President
Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
toast during a banquet hosted by the Indian President
at
Rashtrapati Bhavan, New
Delhi, India, Nov. 8.
China Daily, People's
Republic of China
Obama's Weapons
Deals with India are Nothing to Be Proud of
Is President Obama in a state of
denial about the nature of the U.S. economy and the damage done by weapons
manufacturers? According to this article by the deputy editor of the state-run
China Daily, the U.S. jobs that will be created by the $10 billion in agreements
with India will be at some of the same companies that do the most outsourcing, and
others that build destabilizing weapons.
For U.S. President Barack
Obama, whose Democratic Party took a "shellacking" in the midterm
elections, his 10-day trip to Asia that began Friday should be one of soul
searching.
But so far, that doesn't seem
to be the case.
With U.S. unemployment staying
stubbornly above 9.5 percent for 15 consecutive months, Obama promised that the
trip would focus on job creation.
But the approximately 50,000
new U.S. jobs that could be created by the India business deals worth $10
billion are mostly in the defense industry. These are jobs to build weapons
that could escalate a regional arms race. They are hardly jobs to be proud of.
Given the lobbying of the U.S.
defense industry which employs an estimated 3 million people, it's perhaps not
surprising that the U.S. president serves as a broker for military contractors.
America is eager to replace Russia as the biggest arms supplier to India, the
world's largest arms importer last year.
In fact, it isn't just the weapons
deals that are worrying. Of more concern is that both Obama and his secretary
of state, Hillary Clinton, display a Cold War mentality in dealing with other nations,
particularly Asian ones. By grouping countries into categories like allies, partners
and rivals, the Obama Administration is saying in essence that it hasn't
changed much from the previous administration, and that it won't be able to
remain impartial in mediating disagreements between such nations.
Obama should ask himself why Muslims
in Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood, are staging protests rather
that welcoming him. He hasn't acted to end the Afghanistan War as he promised. Rather,
he has made it his own war. It's now the longest war in U.S. history.
Obama should face up to
reality and stop living in denial. He should tell the American people some hard
truths. Companies that have secured deals in India are the same ones that have
moved tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs overseas.
He should state clearly that
there's nothing wrong with that for the U.S., since it gains much more in this
global division of labor than developing countries like China and India.
Statistics show that nearly
half of the earnings reported by companies on the S&P
500 come from overseas. Rather than inhibiting it, fast growth in China and
India has fueled the U.S. economy.
President
Obama sits next to India President PrathibaPatil at a state
dinner
at RashtrapatiBhavan, New
Delhi, India, Nov. 8.
As a national leader, Obama
should put a stop to the continuous China bashing in the United States, a
narrative that blames China for all U.S. economic woes, from unemployment to housing
market bubbles to trade deficits and fiscal debt.
But there are more honest
voices in the U.S.
U.S. economist and money
manager Zachary Karabellwrote
in the recent issue of Time magazine that: "China is far from
perfect and seeks its own advantage, but holding it accountable for our
domestic problems is beyond anachronistic. It reflects a dangerous refusal to
deal with the world as it is".
New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, who was in Hong Kong when Obama landed in India, also criticized the
U.S. China bashing.
"I think in America, we've
got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at
ourselves," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg also criticized the
decision by the U.S. Trade Representative to probe China's clean energy
industry. "Let me get this straight: There's a country on the other side of
the world that is taking their taxpayers' dollars, and trying to sell
subsidized things so we can buy them cheaper and have better products, and we're
going to criticize that?" asked Bloomberg.
If Obama doesn't choose to
tell the truth about Asia and China like Mayor Bloomberg did, it means that he
hasn't learned from what he himself described as the "shellacking"
of Democrats in the midterm election.
*Chen Weihua
is Deputy Editor of China Daily U.S. Edition. He can be reached at chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn.
