OP/ED: Boycotting China: Despite The Apparent Futility, My Family Will Try

Recently I posted an ATSNN article about a Chinese woman who had been placed in a forced labor camp by her government. It was for her speaking out against the national "one Child" policy that the Communist government is using to keep the population in check. However the Chinese government issued a statement that she had been placed in the forced labor camp for "re-education" for disturbing the peace. Tomato, Tamato: What really shocked me and my wife was the "we could care less" attitude that the statement implied. "Yes she is in a brutal forced labor camp, but its not for the reasons you think". While Chinas human rights records is very poor, I had not expected, perhaps naively, that the government would put forth such a indifferent face.


After a long discussion with my wife, we resolved to try, try mind you, to not use products made in China as best we could. Yes, I do realize the futility of this and no we simply will be unable to eliminate everything. Just a glance at the country of origin of some of my Christmas gifts reveals the extent of the goods we import from the Middle Kingdom. From the Panini maker that Santa brought me to the little toys that populated the stocking, almost everything it seems had the "Made In China"

This afternoon, I returned two pairs of Salomon shoes and one pair of Merrells to REI that had been unused. I will miss the brands as they fit my feet well, and I am resolved and daunted by the thoughts of finding decent footwear made elsewhere.

My wife and I also had to go two several stores just to find an emery board that was not made in China. Indeed every aspect of our lives seems to revolve around filling the coffers of a Communist regime that brutally suppressed the voices of dissent in its population.

Human Rights Watch does a good job of keeping tabs on the abuses that are ongoing in the Peoples Republic of China. Not only are we supporting their increasingly aggressive military buildup with our huge trade surplus, we are also standing by while they take jobs and squelch our exports by their devaluing the Yuan to stay competitive.

I realize that the conditions of other third world countries that make our goods is in all likelihood just as bad. However, my family will attempt to make better decisions on the goods that it purchases and try to take this into account.

Related News Links:
www.hrw.org
hrw.org
hrw.org

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
NEWS: Report: U.S. Lost 1.5 Million Jobs to China From 1989-2003
POLITICS: China Explains Why Child Activist Is In Forced Labor Camp

[edit on 1/12/05 by FredT]

Good luck with that, FredT.
It will be hard to do, but certainly not impossible.
By local as often as you can; it may be more pricey, but it's worth it if only for supporting local businesses and craftsman.

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Love ya Fred honey, and this is a good human interest piece, but it is not news and certainly not "Top News"...

Op/Ed dontcha think?



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Errr. It is OP/ED.

Hence the title:

OP/ED: Boycotting China: Despite The Apparent Futility, My Family Will Try


[edit on 1/12/05 by FredT]

I have never understood American government and business attitudes toward China. I know all (probably) the arguments about 'economics will help change . . .' and the like and they make no sense.

In this case one child then sterilization. Sorry Fred and others but China does have have a population problem.

These 'camps' are disgraceful. There is no reason SLAVE labor should exist in the world. Most certainly the US shouldn't be helping facilitate it.

Letters to congressmen and senators along with letters to editors of newspapers have been known to work wonders in the past. China's government has been oppressive for centuries and won't change without being coerced. Economics are the only option.

The South Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese have proved beyond all doubt that Asian nations can prosper without subjecting their populace to slavery.

Originally posted by FredT
After a long discussion with my wife, we resolved to try, try mind you, to not use products made in China as best we could. Yes, I do realize the futility of this and no we simply will be unable to eliminate everything.

Good for you and your family
While it may be difficult in some cases, and may cost you a little extra, you will have the personal satisfaction of knowing that you aren't supporting the Chinese govt, and keeping the money closer to home. Maybe other people around you will notice, and ask you about it. That would give you an opportunity to spread the word in a non-preachy way.

Good Luck Fred, but mind you, this school holiday, I am personally exporting goods from China to Australia with a friend and I can tell you that apart from the Money we pay for Customs declaration, shipping by a state owned company and the income tax the workers who make these goods will pay, the rest goes to the workers, a few private companies, and of course profits for us. Maybe you should check if the products you buy are made by a private company or a state owned one, or else you maybe seen as against all Chinese, or maybe that was your idea in the first place, but remember, even state owned companies pay their workers and its not as little as you think, and also the Chinese government also use its funds to provide public facilities.

Thanks MrZ, as I said before it will be impossible to do this 100%. Just going to the store was eye opening. We have to be realistic and we are not ultra wealthy that we can boycott no matter what the price. But items like shoes and the like hopefully help. Also we will write letters for as much good as they may do to the companies selling the products. REI I have high hopes for as they are a member owned CoOp and do take up causes like this.

I have no beef with the people of China. My wife is half Chinese for that matter, however, but the human rights actions by its governemnt is something I want to stop. The Apartied boycotts hit South Africa hard and may have played an influential role it toppling that system.

I hope your not wearing a pair of NIKE shoes while you sit there and type that... I have a really irrational concept to throw past you guys, it's their country. If they want to lock that lady up, well, I guess that is their perogative. We as Americans tend to demonize other cultures to the point of policing them, and that is starting to really get out of hand. Hypocrisy really given the US's long list of less than acceptable sense of morality. Yeah, China has a pretty crappy human rights record, but when we look into the Indochina Opium wars and others, hey what do you know, we are all up in that from Korea to Vietnam. Don't let the ties and suits fool you, America is hardly one to go boasting about morality and human rights, especially when we deliver and install these grandoise concepts at gunpoint. Western cultures have this really odd sense of right and wrong, which can be summarized as, "We're right, so they must be Wrong." I think the bottom line is, if you aren't Chinese, then why worry about Chinese domestic policy? Even a major boycott and economic sanctions dont' change the simple fact that Chinese people are well, Chinese. When they come over here and start locking your kids up, then yeah, worry. But let's stop policing the world before we piss somebody off that can actually retaliate and defend their culture.

I just read over my post here and I realized it might sound confrontational, but it really drives me crazy to hear how bad it is in another country and how WE need to do something about it. We aren't some kind of international police force, we are a country with our own culture, and yes, our own glaring humanitarian issues. Let's deal with our business and let other countries deal with theirs.

Twitchy,

Yes it is bad over there, and I am doing something about it. I will make sure that the least amount of money goes over there as humanly possible. No I am not wearing Nike's, but my existing pair of shoes, Salomons (Which if you note, I retuned the ones I had just bought) are still in good order, and I am realistic enough to keep them untill they wear out. Why? Im not exactly poor here, but nor am I rich.

I do feel that i have a right to comment on conditions that I object to just as much as I have a right to not purchase good from that country where I can.

In as far as thier ability to retaliate. Its this huge trade surplus that is paying for thier arms buildup and space program, nothing else. I am simply choosing not to feed the communist regimes activities as best I can.

Yes you do have the right to speak up about it, and you have the right to boycott or organize a movement to support your beliefs, but I don't that WE collectively as a nation, have the right to impose our beliefs on other nations. Let's take Iraq for example, here we argue day after day, sheite this and Sunni that, and yet really, I doubt that any if but a very few of us have ever even been to Iraq, or can much less make an intelligent decision about how to restructure their society. I am so anti-war that I think I probably would scare some people here if I really got started, but it isn't really even so much about war as it is the hypocrisy of our foriegn policy, and the absolute arrogance of our culture to assume that their culture is somehow inferior. Let's take the shrouds that the women wear as a good example of cultural differences. Western Women are utterly appalled by the fact that women are required to wear them, but eastern women are appalled by the thought of not wearing them. Here, the divorce rate, and marital infidelity are near epidemic, yet there, divorce is nearly unheard of and infidelity is socially unacceptable to them. Maybe there is a reason they wear the shrouds that we don't understand, but rather than trying to understand their culture, we demonize them, call them monsters for making their women wear the shrouds. They watch five minutes of western television with shows like Desperate Housewives and say our women are who*es. We say they abuse their women, beat them, which of course some of them do, but the last I heard our domestic violence statistics failed to show any difference. In other words to make a long post short here, it is their culture, their country, their laws, and their government. Who are we to impose our culture on them? China is a superpower, we can't just go over there, invade them, depose their government and then tell them to change their laws, but we do it to other smaller nations as a rule, and it is this mentality that has led the western world through literally thousands of years of violence and war. In the name of righteousness of all things.

Fred, good for you and your wife. Do what you think is right and according to your beliefs. I respect that.

This is a very dodgy thing for a country to do unless you are whiter than white. Individuals can protest all they please (hopefully if their government allows them to). Imagine the following: In Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, (Britain and the US !) that there are people who know beyond all reasonable doubt that their friend/relation currently being held in Guantanamo is innocent.....ooops !!!!! How does their treatment compare to the treatment of "criminals" at the hands of "non-western" countries. Therefore the US and UK administrations cannot complain can they ?

I think the falling dollar - and China's role in propping it up - explains most of the recent anti-China sentiment. It's the new spin: "Blame China not the Bush administration or the bankers."

The Shrinking US Dollar
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Now Now soficrow,

Its not as easy or somplistic as as good as your article was. And the anti-China sentiment has been there for a while and is not a recent development. No doubt economics play a big role in this. And yes in some ways we will all be hurt economical. Some more than others some w whole lot less. We have the fortune to fall int hat category. We are in a recession proff industry. We have enuf seniority to avoid layoffs unless there is a total collapse of the American system. We have no debt save a mortgage that our aggregate savings could be tapped to pay off. So the economies of China and the US factor little into our small peice of the world. And it does not play apart in our resons behind our actions.

Originally posted by twitchy
Yes you do have the right to speak up about it, and you have the right to boycott or organize a movement to support your beliefs, but I don't that WE collectively as a nation, have the right to impose our beliefs on other nations.

Just how is buying products made in your own country forcing ones beliefs on another?

Are you aware that several countries have requirements that state if you want to sell your products here you have to make them here? I am not talking the whole process. Example Company A from china wants to sell its product in (insert generic country). They have to ship the components to the final sale country for assembly which in turn is a win win situation. both countries employ people to make the finish product.

Examples that I can think of are Canada, Spain and I think the UK, but I am not sure on the UK. I am also not possitive that Canada still has that requirement now that we have NAFTA, however at one time they did.I know for a fact that you cannot buy American Beer from Fishing lodges they will only sell Americans Canadian made beers, yet they have American beers in stock they will sell to Canadians. I questioned why this was so one time and told it was the law, by the lodge owner.

I have been doing what Fred wants to do. I too agree that it is impossible to achive 100% however you can create jobs by buying products made in your own country. Again I am not talking the whole product just parts of it.

Example we buy

Allen Edmunds shoes that are made in the USA.

Panasonic TV's that are assembled in the USA. Check the side of the box when you buy one you will see some are assembled in the US.

Kitchenware (glasses, pots pans, etc., made in the US, hard to find, all you have to do is check the actual product before buying it. Those made in foriegn countries are marked with the countries name those made in the US are marked made in the USA.

Power Tools here again you have to check the product first. Most will contain a portion of foriegn made components yet the final assembly is in the US.

Lawn mowers and tractors for your yard. In this case you will find there is no excuse to buy a foriegn made since they are cheaper then those made in other countries in most cases. The list goes on and on, I have just given you a few examples.

This does not apply only to the US, I am positive other countries have lost jobs to china and other countries that use cheap labor. It is time for everyone world wide to take a close look before buying products made by those countries and purchase as many products that a portion if not all is made in your country. In doing so you will help out your own country by employing people from your country that actually made or assembled part of the product.

Stepping off my ranting chair.




[edit on 1/14/2005 by shots]

Originally posted by FredT
Now Now soficrow,

hehe

Second line to bypass censors.

Originally posted by shots
I too agree that it is impossible to achive 100% however you can create jobs by buying products made in your own country.

...I try to "buy local" wherever possible. ...If we don't support our own local economies, we won't have any before long.


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Thought I would share this list for those in the US that want to buy American like Fred and I do.


List of Products made in the US

The above also lists stores that sell some of the products.

Another that is a search engine designed to find products made in the USA

madeinusa.org...

I would also suggest that those of you in other countries that want to support your own country, do a search using the keywords "products Made in" "insert your country name" for the 2nd.

[edit on 1/15/2005 by shots]

[edit on 1/15/2005 by shots]

[edit on 1/15/2005 by shots]

But there is a few problems with the list. I will just take 1 manufacture and that would be Harley Davidson, nothing against Harley because I love Harleys and what they are about but you must understand what is going on. You must look at componets and subcomponets to see the truth because while the main componets are made in America the majority of the small parts are getting farmed out to china and other 3rd world countries. This is not done by Harley as much as their suppliers because then the parts come back are assembled into on unit and called made in America. If you would like to know the real irony of this call the PACE international Union and ask them why when their members buy PACE Union products they are made in China, Hati or some other slave labor country then brought back to get the Union lable put on them that says made in America? The biggest Union in the country is not above the corprate greed syndrome but then again I have seen their offices,cars and homes.