growth, who needs the U.S.?

"The consensus was, `That's okay. It will only affect the U.S. It won't affect anybody else," says Stephen Poloz, senior vice-president and chief economist at Export Development Canada. "The reasoning was that China was growing fast enough and India was growing fast enough to keep the world growing. The U.S. was just not as important any more."

The point seems relatively clear. Bush Administration foreign policy has been a global failure. The timing could not have been worse. Not only did it squander international sympathy on the wake on the attacks, it came when the world had economic alternatives and incentives to want to distance themselves from the US. Favorable treatment from oil rich countries sensitive to Middle East policy and an artificially undervalued Yuan have made it a good time to seek better friends. Once they found new friends they found they didn't need the US as much as they thought they did.

Yes, the US sneezed and the dollar fell below the Canadian dollar. The falling dollar and sub prime fallout, however, did not ripple as far as might have been expected (except for those in the Japanese market deep into the sub prime lending). It has become increasing evident that the world market doesn't need the American fix as bad as it thought it did. Besides, the US is an expensive habit. The world needs a cheaper addiction and China has mass produced exactly what they need. Sure, it may be cut with a little lead paint and anti-freeze, but it feels good. But, do we really want to let our children play with this thing?

The questions is whether the market is cured of an addiction or simply finding a newer and cheaper one. Another question is whether this new bed fellow may have darker and deeper problems, such as bed wetting. China has certainly been pissing in its own pool for quite some time. China's blocking of Wikipedia will not erase what happened in the Square. The stranglehold on the media cannot last forever. Current policy is simply a filthy diaper that is getting fuller and stinkier. At some point it is going to have to be changed or it will blow, and when it does the terds will fly. And when a diaper full of 60+ years of shit blows, it is more than piss in the pool. 1.3 billion people have been crapping in that thing for over half a century and it is going to stink to high heaven.

Where will the world run to then? India? I'm not joking, the largest democracy in the world isn't looking too bad at the point. One thing is for sure, the Bush Administration is a catastrophe. The president has become a propped up mockery of staged leadership and photo ops. It is virtually devoid of direct contact with inquisitive media and accountability is non-existent. He is running the place like it was China. But as bad as Bush has made it, he is on the way out. Though I have no dreams that the new administration will bring a brand a new day in America, the process gives me the illusion of hope. The process gives me the comfort that bitching won't land me in a forced labor camp.

So ya, the US pissed in the pool when it let Bush run the show. Countries rightfully took a step back and in so doing discovered they didn't need the US as bad as they thought they did. But thinking that you can improve your situation by simply getting in bed with China is bad policy. If you learn anything from the US debacle you must see that you cannot depend on what happens economically with little or no attention to related policies.

The truth is that China has been pissing in its own bed since the drunken step-father (the CPC) moved in decades ago. This will come out. The cameras are really really cheap here and eventually someone is going to make it out of the country. If you think Iraq was a disgrace you are right. If you think that China offers you a long-term relationship without these sorts of images you are insane. Eventually the pictures from the work camps and prisons will come out. Abu Grhaib was a prison in a system. China is an Abu Grhaib system in the prisons. At some point policy issues must precede investments. Perhaps then we won't find ourselves running the global economy like frightened hypocrits.

China Negotiates Settlement. The US Negotiates?

The US and Mexico have never really seen eye to eye when it comes to building walls. Yet when it comes to the Great Wall, these two unlikely allies did find common ground: A common foe.

According to AFP: The US-Mexico complaint at the Geneva-based WTO alleged China was maintaining several subsidy programs prohibited under the international institution's rules across a spectrum of industrial sectors in China including steel, wood products and information technology.

Schwab said the 12 illegal subsidies distort the playing field for US-produced goods sold in the United States, China and third-country markets. Many of the subsidies are tax breaks that are available to benefit up to 60 percent of China's exports.

She said she could not quantify the amount of benefits that would be gained by their elimination but said they were "very substantial because the subsidies were so pervasive."

Two types of Chinese subsidies are affected: export subsidies, which give Chinese goods an advantage abroad, and import substitution subsidies, which encourage companies in China to purchase Chinese-made goods instead of imports...

Though all parties agree that this is good news, how good the news is depends on who is in your PAC or who your pack pays.

The administration was thrilled to directly release news of the settlement itself, instead of allowing it to trickle out through the outlets like the endless stream of bad news on Iraq. Trade Representative Schwab was quick to brag on the how the "lengthy negotiations and showed the policy of dialogue and enforcement of the Republican administration of President George W. Bush was working."

Democrats and labor unions were quick to point to the ever widening trade gap, the undervalued Yuan, the remaining WTO complaints and a laundry list of issues that normally arise when the issue of China arises.

According to the NYT,the New York Democrat and long time critic Senator Charles Schumer said the agreement was “a small step on the long road toward playing more fairly” in trade.

There are three things that stand out. Not even staunch critics like Schumer said that the settlement was bad. The main criticism is that it was good, but not good enough. Second, since when did Mexico and the US agree on anything? The fact that China, Mexico and the US enter into the same news event with NO strained parallel between the Great Wall and the proposed wall between the US and Mexico is a miracle. OK, I ruined that, but I don't count.

Finally, since when does the administration negotiate? This is a bad precedent for repeated Bush administration claims that negotiations tend to be useless and "hard lines in the sand" send a clear policy message. I would recommend that the US create a coalition of the willing with Mexico ASAP and invade China. And they should do so now; quick before China takes away the subsidies on it's own. This way it will look like force and only raw force was able to achieve the administration's agenda. We can let Mexico take northern China and the US can take the South. They are more practiced at getting over walls - a fact which is the unspoken subsidy in the US agricultural pricing.

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