Claire, I am going to turn around and ask you a question like you do so famously when you are interviewed on tv. As a French citizen/resident and as a American do you think France as an EU Member and the EU as a whole were morally wrong to sign this agreement. As someone that works with Americans outside of the US especially in the EU and even more especially in France and on the other hand Congressional and think thank staffers in Washington, DC a basic question I always ask in person or on social media is do you think the American population in the EU is "disloyal" to the US when it doesn't oppose things like the EU-China deal. What frustrates me is instead of saying yes they are disloyal on the DC side they simply refuse to answer the question or respond to my Tweet.
So for example a lot of people around Biden are very angry at the EU signing this deal on social media like Michael Carpenter for example but when I try to get Carpenter to engage on a Twitter fight with Dave Keating who is very prominent Belgo-American media commentator in Brussels and one of the biggest cheerleaders for the deal Carpenter refuses or appears to see it as beneath him despite how upset he is over the overall deal.
BTW, this is why Teddy Roosevelt hated dual nationality but the US Supreme Court thought otherwise(or more specifically the 14th amendment)
And no, I don't think Americans in the EU are "disloyal" if they don't oppose the deal; I would imagine more than 80 percent of them haven't heard about it, and certainly only a tiny number would be sufficiently well informed as to be able to say something intelligent about it. Most Americans who work in Europe are not focused on trade deals between Europe and China. They work normal jobs; they're not trade ministers or journalists who study these things; and we don't ask Americans to favor or disfavor a certain policy as a loyalty oath: That's un-American.
I agree with you on the 80 percent haven't heard about it and more importantly people like Andrea von Koepells of Kent University who actually study the population of Americans in the EU would tend to agree. I can't imagine however, that there will not be a negative reaction in the US towards people like Dave Keating who supporting the deal especially as Keating has styled himself as one of the most influential English language journalists in Brussels post Brexit.
Which brings me to my second point which is probably worth a whole separate multi part article which at certain level of pure power politics Brexit is perhaps the most unmitigated foreign policy disaster for the US ever and after thinking about this a little bit even in light of Trump and the Capitol riots. The thing about the UK as I see it is the UK at a fundamental level would always do what the US said or wanted without question. The UK was a perfect pupil to it's American teacher. Nor other entity or group of people in Europe had the sheer subservance Brits had to the United States not any of the EU27 member states NOT even Americans living in the EU27 and I think this EU-China deal is the first sign of what life will be like for American foreign policy in the post Brexit world. Even worse and what I think makes Brexit so bad for American "power" is even someone like Keir Starmer trying to separate himself from Jeremy Corbyn and trying move back to the Labour Atlanticism of Atlee and Blair has come out just in the week or two and said there will be no undoing Brexit. In fact through my conversations in Washington I was told that if Hillary had won in 2016 or if Brexit had somehow been delayed past Biden's inauguration there would have been an absolutely monumental effort in Washington to get the UK to reverse Brexit.
I think it was wrong and strategically stupid. They should have followed the Atlanticists' advice. At the very least, they should have waited for Biden's inauguration and consulted with it before signing the deal. What advantage was there in signing before his inauguration? Why was it *that* important to please China? Obviously, yes, it *is* important--immensely important--to the global economy that trade take place, and there are some real advantages for Europe in this deal. But the negotiations had been underway for seven years. They couldn't have continued for a few more months?
Do I think, inherently, that trading with China is wrong? I don't. It is inevitable that China will trade with the world; trade will lift people out of poverty in China and in the countries with which it trades. China did not destroy manufacturing in Europe or in the US. Automation did.
Do I think the CCP is evil? Yes. And there is only one conceivable solution, short of a war no one but China can survive. Free countries should act--as a bloc--to prevent China from exporting its governance model. Together, they must put immense pressure on the regime to cease committing human rights abominations--including through the use of targeted sanctions. Should we punish the whole Chinese people by refusing to trade with China? No. We should not punish ourselves by refusing to trade, either: poverty is one of the world's greatest evils, and trade lifts people out of poverty.
Our policy should be a *united* free world and toward the CCP, *containment.* Slow, patient, credible containment. It will not work, however, unless the US, Europe, and the rest of the Indo-Pacific work together. No power is strong enough, on its own, to confront China.
Do I understand why Merkel has looked at the US and concluded, "There is a very good chance that in the years to come, the US will be so consumed with its own problems that we can't rely on it?" Absolutely. But do I think she's correctly calculated that France and Germany can somehow defend Europe's interests in the Asia Pacific on their own? No. Nor has the US correctly calculated that it can defend its own interests without its allies. China is simply too big and too powerful. And it isn't just China: It is China *and* Russia. They will work in concert to undermine the West--and every democracy in the Indo-Pacific--and they will, unless we work together, succeed.
My understanding is there were some very complex legal reasons why it is was important to sign the deal in 2020 instead of 2021. I am hoping in the coming months we get a better understanding what they are. I "think" I know what they were but I don't want to speculate too much on what they were. I do think one issue is individual EU MS had been signing bilateral investment agreements with China for a long time and there was a desire on the part of some in Brussels are trying to stop China as soon as possible from tactically trying to divide EU MS among each other.
Obviously this is not a "done" deal with it needing approval of the EU Parliament to take effect. In fact one thing that I found a bit surprising by the decision to go ahead at the tail end of December is the EU Commission and EU MS have really put the somewhat cantankerous European Parliament in the drivers seat. It is already well known that many MEP's don't like the deal and would be eager to see Biden, Pelosi and the US lean in against it on the other hand the EP has a long and well known "wishlist" of changes in US policy vis a vis the EU(and just changes in the US generally) and it is almost certain MEP's smelling an enormous opportunity will try to tie the two together.
Where I do thing is giving this enormous bounty of power to the EU Parliament is a good thing is that if what we are really talking about is a democratic alliance version 2.0 of the "Atlantic Charter" then obviously I think both the EU and US have to put pen to paper on what specifically are the small d democratic values rule of law values that unite the US, EU, and other democracies and to have a discussion as where the sides might not be currently upholding these values strongly enough. Again to my previous comment on Brexit in the pre Brexit EU I think this type of discussion would be preempted with the UK lobbying basically for the EU to just along with whatever the US wanted.
The problem on the US side is that the US is "used" to UK just going along with whatever the US wanted(and getting the rest of the EU to follow) and not really at all having any type of serious negotiation. What will the response be on the US side and the US Congress to having to negotiate not just with EU but the EU Parliament is a sovereign body elected by universal suffrage of all EU citizens and which could be considered as close to a co-equal legislative body the US Congress has had internationally in many many decade(And I would consider the real challenge to be the European Parliament-US Congress relationship).
As for the notion that "Germany keeps taking but not giving," expressed above, that's precisely what Germans feel: Their labor, their economic output, is holding up Europe.; They're asked again and again to bail out countries that have managed their finances poorly. Now they are being asked to take on Europe's collective debt--and they have agreed, knowing full well they'll be the ones repaying it. They inherited an utterly broken East Germany and reintegrated it into the modern world. They took in a million refugees (instead of letting them die, as everyone else was prepared to do). They've housed and educated them and turned them into productive citizens. They've received astonishingly little recognition that doing so was a difficult and costly job, but they *did* do it. They have been treated for the past four years, by the United States, with absolute contempt--as an enemy, not an ally. And it should not be forgotten that many of the refugees Germany took in became refugees because the United States failed to manage its own unipolar moment in an intelligent way. It is Europe that becomes flooded with refugees when American wars go south. It's Europe that will become the kill zone if conflict breaks out between Russia and the US; the US was unable to rehabilitate Russia successfully; Germany *did* rehabilitate Eastern Germany successfully. Their point of view makes sense to me, even though I think it a strategic and moral mistake. They think the cost of great-power war is too high, especially in the nuclear era, so that option is off the table. Who can blame Germany for thinking that? That's the outcome hundreds of thousands of young American men died to ensure--and the outcome we killed countless Nazis--and many innocent Germans, too--to ensure: a pacifist Germany. One that will never, ever, again consider "war" as the solution to a problem. They've concluded Germany's role must be to mediate both between Russia and the US and China and the US, ensuring that war never breaks out. It isn't entirely stupid; it is certainly not hard to understand. But it won't work.
Germans keep taking not giving when it comes to their relationship with the United States. The idea that American taxpayers should pay to defend the Germans from the Russians (the Chinese or anyone else) till the end of time is preposterous.
The idea that a single American kid from from the Midwest should put his or her life on the line to defend a bunch of spoiled brats dining on the finest and most esoteric cuisine in some Berlin night spot is offensive.
The Germans have been warned for decades that their failure to live up to their obligations when it comes to defense spending would eventually become untenable. How many years ago was it that former Defense Secretary Gates issued this warning? The Germans ignored it and were happy to see the United States play the role of suckers yet again.
As for the German role in Europe, even here the Germans are takers. They benefited from a weak Euro when the Deutsche Mark clearly would have been valued higher. They also extended credit to countries that were obviously not credit worthy. It seems to me, the results are their problem not an American problem.
Perhaps the Germans thought they could atone for their sins to the Jews, the Roma and the gay citizens of the Reich by admitting a million or so refugees. If that is what they thought, they are dead wrong. In any case, admitting those immigrants was their decision. Germany’s role in pressuring Poland Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to do the same was arrogant in just the way that Germans specialize in.
Of course Germany isn’t an enemy of the United States. But with friends like Germany, who needs enemies?
Claire, I don’t know whether you (or any of your readers) have read Rebecca West’s “Black Lamb Gray Falcon.” Its one of the great non-fiction book of the 20th century.
The book describes West’s travels in Yugoslavia in the years leading up to World War II. If you happen to own the book, read the introduction which describes West’s interaction with the Germans. Some things have changed; the Germans are no longer aggressive, instead their pacifists. Some things haven’t changed; their country is still insufferable.
It’s not just Merkel and Xi; if the terrible riots that took place today are any indication, tens of millions of Americans are giving the incoming Biden Administration (and the United States Congress) the finger.
American elites have sure made a mess of things. China must be licking its chops.
I worked on this all day yesterday without looking once at the news, then posted it, and realized immediately no one would read it. I don't blame them: What happened yesterday was obviously more urgent. But I hope they do read it, at some point down the road. Merkel must be thinking, "I did the only prudent thing. Life has no perfect solutions. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to survive." I can't even fault her reasoning.
It would be a shame if this two part series was not widely read. The reality is that the rise of China is a proximate cause of the anger in the lower middle classes that helped inspire yesterday’s antics in the Capitol.
Thanks to Bill Clinton, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001. It’s been cheating, lying and dissembling ever since. Even before that, there were periodic fights over whether China should be granted most favored nation trade status. Presidents of both political parties fought like cats and dogs with Congress to grant China that status.
What was the end result? The answer is obvious; the deindustrialization of the American heartland. Empty shells of formerly thriving factories blighting the landscape leaving the only available employment opportunities to be found in armed forces recruiting stations.
The sons and daughters of those who watched their jobs shipped to China found themselves packed off to senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only to be forced to fight under rules of engagement which made victory impossible. Far too often, they returned home without arms and legs.
You can’t ship hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of jobs to China and expect the victims of this policy not to be aggrieved. It’s these folks and their progeny who were demonstrating in DC yesterday.
Now China is on the March while the American Clerisy is as clueless as ever. One of Biden’s favorite environmental policies is the encouragement of a switch to electric cars. These cars take a third less labor to produce than cars with an internal combustion engine. The net result will be tens of thousands of additional layoffs a few years from now. Despite what Biden, Obama or Dubya might think, few of these laid off UAW workers will find new employment as coders or windmill manufacturers.
Just as China is feeling it’s oats, Biden’s policies will be finishing off what’s left of the lower middle class. These people know it. Why were they in DC yesterday? Because they’re mad as hell and their not going to take it anymore.
It’s easy to be sanctimonious, Claire. But if you were in their shoes, are you sure you wouldn’t be jumping the barricades yourself?
So yes, everyone should read your posts about China and reflect on what the ramifications will be for the American working classes.
But, come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t Bill Clinton’s fault after all. Maybe it goes back to Nixon and Kissinger and Nixon’s famous meal with Chou En Lai. Nixon made a deal with the Devil. Working class Americans have been taking it on the chin ever since.
I wish I shared your confidence that "These people know it." There's a vast difference between being told you've been screwed over, and knowing exactly who did it. They've been told it's Biden's fault, but the general impression of people smashing the Capitol's granite is that he did it to feed babies into the Great Satanic engine.
I haven't heard the protestor who sat down at a Senator's desk and said, "I understand that large portions of the diplomatic core consider comprehensive trade policy as the most reliable path away from armed conflict, however the unintended domestic consequences for that sort of behavior haven't been appropriately safeguarded against. That sort of safeguarding could have been accomplished with the wealth those policies are alleged to create."
Maybe Bret Weinstein has said something to that effect, but he's certainly not going to ask for it at the cost of an Orange Coup.
What I think they know, Matt is that their well-paying jobs are gone and that save for flipping burgers or joining the army, there’s no other way to earn a living.
They don’t blame Biden in particular, they blame all politicians in both political parties-the uniparty.
Most of these folks may not have gone to college but they know that the American clerisy holds them in contempt. Is it any wonder they hate politicians and were willing to go way overboard yesterday to show it? Hillary called them deplorables. Obama called them religion-clingers and gun slingers. Mitt called them the lazy 49 percent.
They don’t need a Ph.D. from Harvard to understand that America’s pundits, journalists, professors and other elites hate their guts as much as they hate Trump’s guts.
Until our two political parties stop demanding that the working class bear the entire burden of their policies in the areas of trade, immigration, foreign policy and culture, tribalism will only get worse regardless of what Trump does.
Merkel’s deal with China will only make things worse. Germany seems to think that American taxpayers and working class boys and girls should defend her country virtually free of charge. Whether it’s gas deals with Russia or trade deals with China, Germany keeps taking but gives virtually nothing.
Bush and Obama complained about it but did nothing. Trump told Merkel to take a flying you know what.
As I said earlier, despised, insulted and marginalized as they have been, is it any wonder that the American lower middle class is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it any more?
The truly sad spectacle in the Capitol yesterday is merely a symptom of a tragic problem that goes way beyond Donald Trump.
I think one problem with your analogy in the past few days in the past few days is that it has come out that many of the rioters at the Capitol were quite well off in some cases business owners, politicians, and executives. One even flew to Washington in a private aircraft. When you actually think about it even with airfares and hotel room rates being cut dramatically I highly doubt many minimum wage workers have either the time or the money to fly into Washington, DC, riot, then spend the rest of night sipping wine in four and five star hotel lobbies not just a few blocks from the Capitol.
Thanks for pointing that out. Most of the president's more "enthusiastic" supporters are simply people taken in by the act. Being a rube to a carnie isn't reserved for people in a lower SES.
I suppose we could agree that Trump is a symptom. I'm not sure we're going to come to the same perspective on the depth of understanding possessed by your average Trumpist. Perhaps we're just looking at two ends of the same elephant. Or I have a rotten sample I observe.
Claire, thanks as always for your perspective. And Mr Kelkar, I'm looking forward to hearing yet more from you as CG expands.
That is depressing reading. But thanks
Claire, I am going to turn around and ask you a question like you do so famously when you are interviewed on tv. As a French citizen/resident and as a American do you think France as an EU Member and the EU as a whole were morally wrong to sign this agreement. As someone that works with Americans outside of the US especially in the EU and even more especially in France and on the other hand Congressional and think thank staffers in Washington, DC a basic question I always ask in person or on social media is do you think the American population in the EU is "disloyal" to the US when it doesn't oppose things like the EU-China deal. What frustrates me is instead of saying yes they are disloyal on the DC side they simply refuse to answer the question or respond to my Tweet.
So for example a lot of people around Biden are very angry at the EU signing this deal on social media like Michael Carpenter for example but when I try to get Carpenter to engage on a Twitter fight with Dave Keating who is very prominent Belgo-American media commentator in Brussels and one of the biggest cheerleaders for the deal Carpenter refuses or appears to see it as beneath him despite how upset he is over the overall deal.
BTW, this is why Teddy Roosevelt hated dual nationality but the US Supreme Court thought otherwise(or more specifically the 14th amendment)
And no, I don't think Americans in the EU are "disloyal" if they don't oppose the deal; I would imagine more than 80 percent of them haven't heard about it, and certainly only a tiny number would be sufficiently well informed as to be able to say something intelligent about it. Most Americans who work in Europe are not focused on trade deals between Europe and China. They work normal jobs; they're not trade ministers or journalists who study these things; and we don't ask Americans to favor or disfavor a certain policy as a loyalty oath: That's un-American.
I agree with you on the 80 percent haven't heard about it and more importantly people like Andrea von Koepells of Kent University who actually study the population of Americans in the EU would tend to agree. I can't imagine however, that there will not be a negative reaction in the US towards people like Dave Keating who supporting the deal especially as Keating has styled himself as one of the most influential English language journalists in Brussels post Brexit.
Which brings me to my second point which is probably worth a whole separate multi part article which at certain level of pure power politics Brexit is perhaps the most unmitigated foreign policy disaster for the US ever and after thinking about this a little bit even in light of Trump and the Capitol riots. The thing about the UK as I see it is the UK at a fundamental level would always do what the US said or wanted without question. The UK was a perfect pupil to it's American teacher. Nor other entity or group of people in Europe had the sheer subservance Brits had to the United States not any of the EU27 member states NOT even Americans living in the EU27 and I think this EU-China deal is the first sign of what life will be like for American foreign policy in the post Brexit world. Even worse and what I think makes Brexit so bad for American "power" is even someone like Keir Starmer trying to separate himself from Jeremy Corbyn and trying move back to the Labour Atlanticism of Atlee and Blair has come out just in the week or two and said there will be no undoing Brexit. In fact through my conversations in Washington I was told that if Hillary had won in 2016 or if Brexit had somehow been delayed past Biden's inauguration there would have been an absolutely monumental effort in Washington to get the UK to reverse Brexit.
I think it was wrong and strategically stupid. They should have followed the Atlanticists' advice. At the very least, they should have waited for Biden's inauguration and consulted with it before signing the deal. What advantage was there in signing before his inauguration? Why was it *that* important to please China? Obviously, yes, it *is* important--immensely important--to the global economy that trade take place, and there are some real advantages for Europe in this deal. But the negotiations had been underway for seven years. They couldn't have continued for a few more months?
Do I think, inherently, that trading with China is wrong? I don't. It is inevitable that China will trade with the world; trade will lift people out of poverty in China and in the countries with which it trades. China did not destroy manufacturing in Europe or in the US. Automation did.
Do I think the CCP is evil? Yes. And there is only one conceivable solution, short of a war no one but China can survive. Free countries should act--as a bloc--to prevent China from exporting its governance model. Together, they must put immense pressure on the regime to cease committing human rights abominations--including through the use of targeted sanctions. Should we punish the whole Chinese people by refusing to trade with China? No. We should not punish ourselves by refusing to trade, either: poverty is one of the world's greatest evils, and trade lifts people out of poverty.
Our policy should be a *united* free world and toward the CCP, *containment.* Slow, patient, credible containment. It will not work, however, unless the US, Europe, and the rest of the Indo-Pacific work together. No power is strong enough, on its own, to confront China.
Do I understand why Merkel has looked at the US and concluded, "There is a very good chance that in the years to come, the US will be so consumed with its own problems that we can't rely on it?" Absolutely. But do I think she's correctly calculated that France and Germany can somehow defend Europe's interests in the Asia Pacific on their own? No. Nor has the US correctly calculated that it can defend its own interests without its allies. China is simply too big and too powerful. And it isn't just China: It is China *and* Russia. They will work in concert to undermine the West--and every democracy in the Indo-Pacific--and they will, unless we work together, succeed.
My understanding is there were some very complex legal reasons why it is was important to sign the deal in 2020 instead of 2021. I am hoping in the coming months we get a better understanding what they are. I "think" I know what they were but I don't want to speculate too much on what they were. I do think one issue is individual EU MS had been signing bilateral investment agreements with China for a long time and there was a desire on the part of some in Brussels are trying to stop China as soon as possible from tactically trying to divide EU MS among each other.
Obviously this is not a "done" deal with it needing approval of the EU Parliament to take effect. In fact one thing that I found a bit surprising by the decision to go ahead at the tail end of December is the EU Commission and EU MS have really put the somewhat cantankerous European Parliament in the drivers seat. It is already well known that many MEP's don't like the deal and would be eager to see Biden, Pelosi and the US lean in against it on the other hand the EP has a long and well known "wishlist" of changes in US policy vis a vis the EU(and just changes in the US generally) and it is almost certain MEP's smelling an enormous opportunity will try to tie the two together.
Where I do thing is giving this enormous bounty of power to the EU Parliament is a good thing is that if what we are really talking about is a democratic alliance version 2.0 of the "Atlantic Charter" then obviously I think both the EU and US have to put pen to paper on what specifically are the small d democratic values rule of law values that unite the US, EU, and other democracies and to have a discussion as where the sides might not be currently upholding these values strongly enough. Again to my previous comment on Brexit in the pre Brexit EU I think this type of discussion would be preempted with the UK lobbying basically for the EU to just along with whatever the US wanted.
The problem on the US side is that the US is "used" to UK just going along with whatever the US wanted(and getting the rest of the EU to follow) and not really at all having any type of serious negotiation. What will the response be on the US side and the US Congress to having to negotiate not just with EU but the EU Parliament is a sovereign body elected by universal suffrage of all EU citizens and which could be considered as close to a co-equal legislative body the US Congress has had internationally in many many decade(And I would consider the real challenge to be the European Parliament-US Congress relationship).
As for the notion that "Germany keeps taking but not giving," expressed above, that's precisely what Germans feel: Their labor, their economic output, is holding up Europe.; They're asked again and again to bail out countries that have managed their finances poorly. Now they are being asked to take on Europe's collective debt--and they have agreed, knowing full well they'll be the ones repaying it. They inherited an utterly broken East Germany and reintegrated it into the modern world. They took in a million refugees (instead of letting them die, as everyone else was prepared to do). They've housed and educated them and turned them into productive citizens. They've received astonishingly little recognition that doing so was a difficult and costly job, but they *did* do it. They have been treated for the past four years, by the United States, with absolute contempt--as an enemy, not an ally. And it should not be forgotten that many of the refugees Germany took in became refugees because the United States failed to manage its own unipolar moment in an intelligent way. It is Europe that becomes flooded with refugees when American wars go south. It's Europe that will become the kill zone if conflict breaks out between Russia and the US; the US was unable to rehabilitate Russia successfully; Germany *did* rehabilitate Eastern Germany successfully. Their point of view makes sense to me, even though I think it a strategic and moral mistake. They think the cost of great-power war is too high, especially in the nuclear era, so that option is off the table. Who can blame Germany for thinking that? That's the outcome hundreds of thousands of young American men died to ensure--and the outcome we killed countless Nazis--and many innocent Germans, too--to ensure: a pacifist Germany. One that will never, ever, again consider "war" as the solution to a problem. They've concluded Germany's role must be to mediate both between Russia and the US and China and the US, ensuring that war never breaks out. It isn't entirely stupid; it is certainly not hard to understand. But it won't work.
Germans keep taking not giving when it comes to their relationship with the United States. The idea that American taxpayers should pay to defend the Germans from the Russians (the Chinese or anyone else) till the end of time is preposterous.
The idea that a single American kid from from the Midwest should put his or her life on the line to defend a bunch of spoiled brats dining on the finest and most esoteric cuisine in some Berlin night spot is offensive.
The Germans have been warned for decades that their failure to live up to their obligations when it comes to defense spending would eventually become untenable. How many years ago was it that former Defense Secretary Gates issued this warning? The Germans ignored it and were happy to see the United States play the role of suckers yet again.
As for the German role in Europe, even here the Germans are takers. They benefited from a weak Euro when the Deutsche Mark clearly would have been valued higher. They also extended credit to countries that were obviously not credit worthy. It seems to me, the results are their problem not an American problem.
Perhaps the Germans thought they could atone for their sins to the Jews, the Roma and the gay citizens of the Reich by admitting a million or so refugees. If that is what they thought, they are dead wrong. In any case, admitting those immigrants was their decision. Germany’s role in pressuring Poland Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to do the same was arrogant in just the way that Germans specialize in.
Of course Germany isn’t an enemy of the United States. But with friends like Germany, who needs enemies?
Claire, I don’t know whether you (or any of your readers) have read Rebecca West’s “Black Lamb Gray Falcon.” Its one of the great non-fiction book of the 20th century.
The book describes West’s travels in Yugoslavia in the years leading up to World War II. If you happen to own the book, read the introduction which describes West’s interaction with the Germans. Some things have changed; the Germans are no longer aggressive, instead their pacifists. Some things haven’t changed; their country is still insufferable.
It’s not just Merkel and Xi; if the terrible riots that took place today are any indication, tens of millions of Americans are giving the incoming Biden Administration (and the United States Congress) the finger.
American elites have sure made a mess of things. China must be licking its chops.
I worked on this all day yesterday without looking once at the news, then posted it, and realized immediately no one would read it. I don't blame them: What happened yesterday was obviously more urgent. But I hope they do read it, at some point down the road. Merkel must be thinking, "I did the only prudent thing. Life has no perfect solutions. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to survive." I can't even fault her reasoning.
It would be a shame if this two part series was not widely read. The reality is that the rise of China is a proximate cause of the anger in the lower middle classes that helped inspire yesterday’s antics in the Capitol.
Thanks to Bill Clinton, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization in 2001. It’s been cheating, lying and dissembling ever since. Even before that, there were periodic fights over whether China should be granted most favored nation trade status. Presidents of both political parties fought like cats and dogs with Congress to grant China that status.
What was the end result? The answer is obvious; the deindustrialization of the American heartland. Empty shells of formerly thriving factories blighting the landscape leaving the only available employment opportunities to be found in armed forces recruiting stations.
The sons and daughters of those who watched their jobs shipped to China found themselves packed off to senseless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only to be forced to fight under rules of engagement which made victory impossible. Far too often, they returned home without arms and legs.
You can’t ship hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of jobs to China and expect the victims of this policy not to be aggrieved. It’s these folks and their progeny who were demonstrating in DC yesterday.
Now China is on the March while the American Clerisy is as clueless as ever. One of Biden’s favorite environmental policies is the encouragement of a switch to electric cars. These cars take a third less labor to produce than cars with an internal combustion engine. The net result will be tens of thousands of additional layoffs a few years from now. Despite what Biden, Obama or Dubya might think, few of these laid off UAW workers will find new employment as coders or windmill manufacturers.
Just as China is feeling it’s oats, Biden’s policies will be finishing off what’s left of the lower middle class. These people know it. Why were they in DC yesterday? Because they’re mad as hell and their not going to take it anymore.
It’s easy to be sanctimonious, Claire. But if you were in their shoes, are you sure you wouldn’t be jumping the barricades yourself?
So yes, everyone should read your posts about China and reflect on what the ramifications will be for the American working classes.
But, come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t Bill Clinton’s fault after all. Maybe it goes back to Nixon and Kissinger and Nixon’s famous meal with Chou En Lai. Nixon made a deal with the Devil. Working class Americans have been taking it on the chin ever since.
I wish I shared your confidence that "These people know it." There's a vast difference between being told you've been screwed over, and knowing exactly who did it. They've been told it's Biden's fault, but the general impression of people smashing the Capitol's granite is that he did it to feed babies into the Great Satanic engine.
I haven't heard the protestor who sat down at a Senator's desk and said, "I understand that large portions of the diplomatic core consider comprehensive trade policy as the most reliable path away from armed conflict, however the unintended domestic consequences for that sort of behavior haven't been appropriately safeguarded against. That sort of safeguarding could have been accomplished with the wealth those policies are alleged to create."
Maybe Bret Weinstein has said something to that effect, but he's certainly not going to ask for it at the cost of an Orange Coup.
What I think they know, Matt is that their well-paying jobs are gone and that save for flipping burgers or joining the army, there’s no other way to earn a living.
They don’t blame Biden in particular, they blame all politicians in both political parties-the uniparty.
Most of these folks may not have gone to college but they know that the American clerisy holds them in contempt. Is it any wonder they hate politicians and were willing to go way overboard yesterday to show it? Hillary called them deplorables. Obama called them religion-clingers and gun slingers. Mitt called them the lazy 49 percent.
They don’t need a Ph.D. from Harvard to understand that America’s pundits, journalists, professors and other elites hate their guts as much as they hate Trump’s guts.
Until our two political parties stop demanding that the working class bear the entire burden of their policies in the areas of trade, immigration, foreign policy and culture, tribalism will only get worse regardless of what Trump does.
Merkel’s deal with China will only make things worse. Germany seems to think that American taxpayers and working class boys and girls should defend her country virtually free of charge. Whether it’s gas deals with Russia or trade deals with China, Germany keeps taking but gives virtually nothing.
Bush and Obama complained about it but did nothing. Trump told Merkel to take a flying you know what.
As I said earlier, despised, insulted and marginalized as they have been, is it any wonder that the American lower middle class is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it any more?
The truly sad spectacle in the Capitol yesterday is merely a symptom of a tragic problem that goes way beyond Donald Trump.
I think one problem with your analogy in the past few days in the past few days is that it has come out that many of the rioters at the Capitol were quite well off in some cases business owners, politicians, and executives. One even flew to Washington in a private aircraft. When you actually think about it even with airfares and hotel room rates being cut dramatically I highly doubt many minimum wage workers have either the time or the money to fly into Washington, DC, riot, then spend the rest of night sipping wine in four and five star hotel lobbies not just a few blocks from the Capitol.
Thanks for pointing that out. Most of the president's more "enthusiastic" supporters are simply people taken in by the act. Being a rube to a carnie isn't reserved for people in a lower SES.
I suppose we could agree that Trump is a symptom. I'm not sure we're going to come to the same perspective on the depth of understanding possessed by your average Trumpist. Perhaps we're just looking at two ends of the same elephant. Or I have a rotten sample I observe.
Claire, thanks as always for your perspective. And Mr Kelkar, I'm looking forward to hearing yet more from you as CG expands.