LOS ANGELES—The movie “Death by China: One lost job at a time” is an eye-opening exposé of China’s economic devastation of American manufacturing. It is an emphatically frank documentary, supported by experts and congressional lawmakers who have been unable to turn the tide in favor of America’s manufacturing base and its labor force since Kissinger’s détente brought China into the World Trade Organization.
However, China could not have done it alone. America’s multinational corporations left home with their technology and capital, leaving 72,000 empty factories and a devastated workforce of some 25,000,000 unemployed. Others chose to only expand their sales market into China, some with unexpected results.
The movie, directed by University of California, Irvine, professor Peter Navarro, professor of Economics and Public Policy, is based on his 2011 book (with Greg Autry) by the same title.
The movie had an exclusive screening with a dozen experts in China issues on Aug. 17 at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, Calif. It was a full house.
Jane, a medical practitioner in the audience said, “It was a very balanced documentary.”
Who’s at Fault?
Navarro starts his production in a shopping mall on Black Friday. Individual buyers are asked what they purchased and why they made the purchase. They were then asked, “Where was that item made?” Their responses are interesting and reflective of how our economy has fed “Made in China” acceptance. Some sheepishly give excuses, while others remain quiet.
It isn’t much different than Fortune 100 companies, which merely respond, without any regret at leaving America, “It’s just business. We are accountable to the board.”
As Americans, we might want to ask ourselves, “What companies is my pension plan invested in? Are we any different than those buyers or manufacturers?”
China Not Held Accountable
A blunt assessment is made of China and its lack of accountability to its WTO membership agreements. Where competitive advantages exist by unfair official subsidies via tax rebates on exports or lack of internationally accepted laws such as workplace safety, age of workers, and pollution, there is recourse using tariffs to balance competition between various countries for the same products. However, this has too seldom been done with China.
Wal-Mart has become China’s U.S. product retailer. According to the documentary, former prisoners of conscience, including detained Falun Gong practitioners, and other China gulag victims cringe upon coming to America when seeing Nestle and other promotional and Christmas season products they made during their 10-hour-or-longer shifts in Chinese labor camps.
China uses several very advantageous “subsidies” to make their products more affordable for export. Many companies are state-owned, that is they are owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for the benefit of the CCP members involved. They thus receive additional perks from the regime to export.
An exposé of unenforced labor laws indicates that China has the worst air pollution in the world. It not only kills Chinese, but the pollution is dispersed around the entire globe.
China also has no workplace safety laws, healthcare requirements, or overtime pay requirements.
The list becomes longer with child labor, slave, and prison labor promoted in state-owned facilities, thus padding the pockets of local CCP cadres and bringing costs down significantly to undermine other economies around the world.
China also utilizes currency manipulation, which has been an advantage to its competitiveness. Many U.S. presidents have threatened action, but none have acted on it.
The Wild East
Counterfeiting, piracy, and outright confiscation of American-based companies in China is taking place. The costs to foreign businesses are staggering in any one of these categories. Who would have thought that Google would run home—having been outsmarted by the CCP?
According to the Global Intellectual Property Center, China continues to be the number one source country for counterfeit and pirated goods seized, accounting for 62 percent or $124.7 million of the total domestic value of seizures in 2011. But the impact to retailers is much higher than that number. According to the International Trade Administration only 1 percent of all goods entering the country are inspected.
Such counterfeit goods are not only affecting consumers, however.
“In March 2009, a NASA administrator explained to the U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology subcommittee that the discovery of counterfeit parts was partially to blame for out-of-control costs and may have contributed to the nine-month delay of the Kepler spacecraft launch. He said, ‘We [could] find out about it [counterfeit parts] while sitting atop a rocket or, worse, find out about it in space,’” reported the Aero-News Network in March 2009.
Personal Experience From the Audience
During the open discussion with various China experts after the film, one woman, Nancy Weinstein, a Californian, walked up out of the audience and said, “I owned a furniture company in China. I now have nothing!” She explained how she entered into a lease agreement with a Shanghai landlord for a building, paying over one million dollars in advance. Shortly thereafter, her employees were intimidated by the landlord and left the store. He then removed her inventory of furniture and took over the building.
She went to every U.S. government agency, the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, the Chinese Foreign Investment Office, U.S. Consulate, etc. She said, “Mr. Huang, who is the director of the Shanghai Foreign Affairs, had asked that I call him. Mr. Huang said it was ‘NOTHING’ that my workers got pushed and shoved and threats put on their lives that they would be beaten.” She has been unable to recover any of her losses and was even blackmailed by the landlord to get out of the contract.
Several sources indicate when doing business in China, one should use a very experienced lawyer who knows the Chinese “system.”
Death by Chinese Junk
The growing concern about Chinese product safety and pressure from the multinationals to remove the “place of origin” labels was discussed. Lack of oversight results in poisonous toys, baby formula, fish, other food products, and building materials, just to name a few.
The equal reciprocity proclaimed by President Bill Clinton when the WTO approved China has not been fulfilled. Especially his statement, “For the first time, people in China will be able to buy products made in America.” With wage rates rising in China, the multinationals are moving to cheaper labor countries already.
The vast majority of Chinese aren’t making much more than they were in the past in real terms. Only the CCP and its cadre are the direct beneficiaries within China. The “sweatshop” conditions still exist, though in newer buildings for some, but working conditions and compensation are still driving some Chinese workers to commit or threaten suicide. Early this year, wages were increased 25 percent on top of a 100 percent increase in 2010.
Pollution
American manufacturers respect environmental issues for the future of our people and our country. The cost for this benefit is not reciprocated in China. China has become the most polluted country on this planet. Some Chinese water sources are too polluted for use on crops, livestock, or for human consumption, according to the film.
China has the highest birth deformity rate in the world. According to an October 2007 state report published on Chinaviewwordpress.com, in 2001 the published deformed birth rate was 104.9 per 10,000 births, which rose to 145.5 births in 2007, a 39 percent increase. India, the second most populated country, estimated 87.7 birth defects per 10,000 for the year ending 2006 as reported by The Mother and Child Health and Education Trust.
China’s air pollution is so extensive, it is moving to other countries around the globe. One might ask, “Is buying cheaper products really worth the so-called savings?”
The March of Jobs to China Continues
Recently, there has been a growing trend of hi-tech and high-salary companies going to China. These jobs include aerospace companies to which Long Beach’s Boeing assembly plant lost 900 high-paying jobs recently.
Manufacture of computer chips no longer exists in the United States.
As for American workers, they may in the future become the next Mexico or China labor market. Or should it be said, “It as has already happened.” One major camping equipment company would start and stop its sleeping bag manufacturing facility in a small Utah town according to economic factors around the globe.
Invited commentators at the end of the show included Kai Chen, former Chinese basketball champion and Chinese defector in 1972. He has been fighting the encroachment of Confucius Institutes, among other CCP encroachments, in our society. He is also concerned about America’s abandonment of the U.S. founding principles of human rights when dealing with China.
Anne Lau, a Chinese human rights activist, was also concerned about the lack of human rights for Chinese and China’s containment of its own people.
Dr. Dana Churchill, N.D., spokesperson for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, discussed new revelations that not only confirm Falun Gong practitioners are being used for on-demand organ harvesting, but whose empty bodies were then sold to body exhibition companies in China who then display them in cities around the world. Those prisoners of conscience were murdered by the CCP and their bodies sold twice.
Other speakers included Tibetan and Chinese human rights advocates.
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