Why do capitalist nations do business with the People's Republic of China ?

Question

Communist China is upgrading their military with the profits from dealing with the west and western style nations. They will have an oil contract with Venezuela,therefore,they have no reason to improve civil liberties and civil rights. Manufacturing is the true way of earning capital. They opposed the US in Korea and in VietNam in a lesser role. Wal-Mart is a big supporter of taking manufacturing to them. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur would not have approved of Wal-Mart even though he was born in Little Rock Arkansas. The United States of America owes the People's Republic of China A LOT OF MONEY,because they have bailed the US out financially so do not be surprised if they become a bigger opposition to the USA than the Soviet Union was in the Cold War. The U.S.S.R. is extinct but not the People's Republic of China.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, the answer is simple: capitalism (as some would define it) means you go where the business is. End of story. There isn't any room for morality or ethics. They then rationalize it by saying that we are opening up China to freedom by trading with them (but for some reason we won't work with Cuba?). And yet, as you said, China isn't run by idiots. They will take the money to shore up their brutal dictatorship and support tyrants like North Korea.

Look around the world and you see this "thinking" is what caused problems in places like Iraq, Iran, South America, etc. In those cases we traded with dictators and wound up helping to develop great movements like the Islamists, for example. Meanwhile, we shunned people like Ho Chi Minh and drove him into the hands of the communists at the cost of 58,000 American lives. Good job!

So there is no sense in the policy - it's about greed and being devoid of ethics or morality so that you don't care about the implications of their actions.

Answer 2

The China issue is a lot more complex than that moron at CNN screaming about the exporting of America. Politically, China is a lot closer to the US than most people think regardless of their difference in ideology. During the Ping Pong Diplomacy years, while Nixon was meeting with Mao, Kissinger was meeting in the back room going over every US satellite pictures of Soviet troop deployments along the Chinese border. The downfall of the Soviets began with the Chinese-US cooperation back then, not Reagan. (this was declassifies decades later).

With the issue of North Korea, while China does not want a nuclear capable North Korea, it will not tolerate a pro western nuclear Korea on its border any more than a nuclear capable Cuba next to the US or have we forgotten.

With commerce, the world has moved beyond the basic agriculture driven economy. The US and the western industrialized nations no longer has monopoly on manufacturing. Globalization of technology and logistics has made the world truly a world without boundary. Surviving the competition means being the low cost producer and that is what China is doing.

Is China a threat? I think not in the military sense. If you look through the thousands of Chinese history, China seldom ventures out it its territory. Gahngis Khan was Mongolian, not Chinese. However, deplomacy alone does not work without a strong military. They are not an alternative but a compliment to each other. Remember some famous US president said something like "Walk lightly but carry a big stick"?

Economically. most certainly. They are already our biggest lender through the balance of payment and they are buying up western business like oil companies and computer manufacturing. They are using their new found wealth to position themselves in the strategic industries and to prepare for the next round of compettion which is technology and energy. Can you blame them? We have been doing that for centries. I think our solution is not to look at them but instead look at ourselves as to what our future strength is and maximize that. Isolating ourselves from the rest of the world certainly is not going to be the answer.

Answer 3

Wow, everyone hear has such a nuanced understanding of the many facets of this issue. There probably isn’t a lot of need for me to talk about helping the hundreds of millions of Chinese who live on less than $1 per day out of abject poverty, the benefits that Americans receive from having inexpensive Chinese manufactured products available to them or our countries reliance on China for hundred of billions dollars in inexpensive capitol (that’s government, corporate and personal debt they are funding).

China is developing into a economic and political force. In order to thrive throughout the 21st century, the US is certainly going to need a much more sophisticated understanding of the challenges in front of us than the half-baked opinions I see posted here.

Answer 4

Based on your description of your question I think you probably already know the answer, $$$$$$$$$$$, it's all about the benjamins. Although what you may not realize is that it's not about one of the last untapped cheap labor markets in the world. What it is about is the 1.4 Billion people that are part of an emerging nation which promise the biggest new markets since Columbus landed in America.

Answer 5

Because capitalist nations want to earn more money. They can pay the china worker for like 10 cents per hour or less or little more. they want to get rich...

Answer 6

Revenue. Good point but the trade deficit is particially recooped from the tax on export sales.

Answer 7

! billion potential consumers!

Answer 8

cheap labor.

Answer 9

MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!