China says U.S. should fix its own economic problems, stop blaming others

[Rose Siding]

BEIJING - Bristling at U.S. criticism of its tight currency controls, China said Thursday that Washington should instead improve its own financial discipline to ease its ballooning trade deficit.

Instead of casting blame elsewhere, "the United States should find reasons from its own country to address the economic imbalance," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, at a regular news briefing.

He was responding to a question about a U.S. Senate proposal to use tariffs to force China to relax its policy of fixing its currency at 8.28 to the U.S. dollar.

Washington contends the policy gives Chinese exporters an unfair price advantage, contributing to the mounting U.S. trade deficit with China, which hit US$162 billion last year.

Beijing has pledged to loosen its currency controls, but says it cannot do so right away due to the fragility of its own financial systems.

If a country _ such as the United States _ cannot support its deficits with domestic savings, "it can only depend on the savings of foreign countries," Qin said.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/12343.html

[pelagius]

1. China to US: Take personal responsibility!

The conservatives must be quite delighted that China has come around to their "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" way of thinking!

[anarchy1999]

2. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Hey China, you're not playing fair, don't you

know our leaders are in mourning and out of touch and unable to respond right now.

Bet we won't hear anything about this on CNN.

[clem_c_rock]

do you ever hear any NEWS on f***ing CNN??

Major media is completely silent except for posting happy stories about how are economy is booming. This issue could end up turning the US into a 3rd world country. The media is silent.


We could have a nuclear war and CNN would be running remembrance stories on Terri .

[anarchy1999]

25. Guess you haven't been around long enough to recognize the depth

of my sarcasm. CNN = CRAP NOT NEWS

Been that way for a very long time. It started when Ted sold out!

Sorry I missed the chance to welcome you to DU.

[Robert Oak]

32. Lou Dobbs reports on China constantly n/t

[Triana]

3. The first thing the US needs to do is slam the door on China

and get out of bed with the Communist state - as much as possible, at least. I realize we're inextricably tied to some extent, but the trade deficit between us and them is despicable and we DO NOT have to put up with that, sending all our jobs over there whilst they send all their crappy 'goods' over here.

WHEN was the last time you saw *anything* that said "Made in the USA" on it?

Crikey...

[Tux]

4. My shirt was printed in USA

But the shirt itself was made in Mexico. Ironicly, it's a shirt with an American flag on it.

[htuttle]

6. Well, that would hardly be Kapitalist, would it?

Magic of the Market got you down?

Is the 'Invisible Hand' getting a little heavy handed?

[megatherium]

19. Oh, wait, I think I saw something that said Made in the USA on it.

It was a warplane or missile or something like that.

[leesa]

23. Free trade, baby! All's fair, right? We SENT our jobs there

they didn't TAKE them as you seem to be implying.

[shantipriya]

30. China

Don't get too worked up! We like the low prices,don't we?So we have no choice but to have what we need manufactured by people who are willing to work for a lot less.

[Triana]

35. I'd pay higher prices....

...to keep the jobs HERE. A lot of us would! You buy less, pay more, keep jobs here ...

[Democrats_win]

5. Bush response? Its hard work destroying America's economy.

[ckramer]

7. All China needs to do is change the name of their towns to

USA.

So everything made in China would be Made in USA. HAha!

[Mnemosyne]

8. We better take heed.

they own quite a large percent of our t-bonds and could sink the dollar if so desired.

[ckramer]

9. What would happen if US government default on its debt?

[Mnemosyne]

14. I believe our currency

will go the way of the confederate dollar, but will ask oz in the a.m. when I see his morning report marketwatch here on du. He's brilliant!

[AngryAmish]

11. The Chnese have no desire to sink to dollar

In fact they want quite the opposite to happen.

[Mnemosyne]

15. True, when you own something you would like to see it increase in value!!

[AngryAmish]

20. Actually for internal reasons

[shantipriya]

31. China

I agree. We have to be polite and respectful to our bankers!

[AngryAmish]

10. This is VERY interesting

By any objective standard the Chinese currency is devalued. This is a good deal for those Chinese in power.

Chinese banks are also immensely corrupt. These banks can't fail because many powerful people (government and army officials) will lose their shirts. The only way to make sure the banks don't fail is to keep the yuan low.

So, if foreign ministry is saying that the yuan won't float, this is going to cause a bigger bubble in China than there is now.

Currency traders - keep your eye on China.

[Riverman]

36. China - the REAL EVIL EMPIRE!

As a progressive I will sound more like a neo-con in my view of present day China's threat to peace on this planet. Its possible China is a more corrupt, immoral, opportunitistic, hypocritical, evil society than any on the planet. They seem to have zero compassion for anything human or caring. They seem to exploit people and the environment for maniacal pursuit of profit and self interest. They seem to be inalterably racist - non chinese are considered less than human it seems. The elites in China - the military, political and ownership classes have not problem working uman being, young woman, children long, long hours, with little food, horrible working conditions and degrading treatment. They seem to have no problem generating the most toxic destructive pollution anywhere on earth. There is very little I feel is worth admiring in Chinese culture. Such inhuman attitudes and mistreatment scares the hell out of me. They have the population to militarize 200 million people to expend in expantionist wars and still have over 800 million people left. A militarized CHina is a threat to all other life forms on this planet.

I can only pray that the religious and ethnic strife in China can be exploited to cause it to Balkanize into separate states - yes break up China! China may be the worst threat on the planet - bigger than global warming, bigger than US war mongering, global corporatism, and nuclear proliferation.

[GOPBasher]

12. Fix our problems?

Why the hell would Bush go try to fix all the problems he and the Republicans worked so hard to create? :shrug:

[callous taoboy]

13. Um, don't they have sweatshops in China?

[Dhalgren]

16. Um, don't they have sweatshops in the US?

[callous taoboy]

18. Examples?

[Dhalgren]

21. Prison labor, illegal aliens working under radar,

illegals working ag all across the country - propbably a whole lot more...

[callous taoboy]

22. Agreed, but come on:

You really think that the U.S. labor picture is as horrendous as China's? Prison labor: At least we aren't killing prisoners for specific organs that we wish to harvest. That's China.

[UCLA Dem]

27. Lots of clothing factories with illegals, working in slave conditions...

in los angeles.

[Rose Siding]

29. And US trade practices continue to make that profitable for them

but I don't see what Chinese labor standards have to do with the US behaving responsibly.

[Mr.Green93]

17. China should just

conquer the u.s. and get it over with.

[leesa]

24. I think they already have.

[Zorra]

26. I am really beginning to understand why Jefferson was an "isolationist".

[dutchdemocrat]

28. Interesting this comes out around this time.

Same time as....

Bush was trying to demonstrate the fragility of the system -- as if Treasury bonds are a risky investment...

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2005/04/07/opinion/37editorial.txt

China holds a few 'worthless' treasury bonds per say - perhaps a trillion or more?

Doh.

[Robert Oak]

33. I agree! Rescind the China PNTR and apply a tariff on them

for not floating the yuan, plus their slave labor abuses,
their human rights abuses and their environmental rights abuses!

How about actually pursuing trade sanctions for their massive
dumping w/in the WTO at least?

No Mr. Bush you corporate hack, you say?

Gee wiz congress, let's fix it and stop this massive trade drain!

How about India too w/ it's super cheap labor and crappy services
and results!

Who's up for a massive investigation at how this war in Iraq could
burn through that much cash? How about stop writing tax laws
to switch a progressive tax into a regressive one?

How about even bothering to enforce the corporate tax code?

hmmm...

How about stop allowing multinational corporations make
business deals with a totalitarian regime as if that regime is
going to play by the rules ...of course it will not...it's a TOTALITARIAN regime!

[gulliver]

34. So much for "The customer is always right." n/t