Ramsey,
way, way, way OT
if you spend a little time understanding the issues vs blindly following what is reported in the press
I have spent first 18 years of my life behind iron curtain, the rest in the US, and I can tell you without "studying" the issue, that the difference is more like night and day, not some hues of gray.
Since China's human rights abuses in the past were far worse than those of communist Czechoslovakia (which I am familiar with), and the present leaders in China have not fully renounced the past, but instead try to continue to muddle around with perestroika type political reforms, I have nothing but mistrust in anything they do or say.
How long has it been since we have seen with our own eyes how the goons in Bejing deal with pleas for openness. The Tianamen Square response is an indication of how they think.
There are a series of books, authored by unrelated parties, that gave a completely different perspective, starting with "Japan can say no", followed by "Asia can say no" and the most recent (around 1997) "China can say no".
I might have followed discussion of one of them in the past, but in general, things that US is asking Asian countries, mainly openness in their countries, freer trade, transparency of economic transactions, are all in their own self interest. The Asians will themselves benefit more than the US will.
Do you know that MFN is a two way street? What would happen to US companies if China revokes US' MFN status? We should definitely be investing in ERICY instead of QCOM.
US companies, and all other foreign companies are already second class citizens in China (where the first class citizenship is not so hot either). But since at this time, China benefits so much more from the trade with the US, than the other way around, US has some leverage.
In my opinion, foreign companies in China are viewed as targets whose intellectual and physical property is to be stolen. Whether Qualcomm can survive, or even prosper in this kind of environment is questionable. I think the only benefit for QCOM's presence in China is a bet that at some point in the future, China will at become a more open, western-like country, rather than the destabilizing rogue / mercantilist agent it is now.
Commingling complex and intangible issues like human rights with trade issues is not only an exercise of futility, but also potentially detrimental to investors who have invested in US multi-national companies.
I agree that there doesn't have to be a rigid linkage between trade and human rights, but US should press for "economic rights" of US companies doing business in China as a condition of more open trade. Because that has as much to do with trade than the number of cargo ships that can be travel between countries.
But the human rights issue should be addressed at every other forum.
I am just amazed at how many Chinese living in safety and luxury of US, or other countries with rule of law, rather than goons (present occupant of White House excluded) are willing to be apologists for the goons, totalitarians, or other authoritarian regimes in Asia.
I hope I will forever think like the student standing in front of the tank on Tianamen Square. I hope that the QCOM stock certificates in my will not cloud my vision.
Joe |
