US Fears China's Expanding Role
Walter Lippmann

"Ironically, now our teachers are getting worried because we, the students, followed your advice so faithfully and became so successful," said Long Yongtu, a former deputy trade minister who led China into the World Trade Organization, in a May speech to the Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C.

"As the students, we believe that our teachers should not be worried about that." Washington´s fear of China´s expanding role isn´t limited to its close and friendly ties with Cuba and Venezuela, which get scant mention here.

In fact, China´s international role indicates clearly that Washington isn´t interested in capitalism, as advocates of the so-called "free enterprise" system teach its doctrines in colleges and in newspaper columns.

They´re not motivated by any other thing than private property and raw power. Resentment against China for the help which its practice of free trade is powerful testimony to the progressive role China plays internationally where it has no armies of conquest and occupation anywhere. Anyone who purchases domestic consumer products at a store like TARGET in the United States will find high-quality products at prices which many can afford.

The widespread claim that capitalism can provide a better standard of living for people is belied by the fear Washington expresses toward China for its practice of capitalist trade principles all over the world. Some on the political left argue that capitalism has been restored in China.

Despite all the interpenetration of the economies of the US and China, Washington isn´t happy with China and would prefer China turn its entire economy over to the vagaries of international capitalism. This Wall Street Journal report makes it clear that the Chinese have hardly given away the store, and it doesn't look like they´re likely to do so anytime in the foreseeable future.

No wonder as Washington finds itself bogged down more and more deeply in Iraq and elsewhere the search for a scapegoat on whom to blame US failures will escalate.

Protectionist anti-China sentiment is being stoked for exactly that reason. They can't blame the "godless international Communist conspiracy" for their own failures today. Cuba's role in all this is small, but symbolic. From a strictly economic point of view, Cuba's weight in production for the international market is modest: tobacco, rum, biotechnology and nickel play a modest role compared to steel mills, automobile production and petroleum production.

Cuba's economic decisions aren't ones which can affect the world economy on their own. Getting rid of the U.S. dollar didn't harm Cuba in any manner economically. And furthermore, the weak and unreliable dollar, the trouble Cuba had in using it to pay its international bills, etc. made it more of a liability than an asset for Cubans.

Beyond that, there were certain political problems inherent in using Cuba's principal problem-maker's currency as the one most valued by Cubans living in the island. The US dollar has been totally eliminated from the normal daily life of the Cuban people, and their lives continue as they always have, vicissitudes and all.

What irks Washington so much is that Cuba is like the one that got away. It's the "ripe fruit syndrome" which has motivated US policy makers long before Fidel Castro's FATHER was born.

Indeed, if you google the phrase "ripe fruit syndrome" you'll find an essay which will help you to understand why, despite all of the advice of libertarian-types that ending the U.S. blockade of Cuba will be the best way to sink the Revolution, Washington finds it do hard to actually attempt such a thing.

Too bad for all those US companies who lose business because of the influence of those reactionary Cubans in Miami, as well as those for whom the Ripe Fruit Syndrome is a matter of religious faith.

ef/wlx

Adapted from posting at CubaNews list, Oct. 3, 3005
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/42895

Prensa Latina posting, undated:
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={655A6C33-601A-4C2D-90DE-8C6849EA6F59}&language=EN

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N17225C3C

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