Glenn Hurowitz recently wondered who’s going to help Tibet bring down China, like the Russians were brought down in Afghanistan and the British in India.
International pressure and protest seems to carry no weight among the Chinese. Their government is still arresting monks for “unauthorized gatherings”, they’re still shooting and killing Tibetans. They’ve also been shipping weapons to Zimbabwe’s dictator, who’s currently ignoring the results of an election that voted him and his party out of power. They buy 90 percent of Sudan’s exported oil, and sells them small arms destined for Darfur. Darfur, where the Sudanese government is carrying out air attacks against helpless civilian targets. Oh yes, and they’re now the world’s top carbon polluter, though the US still remains the top carbon polluter per capita.
Yeah, that Chinese government, complete jerks, tyrants, to put it charitably. People are surprised that the Olympic torch protests seem only to have stirred Chinese nationalism, surprised that the Chinese don’t understand why people are angry. Still, I think Glenn asks the wrong question. Because who is it that raised China up? The lack of self-awareness in this situation isn’t exclusive to the Chinese, people everywhere have an amazing capacity to accept almost anything as normal.
Indeed, let’s cut right to the heart of the matter: whom else will we buy our shoes from?
I looked this up once when I was working at my community college paper in 2005. There was an editorial insistence on doing a fashion insert, so I contributed something about sweatshops and the offshoring of clothing manufacture. (I know, total killjoy.) I found a copy of that article in my old files, and according to the research that I’d done at the time, the US had lost over 860,000 textile and apparel jobs since 1993, and China was making 80% of the world’s shoes.
Sure, if you have (usually) more money to spend, you can find shoes made somewhere else. But not everyone has that kind of time or latitude. Funny thing, though, now shoe manufacturers are closing down in China. Now that “many factories have to meet social obligations” and workers have been agitating for better pay, manufacturing jobs are slowly starting to leave China as they once left the US. Read on…
No Trackbacks To “Global Suicide Pact: Darfur Engine, Part 1“
Boycott!
yep.Boycott!
Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea now, does it?
adios.have a nice day folks.
well, try to anyways.
“International pressure and protest seems to carry no weight among the Chinese. Their government is still arresting monks for “unauthorized gatherings”, they’re still shooting and killing Tibetans. They’ve also been shipping weapons to Zimbabwe’s dictator, who’s currently ignoring the results of an election that voted him and his party out of power. They buy 90 percent of Sudan’s exported oil, and sells them small arms destined for Darfur. Darfur, where the Sudanese government is carrying out air attacks against helpless civilian targets.”
this is a good thought, but the reader needs to step back and look inward. look at america.
how many despots and dictators have we propped up? how many democratically elected leaders have we overthrown? how many international treaties have we spurned? how many people do we imprison? how many military bases do we have across the globe? nuclear weapons? torture? etc. etc. etc.
this is by NO MEANS an excuse for the dastardly chinese policies, but to point the finger at china is humorous. but not funny. we should get our own shit straight before we expect others to.
especially since we support china’s economy as much as they support ours. we are partners. we are both complicit in crimes against humanity, and the environment.
mudshark @ 3:
Buy handcrafted Italian shoes?
Make our own moccasins?
My puppies must support the Chinese government. They’ve tried to destroy my brand new workday shoes. A little more damage and I’d have to buy another pair.
Worse Than Silence On Sudan
Theoretically though we’re allowed to speak out against our government’s policies.
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.....nouts.html
I don’t know why we don’t speak out more, especially when it’s so much fun.
Staying out of wal-mart would do the most damage to China.
Shoes? Every freakin’ thing is made in China!
It’s a good thing we have an oil man in the White House.
Imagine if we had a peanut farmer instead? What would a jar of Peter Pan cost now?
Weaseldog @ 10:
Oops was thinking about the wrong thread…
Let me start by saying that I’m a raging liberal and I expected to find myself on the other side of this issue BUT I have it good authority from people who live in the country in question that media reports of the Tibet issue are wildly inaccurate. We’re talking about the complaints of a noisey, largely expatriot group of Tibets who represent a fringe view about Tibet (which has been part of China many times longer than Hawaii has been a US state). It has been established that there have been ethic lapses by the press using pictures of Nepalese police and calling them Chinese police and that the story of Tibet violence toward Han Chinese has not been reported in our media. Tibetans today (perhaps not during the cultural revolution) have the freedom to practice their religion and enjoy special rights to scholarships and social benefits that other Chinese do not have. Before I get my head torn off, I want to say that I know China is guilty of many injustices and they’re definitely horrible when it comes to transparency but just yesterday NPR ran a story on prisons and it turns out that we have twice the per capita incarceration rate that China does. We also torture people and we definitely are bullies when it comes to preserving the interests of our big businesses and our economy. We buy most of our stuff from China and we owe them billions in loans. Our fates are intertwined and we don’t benefit from leftover anti-communist sentiments muddling our views of modern China. The Olympics will force transparency in China as will the burgeoning business markets. This will be the way to bring China into the our community of nations NOT by insulting, boycotting, and fomenting rabid nationalism. This view is hard to swallow but in the spirit of this website I feel that all views should be shared.
wijg @ 9:
FIFY
Samson- @ 4:
Excellent point! How many of you profited from Chinese Emerging Growth mutual funds back in the 90’s? How many of you still have a stake in these funds? If I had money back then I would have been one of the profiteers. The fact that we chastise everyone else for exactly what we are doing is obscene. Kind of like McCain’s philosophy of it’s okay for me to break the rules, you better not though. Please, let’s point the mirror at ourselves and cure our blemishes before we point it at everyone else.
Seperately, we still should hold some responsibility in keeping American jobs in America. America should have a policy that if you don’t honor international human rights standards, we will not allow your goods into our country. Though we have huge debts with these countries, we still have a responsibility to make sure that the goods we consume are not originated through slavery, children, bondage, and uncontrolled pollution.
Uninsane @ 12:
Thanks. I’m curious where you suppose we could get the full story on China vis a vis Tibet? Although I’d like to trust Richard Gere on this issue, he did make “Dr. T and the Women.”
Samson- @ 4:
I’m a fan of multi-tasking. I think we should get our shit straight and tell China to get the hell out of the Sudan.
This is gross, liberal ignoramuses lining up behind another campaign for U.S. ‘human rights imperialism’… this time targetting China. Well guess what? Life expectancy for the serfs toiling for the parasitic monks in your dreamy traditional pre-Revolutionary Tibet was around 30 years. The country had no prisons - because the punishment for serfs who disobeyed the bejewelled Lamas usually involved the amputation of hands, noses, ears etc. To return monastic serfom to the 3 million or so ethnic Tibetans, the Dalai Lama god-king (who fronts for the CIA’s ‘Free Tibet’ operation) is claiming a territory the size of Europe!
Chinese law exempts Tibetans from the ‘one child only’ policy that applies to Han Chinese… so much for the bogus claims of ‘genocide’! It’s not that Han chauvinism isn’t real, and doesn’t need to be opposed, but lining up behind the former imperialist concessionaires Britain, France, Japan and the U.S. — not to mention the Wall Street ‘humanitarians’ who would love to return China to its status pre-1949 is just disgusting.
I could go on… but perhaps you should do your own research before shooting your ignorant mouths off.
Old Billy Hussein @ 16:
me too, it is just a lot more impactful when it isn’t hypocritical….
just ask east timor….
Lets not forget just how much of our own foreign debt is carried by China. Bush has a big giant credit card with a Chinese flag on it he swipes at the counter every time congress approves the next $70 to $120 billion for Iraq war funding, 80% of which goes directly to KBR, Bechtel, Haliburton, Blackwater and God knows how many other “friends” on the take. All while our infrastructure crumbles, and workers pack the Mississippi levies with newspaper.
Jack Cafferty was right, but the real thugs are in the white house.
The Baiji, or Chinese River Dolphin, is functionally extinct.
How is it possible to tie “free trade” deals to environmental and labor protections? We need representatives who will do this.
Uninsane @ 12:
Point well taken. It would be wise for us to clean our own house before throwing stones.
Ridiculous- “America should have a policy that if you don’t honor international human rights standards, we will not allow your goods into our country.” - have you looked at our own country and the many crimes we have committed and CONTINUE to commit(everyone who keeps talking about the situation in darfur seems to conveniently ignore the devasting WAR we’ve unleashed in Somalia by backing warlords and sending in our agents to route the Somalian nationalists). If other countries had the same policy towards us- there would be no trade anymore. Don’t stop trade between people because of their government’s actions.
If you don’t want to buy goods from a country where you don’t like their working standards- THEN DON’T BUY it. Don’t get the government involved in these markets- its not your damn decision to stop who wants to buy a chinese made product.
casper46 @ 8:
And wal-mart too so it’s 2 birds with 1 stone.
This is bullshit, frankly, and presumes a kind of reductionist dichotomy, that is nationalist in bent (what is my “own shit”?), and denies internationalism. As someone whose had the pleasure to hear underground labor leaders speak, and have read tons of material about left-wing resistance to the oligarchy that is China’s Central Committee, I could give a rats ass about the ruling powers that be in China. At the same time, I recognize that the American ruling classes “protests” about human rights in China is disingenuous at best, hypocritical at worst. That doesn’t mean what they say isn’t TRUE, but rather that THEM (those who support dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere) saying it is the height of absurdity. But this should come as no surprise; competing elements of the ruling class will latch onto whatever popular angry sentiment to channel it into their own power games.
But useful idiots abound, unfortunately, ratcheting up xenophobic and calls for “humanitarian intervention”, that great new buzzword that justifies militarism and “peace through war”. Its a hell of alot easier than the alternative, which is to attempt to build connections and relationships with those in China who are resisting the Party. A notable example of a group resisting China’s terrible labor record is http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/ and http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/. For daily reports of labor and union resistance, check out the Chinese section of Labourstart ( http://www.labourstart.org/cgi.....ntry=China )
[Sorry Sean S. This got stuck in the spam filter. I am leaving both posts up since the second one is somewhat different and this one has links-Sitemonitor]
Uninsane - Thank you for your thoughtful comments! A true voice of reason in a sea of knee-jerk reactions in the U.S. media. Now if only someone in the MSM would be brave enough to do a real, first-hand researched story to shed some light on the truth.
The hypocrites who want to boycott China really make me laugh. How about boycotting
yourself for invading Iraq and killing uncounted people.
Chemist @ 25:
Exactly- it doesn’t make sense. These types of hypocrites and double-standards are far too common.
Iran for example recently mentioned that they’d be open to full nuclear inspections if Israel’s nuclear facilities were inspected as well. Of course no one is ever going to do that.
And also to say that bad working conditions in foreign countries are the only reason US jobs go overseas is really minimizing the problem- it has a lot to do with the rules, regulations, and taxes we have now that serve to make it difficult for many to enter into the market. Many manufacturers also know that the US economy is destined for failure since it has been based on consumption and easy credit(which should be blamed on the Fed, not on consumers truly), so why open up shop here?
How about not selling groceries to politicians who vote for criminal policies?
Last time I was in the U.S. I went into a WalMart store. After seeing the majority of the types that shop that store I can’t see them even understanding the word Boycott. You need a cattle prod just to walk down an aisle.
Uninsane @ 12:
the dalai lama and the buddhist monks? is that the noisy fringe group you are talking about?
Free Hawaii!
This is reductionist bullshit, frankly, and turns things into a ridiculous dichotomy between who did what worse. This is kindergarten morality, of the sort small children say when caught doing something bad “Well Billy did it first!”. The reality is that both countries have a horrendous record a mile long, if not directly, than through indirect support.
This doesn’t mean we have to get stuck being rubes for bourgeoisie elites; when Laura Bush condemns Burma shes being at best disingenuous, at worst hypocritical. But its no surprise that many “human rights defenders” amongst politicians have latched onto the popular outrage against China’s policy in order to advance their own agendas. As indicated by the numerous “humanitarian interventions” that America has chosen to get involved with in the past 40 or so years, it behooves the military to connect its case, which is often as far away from “humanitarian” as possible, to popular outrage as a cover for their actions.
If you are concerned about rights violations and labor conditions in China, and DON’T want to be suckered into the increasingly belligerent and xenophobic clarion calls for increased militarism, than I suggest you google some of these organizations; China Labor Bulletin, China Labor Watch, and Labourstart (and click on their China section). There are groups and people, and increased resistance, against the Party’s Central Committee, but simply echoing Lou Dobb’s ridiculous talking points is going to do nothing but give elites in BOTH countries an excuse to engage in an ever increasing form of brinksmanship where NO ONE is going to win.
boycott the US!
At first I was on the FREE TIBET bandwagon as my initial knee jerk reaction - however like Uninsane I came to view it differently. The switch for me came after a heated discussion I had with Chinese friends. Afterwards I realized I didnt know enough about Tibet or China. So I looked up the history of the 2 countries and found that Tibet ASKED China to come to there aid in the 600’s. Over the next FOURTEEN HUNDRED years China ended up chasing several attackers out of Tibet and it was the Chinese that installed the Dali Lama as its ruler and China’s representative. That pretty much cinched it for me - Tibet is China’s and has been for a very very long time. Therefore it is none of my business.
Chemist @ 25:
It’s interesting how industrial and historically colonial powers accuse each other of brutalizing these people or those people, when they are all guilty, even us.
Although the scale of atrocities can differ, the hypocrisy is astounding. We murdered thousands of Filipinos in the early 20th century, but not too many years later we were outraged at the Japanese for butchering the Chinese.
Now as we play imperial games in Iraq and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths, we are outraged at the Chinese over Tibet.
Unfortunately, the propaganda machines of these countries (ex. our MSM) always have to make the motherland look good, and those politically opoosed to it, look bad. Thanks to the ignorance of most people, brought by lack of education, it works.
Dude, if yer gonna bother with the “whom” thing, at least also bother with the preposition at the end of a clause thing.
tehghey @ 35:
LOL