Remember this when you shop at Wal-Mart

[Boris]

Wal-Mart is a giant funnel for Chinese made goods into the US. When you support Wal-mart, you support communism.

From today's WSJ.

Ch---y in China

By MAOCHUN YU
April 27, 2004; Page A18

Today's China is a study in contradiction. Despite economic progress it continues to live in political darkness. One manifestation of China's repressive politics is its stubborn insistence on total control over the press. It took Washington the entire 1980s just to convince the Chinese leadership that the U.S. president didn't have the power to fire the Beijing bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal for reporting on China's negative points.

For all its economic liberalization, China's attitude toward free speech hasn't changed at all. Twenty-five years after dumping communist economics, China is still one of the worst offenders of press freedom, clapping more journalists in prison annually than any other country in the world. In its 2002 report on global press freedom, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders ranked China 138th out of 139 countries, with North Korea at the bottom.

* * *
Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney delivered an important speech at Shanghai's Fudan University, after extracting solemn agreements from China's leaders that the speech would be broadcast live, directly, and without censorship to the Chinese people. In fact Mr. Cheney's speech was aired, unannounced, to a limited Chinese audience with no primetime repeats. Immediately after the speech, Chinese officials disseminated an official "full text" transcript to the People's Daily and the official news agency Xinhua, both Party mouthpieces. In it, the vice president's words were censored and twisted so much that it ought to win the Orwell Prize for bowdlerization.

What the Chinese censored in Mr. Cheney's speech is remarkably revealing. Just line the English transcript, provided by the White House, and the translated Chinese "full text" transcript up, side by side -- and judge for yourself.

• On individual liberty and political democracy. In his speech, Vice President Cheney spoke passionately about the importance of individual freedom and the virtues of political democracy. "While democratic processes are sometimes untidy and unpredictable -- as any close observer of American politics can attest -- they permit the peaceful expression of diverse views, protect the rights of the individual, check the ability of the state to abuse its power, and encourage the kind of debate and compromise that leads to lasting stability." The vice president also said, "the desire for freedom is universal; it is not unique to one country, or culture, or region." All deleted by the Chinese censors.


When cutting the guts out doesn't go far enough, creative cutting and pasting do the trick. "Across Asia, rising prosperity and EXPANDING POLITICAL FREEDOM have gone hand in hand," said the vice president, and "Great nations in this region have entered the 21st century as independent peoples, growing in prosperity and INDIVIDUAL freedom." In the Chinese version, the words in capital letters were deleted, to make the entire sentences mean something totally different. "Individual freedom" becomes "freedom of great nations of Asia" from colonialism and dynasty; and "expanding political freedom" has nothing to do with progress in Asia. Only "prosperity" matters.

• On Taiwan. The hallmark of the Bush-Cheney administration's policy toward the hot-button issue of Taiwan is its dual emphasis on the so-called Three Communiques and the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which obligate the U.S. to maintain Taiwan's defense capability against a Chinese attack. Mr. Cheney, time and again in his speech, emphatically linked them together as the official policy of the U.S. Yet all mentions of the Taiwan Relations Act are struck, fundamentally misrepresenting the vice president's statement of U.S. policy.


The Taiwan issue has been marked by ultra-sensitive semantics. On Taiwan independence, official U.S. policy is "no support" for Taiwan independence, which was in the English transcript. Yet "no support" becomes the semantically inconsequential but politically hugely important word "oppose" in the Chinese text. This constitutes yet another distortion.

• On the North Korean nuclear crisis. Mr. Cheney's remarks on North Korea, China's long-time ally and "Comrade plus Brother of lips-and-teeth closeness," got left on the cutting room floor. Passage after passage on North Korea in the vice president's speech are mercilessly cut, including the phrases "rogue states" and "past history of irresponsibility and deceit." Gone also are the long passages on the dangers of a nuclear arms race in Asia triggered by North Korea, and of nuclear proliferation to countries such as Pakistan and Libya.


On U.S. strategic goals in the Middle East. The vice president spent considerable time explaining to his Chinese audience the importance of building a democratic Iraq as a spearhead for peace and stability in the Middle East. He also welcomed China's participation in the war against terrorism. The most brilliant part of Mr. Cheney's speech is when he compares the prospect of a democratic Middle East with that of the Asia Pacific region. "We hear it said by skeptics," Mr. Cheney said, "that the greater Middle East is a hopeless cause for democratic values -- that they are doomed to live in misery and oppression. Those of you who have studied history will find that this dismissive attitude has a familiar ring. Not so long ago, the very same things were said about the people of Asia. Yet today the world looks to Asia as a showcase of the possibilities of human enterprise and creativity. Across this region we see entire nations raising themselves up from poverty in the space of little more than a generation, building strong, modern economies, and becoming stable, peaceful, and open societies of free peoples, governed under laws set by representatives chosen in free elections."

This passage is deleted entirely from the Chinese "full text" transcript.

• On partnership with the United States. China is praised for having taken an active role in the U.S.-led global fight against terror. Yet China is also using the war against terror as a pretext to oppress its own people, such as its Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet regions. Vice President Cheney sternly warned the Chinese in his speech, "As we deepen our cooperation, however, we must also be mindful of the rights of the innocent. The war on terror must never be used as an excuse for silencing legitimate dissent and expression of opinion." This passage disappears in the Chinese "full text" transcript.


* * *
For decades, the Chinese government has used its control of all media outlets to fan hysteria against the "hegemon," a nickname for the U.S. in Chinese politics. So much so that now the leadership fears being viewed by its own people as a corrupt collaborator with the evil hegemon with whom they continue to engage and trade. Thus the statement, "We (Beijing and Washington) are working together on these vital (economic) issues," has been cut. That way, Chinese officialdom maintains its pose of tough and principled "proletarian" warrior standing against the demonic capitalist hegemon and the unspeakable ulterior motives of its bourgeois ruling class.

Thus, most of Vice President Cheney's key statements about the most important issues of U.S.-China relations -- freedom and democracy, Taiwan, the North Korean nuclear crisis, war and peace in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and security and economic cooperation between the two countries -- were censored or changed in the official "full text" Chinese translation.

Censorship has always been a vital part of Chinese government policy. The survival of the Communist regime requires belief in the Party's infallibility. Pointing out anything negative about reality in China is viewed as a threat to the power of the Communist Party, a power that must be ruthlessly maintained by total control of the media. The Chinese treatment of this speech is no aberration. Sadly, censorship in China, a country so full of hope and promise, yet so ripe with misery and misfortune, remains as solid as the Great Wall.

Mr. Yu is associate professor of East Asia and Military History at the U.S. Naval Academy.

[The Dude]

Grow up.

[Poker blog]

Or, I support China's transition to a capitalist state.

[andyfox]

"Wal-Mart is a giant funnel for Chinese made goods into the US. When you support Wal-mart, you support communism."

Most of the goods made in China are made in southeast China, where capitalism is thriving. For hundreds of years, the people of the southeast coastal areas have been trading entrepreneurs. Their motto had long been, "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away."

After Deng opened up China to capitalism, Chinese from Taiwan and Hong Kong flocked into China. Their influence will undoubtedly contribute to the end of Communism in China, perhaps in my lifetime. It's doomed and a collapse not unlike what happened in the USSR is not unlikely.

For the record, I do not sell products to Wal-Mart, nor do I care for their business practices, about which, I have first-hand experience.

[Boris]

For your information one of my good buddies once threw a beer on an Angel's fan.

I guess that doesn't make me grown up though does it?

Truth be told I'm conflicted about places like Wal-Mart. I like low prices. I also hate to do business with countries like China. They have a government that is anti-thetical to American values. They exploit their workers. If you don't show up for work in China you get arrested. Chinese workers don't get paid crap. If you don't pay off the right bureaucrats you can't do business there. You can not say what you think. Wal-Mart is a big part of that system.

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]

For the record, I do not sell products to Wal-Mart, nor do I care for their business practices, about which, I have first-hand experience.


[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't like the God/Bush/Strength thread, I promise...

Can you comment on these practices which you do not like? The reason I ask is because I grew up in a small suburb of Tacoma/Seattle that was fighting WalMart coming to town. I'm fairly anti-WalMart just because of this. However, I don't know a lot about them, other than their low-wages.

Anything you could add to justify my anti-WalMart stance would be appreciated [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Thanks,

J

[The Dude]

[ QUOTE ]
For your information one of my good buddies once threw a beer on an Angel's fan.

I guess that doesn't make me grown up though does it?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, but it does show that you hang out with people of character. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Seriously, as much as I despise the way many governments exploit their citizens and have inhuman policies, the solution to the problem is not U.S. consumers individually boycotting products involving Chineses workers.

Unless the boycott is done on a super-large scale, and used as political leverage to negotiate changes, then it is useless. The people who suffer the most are those Chinese citizens who need the jobs.

If the U.S. government were to impose an embargo on Chinese products, demanding certain changes, it would be a different story. (That doesn't necessarily mean that it would be the right thing to do, but it could be effective.)

So not patronizing WalMart because you want to send a message to China is too indirect to have any real meaning.

[andyfox]

In a general sense, Wal-Mart's great power is not healthy. I have a customer who owns nine stores in Oklahoma. Pretty good size operation, nine stores. He is struggling now because of Wal-Mart. He say Wal-mart sells Proctor and Gamble products for a lower price than he pays for them.

Obviously, if my guy is buying, say, 500 cartons of Crest toothpaste, Wal-mart must be buying 5,000,000 cartons. And I know, from personal experince, what Wal-mart does to their suppliers.

You get an order for X. They beat you up for the best price so you make very little margin. Then they hit you with all sorts of fines that are almost impossible to avoid. For example, they tell you that you will have seven days to ship. OK, you agree. Then come to find out that the order, generated electronically, is dated on a Sunday, you really only have five days to ship.

Now the goods sell. They want more. OK, you can have an order for 2X, Mr. Supplier. But we need quicker delivery and the price is 85% of what we paid you the first time, take it or leave it.

To a certain extent, all the major retailers do things like this (Mossimo, before he signed his deal with Target, publicly labelled the retailers, "extortionists."), but Wal-mart is extreme. Their purchase orders used to say they can cancel an order at any time, for any reason, up to the ship date. A small company took an order from Wal-Mart and, the day before the ship date, Wal-Mart cancelled. Why? They found a better deal, or so they said. The small company sued and won his case, arguing that the contract was unfair and unreasonable, that Wal-Mart could easily drive people out of business. And indeed, this guy showed that he would have been forced into bankruptcy if Wal-Mart cancelled.

[danderso8]

This is an issue I have been concerned about for a couple years now, and I have done a fair amount of reading & research into whether Wal-Mart is good or bad.

I have personally come to the resounding conclusion that Wal-Mart is bad and have not shopped there in a very long time. Also note that they own Sam's club, so I boycott those rats too.

If you care about any of the following issues, I would be happy to discuss them and walmart or provide links to articles about them...

Worker's Rights & Sweatshops
Living Wage
Benefits
Sexual Discrimination
Predatory Business practices
Tibet
Free Speech & Censorship
Union Issues
Local Economies & Job Creation
Child Labor

this is in addition to the issues mentioned by the original poster (communism in china) and the recent attempt by Walmart to run rampant over the government of Inglewood.

EDIT: Ok, now I've gone back and read the entire WSJ article and found that it doesn't really address the wal-mart/china trade issue. Only Boris' heading links wal-mart to it at all. But, as I tangentially mentioned above, I do boycott china as much as possible due to their human rights record, especially with regard to Tibet. I don't recall the exact source, but somewhere I read that WM was a bigger trader with china than the combined GDP of England and some other country.

Also, I guess I agree with Boris that china should be boycotted, although I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as boycotting communism---Communism as a concept and the government of China are two different issues, but that's another topic.

[scalf]

[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] andy...

ultimately; you must be saying capitalism does not work...

by this time all suppliers must know wmart strikes a tuff bargain; but they must make money selling to wmart; duh...or why would they...it seems to me that the middle man...such as your nine store company...is being forced out...and the consumer is getting more a direct manufacturer to consumer route; which means lower prices for consumers; and less efficient middle men forced out...

duh..

this sounds like capitalism working well...

just go buy your hammers at the local mom-pop store and pay 24% more...

no one is saying you do not have that right..

it is your arrogance which says i cannot choose the more efficient..and cutthroat deal...

hey..do you try to extract maximum profit from each poker situation..??

lol

what a hypocrite..

jmho

gl

let freedom ring

gl [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]