'It's Cute': Chinese College Students on Americans' Self-Conception as Saviour of the World

In an interview in Beijing, several Chinese college students reflect on America.  Their observations are interesting, to say the least:

ASHLEY ZHANG, student: I think that the United States is trying to transport its own value, like freedom, democracy, to other parts of world, but maybe China, or India, or Cuba, these countries, they don't think that they have their own -- own situations, maybe not suit those values.

ZHAO LIANG, student: I think the problem is, it might not suit China. So, if it is such a good thing, maybe China would evolve, have an evolution towards democracy on its own.

ALFREDA ZHANG, student: I think the most witty and -- and tricky thing about American government or society is that they put personal liberty as the mainstream.

STUDENT: It's cute, because the Americans tend to picture an American soldier on the street of Iraq, and saving Iraq people from hell.

And I think whenever there is a dictatorship, as someone would call it, the U.S. tend to think that it's their job to save those people and to -- and they haven't realized that democracy is an absolute value in U.S., but it might be not that absolute in other countries.

Read more here.

The Case against Proposed Chinese Tariffs

In the midst of “Fair” Trade Month, the House of Representations passed a misguided bill entitled Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act of 2010 by a vote of 348-79 last week. Supporters of the protectionist bill likely believe that China is manipulating its currency to artificially lower the price of Chinese goods imported in the United States. If approved by the Senate and President Obama, the law would allow the Obama administration to raise tariffs on Chinese imports. According to Heritage Foundation Fellow Derek Scissors, the value of Chinese currency has not significantly impacted the US economy:

 The extent of the yuan’s misalignment is unclear, and so designing real remedies is almost impossible. More importantly, undervaluation is not a major factor in the bilateral deficit and not a factor at all in the overall trade deficit. And there is very little evidence that the yuan’s undervaluation costs the U.S. a large number of jobs. China is often a poor economic partner, but retaliation aimed at the exchange rate will not fix anything.

The fears surrounding the Chinese Yuan are largely unfounded.

Global Free Markets vs. China

Yesterday, Google decided to shut down its Chinese search page after a frustrating Chinese government continued to censor Google search results and hack into Google servers.

In response to China’s authoritarian approach to social control, Google redirected its Chinese site to the unregulated Honk Kong page. But a belligerent Chinese government “moved on Tuesday to block access to the Hong Kong site, the use of which Google had hoped would allow it to keep its pledge to end censorship while retaining a share of China’s fast-growing internet search market.” Understanding that the Chinese government enjoys operating via thought police, it will be interesting to see what China will look like in the next half century. 

The real question becomes whether or not democracy is inherent to every culture and whether democratic values such as free speech and basic natural rights are fundamental to every human society. I would argue that democracy is not inherent to a culture, but humanity’s desire to be free most certainly is.

After Google announced that it would be shutting down its Chinese search page, people in Beijing brought flowers and chocolates and placed them at Google’s front gates as a virtual sign of mourning.

Schiff Destroys Krugman

Usually Peter Schiff rambles in his video blogs, but in this one he says so much and utterly destroys Paul Krugman (not that its too hard).

Its unfortunate that even though Peter Schiff is consistently right about stocks and economic policy, he is still ignored.