The GOP primary season has started, so China as a currency manipulater, the trade deficits and the country’s trade practises are back on the agenda, sights business analyst Janet Carmosky in her column in Forbes and tries to explain the Chinese position. It still needs two to tango.
Chinese unwillingness to do as we think they should with respect to their currency valuation is a not act of hostility or aggression. It’s their version of capitalism. We call it mercantilism. They call it monetary policy – usingmarket forces to build the wealth of their nation. The wealth of the state, not the moral integrity of a free market system, is the point.
China got rich by hitching its wagon to a global system built by the west. They learned our language and our rules: they invested in their infrastructure and society in an attempt to meet us more than halfway. They haven’t converted to our value system, nor will they ever. So moral indignation might make us feel good, but it is pointless as a motivator of Chinese policy.
Realism might be part of the solution. One aspect of realism – the USA has to invest in its own people and infrastructure, physical and governmental, in order to build the wealth of our nation. It worked for the Chinese. They helped us get into this mess, of course. But it does, I’m quite sure, take two to tango.
Janet Carmosky is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.
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