How the Chinese must see us

How the Chinese must see us


" As Hu Jintao wings his way home, America's hectoring still ringing in his ears, he must be thinking that maybe we Americans should stop lecturing them and take a closer look at ourselves. Revalue your currency, we demand of the Chinese, stop running these trade surpluses at our expense, start practicing free trade, and abandon these mercantilist and protectionist policies.

But why should they? Why should China abandon a trade policy that is working marvelously well for them, and adopt a trade policy that is failing dismally for us? Does that make sense?

Why should any nation emulate the U.S. trade policy of the Bush-Clinton-Bush era that has stripped us of a third of our manufacturing jobs and made us dependent on China and the world for the needs of our national life and the borrowed money to pay for them?

Why would China, seeking to make herself an independent and self-sufficient nation, adopt a policy that cost us our independence?

And what are the Chinese doing in their ascendancy to first power on earth that we did not do in ours? "