Fools' Gambit

 

Today is the 50th anniversary of President Nixon's visit to open up China and welcome it into the world community.  Unlike other grim anniversaries such as 12/7/41 and 9/11/01, it was not a call for unity but just an unnecessary surrender in advance.  "The U.S.president put himself in the position of supplicant to Beijing.  Chinese state media said a prosperous China would be a peaceful China, and it would be a huge market for American exports." (June Dreyer of the U. of Miami)

But the exact reverse happened.  

Domestic big business saw a large untapped market in China as well as a source of very cheap outsourced labor.  Nixon thought he could pry China away from the Soviet Union (they had a little tiff going) and possibly get some cooperation in ending the Vietnam War, in addition to advancing those big business dreams.  

What we got instead was a disastrous trade imbalance in China's favor, closed manufacturing plants, loss of jobs and hope in cities and rural areas, and a tsunami of inexpensive low-quality goods that do not  last.  My grandparents had several Vornado floor fans, built like tanks, for the summer.  They worked for decades.  Now all you can find is Chinese-made ones that are wobbly plastic contraptions whose switches will fail in a few months, and are of course unrepairable.  

  And there seems to be no way out now.  In answer to Trump's retaliatory tariffs, China put the brakes on American grain imports, devastating the Midwest.  I saw this myself on the Mississippi River, where loading stations were deserted and barges, normally following each other closely, were nowhere to be seen.  

In 1972, China was divided by its Cultural Revolution and despite saber-rattling was not a credible regional threat.  Now they have a large, very modern Navy and Air Force -- and guess who paid for it.  Masters of the long game, after 72 years Taiwan and the South China Sea are easily within their grasp.

Like hornet nests and sleeping junkyard dogs, some things are best left alone.