Rice - getting away from "Punish France, ignore Germany..."?

But, let me say this. A dominant China shouldn't make anyone here gleeful. If it does happen, and we do live to see it---you will think fondly about the Evil American hegemony.

And Europe, over strenuous American objections, is preparing to relax its embargo on arms sales to China, while the United States first wants to see progress there on democracy and human rights.

Lifting the arms embargo will be a very dangerous game for the Euros to play and I've no doubts will be seen here as a ploy to weaken and distract the U.S. And, the EU is kidding themselves if they think we can't beat them in an arms race.

Not that you are lying, JW, but the article is.

I've seen you posted in another thread about this issue, too. I was posting there trying to explain things. I'm not going to cross-post at the moment...

On the eve of his trip to Europe to patch the trans-Atlantic relationship, President Bush says he doesn't believe the West is split between an "idealistic United States and a cynical Europe."

"America and Europe are the pillars of the free world," Bush said in his weekly radio address Saturday, the day before he leaves on a five-day trip to Belgium, Germany and Slovakia.

"Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic understand that the hopes for peace in the world depend on the continued unity of free nations," he said. "We do not accept a false caricature that divides the Western world between an idealistic United States and a cynical Europe." [..]

U.S. hopes for a larger NATO role suffered a setback last Sunday when Germany rebuffed the alliance's request for help to protect U.N. operations in Iraq. France and Germany, which opposed the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein, have prevented the alliance from developing a wider role in Iraq, and have refused to send their own troops, even on the training mission in Baghdad that NATO has authorized. [..]

In his radio address, Bush didn't mention the NATO mission. Instead, he singled out nations that helped with the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

"In Iraq, our shared commitment to free elections has stripped the car bombers and assassins of their most powerful weapon, their claim to represent the wishes and aspirations of the Iraqi people," he said.

"In these elections, the European Union provided vital technical assistance, NATO is helping to train army officers, police and civilian administrators of a new Iraq and 21 of our European coalition partners are providing forces on the ground."

Outlining his goals for the trip, the president also said he would discuss how to best advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians; trade issues; and reducing European barriers to American agricultural goods.

"Even the best of friends do not agree on everything," he said, adding that America and Europe need to cooperate to fight terrorism and poverty and promote trade and peace.

"That makes our trans-Atlantic ties as vital as they have ever been," he said.

In advance of his trip, Bush on Friday spoke of Iran during interviews at the White House with broadcasters and correspondents from Russia, France, Belgium, Slovakia and Germany.

He said the United States does not intend to attack Iran to crush its suspected nuclear weapons project and expressed hopes that a European diplomatic initiative would persuade Tehran to abandon any such program. [..]
Bush said he supports European nations' efforts to persuade Iran to scrap its uranium enrichment program in exchange for technological, financial and political support.

He did not address U.S. reservations about Europe's approach. The United States has refused to get involved in the bargaining with Tehran or to make commitments, insisting that Iran abandon its program.

"I believe diplomacy can work so long as the Iranians don't divide Europe and the United States," Bush said. "There's a lot more diplomacy to be done."

JustWonders wrote:

And Europe, over strenuous American objections, is preparing to relax its embargo on arms sales to China, while the United States first wants to see progress there on democracy and human rights.

Not true. Just not true. A lie.

Not that you are lying, JW, but the article is.
quote]

Thanks for clarifying.

What exactly is perceived by you to be 'lying'? The fact that Europe is preparing to relax its embargo on arms sales to China or that the U.S. first wants to see progress there on democracy and human rights?

It's those 'interests' that concern me now, such as the proposal by the EU to lift the arms embargo against China. I see it as a mistake by the Euros, should it happen.

Many Americans trace their roots back to Europe, and we can trace many of our founding ideals there, as well. It was a Frenchman who taught the framers of our Constitution the importance of the separation of powers. It was a Scot who explained the virtues of a free market. It was an Englishman who challenged us to correct the principal defect of our founding, the plague of slavery. And it was an Italian who gave us our name: America.

America's strong ties to Europe are reflected in the largest two-way trading and investment relationship in the world. Today more than a fifth of all U.S. exports go to the European Union, and millions of Americans depend for their paychecks on the local affiliates of European parent companies.

What exactly is perceived by you to be 'lying'? The fact that Europe is preparing to relax its embargo on arms sales to China or that the U.S. first wants to see progress there on democracy and human rights?

Dawning giants of global economics

India and China are no longer using their huge workforce just to benefit the West, writes Heather Connon

Sunday February 20, 2005
The Observer

If you are looking for economic growth this year, you need to look East.

India and China are, says Allan Conway, Schroders' head of emerging markets equities, 'economies on the verge of lift-off growth'. While Britain and the rest of Europe will struggle to achieve growth of 3 per cent this year, India will grow by more than 6 per cent and China by close to 9 per cent.

The growth will not stop there. Between them, the two countries have 2.4 billion people, or 40 per cent of the world's population.

These people provide a cheap, and highly skilled, workforce for western companies - think of Indian call centres and Chinese electronics. But they are no longer simply servicing the needs of affluent westerners; they increasingly want the trappings of wealth themselves. Domestic demand for everything from bank loans to telephones is growing sharply in both countries. Small wonder, then, that some pundits are predicting that within 20 years they could be the world's leading economies.

Even if Europe achieves internal unity, pessimists worry about the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. They predict inevitable clashes on issues such as Iran's nuclear program and arms sales to China.

More broadly, the United States regards itself as a guarantor of global stability, while nations such as France see a "multi-polar" world where emerging powers such as Europe, China and India dilute U.S. might. In a new book titled "The End of the West?", French author Francois Heisbourg contends that Washington, D.C.'s view of the value of an alliance with Europe declined steadily after the end of the Cold War and more rapidly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Events will determine the existence or absence of a American support for the unity of its European allies," Heisbourg writes. "At worst, and the worst sometimes occurred after the inauguration of President Bush in 2001, the unity of the Europeans must be actively fought."

For the next two days in Brussels, though, words will be what count. Europeans and Americans insist they speak the same language.

"When (U.S. Secretary of State) Condi Rice was in Paris, she said that the United States needs a strong Europe," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said. "And I said that Europe needs a strong Europe as well. This has been at the heart of my convictions for a long time. A strong, autonomous and allied Europe is in the interests of the United States. If we are weak, it means that the Americans end up acting alone."

Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb.

To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."

Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."