US slams China in major smear campaign
Pre-election ad campaigns in America are targeting China as the global “bad guy”.
The economic power of China, which is currently the world’s third largest economy after the US and EU, seems to be raising concerns among policymakers in Washington.
The phrase “Made in China” is invoking anger in the US: China is portrayed as the “bad guys du jour” in countless political campaign ads for the 2010 midterm elections.
“The Chinese are being set up to be the next bogeyman, and the only thing to interfere with that is that the Muslims are an effective bogeyman for right now,” says Sam Seder, political commentator and comedian.
In the US, China’s ascent in the world is becoming the popular perceived “threat”.
Hollywood is remaking the 1980s flick “Red Dawn”, but this time with Chinese instead of Soviet troops invading the US.
As the American economy stagnates, barely growing at all, and China celebrates a ten per cent plus rise in its economic growth, Beijing is increasingly vilified in the US media.
American policy makers are accusing China of manipulating its currency to boost exports, and demanding they do something about it.
However, the US and China have a unique, interwoven relationship that cannot be understood by looking at just Beijing. After looking at what Washington is doing, one may question who the bad guy really is.
At the moment there is an imbalance that has China, the largest creditor nation on the globe, funding the US, the largest debtor nation in history. The US asking for the dollar to go down 20 per cent against the Chinese currency, the yuan, is essentially asking China, which holds $2.6 trillion in its reserves, to just lose a half a trillion dollars. China does not want that, and economists say this is far from being mutually beneficial.
“The US says: no… we want to bankrupt you like we bankrupted Japan, we want to disable you, because, if we can destroy you economically, then you can never become a military threat. And China says this is paranoid psychosis,” said Michael Hudson, author and Financial Times contributor.
At the same time, the US is parading their military might around China’s borders. China has also held drills in recent months, and both sides are battling it out in what has been dubbed a currency war.
“I happen to think China should open its currency up and being freely convertible, on the other hand the United States government is printing money, everybody is making mistakes here,” said Jim Rogers, financial investor and commentator. “It looks like we have a trade war developing.”
“Nobody in history has ever won a trade war,” Rogers added.
