China the Universal
Scapegoat in America's 'Ugly' Midterm Polls
Have American politicians wrongly
demonized China in order to win votes in the just-passed midterm elections?
According to John Gong of China's state-controlled Global Times, the U.S.
habit of blaming China for all of its economic ills could be extremely damaging
to both countries.
Elections are always ugly. And
the ugliness of the 2010 midterm election in the U.S. were especially distinguished
by its vicious, rampant, and xenophobic campaign of China-bashing.
For the first time in history,
from Detroit to Houston and New York to LA, using China as a scapegoat for
every U.S. economic problem became a popular bipartisan sport in congressional the
mud-wrestling.
In Ohio, incumbent Democrat
Zack Space put up an ad that contrasted a street scene of perky Chinese basking
in affluence with a shuttered American factory, without any reference to the
hundreds of millions of Chinese living with incomes that are a tenth that of the
average Ohioan. The advertisement then asks, "But what about Ohio - we've
lost 91,000 jobs to China."
China-bashing TV
advertisements have showcased gongs, dragons, cheesy music, red communist flags,
a flood of invading merchandise and insatiable Chinese consumers. Some of the
ads have clearly touched on the sensitive battle line of race, casting a
profound shadow over the lives of millions of Chinese Americans.
Using aliens as scapegoats is
nothing new. History shows that during times of economic hardship, people tend
to make foreigners out to be villains, and the U.S. is no exception. During the
Great Depression, Mexicans and Mexican Americans were used as a collective
scapegoat, seen as usurpers of American jobs and a burden on social services.
In 1929, President Herbert
Hoover authorized the deportation or "voluntary repatriation" to
Mexico of over half a million people of Hispanic descent. The Department of
Labor raided public and private places to round up hundreds of thousands of
immigrants.
A more sinister version of
racially and culturally-oriented bashing took place in the "long depression"
of 1870s Europe which, according
to historian Scott Nelson, bears a close resemblance to the financial
crisis and subsequent global recession we face today.
"The 19th-century
version of containers manufactured in China and bound for Wal-Mart consisted of
produce from farmers in the American Midwest," he wrote. "Europeans
faced what they came to call the American Commercial Invasion. A new industrial
superpower had arrived, one who's low costs threatened European trade and a
European way of life."
The long-term effects of this
were perverse. Nationalistic politicians blamed the crisis on Jews with a new
but sophisticated brand of anti-Semitism that proved appealing to those who had
lost their livelihoods in the depression, just as China-bashing is appealing to
many unemployed Americans today. Pogroms and persecutory laws followed, contributing
to the anti-Semitism that eventually led to the Holocaust.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
What's so alarming is that
anti-China feeling in the U.S. appears to be a broad-based and long-lasting
trend. If this dangerous trend isn't dealt with properly, it could be an
explosive issue in future Sino-U.S. relations.
China can do a lot to
alleviate US. frustration with the still huge trade deficit by adopting
concrete measures to increase American exports to China, and thus creating U.S.
jobs.
The recent statement by People's
Bank of China Vice Governor Yi Gang that the current account surplus should be
contained within 4 percent of GDP is a step in the right direction. But the U.S.
should do some soul-searching as to why the country has lagged behind
economically in recent years.
Two costly but meaningless
wars, rampant consumerism on credit, an overdose of financial engineering, corporate
greed, lax government oversight and regulation, partisan politics that prevent
anything from being accomplished, haven't these things played a larger role
than China in explaining America's decline over the last decade?
*John Gong is associate
professor at the Beijing-based University of International Business and
Economics.
