http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4192518.stm

- I think China has to realise that being a part of World Trade means that it has responsibilities, its exports (and imports) need rules and regulations. Yes, yes, it's the next economic miracle since Japan, its the rising superpower, blah-blah, but now it's a proper part of the international community, it can't go around flooding every foreign market available, and while I'm no Franco-Protectionist-Mr-Trade-Barrier guy, I do think China needs to calm down before it implodes and takes half the world's economy with it.
And if that means I have to buy European textiles at a higher price, then I guess I'll have to live with that. I don't owe Mr.Wong in a Peking sweat-shop anything.

Huzah, I agree completely.


Along with that add that they cannot allow their companies to out and out pirate others ideas.

Fandros

Along with that add that they cannot allow their companies to out and out pirate others ideas.

Amen.

Sad thing is, as long as there is a cost benefit, companies overlook it.

But despite widespread claims that China is flooding western markets with cheap goods - some manufacturers worst hit by the quota system are actually owned by European firms, BBC Beijing correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has found.

One British-owned factory, which produces high-quality cashmere sweaters for customers including Burberry and Jaeger, says it has been thrown into disarray. The owner told Mr Wingfield Hayes he is now hunting for factories in South Asia to take up the extra work.







Most consumers demand lower prices, not vocally but with their wallets. This isnt the fault of China, the companies we purchase from are placing the orders where they can get the goods they sell. As in the quote above many are UK companies that relocated abroad, even Dyson has. The cost of the standard of living the public expects makes our wages too high. The public goes for convienience and cost which is why our high streets are full of banks and charity shops and our towns surrounded by retail parks.



Personally when I go shopping I try and buy UK produce IF available but even something labelled as made in the UK may only have been packed here.

The west created the world market and I find it hard to complain now that it is biting us back.

"Made in USA" has been a pride symbol here for a long time. As a rule, it was a Union "ploy" (and I use that term loosely - it's a good ploy) to keep jobs here keep us buying things made by citizens of this country. [See my Wal*mart thread...]

The best stories of which was the old Usa Japan story.


Claim: Japan renamed a town 'Usa' so that they could legitimately stamp their exports 'Made in USA.'

Status: False.

Origins: In the years after World War II, Japan, whose manufacturing capabilities had been almost completely wiped out by Allied bombing, attempted to rebuild both their economy and their industrial base by producing large quantities of inexpensive http://www.snopes.com/business/graphics/japan.gif goods and exporting them to America and other countries. (The USA was the primary market, however, since it emerged from the war with a robust economy and had no damaged infrastructure to rebuild.) The phrase "Made in Japan" came to symbolize cheap, shoddy goods to Americans, and eventually the rumor arose that Japan had sought to avoid this stigma by deviously renaming one of its towns "Usa" so it could identify its products as being "Made in USA."

This rumor was almost certainly a tongue-in-cheek joke inspired by someone's noticing the coincidence of a town in Japan named Usa (and perhaps fueled by American xenophobia or lingering resentment of the Japanese). In fact, the Japanese city of Usa (on the island of Kyushu) was not creating by renaming an existing town; it was called Usa long before World War II. As well, nearly every country that imports goods requires them to be marked with the name of their country of origin, not a town or city, and it would have taken some circuitous (and probably expensive) routing to get goods marked "Made in USA" into other countries without anyone's noticing that they had originated in Japan. America, especially, Japan's largest market by far, would certainly have noticed the incongruity of goods marked "Made in USA" being imported into the USA.

Of course, the idea that the U.S. Customs Department would simply shrug at Japanese products marked "Made in USA," despite the confusion they would obviously cause, simply because they were "legitimately" identified as coming from the Japanese city of Usa is just silly. Lest anyone think that U.S. Customs inspectors were lax about enforcing the rules or willing to look the other way, consider the following difficulty Sony experienced with them as late as 1969 when Sony tried to downplay the fact that their products were Japanese in origin:


. . . despite the Japanese flag flying on Fifth Avenue, most consumers, including actual customers, remained unaware that Sony was a Japanese company. Morita [President of Sony Sales] was uneasy about the possibility of a negative reaction, and did what he could to sustain the misapprehension. The required "Made in Japan" label, for example, was positioned on the product as inconspicuously as possible, in the smallest permissible size; and more than once, Sony edged below the minimum, causing U.S. Customs inspectors to turn back shipments.


A notable exception to the USA's import laws is the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is allowed to use the "Made in USA" label on their products and export them to the USA duty-free. Legislation was introduced in Congress to close this loophole (also known as the "Saipan Scam (http://glo.bmwe.org/public/journal/1999/09sep/b04.htm)") in 1999, but it died in committee.


Last updated: 29 June 2003

I think China has to realise that being a part of World Trade means that it has responsibilities,

Unfortunately China also realizes that without it's cheap labor which creates cheap products, the world economy would probably be in the crapper. So they're dealing from a position of strength.

People buy made in China products daily, Heck Walmart is one of the biggest importers from China with something a little over 7 Billion dollars annually.

Thats more than some world powers.

See other thread. Wal*mart is one of the biggest importers of China because they're the biggest retailer in the world.

Walmart is Chinas 7th largest trading partner.
There is a recipricol effect Pali. Walmart grows and is able to squash competition by being able to deliver insanely cheap products, which their special relationship with China allows them to obtain.

Anyway, dont look for China to be interested in "Fair trade".
No matter what else, remember, these people (the top down command) are communists. They probably see it quite acceptable to use the enemies own best weapons against it. They have no problem weilding capitalism like a club.

They have no problem weilding capitalism like a club.

They're kind of like capitalists that way. But they'll still be calling themselves communists when the world shops at Wang*Mart and eats their soy steaks with chopsticks. Gotta keep the Revolution alive, ya know.

Damned capitalists, wanting better deals for themselves than for their trading partners.

Our ability to force anyone into a fairer trading situation depends greatly on our ability to provide anything people need. Else, we're the world's bitch - at least until our dollars end up being worth the same as Turkish Lira.

except, they arent capitalists, really.

They, in essence, control the economy. Is there "really" private properity in china, or is just kind of being leased?

A capitalist business acts in very predicatable and rational ways. The morality of its actions rely on the profits of its shareholders for direction. There is nothing wrong with that.. its good, it works. Its the nature of the beast. However Chinas leaders do not operate with that critera as a guideline. They still operate with the ethos a nation state. In the world view of a nation state the end game and ultimate pursuit is not profit, but power.
Great reading here on the ethos of the nation state

http://www.futurecasts.com/book%20review%204-05.htm
Classical realism is based on human ambition. States have a "will to power" - a "limitless lust for power" - hardwired into them because of the ambitions of their leaders. They constantly look for opportunities to take the offensive and dominate other states.
&
As Mearshiemer points out, this view provides no room for powerful states - like the British Empire in the 19th century and the United States in the 20th century - that are satisfied and seek primarily to defend the status quo. It recognizes the role of fear, but treats that as "a second-order cause of state behavior."

But why the lust for power? Security.
Nations crave security. Why else do you think China went to free market? It saw the disintergration of the Soviet Union. It realized that its survival depended on its learning how to operate in the capitalist arena. Chinas use of capitalism isnt a epithany as much as it was a defense mechanism.
The next question is what does a nation consider security?
Obviously being free from the domination of another and having the ability to act the nation sees fit, either in its own defense, internally or in relations with other nations would qualify as "Security" in the international arena.
Next ask yourself what are the keys to Chinas security?
Perhaps now you can why China was so desperate to purchase that Oil company at such an inflated price. Oil is Key to Chinas economy and China sees it economy as key to not only is security, but to its long term survival.
Maybe now it is more aparent why China is now building aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines in order to project its power globally, and protect its oil supply.

So we hope as the people of China learn from capitalism and the pretty shinies of the west that capitalism affords. They seek democracy, be it revolution for a land rover, or there kids going to a better school.

I believe it may have been 60 Minutes that did a piece on this subject some time back, showing the blatant copying of trademarked goods and the lack of any significant enforcement of laws protecting trademarks.

China is more concerned with exporting product and gaining footholds in varied markets and the accompanying capital gained thereby, than with any western idea of copyright or trademark infringement.

With the steadily dwindling energy resources becoming more and more the focal point of treaties and compacts and assorted diplomatic efforts, China is merely positioning itself to be one of the powerbrokers at the economic table when the resources pool is distributed.

Think you could apply that to the US as well Byl.

Why else the huge oil reserves. Why else the huge oil assets yet untapped on soil controlled by us?

Fandros

Why else the huge oil assets yet untapped

You've said this twice. The only 2 I know of are in the Artic (where it's perfectly clear why we haven't tapped it) and oil sands in Utah or Colorado (where it's perfectly clear why we haven't tapped them). Are you referring to something else? As far as I know, anything else are unproven reserves.

It's like the oil-tar fields in Canada: http://www.heartland.org/pdf/23224n.pdf

One of the main reasons that the US has such huge oil reserves and untapped oil, is because it is military strategically sound. One of the major factors of WWII was German tanks sitting on the battlefield that had run out of gas. The Allies captured or destroyed a majority of the oil fields. Also, it helps in disaster situations like this.

How do untapped oilfields help in any strategic sense?
Its not like you go up and hit in a spigot. The process to extract oil from untapped areas takes years. It is a slow and costly process. If there were places in North America to get oil, we would have hit them.

Oil Reserves yes... but we arent sitting on vast untapped pools of oil

I'm not talking undrilled reserves. I'm talking about the 750 billion barrels we have stored.

And our untapped potential reserves are some of the largest in the world.

Fandros

untapped potential reserves

maybe you know something I do not. explain where these are, never heard of em

And we have 570 MILLION barrels of oil in the strategic oil reserves, not billion. And the United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per DAY

Sorry, playing BF:2 and listening to various news reports during the late night and day have me jumbling data.


http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=news&start=1&num=2&q=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002463368_oilstudy01.html

Is however part of what I was referring to. This isn't new info, we here in Utah have known about the huge shale deposits for years.

Fandros

So, we have a year's worth stockpiled.

No, 2 months, tops, stockpiled