This is China! BLOG

The View from China: Unhelpful Hillary

I typically do not weigh into discussions on politics – China’s or the United States. But Hilary Clinton in her attempt to gain the Democratic nomination for President really is not helping Americans understand anything about China, the financial interdependence between the two nations, nor about relations between China and Taiwan. Instead, she is playing on populist fears and ignorance about geopolitical arrangements and international financial relationships in order to frighten Americans into voting for her.

Reuters recently reported:

“Hillary Clinton said America’s national security and its ability to intervene in crises around the world had been jeopardized by the Bush administration because of debt held partly by China, Reuters reported. The New York senator, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said America was “too dependent on decisions made in other countries’ capitals.”

Good grief. One would have thought American politicians had outgrown the “Americans Going It Alone” mentality. But it gets more other-worldly: an American general with too much time on his hands has taken to being Clinton’s economics adviser, as well -

“Clinton cited a discussion she had with a retired general who raised a ‘nightmare scenario’ in which China threatened Taiwan and the U.S. president wanted to send ships toward the island to ward off Beijing.

“‘We start to move the fleet, and the Chinese say, ‘Fine. You do that, we will dump your dollars. We will flood the market. We will not buy any more of your debt.’”

I had really hoped with the upcoming election that America’s leaders and its people had had some of the scales rubbed from their eyes so they could see the country needs to take a different tack in the World. The fiascos of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Subprime crisis, the chaos in the Middle East, as well the precipitous drop in the value of the dollar and rising commodity prices worldwide are only a tip of the interdependence with which we all have to live.

I suppose I was expecting too much.