Eric's Beijing Diary

Well, you-know-Hu finally got his 21-gun salute in the Rose Garden. Funny. The announcer said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the Republic of China." I don't know if the American media noticed, but the BBC caught the gaffe. "Republic of China" is the official name for Taiwan. The talk, of course, tends to focus on the exchange rate and the trade imbalance, but it is unlikely that there will be any major changes in either of those two areas. People criticize Bush for this, but it isn't really a government issue. The trade imbalance doesn't come from the government, it comes from average people who have developed a lifestyle that depends on cheap goods from China. I remember when I was in college, watching several congressmen getting together for the news media and bashing a Toshiba radio with their sledge hammers. Made me sick to my stomach. But Japan somehow didn't seem able to resist the pressure from America the way China has. This, I believe, is one area where the Americans are just plain wrong. American labor problems are not China's fault. Robert Bartley, former editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, in an article written back in the fall of 2003, does a good job of explaining why floating the currency really does not constitute good policy, but rather, the lack of it. Fortunately for China, and for the many, many middle class Americans whose life styles depend on the ability to bypass the labor unions and get reasonably priced goods from China, the Middle Kingdom does not seem likely to buckle too quickly to misguided American pressure.