Chinese Communist Governments Says, "Buy Chinese!"

by Roy C | July 1, 2009 at 11:53 am

288 views | 56 Recommendations | 7 comments

In the US, citizens and populists of the left and right have cried out for a "Buy American" clause in the various stimulus bills, lest the money of the taxpayers be spent stimulating non-American steel mills and chemical plants, for example.

Many have criticized this proposal as overly-nationalist, jingoist, or simply unfair to other nations.

This principle was incorporated into law in 1933 in our first major "Buy American Act", and the US congress reaffirmed the principle in our recent stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, apparently to the outrage of some of our Canadian friends at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, such as the Sherbrooke Mayor Jean Perrault who said,

"This U.S. protectionist policy is hurting Canadian firms, costing Canadian jobs and damaging Canadian efforts to grow in the world-wide recession."

The Chinese Communist government has its own stimulus plan, and, following suit, China has its own "Buy Chinese" campaign as well.

The argument is couched in terms of reducing energy costs and creating a smaller carbon footprint, something that could help the shrinking US industrial base if applied as well here.

Buying locally is in accordance of sustainable development principle

The Chinese government has recently issued a circular to call on various departments and organizations to buy products which are made in China. This is a great measure to promote sustainable development in China but not protectionism. Why?

Because it is a change of consumption style and a good way to reduce footprint. This method will let consumers to choose what to buy and whom to buy from. And with the government procurement, it will be more effective in terms of scale and capacity of consumption. As many people know that one of the important measures in promoting sustainable development is to mobilize the government to buy products which are produced locally. This way will reduce the transport and save energy.

To buy products which are made in China, instead of abroad will save a lot of energy, thus reduce carbon footprint and should be hailed as a good measure.

In western countries for example in Britain, the Sustainable Development Commission has tried very hard to push their government and other organizations to buy products produced locally. For example, they persuaded the hospital to buy locally produced beef to support the local business, not buying bottled water is also a measure to avoid carbon footprint because bottled water is made with a lot of energy for the making and transportation while the jarred water is just obtained locally. It was difficult to push to buy locally in some western countries because the locally produced products are very expansive. For example the locally produced beef is much more expansive than imported from Ireland or New Zealand.

Similar cases are found in Sweden. Many locally produced products are more expansive than imported ones. Thus if one chooses from price perspective, they would choose those imported one for example the imported strawberry is always cheaper than the Swedish grown. But Swedish people are more patriotic in this sense and mostly rather like to buy the Swedish grown strawberry and proudly say ‘this is Swedish strawberry! Many people are also proudly to buy a Volvo car or ‘green car’ because they believe their car is better in terms of safety and environment. More importantly, the consumers want to make their own choice for certain purpose.

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albertacowpoke

at 13:38 on July 1st, 2009

Both Hillary Clinton and President Obama during their visits to Canada stated that Canada would be exempt from this clause in the Stimulus bill.

How much success did the Buy American Act of 1933 have. It seems to me the economy recovered not because of Protectionism but because of increased production during World War II.

The FVHA kicked off the real estate market at the end of the war.

sara star

at 16:23 on July 1st, 2009

Why can't we just all agree and stick to the plan...First free trade then no trade....Change change change.

The 100-mile diet plan is now the 100-mile Buy Act. Maybe we should go back to our tribes.Aw... progress is great, isn't it?

Nothing will work if the ultimate goal is to manipulate.

Roy C

at 17:32 on July 1st, 2009

We have about as level a playing field as we can have with another country in Canada, and I am not against Obama making that exception. Really, it is ok with me.

No one is saying that all products must be American made, just the ones out of the stimulus plan, a rational and just decision.

Secondly, the more I read about FDR and the New Deal, the more I have to wonder if FDR didn't make the whole thing worse so that we needed to get desperate and go all out.

Obviously, though, during WWII, everything was American or Canadian made. Europe was destroyed and Russia depended on us to supply her.

Sara, "free trade" is fine with me if the country, such as China, takes its dollars and exchanges them for the local currency, boosting the value of the local currency and allowing us to sell more stuff to them.

We don't have that with China. We don't have that with Japan or Korea.

That is what is undercutting American competitiveness, having to compete with countries with manipulated currencies, which we don't have the guts to stand up to because some of the companies making money in China are American.

albertacowpoke

at 17:47 on July 1st, 2009

I would argue that we should have a level playing field. America uses a lot of our natural resources, which are still in abundance. We import a lot of goods from America as well, realizing that our population is 10% of yours.

As an example in the auto industry alone, parts go back and forth across the border to build a car. This not only keeps the auto industry in both countries going, but also the transportation industry. A lot of people don't realize how interdependent we are.

I think daily 1.1 Billion dollars cross that border.

As the border crossing at Blaine, Washington says: Children of a Common Mother.

Let's play nice so the Mother doesn't scold us.

Barry Artiste

at 14:59 on August 23rd, 2009

There was a story about china enforcing an edict which stated chinese citizens must smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day to prop up their Chinese made cigarette manufacturers in China, Later after a couple of months went by it hit the world wide media they rescinded that edict.

Paschen

at 23:22 on July 1st, 2009

We do need to get away from long transport cost and pollution caused by it and buying locally as much as possible is a good way to help the environment as well as keeping jobs local and stopping major migration from happening.

However the Made in is useless since the US are good in a couple of things that are needed around the globe as is Canada, Germany, China, Japan and other have their speciality as well.

Buying the most reliable and advance technology no matter where it is from, is healthy and the buying local makes sense on traditional goods, such as food, utensils, furniture's and closing.