Do you used to have mixed feelings when there is someone showing goodwill for you really explicitly? From time to time, I cannot help being suspicious when one doing so. It seems that he is an interested person, which makes him to persuade us to follow in order to take advantages from our decision. However, the topic that I am going to write today has nothing to do with a person, but with a nation.
According to "Timothy Geithner calls for China to alter growth policy", US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has suggested China modify the economic concentration from export-oriented to domestic-oriented. He thought that at present, China centers on such export that it takes itself at risk by losing the ability to maintain its economic growth in the future. Furthermore, not only did Mr.Geithner request China to change the policy, but also he demanded the allowance of further appreciation of China currency. He claimed that due to the artificially low value of Yuan, US firms and its economy are attacked by an unfair advantage of Chinese currency value. Also, from his perspective, a stronger currency will assist China in reinforcing its refrom objectives and activate domestic demand (¶ 13), as well as endow China with the independence and flexibility to respond to future changes in growth and inflation (¶ 14).
What a sincerity! I was overwhelmed when I first read this issue. But after taking this story into my careful consideration, I change my mind and have the question to this idea, which is whether China did not commit this policy many years ago, can it become flourishing nowadays?
I am rather not certain that Mr. Geithner has a real wish for China to be able to sustain its economic or not. But, from my point of view, China should turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to his viewpoint and deliberate on its economic policy and currency value individually. The reason I am about to give for my standpoint is that no one knows better you than you know yourself. By the same token, American man does know American problems, but not Chinese.
One thing I start to be confident is that there must be an implicit reason behind the statement of Mr. Geithner. I have realised that I have read articles which pertaining to the US has tried to force China to make an amendment to its curreny value for a recent few years many times. Also, there are many news reporting that the US government has an intention to prevent many countries especially China from exporting their products to the state by arguing for a kind of nonsense reasons.
Moreover, I did remember what the US did with Thailand during the year of 1997, well known as the Tom Yam Kung Crisis. The US made a way for Thailand to solve the problem, leading Thailand to delaying the economic growth, while when the US was in the same problem (Hamburger Crisis), the US government selected the solution that was not what the US recommended Thailand do.
I will end this article by stating that one should do his own business, but should not to intervene in others' domestic affair. When it comes to this point, if there is anyone asking me that Mr. Geithner spoke for whose benefits, I assume that he did not do this for China, but for his beloved country undoubtedly.
References
Timothy Geithner calls for China to alter growth policy. (2012, May 3). BBC News. Retrieved May 5, 2012 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17934203
Note,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your strong and provocative response to this news report. I'm looking forward to your classmates' responses.
Several ideas crossed my mind as I was reading first your summary of the source and then your response to it, especially when you relate it to the 1997 financial collapse, which I remember well, but I'd like to let others have their say first.
Thanks for your comment, Peter.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that came to my mind after reading Note's thoughtful and thought provoking post was the continuing miserable lives of Thai farmers because of decades of government interference to "help" them. Perhaps Note's reminder towards the end of his post of the Tom Yum Kung crisis pushed me that way.
ReplyDeleteI'm in two minds about the value of Geithner's advice for China: I agree with Note that it's almost certainly self-interested, but I don't think that makes it false. At this stage in its development, I think it probably would be in China's own interests to start growing it's domestic consumption to further boost and maintain the rapid economic growth it has enjoyed since getting rid of some of the toxic Maoist and communist thinking that kept the Chinese people poor for so very long - yet another example for Note of political leaders professing to help when in fact they are creating massive harm, and in the case of Mao, massive evil was committed in the form of murder and suppression.
Geithner also seems to me a bit dishonest because the US continues to pursue policies to benefit its agricultural sector which give it an unfair market advantage, and as usual, the rest of the US economy suffers for this communist-style state interference to benefit one group. Perhaps the Chinese should offer some friendly advice in return as to how the US might improve its economic performance and make it a bit more fair for international trade.
Getting back to Thailand, the dictatorial, communist-style interference is rife: farmers can not even freely buy and sell their own land! The prices of goods are controlled and continually manipulated by every Thai government for political reasons, almost never for sensible, helpful economic reasons, and the result is plain to see: Thai farmers today are as poor, as debt-ridden and as unhappy with their hard lives as they were when I first arrived more than 20 years ago.
Naturally, every farmers' children want to escape life on the farm! And this seems to me the fault of politicians who must know that their schemes promising help are just lies that cannot possibly help. Thailand has very competent economists who say very clearly what needs to be done, and every Thai government ignores that sound advice. I sometimes suspect that they want the farmers to stay poor and controlled so that other greedy groups can profit from their misery and hard labour.
Happily, the farmers are waking up and are no longer content to accept the insulting and demeaning way that they have been traditionally treated by Thai leaders.
I have more to say, but I think this is enough for one comment.
And I'm hoping that others would like to respond to Note's post. He seems to me to have raised issues that are important for Thailand and groups within it as much as for China and the US.