HONG KONG HOOEY.(The Talk of the Town)(why blaming China for US unemployment is wrong)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 17-NOV-03

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

In the nineteen-eighties, as the United States struggled with high unemployment, vanishing factory jobs, and soaring trade deficits, American politicians found their culprit: Japan. Japanese exports were turning America into a land of burger flippers and hair stylists. "We've been running up the white flag, when we should be running up the American flag," Walter Mondale said in 1982. "What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around Japanese computers?"

Twenty years later, the United States is once more facing high unemployment, vanishing factory jobs, and soaring trade deficits, and American politicians are glaring east again. This time, though, the villain is China. In the past few months, Bush Administration officials have blasted China for its "unfair" trade practices, with Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans warning Beijing, "Time is running out." Republican Senator Jim...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.