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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8327)	3/17/1999 7:49:00 PM
From: Frodo Baxter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Thank you Steven, for eloquently saying what I have been unable to communicate clearly.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (8327)	3/18/1999 7:57:00 AM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Steven- This is getting tiresome. Lawrence said, referring to me in post 8278, "Your contention that personal prosperity is unlinked to personal freedom is absurd and unsupported by history". I deny having said any such thing. Lawrence has been quite coy about citing where I made such a claim- perhaps you'd be willing to do so. Until someone will point out where I made such a claim, I will claim Lawrence didn't let truth fall in the way of a good smear. I was surprised that he would misrepresent me in that way. As for what changes I'd prefer to see in the US position toward China. Well, it's a complex matter. Sino US relations have many facets, and the primary responsibility of the US gov. is the security of its citizens. But human rights in China should be a concern. Unlike some of my Libertarian friends, I hold that a threat to liberty anywhere is a threat to liberty everywhere (Libertarians are apt to respond quoting John Adams that Americans are friends of liberty everywhere, but stewards of only their own. Even granting Adams' position, I don't see selling security equipment to the thugs who run China's security agencies as being a friend of liberty in China). We certainly should encourage a wide range of people to people contacts with China. I don't think anyone wants to go back to a China in isolation. But I'd be suspicious about exchanges with weapons lab personnel, and even the broad range of military exchanges we've had in recent years. We need to cooperate with the Chinese government on matters of mutual security concerns. NGOs should be encouraged to do their thing in China. But trade with them is something we should look at very carefully. It is simply wrong for us to buy "Beanie Babies" made from slave labor from the Chinese penal system when it includes people who should not be imprisoned to begin with. Sino-US trade, while important to the US, is far more important to China. Besides, the US gov. should not base decisions on trading with a nation primarily on economic considerations. So I'd be inclined to eliminate China's most favored nation trading status. At very least we should make sure it is clear to them that they pay a price for the oppression of their own people. Finally, we should turn a deaf ear to Chinese complaints about our assisting the defense of Taiwan. If Taipei wants TMD, we should help them get it despite what Beijing thinks. One of the numerous errors of the Clinton administration was to cease patrolling the Taiwan Straits, which the US Navy had done for decades without apparently roiling China. Clinton stopped it, and emboldened those in Beijing who would seek to impose their will by force in Taiwan the same way they did in Tibet. Clinton received nothing for his gesture. We should consider re-instituting the periodic patrols. Larry