Rick Baum, a professor of political science at UCLA and one of America’s more knowledgeable China scholars, has apparently had enough of the preposterous US Presidential campaign—in this case, specifically, Hillary Clinton’s China fantasies. I hadn’t known Baum—who runs an informative on line forum for China hands called Chinapol—was advising Clinton, however informally. But his departure from the campaign, revealed here http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9719.html on the indispensable Politico.com web site (indispensable that is if you’re interested in US politics and the 2008 Presidential campaign) is at least a small blow for what I’d call a reality based politics in the United States.
One of the most striking things about this Presidential campaign has been the fact that so much of what the candidates say about the major issues—Iraq, the economy and trade most prominently—bears no resemblance, none, to real life, to how the world is actually working when it comes to the subjects being addressed. Campaign 08, particularly on the Democratic side, is the political equivalent of the `Truman Show.’ It’s all one big con. Barack Obama says he will pull American troops out of Iraq in 16 months, leaving only sufficient numbers there to “protect the US embassy.” That’s sheer fantasy. Similarly, Hillary says she not only is “the only candidate who isn’t just talking about cracking down on China, but I have a specific plan on how to do it.” And, she adds, “China should be our trade partner not our trade master.”
Go to Hillary’s web site (www.hillaryclinton.com), click on “issues” and then on trade; China is directly mentioned once. The passage reads as follows:
Cracking Down on China’s Currency Manipulation. Foreign countries manipulate their currencies to make American goods look expensive on the world market and to make their own goods look inexpensive. This practice hurts American workers and it must end. Hillary is a co-sponsor of legislation that will require the administration to take definitive steps to stop China and other countries from harming American interests by undervaluing their currencies. Currency manipulation by our trading partners is also contributing to our trade deficit. Hillary has co-sponsored the Foreign Debt Ceiling Act, legislation that will require the administration to draw up an action plan to address our large trade imbalance.
Yes, those devious Chinese currency manipulators have conspired to INCREASE the value of their currency, the Renminbi, from 8.1 to 6.9 to the dollar over the last 18 months, making their exports to the US MORE expensive, and US exports to China more competitive (ie less expensive.) In fact, the revaluation of the RMB is causing political problems here in China because a lot of factories in the Pearl River Delta and elsewhere can’t compete and are going under. Increasingly, exporters in China are putting ferocious, behind the scenes pressures on the government in Beijing to put an end to the RMB’s strengthening.
But as on Iraq—where both Clinton and Obama refuse to acknowledge that, as Iraq blogger Michael Yon has written, the facts on the ground are virtually unrecognizable compared to what they were just 14 months ago—“miraculously” so, as Michael wrote here http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120787343563306609.html — the Democractic candidates exist in a reality free zone when it comes to China.
For one small voice related to the campaign, enough was finally enough. Kudos to Rick Baum.
Oh, and the thought occurs: on the campaign trail, Obama and Clinton and even John McCain go on and on about how the United States needs to `repair’ its tattered image abroad. The same is an article of faith among the Council on Foreign Relations crowd. Anyone else out there wonder how sticking it to China on trade—“cracking down” on them, in Hillary’s what’s-not-to-like phrase—might effect America’s “image’’ in China? I mean, ok, it’s only 1.3 billion people—more than in all of western Europe and the middle east combined—but who’s counting? They’re irrelevant because they don’t write anti American editorials in the Guardian or go to Council on Foreign Relations meetings.
Memo to those involved in, covering or even just watching campaign 08 in the United States: there’s a big, real world out here. You might want to deal with it at some point.