The new issue of Chronicles contains the usual odd mix of anti-statism and statism blended into a strange brew that recalls the Free Silver Populism of the late 19th century (down with taxes and up with inflation! Down with Wall Street and up with protection! ). There are good articles, such as Doug Bandow’s attack on the government census, and Ted Galen Carpenter’s warning against military intervention in the Sudan. But it also contains some of the most over-the-top rhetoric against China–you know, the country that has made most of what we buy affordable and made it possible Americans to do better things with their time than make dishes, small electronics, and firecrackers–that you can find in any publication.
So we begin with William Hawkins vowing to “drive Chinese goods off the continent.” This is not a charming thought since it would mean a vast increase in the prices of most consumable goods, provided that they are available at all, which would require a massive shift in labor and capital away from productive uses to unproductive uses.
But Hawkins is nothing compared with a piece by Larry Eubank (author of The Case Against Capital) which vacillates between claiming that trade with China is making us poorer and also arguing that economics isn’t everything, so we should be willing to accept poverty in exchange for keeping our nation “secure,” and it is the latter topic that really gets him going:
We’ve also giving them all our advanced technology and educating their college students in our universities — so much so that an American student in an upper-level computer-science or nuclear-pysics course nowadays feels like a stranger in a strange land. And it’s a hostile one: Chinese students in American universities are openly disdainful and hostile to white Americans.
I don’t want to be Mr. PC here but, truly, it strikes me that there is something really despicable about inflaming race conflicts–or creating them, for I see no evidence for his claim at all, and, truly, it is the first time I’ve heard it–for the political end of enhancing state power. Further, what I don’t get is this love/hate relationship that paleos have with government. They loathe the big government their very policies require, and dread the anti-nationalism that freedom they claim to support would bring about.
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Jeffrey,
I was an MSEE grad student from 2001-2003 (I now agree with Gary North that college and graduate programs are for suckers, if only I had found classical liberalism in high school). It is true that there is a very large population and percentage of graduate students who are from China and India studying in American Universities. However, it was my experience that foreign students were able to work with their fellow American students in a cooperative way. In the lab I studied in, I was in the minority as a citizen, but I did not have any major problems with my peers. Any minor disagreements or character flaws on either side were addressed respectfully or ignored.
On the issue of protection-omics, I think that our best hope is to carry on the mission of the Mises Institue and educate anyone who is interested in economics and the “miracle” of free markets. It seems that too many of the ideological foes of capitalism confound the effects of government regulated industry (i.e. fascism) and its many flaws with true free market operation. In clarifying and separating these distinct modes of operation, we may yet convert those who do not have a personal stake in these rather absurd (reductio ad absurdum) economic viewpoints.
Stanley Pinchak
Rand was right when she said racism (or whatever it’s called now) is the lowest, most base form of collectivism. Anyway, I generally find Chinese students to be studious and dilligent, even though I prefer the company of fellow Europeans. The only flaw I find in Chinese (and other East Asian) students is that they keep to their own groups. I suppose it must be due to a culture shock.
Another anti-China argument I’ve heard is that China is slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) “buying us up”…that somehow the increasing amount of investment by Chinese interests in the U.S. market will lead to a kind of non-ownership by Americans, which will eventually lead so some sort of quiet coup by the Chinese.
I have a pretty good understanding of most things economic, but I still struggle a bit with global economics, particularly with regard to money and investment. I’d like to see an intelligent rebuttal of this argument on Mises.org (perhaps even here if this is the right venue), if only for my own edification.
Gee, just how are Chinese students in American universities openly disdainful and hostile to white Americans? I’ve NEVER seen that because Chinese students are almost always passive or non-confrontational, due to their culture and the way they are brought up. All the Chinese sudents in the schools I’ve been to are quiet and just mind their own business and get their own work done.
On the other hand, I’ve read of the long-term 5-year plans in which China had engineered the growth of huge industries where none existed before. But that’s all due to the government planning and throwing huge tax incentives into those areas. The US or any other country can do the same. We just don’t bother to. The US could just as easily say we want to dedicate the next 5-years to developing a new kind of biomedical industry that say, grows human parts, and throws 100% income tax incentives in, and lets these companies buy real estate at pennies on the dollar, etc. The US just doesn’t have this kind of policy. Oh, I have to note that China’s policy requires foreign firms to partner with a local partner that retains 50.1% ownership interest (which is usually a Chinese state-owned shell company). So when they are ready to nationalize the company, they can do so. Also, you must invest the money in renmenbi, which has an exchange rate but is unconvertible to any other currencies. Plus, you must turn over all your technologies and business process documents to the government to “safe-keep” so they can duplicate it all and sell it dirt-cheap when they build a new factory or nationalize yours.
Why are they doing this? Because China used to the world’s ONLY superpower way back in the 600s-1500s. But with the advent of international trade, China got suckered into opening up (due to guns pointed at them at Hong Kong in 1861-1900). The reason was because England wanted to force OPIUM into China, and China didn’t want their citizens turning to drug addicts. It culminated in the eight-nation common INVASION of China in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. “Boxer Rebellion” really indicates the British term for martial artists who fought back against the “white ghosts” who sought to corrupt Chinese by tricking them into using opium. The invasion was led by England, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, and I forget the last one. In this invasion, the foreign powers invaded and DEMOLISHED the Forbidden City and raided and made off with all the priceless treasures in the palace. It’s funny how American teaching of the EAST didn’t start until WW2. We conveniently ignore all our past transgressions. You can read about it in DRAGON LADY, by Sterling Seagrave, who wrote excellent books covering historical proceedings of other asian nations.
Hey, if I was Chinese, I’d be FRIGGIN’ PISSED at all the foreign nations for invading my country, destroying my capital, leveling my monarch’s palace, and forcing my people to take drugs.
The real scary part is not the Chinese students but the way the older Chinese politicians think. They plan in such long-term scales that it’s much like Japan Inc. in the 1970s. The Chinese are coming, and they’re here to dominate. And they remember that you invaded their country; when you don’t remember this at all.
Except that “we” weren’t even alive in 1900 and it was other people in a different time who invaded and corruoted them. Do you seriously expect people of today to be held accountable for the past actions of others?
And if the Chinese were too stoopid to get tricked and hooked on drugs then they deserved to be conquered.
I’m a current mechanical engeering undergrad and had lots of chinese/indian teaching assistants and fellow students. They are not hostile at all. Only problems are that some are impossible to understand and they definately do stick with their own kind.
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”
– Julius Caesar
You do know, Brendan, that the quote you just posted was written in 2001 CE, not BCE.
Why don’t you cretins get another form or argument? “Racist!” that’s all you have, and the only form or argument you’re capable of. You go through every publication in the world, looking for some remark you can determinedly construe as racist, and then spend a week patting yourselves on the back for your superior virtue.
What if it were the Soviets sending students here to gain advanced technology, to explore methods of disrupting computer services, and to spy in other ways? Would you then bay like hounds about the “racism” of aiding Soviets in their aims? What arguments would you cretins come up with then, to congratulate yourselves on your ineffable holiness?
Why didn’t you read the whole article, and respond to the substance of it? (I know the answer — you’re only interested in reinforcing your own pieties.)
Maybe YOUR form of racism is anti-Americanism — you’re against every measure we might take to protect ourselves, and every reconsideration of policies toward our enemies. Are you in the pay of the Red Chinese? I think you are. That’s the worst form of racism. I hereby vow to shun you, as unfit for civilized company. Quislings!
India and China are the most racist countries in the world. Most Asians are. In S. Korea if you buy an American car the tax authorities come around and audit you. Both India and China harbor centuries-old hatreds of the west due to Britain’s colonization 200 years ago. These people are industrial spies. We are out of our minds to educate them and let them into our companies so they can see how we do things. In another 5-10 years we will be facing these same people on the battlefield. And we are outnumbered 10 to 1.
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