China Is Our Friend!! Part 50265

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) released its 2006 report in November. (Didn't see that in the MSM, did you?)

HT to USBIC for the precis!

The USCC is a bipartisan group of outside experts from business, labor, think tanks and universities established by Congress in 2000 to investigate, analyze, and provide recommendations regarding the impact of China’s rapid economic rise on the national security of the United States. The Commission “takes a broad view of ‘national security’ in making its assessment and has attempted to evaluate how the U.S. relationship with China affects the economic health of the United States and its industrial base, the military and weapons proliferation dangers China poses to the United States, and the United States’ political standing and influence in Asia.”

...The USCC asked whether China is “a state that not only observes international norms but works to strengthen those norm” and found the answer to be in the negative.

...[China] conducts diplomacy solely to promote its own national interests, including in its conduct of trade and investment. And rather than consider balance of power politics to be a distant practice of past centuries, the USCC finds that “China’s regional activities in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East and around East Asia are beginning to assume the character of a counterbalancing strategy vis-a-vis the United States. That is, China’s support for rogue regimes and anti-American governments and groups in vital regions serves an international purpose: to balance American power, create an alternative model of governance, and frustrate the ability of the international community to uphold its norms.”

(All paid for by the US consumer, by the way, and the slave labor utilized in PRChina.)

China’s economic policies cannot be in any way construed as “free trade.” The USCC finds, “China has a centralized industrial policy that employs a wide variety of tools to promote favored industries. In particular, China has used a range of subsidies to encourage the manufacture of goods meant for export over the manufacture of goods meant for domestic consumption, and to secure foreign investment in the manufacturing sector.”

In military terms (why not?) this is called "hitting high-value targets."

...“Chinese regulations currently require automakers to exceed a 40 percent domestic content requirement or face higher tariffs on the imported auto parts. These discriminatory tariffs pressure China-based auto assembly companies to use parts manufactured in China rather than U.S.-manufactured parts.” Meanwhile, “auto parts are being counterfeited, intentionally misrepresented, and sold as genuine—all in direct violation of both China’s trademark laws, which clearly are not being enforced, and China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. American citizens are being put at risk as inferior Chinese counterfeit auto parts find their way under the hoods of vehicles driven on our streets, while U.S. companies lose significant market share and brand reputation to such counterfeit goods.”

Maybe Delco/Delphi's problems are not all "lazy union members," eh?

...The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that the global intellectual property industry loses $650 billion annually in sales due to counterfeit goods. And testimony given before USCC hearings indicate that China is responsible for as much as 70 percent of this counterfeit goods market. The World Health Organization reports that counterfeit pharmaceuticals of Chinese origin cost legitimate drug producers $32 billion a year.

And just maybe those 'pharmaceuticals' aren't made to FDA standards?

Finally, and most ominous:

In regard to Beijing’s rapid military buildup, the USCC concludes, “The pace of PLA [Chinese Armed Forces] modernization continues to exceed U.S. estimates. The Commission believes that the military balance in East Asia is increasingly favorable to China and increasingly challenging to U.S. interests and allies. The Chinese military’s ability to deny access and freedom of operation to U.S. forces, and its further ambitions to project its own military power, are accelerating.” The USCC also believes, “The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] understands itself to be in an extended military competition with the United States.”

'Splain to me again, Mr. President, how's that "free trade" working out for us?