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Many people would think that trading raw materials is mutually beneficial between countries. The US economy depends on profiting globally, and we understand the benefit of using cheap labor in foreign countries through FDI. However, what happens when a state financed enterprise in China strategically buys up raw materials like iron and petroleum. I am not just talking about an even percentage, I mean “greater than 90% of the world’s raw supply of iron” and complete control over the U. S. petroleum supply. 1 Fortunately, the US government noticed what they were up to and made it illegal for another county to purchase a controlling interest in the U. S. petroleum supply. On a side note, it was only five years ago that the North Korean government financed a massive plant to produce billions in counterfeit U. S. currency. Everyone knows that the U. S. military forces are superior to any other country, but there is one thing that we do not have. China has a “population of 87 million exceeds most European nations”. 2 Many of these people are living in less fortunate conditions. You might even assume that they would prefer a better life, and the right leader could influence them to do so at the expense of other nations. We are vastly out numbered, so what makes our military forces superior? The answer is technology, industry, petroleum, and iron. Technology is always either for sale, or it can be gathered through espionage. China can buy the same level of technology from intermediaries or allied governments. Industry can be built with economic growth. Currently China is the number one growing economy in the world. It nearly controlled our petroleum supply domestically and failed, so China decided to buy petroleum from Saudi Arabia through German intermediaries. Now our gas prices are going through the roof and stock analysts are saying its some kind of market fluke created by a belief that oil prices will continue to soar. Iron, the main export that I would like to discuss, is five times its original price four years ago when China started buying up the world’s supply of raw iron. Right now, they are using this iron to create cranes and other machinery to export to the US and other nations, but most of the iron is being stockpiled in China for future use. What future use? We can only speculate. Why would China stockpile their ever-increasing supply of iron and still buy more, regardless of the price (literally)? What big plans do they have for such an immense stockpile of iron? Aren’t bullets, guns, factories, and tanks made out of iron? Absolutely, here is a piece of an article on the Chinese economy. “In recent years China’s booming economy, fueled by large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and rapid export growth, has emerged as a significant force in the global economy. This year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest recipient of FDI, and its bilateral trade surplus with the United States reached $117 billion in the 12 months up through August 2003. Both inward investment and export growth create strong demand for China’s currency, the Yuan. All things being equal, such demand pressures should cause the Yuan to appreciate relative to the U. S. dollar and cause China’s external position to return to balance. ”3Since China is the number one growing economy on the planet, they also have the number one growing currency relative to the US and other nations. Everyday China is become more industrialized. They used to be a purely state controlled economy, but they are starting to develop into more of a free economy in some areas. Overall, they are not shutting down as many businesses that do not pay the government officials regular bribes, which is definitely a move in the right direction. The US wants to encourage free trade with China because of their enormous population. This means that US companies would have access to a huge new market of consumers. It also means improving the quality of life in China. It is also widely known that many native Chinese women perform acts of prostitution or marry solely to support their family. It is also common in China to see people walking barefoot because they cannot afford sandals, or seeing people including children who are starving. China also has more than 300 organized crime syndicates with a history that goes back to the Shaolin Monks. China is a desperate nation, so desperate that they engage in foreign currency scams to inflate the value of the Renminbi (pronounced Yuan). In 2000, the exchange rate was 8. 3 Yuan per U. S. dollar. Today, the exchange rate is 7. 6 Yuan per US dollar. Here is the second piece of the article above. “But all things are not equal: China pegs the Yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate and strictly regulates imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. In order to maintain the Yuan’s fixed value, China must create a residual supply of Yuan to counter growing demand for its currency; China achieves this by buying dollars in foreign exchange markets. Between December 2000 and July 2003, China more than doubled its foreign reserve holdings from $168 billion (16% of its GDP) to $361 billion (31% of its GDP). ”4“How should the United States respond? On nine occasions between 1988 and 1992, the U. S. Treasury found that similar external surpluses accompanied by much smaller accumulation of foreign reserves constituted evidence that countries—including China—were manipulating their currency’s value for competitive trade advantage. When such a finding is made, U. S. law requires the Treasury Secretary to undertake negotiations to end such manipulation. Current evidence indicates that China is engaged in just such a manipulation of the Yuan for competitive gain. ”5Today, foreign “investment, combined with China’s swelling export earnings, have pushed the country’s foreign exchange reserves beyond $600 billion”. 6 One thing that I learned from experience is that desperate people and people that try to steal from others generally cannot be trusted. This is why, among all the other evidence I provided above, I do not think we should let the Chinese government do whatever they want. They should not have a majority of the world’s iron, petroleum or our country’s economic and physical security in the palm of their hands. What good are tanks and supply trucks that do not have gas? This may seem silly today, because we are not at war with China. In support of this opinion, many nations like Japan learned long ago that warfare in the physical sense is foolish and destructive, because it diminishes the productive capacity of the nation unless they can build new factories just as fast as their enemies can blow them up. Today, the real modern warfare is economics. If China shuts down U. S. companies that depend on buying iron at a certain price in order to earn a profit after U. S. labor costs, then they take our market share and our productive capacity depends on whether China will sell us what we need. Prices are good today because Chinese labor costs are low, but it will not stay that way according to economic theory. Eventually the FDI, which exceeds our nation, will create even more jobs and economic prosperity in China. The end-result will increase wages, and hopefully it will improve working conditions. However, if China does not sell to us anymore and they do the same bullying routine in other international markets, then we could be at a serious economic and military disadvantage. Should we trust China and believe that they want to change for the better? Here is an article that may shed some light on that question. “China wants to suspend human rights talks with the United States. The news came after Washington said yesterday that it will condemn Beijing’s serious violations with a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission currently underway in Geneva. The Chinese foreign minister called the action taken by the Americans a ‘serous meddling in China’s internal affairs. ’ China’s Vice Foreign7 Minister said the ‘clash intentionally provoked by the United States has now seriously damaged any basis for dialog and discussion on human rights issues between both countries. China must immediately suspend talks and discussion. ’ Yesterday, US State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, expressed the American government’s disappointment with Beijing’s inadequacies in improving human rights conditions in the country, after commitments it undertook in 2002 and 2003. Boucher also stressed Washington’s concern about ‘backward steps’ being taken by China, as reported in the American government’s world human rights report released last Feb. Last year the United States asked for a resolution, stating that Beijing had made limited, though significant progress in the sphere of human rights. The resolution was presented each year after the brutal repression of the student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. This year various human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, asked that the United States to put back a motion to blacklist Beijing. Even American trade union representatives requested that their government condemn China for the way it trades its labor force. Meanwhile Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty on China, reporting that the Chinese legal system does not guarantee fair trials and often punishes innocent persons. Yesterday the AI published a report titled ‘Executed according to law?’ ‘The report was released following statements made by a member of Chinese Parliament who said that every year there are at least 10,000 people sentenced to death in China 5 times more than all cases of capital punishment registered worldwide’. ”8The Chinese people are very much like our own with the exception that they communicate more through context and women are not valued very highly in their society. They also have four different cooking styles based on the four different regions. They speak different languages in each region, and they have a wide array of different traditions based on the former cultures that lived there before. China does not tolerate freedom of speech and they frequently kill anyone who is suspected on saying negative things about the current government. There is no defense orfair trial, and basic human rights are not valued by their government. Their economy is state controlled, but they are slowly changing into a free enterprise economy. I think that trading with China is mutually beneficial as long as they are not buying up significant amounts of raw materials that affect our national security. After the “911 attacks on New York and the Pentagon”, security measures at the ports are very strict in the US. 9 The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle have cameras, tall fences, and security personal strategically placed. They also conduct more customs inspections than before, and canines are commonly used to find people and contraband. The US also has a satellite system that detects nuclear radiation, infrared (heat signatures), records and filters every electronic conversation in the US, and video records the activities of the world’s ports. They also pay very close attention to refrigerated and abnormally heavy containers for biological weapons and shielded nuclear material. China does not perform any significant security measures other than custom inspections accompanied by armed guards. Custom inspectors frequently accept bribes to expedite export and import processing, which creates a huge delay for companies who did not pay bribes or paid less. Dogs are also used for detecting contraband, but they use german sheppards instead of beagles. German sheppards are know to be effective in chasing down people and enforcing security. However, beagles have two hundred times the ability to smell contraband. This means that their port security is seriously lacking unless they physically inspect every crate, which they do not normally do whenever a bribe is taken to expedite the customs process. Recently, the Port of Tacoma purchased three cranes from China to unload containers off the ships. They purchased scrap iron from suppliers in Washington State, melted the iron down, manufactured the cranes, and sold them back to us for less than domestic companies could make them. Inventories of iron are currently state managed and exceed “70% of iron imports internationally”. 10 US laws regarding customs are identified as governing security measures domestically. Otherwise, maritime laws apply to shipments. The political ramifications of cutting off certain resources to China will make them an enemy. In order for the US to be effective at cutting off the massive purchasing campaign of iron by China, it will need allies who are all the current trading partners to do the same thing. However, this would also make them enemies of China, and suppliers are becoming very wealthy by selling their raw materials for a higher price to China. This means that international trading partners must have a significant reason to cut China off or limit them other than the US’s economic prosperity. Culturally we also have to consider that the Chinese want a better life, and they want independence. It is unlikely that the US will be able to push the Chinese government into giving their people human rights without completely replacing their government or waiting a significant number of years for their human rights policies to catch up with the rest of the civilized countries in the world. Geographically, China has taken over Hong Kong, which is the largest shipping location of Chinese imports and exports. The decision of the Chinese government to take over Hong Kong assures their ability to distribute goods internationally without major changes in worldwide distribution. Economically, we must understand that China has a lot to offer in terms of cheap labor and outsourcing, but it may come with a steep cost in the near future. Letters of credit are guaranteed by international banks in Malaysia and China based on current deposits. This insures payment on receipt of goods for both imports and exports. The global marketing process for government contracts is the same as it is in the US. Foreign bidders are required to send a proposal to the government authority issuing the contract. Whether they choose to buy or not from a foreign source is a balance between price driven economics and supporting local companies. China has no restrictions on the treatment of their employees, the ages of workers, the hours they work, the healthcare of employees or their working conditions. US employers must abide by laws concerning the treatment of minors, paying overtime, paying wages, paying health and unemployment benefits, discrimination, etc. Foreign investment in China is carefully controlled in specific sectors and industries. Foreign investment in the US is allowed as long as it does not negatively impact our national security. This is why the US government stopped China from purchasing a controlling position in the U. S. ’s primary oil supplier. However, it is almost a guarantee that they will try again. If you choose to do business in China, please carefully consider the implications of your actions. Making a great profit is very important, but it can never come at the expense of our lives, the lives of our children or the world’s stability and security. I think the world has a great opportunity everyday to change for the greater good, maybe our enemies will decide that building a better world for everyone is better than petty arguments over land, money and religion. BibliographyFlannery, Russell. At Your Service, China! New York, NY: Forbes, 2007Goodman, Peter S. China Ends Fixed-Rate Currency. Washington DC: Washington Post, 2005Hersh, Adam S. China’s currency manipulation and U. S. trade. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003http://www. epinet. org/content. cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_10302003seHill, Charles W. L. Global Business Today 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2008R. , M. Beijing suspends human rights talks with United States. Geneva: Asia News, 2004 http://www. asianews. it/view4print. php?l=en&art=524

“What is Wrong with Black People?” (ISBN 978-1-84799-323-6), is the book in which the answer to this question can be found. In fact, this is a book that simply personifies a totally different type of intuition, where the most unsuspected – yet, the most damning – causes of the suffering of the people of Africa as well as the struggles of their brothers and cousins of the West are not only laid open with courage, but also resolved with vision, for a greater understanding of the true needs and aspirations of Africans in today’s world.

Please read Author’s Introduction to the book:

The very simple reason why I want to face up to the question as to what is wrong with Black people is because there is so much that has been said and written about it, but which, far from improving the Black man’s condition, has rather made things even worse for him, due to a set of oxymoronic conceptions and psychotic attitudes that have been spawned by the emotional dispositions of most – if not all – of the best known scholars and intellectuals who have, thus far, attempted to explore the issue.

Therefore, what we are going to do in this book is to clarify a number of things related to the most fundamental misconceptions that have resulted from these dispositions; misconceptions that have remained almost totally insurmountable to the rest of us.

By so doing, what we are going to achieve is to show where they are all missing the point. We are going to put into the open the true reasons for the Black race to have become a Karmic target on earth. And our main objective in this exercise is to suggest a more effective way to break the Karmic cycle, to turn the Black man into a dignified human; a human that it shall no longer feel so good to brutalise anywhere in the world.

We are prepared to achieve this by all means that abide by the Laws of the Spirit. If it ought to take altering Karmic targets, then we are going to have to do it that way for the sake of the Black man’s redemption and dignity in the world. We are going to have to make it possible for another race to take the place of the Black race in this bad Karma; or we are going to have to force God to cancel the bad Karma altogether.

But, in order to do either, we need to be enlightened, wise, objective, and courageous enough to confront some discomforting issues that have taken the bad habit to make people cringe. We need a serious anti-allergy treatment – anti-political correctness therapy – if we should ever be able to make sense of what is actually wrong with Black people; and perhaps, too, to make sense of what is wrong with White people on their side, since they are the main torturers or Black people; but above all, to make sense of the point that we are all missing in the debate on what is now known as the African condition.

To prepare the reader to the type of methodology that we are going to employ all along this exploration, I need to undo the riddle as off now, with no need to beat around the bush, by enunciating that the point that we are missing in this debate is an anthropological point; and perhaps a spiritual point too; but anthropology is above spirituality.

Anthropology is the science that studies human collectivities on a purely cultural angle. It explores human entities as related to the essence and substance – nature and manifestation – of the trans-individual soul that defines their cultural existence. In better words, Anthropology studies the nurtural factors that ensure perceptive congruity, communicative harmony and behavioural affinity between human entities that, by the force of these nurtural concordances between them all, and which result in the fuelling of societal instinction (gregarious impulse), are, thus, known as a group of people pertaining to one specific identifiable cultural community.

This is the concern of Anthropology, which is very different from the concern of Biology. Biology, on the other hand, is the science that studies living beings on a purely anatomical angle. It explores the structure and the functioning of their body as independent organic units.

To be clear, the practical difference between Anthropology and Biology is such that if a man is born affected by one of those neuromotor syndromes that lead to the type of condition that the Anglo-Saxons euphemistically and politically correctly often refer to as “severe learning disability” – the kind of people who spend their entire lives slumped speechless and almost motionless in a wheelchair, drooling, urinating and defecating like newborn babies with no control over their own being – such a man can still be the object of biological study, since he has a body inside which we find a set of organic systems that can be explored by biologists, except for the fact that his spinal system will be reported as deficient. But no one would be able to lead an anthropological study on such a man, since the man would not be an active member of any known cultural community, with the capacity to take in and retain data related to his cultural heritage in a way to be equipped, from nurture, with the aptitude to achieve harmonious interaction with other members of his cultural universe as a society of individuals each one of which is a living medium of expression and manifestation of the values, qualities and abilities developed by the group as experienced in the group’s mode of existence. Such a man would simply not be a representative sample of any cultural community at all; since he would not be able to think, speak and behave in a way that would precisely help anyone to identify him as a German or a Russian. Therefore, an anthropologist would have nothing to learn out of his soul; although a biologist will have an entire universe to transcribe out of his body.

This is the difference between these two scientific disciplines. One deals with the soul whereas the other one deals with the body; and neither deals with both.

For us to make any sense of anything that is going to be said in this book, this is the one fundamental differentiation that we need to assimilate. We don’t need to know more than that if we are to understand this book; because this is where the whole issue that we are going to tackle in this book lies; however naïve this might sound, but the implications of this naïve enunciation are, however, surprisingly astonishing, as we are going to see.

The premeditated ignorance that the experts of modern “popular science” and social politics have ruminated and injected to the masses regarding the thick line between Anthropology and Biology is the one single phenomenon that has made it impossible for anyone to make any sense of the reasons why the Black race has become a Karmic target in today’s world; due to the fact that these experts have been busy using concepts from both scientific disciples as if they were dealing with one field. In fact, they have created an amalgamated version of both sciences; which has limited our understanding of what anthropology is about, and has even made it impossible for us to make use of anthropological knowledge to solve problems arising from anthropological phenomena in human existence, since we sometimes believe that we are dealing with biological phenomena when it is not the case at all.

This is why I need you, dear reader, to pay careful attention to the meaning of the words that we are going to use all along this discussion; because what we are essentially going to do is to disclose the spirit behind these words with courage and virulence irrespective of sensitivities; but above all, we are going to be able to identify which words belong to which science. The end product of this methodology is the enactment of the compelling divorce between Anthropology and Biology, so that we may be able to make sense of the whole issue of Black people’s troublesomeness in today’s world.

We therefore need to begin by making a serious effort to stop cheating on language; because the more we cheat on language, the less we can take hold of the phenomena of existence that language alone has the ability to render understandable. I therefore thank Jean Gilbert Enal who, in the preface to this book, has reminded us how seriously we need to take the word “understanding” in this discussion.

But understanding itself is closely related to realism. It is very difficult, and even impossible, to understand something unless we can observe or visualise an instance of it from the mechanics of the real world. This is why what we are committed to do in this exploration is to analyse facts with concision and punctuality rather than feeding the reader with extensive literary references.

Literary referencing is incumbent on literature and scholarship. We are not interested in either. We do downright phenomenology; because we do not believe in the modern intellectual and academic disease that holds that the force of an argument resides in how much quoting it contains. We have read many such books with hundreds and thousands of literary references, but that do not provide any practical, productive solutions to any real problem. This is why we rather believe that the force of an argument resides in how much pertinent it is to any real something.

We believe in rational perception and technical objectivity; because we see existence, be it animal, mineral, vegetal, radioactive or spiritual, as a machine; a machine that has its own technical applications governed by mechanical rules. Human existence itself, which is our main object in this discussion, is, too, as we see and know it, only another machine, like any other machine, with its own technical wheel-work.

This is why we want to call upon the spirit of anthropology to give us a big hand in this exercise; because anthropology is the only science that is fit for the exploration of the technicalities that govern the mechanics of human existence, and more particularly the mechanics of societal viability in human existence (because it is from the point of societal viability that humanity is viable as a whole). A human society is to an anthropologist what an engine is to a mechanic. He may not have devised it. But he knows its nature and understands its mechanics. He knows its structure, its functions and its values. He knows its core, its volume and its scope. He knows its location, its situation and its identification. An anthropologist sees human beings as industrial parts that are produced and shaped to fit in unique patterns of interconnection and operation in specific types of machines (human societies). And the object of an anthropologist is to seek to identify the nurtural factors that define the collective soul of the specific group of people of his study as reflected in the values that govern their mode of existence as a cultural community.

This is what anthropologists do. The type of ‘anthropologists’ that have been going around the world taking measurements of human skulls are not anthropologists. They are something else. But this does not discredit anthropology as a scientific discipline. It only discredits fake anthropologists. And those who wish to insist on calling them ‘anthropologists’ are as ignorant and fake as these so-called anthropologists themselves.

These ignorant and fake anthropologists were like the Western priests who were sent down to Africa to spread goodness, but who used basements of their own buildings as slave transits. Many Western churches still undertake similar obscure practices all over Black Africa until today. But this does not discredit religious missions. It only discredits fake missionaries. We only need to be able to make the difference between real ones and fake ones before it is too late for our own sake.

Indeed, to have the ability to make the difference between reality and fakery – and most particularly Western fakery – is the second most important thing that we need to assimilate in this discussion if we are to have a proper understanding of what is going to be said in this book; because Western fakery, as we are going to see it, is central to Black people’s detrimental plight in modern history. Many of us have thought, for centuries, that we have been dealing with Western barbarity. But this is just not the case at all. We have been dealing with Western fakery; sometimes turned into some form of barbarity. But Western barbarity itself, as we are going to see, is only a face of Western fakery.

In fact, most – if not all – of the philosophical and scientific misconceptions that have led to the misapprehension of the reasons why the Black race has become a Karmic target in modern history are but the products of Western fakery; which, at its origin, was effected by the use of a very subtle technique; the one which consists in throwing a stone where the target is not, to force the enemy to shoot on the wrong spot.

If we check it out, we will find that when the people of Europe began to raid those of Africa five-hundred years ago with the intention to subdue them in all forms of exploitation, here and there alike, most European nations, especially those that were deeply involved in the enterprise, were already quite advanced in their knowledge of some important principles of human development. The evidence is that they were powerful enough to undertake such an intellectually, scientifically, technologically, economically, politically, militarily, and even spiritually demanding enterprise as to cross thousands of oceanic miles to negotiate the purchase of ten million people to be set to work across another thousands of oceanic miles. Ignorants do not succeed in tasks of such magnitude.

Moreover, since the notion of race does not seem to have any space in Western medieval and classical philosophies, but rather the fight for the consolidation of cultures, the illumination of the human mind through metaphysical exploration, the transcendence of the human spirit through artistic inspiration, the improvement of human existence through the exploitation of nature etc. etc. , which made Western societies very competent in the first place, it goes without saying that the Europeans equally knew, as they know till this today, that the thing that turns human communities into powerful political structures and successful civilisational models does not have much to do with skin colour.

But, because they did not want the ignorant peoples of Africa to know anything about their real source of power and success, or because they needed to divert their attention from such precious knowledge, they began to throw stones at race, to create an empty target in the battle field.

I believe that we can visualise the reaction from the other side – the panicky turnaround, the frantic ravaging of empty spots, the waste of ammunitions, but most of all, the fatal exposure of the nervous shooter in the visual field of a very shrewd enemy. Actually, we can see it in our everyday life – race, race, race and race, again and again, everywhere, out of the mouths and pens of the peoples of Africa as well as their brothers and cousins of the West.

It is this strategic injection of the race mentality to Black servants by their White masters – the enthronement of Biology in all things related to humanity, even non biological things – that has resulted in the total diversion of our attention from the anthropological point that we are all missing in this exploration. We have come to a point where people believe that certain things happen to them because of their skin colour even when skin colour has very little – or even nothing – to do with what happens to them.

But such a chronic transmutation of causalities only holds from the fact that biology has taken over many other scientific disciplines, and most particularly anthropology, due to the blinding racial veil that has fallen upon both the buffalo soldier and the elephant veteran at war with an enemy that they cannot see; an enemy that knows how to throw stones away from its own location; an enemy that knows how to make piece in the evening and plot to assault overnight; an enemy that knows how to break all rules of engagement in such a subtle way that the violations can be barely established; in a word, an enemy that knows how to fake its moves to mislead a distracted fighter. Is this really an enemy, or just a shrewd player?

The Chinese say: “a good hunter does not keep aiming at the branch on which a monkey was perched after the monkey has jumped on to the next branch. ” It seems that during the days of submission both in slavery and colonialism, the White man played a set of games which fitted into the rules of slavery and colonialism to alienate and brutalise the Black man. But as emancipation and independence came, the games had to move on to fit into the rules of emancipation and independence to carry on the same exercise in a very subtle way. As a consequence, in either case, a new order has failed to bring a new condition, not necessarily because in a purely logical universe emancipation and independence are at odds with freedom and sovereignty, but because the establishment of these new orders did not actually aim to the inauguration of new conditions. It was only all about faking moves. Unfortunately, our blind soldiers and distracted veterans could not see how fake the moves were.

To take a few examples, President Abraham Lincoln himself, the very father of the American Negro’s emancipation (I am using the term ‘Negro’ here because it semantically fits into this context), did not choke on his words whence he declared that he was not interested in the freedom of the Negro, but rather in the union of America; which resulted in him holding on to the position that if he could unite America without setting the Negro free, he would do so. But if setting the Negro free was the only road to uniting America, then he would have to set the Negro free for the sake of union. In President Lincoln’s own mind, the emancipation of the Negro was not an end, but a means to an end. Quite naively, it was taken for an end by many.

Approximately ninety years later, President Charles de Gaulle, the father of Africa’s decolonisation, found himself in a similar situation on the other side of the Atlantic, whence he did, too, very diplomatically spouse an identical position by propounding that he was not interested in the decolonisation of Africa. All he was interested in was to make peace with Africa on the issue of the Africans who had died to liberate France from German occupation and in the name of whom many Africans were now requesting some kind of political payment – independence –; which resulted in de Gaulle holding on to the position that if he could make peace with Africa and keep colonialism, he would do so. But if decolonisation was the only road to making peace with Africa, then he would have to decolonise Africa for the sake of peace. Again, in President de Gaulle’s mind, decolonisation was not an end, but a means to an end. Quite naively, again, many saw an end in it.

As a consequence, neither did the Emancipation Proclamation stop brutality on Black Americans, nor did the promulgation of African independences stop the savage exploitation of Black African lands by the West. Why? – Because these measures were actually not intended for a practical enactment of their pledges. They were only fake moves. And there are millions of such fake moves in the history of Western legislations, conventions and policies that are set up to give the impression of improvement in matters of the treatment of the Black man, to cover the fierce fight behind closed doors to keep the Black man in a ‘brutalisable’ condition.

One could go even much further back in time to make this point by advancing that William Wilberforce’s noble battle for the abolition of the slave trade was not itself due to the sympathy that the Anglo-Saxons might have felt for the slaves; but rather because, after the Anglo-Saxons succeeded in building the most powerful colony of population on earth (the USA) by means of slavery, they feared competition from the Portuguese and the Spanish who then began to take a keen interest in treading into their footsteps by importing Africans for Brazil and Cuba. As a strategy to win the impending competition they decided, instead, to enact the abolition of the means of competition for their competitors.

Of course, this is not how the enterprise was presented to you. It was presented to you as a highly moral and humanistic Christian godly endeavour; there is very little wonder that you believe in “Amazing Grace”.

Yet, if sympathy for the slaves was the motivation for the abolition, why did it come about that when slavery was abolished, the English government gave financial compensation to former slave owner; but there was no such support for the slaves. I cannot be more surprised that the Anglo-Saxons actually did this because of their great humanistic sense of mercy for the victims of slavery rather than for the perpetrators of slavery. Yet, this is how many people still see it today. They even celebrate abolition centenaries.

I see the most recent replicate of this pattern of fake moves (the abolition of the means of competition for the competitor) in today’s war on nuclear weaponry. Nuclear proliferation needs abolishing, not because of the risks of human destruction entailed in its possession and use, but rather because there are some people who must not have it; otherwise the competition is going to be too fair to win; which might dangerously turn ‘human values’ upside down in case things went the other way.

Here, it seems that the surest way to win the competition is to sabotage the competitor’s rehearsal, to eschew fairness. But you have to do it very subtly in a way that no one would see anything.

But since you know that you cannot win such an argument on purely dialectic grounds, considering that the use of nuclear weaponry has often proved to be an effective coercive capability to impel belligerent parties to abdicate and make peace unconditionally; and sometimes a dissuasive deterrent to prevent the launching of the hostilities in the first place – as recognised by political scientist John Mearsheimer, that “had Iraq and Serbia possessed nuclear weapons, the United States might not have gone to war” –; then, you have to close the argument by making it clear that only angels deserve to have this type of capability; not devils. In this situation, the urge to score a point against some die-hard devils who seem unwilling to give up competition forces into being the initiation of some form of diplomatic channels through which the devils are persuaded to sign compensatory deals which it would also be too naïve to expect the trickiest heirs of modern intelligence to comply with.

I recently saw President Muammar Gaddafi of Libya complaining about the promises that were made to him by the Anglo-Saxons upon agreeing to abandon his nuclear ambitions; promises that have never been fulfilled. Why? Because the Anglo-Saxons decided to rescind their compliance with these promises in 2005 before their accountability could be fully investigated and established, leaving all potential recipients with no option but to forget about it. In the meantime, the unfortunate recipients will already have destroyed their nuclear facilities. This is a very shrewd game, indeed!

Noam Chomsky, one of the most influential political thinkers of our time, exposes these Western manoeuvres in his recent book, Failed States (2006), where he demonstrates, with the upmost impressive number of policy references, Anglo-America’s failure to comply with its political rhetoric; to meet its obligations in questions related to security, human rights, and democratic principles, including the surprising practice, among others, of protecting its own protégé ‘terrorists’ such as Luis Posada Carriles whilst championing the so-called ‘war on terror’. The game is very shrewd!

However, my own feeling is that, by referring to the states that make use of this type of manoeuvres as failed states, Chomsky may himself have failed to see that these practices do not actually express failure. Rather, they express fakery – trickery.

To take one case brought to light by Chomsky himself, in May 2002, Judge Goldsmith advised Prime Minister Blair in a leaked memo that “given the patent criminality of regime change by invasion, it would be necessary to create the conditions in which we [the Anglo-Saxons] could legally support military action; seeking to provoke Iraq into some action that could be portrayed as casus belli [cause for war]”.

Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to assert that any action that led to the bombing of Iraq was a failed action. – No. Instead, they were all fake actions, tricky provocations. You may call them ‘unjust actions’ if you wish. But my business is not to use religious or dogmatic terminology to construct inflaming propaganda through the condemnation of the frivolous behaviour of those who have the power to destroy others, however unjustly. All moralists have done it. They are still doing it. Not only is it boring; it is also ineffective. The truth of the matter is that the will to power is unswerving until it confronts power. This is why I do not believe in “injustice”. I use the word because it exists in human language and refers to certain facts. But the interpretation of these facts is distorted at large by the practitioners of dogma and propaganda.

Indeed, trying to differentiate between “injustice” and “justice” by means of moral interpretation is like trying to distinguish “crime” from “sin” by means of technical objectivity. It is almost impossible.

For example, if a man who suffers absolute impecuniosity in a self-centred and highly regulated society enters a shop instinctively after a few days with no food in his stomach and walks out of that shop furtively with a chocolate bar in his pocket before he pays for it, a judiciary review between the shopkeeper’s advocates and God’s chaplains may be hardly conclusive; because, on the one hand, such a man will be committing a crime; but, on the other hand, he will not be committing a sin at all, although he will be stealing in either case. I have seen such cases resulting in what is commonly known as “suspended sentences” where

most claimants often go crazy about the verdict.

They want to see the thief severely punished, but there is something called “common sense” that often tells the judges that some crimes are due to natural impulses rather than evil intentions. Is it unjust to leave criminals unpunished in such cases? – Otherwise, what would be just?

This brings us to the reason why I don’t believe in “justice” either; not least of all on the grounds of my distaste for the fact that justice is almost never practised as laid down in texts, but most essentially because the vast majority of legal texts are themselves only multiple standard tricks. And when you add to these tricks an indefinable degree of adjudicatory discretion, you find yourself dealing with personal opinions rather than selfless rulings. There is no wonder that appeal systems exist.

Additional to this sad reality is the fact that not only is justice confounded with vengeance in most people’s minds, it is equally true that vengeance is itself a ground on which justice plays without a referee (the self-defence argument); which leaves the referees with no choice but to arbiter the games after the final whistle has been blown by the players themselves.

Under such circumstances the parties that tell the best story to the referees win the game. And most of the time, it is the parties that have learned the art of faking injuries that win it. And when reporters are, sometimes, called upon to give testimony, the referees often seem to give more credit to sensational testimonies than clinical testimonies; because this is just how it goes. Fouls are scarcely punished for, but foul reports are, for certain.

When you add to these arbitral uncertainties another string of cover-up strategies characterised by conceptual relativisms, terminological subtleties, regulatory misgivings, and ‘technical’ exemptions, which include social standing, political influence and financial – and other sources of – power, you find yourself confronted with justice systems that personify the very type of modern political intelligence that Chomsky is forced to refer to as “failure” in his desperate attempt to make sense of the underpinnings of Anglo-Saxon foreign policy –

“foreign justice”. But this is no failure. It is fakery.

“Failure” takes place when you don’t get the desired results; when things don’t turn up as expected. That is only when we talk about failure.

Take, for instance, the Christian principle of ‘anointed sacrifices’. [Please, forget about religion; just listen to the argument]. Although it might have been painful for God to watch one of his preferred segments on earth being savagely tortured on the Calvary, but delivering a man to torture did, yet, achieve the results that God desired – the redemption of the fallen. Did God fail because a man’s blood was shed? – No. On the contrary, it was that very blood that was needed for the fallen ones to be redeemed. There was no failure. There was just a painful exchange between what He wanted to get and what He needed to give away.

In parallel, if neglecting relentless warnings of attack on New York was going to get the Twin Towers down at some point, which would give the Anglo-Saxons some kind of reason – however unsubstantiated – to overthrow the Talebans and topple Saddam Hussein, as they did, indeed, did they fail because, along the way, they had to sacrifice a few thousands of their own soldiers, a few hundred thousands of Middle Eastern people, and destroy a certain amount of infrastructure in the countries to invade?

For my part, as much as I believe in God’s success in redeeming the fallen ones by means of shedding the blood of one of us, I also believe in the success of the Anglo-Saxons in their strategic appropriation of part of the Middle East by means of killing and destruction.

But there is one difference to make between the two (and you will have to pardon me for bringing this to light). God is not a hypocrite. God makes it clear that one man has to go down for the rest of human souls to get off the devil’s hook. And He does not regret or pretend to regret His ruthless decision to deliver His chosen sacrifice to brutality as long as He gets the results that He desires. This is how sovereign and truthful God is.

The Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, will kill and destroy their chosen sacrifices to get the results that they desire – the acquisition of two brand new colonies in the heart of the Middles East to be turned into client states, not to mention gas and oil, and reconstruction business opportunities, and many other strategic reasons for them to need military settlements in the region such as ensuring the protection of the Jews as well as getting a much closer range view on Iran and Syria and many other non-compliant states around.

But what is happening here – and this is the trick – is that once they get the result that they desire through killings and destructions, they then begin to moan over their own killings and destructions, to give you the impression that they did not mean to kill and destroy. They would even, at times, stage strong parliamentary and congressional opposition against their own actions; there would even be times when they would bluntly organise stern marches and demonstrations against themselves, or even set up commissions of inquiry on a few selected blunders, all of which is intended to give you the impression that something has not gone to plan. As a result, you end up, under the pressure of these tricks, convinced that something is absolutely wrong. Yet, it is only a trick, a very serious trick – to create misimpressions.

If you are one of those who wish to believe that the continual blunders in the Middle East, and more particularly in Iraq, should be seen as a sign of failure, then you may need to be taught that this is, indeed, what the trick is all about. To keep the mess going on to facilitate the smuggling of resources and secure multi-billion dollar/pound contracts for security companies, not to mention many other types of services of first necessity to be provided on a regular basis in a chaotic situation leading to humanitarian crises, such as medicines, food, water, electricity and so on. Is this not a good enough reason to keep the mess on, although some corporations and associations of individuals are set up to keep moaning over the whole thing for the game to keep playing its tune?

Of course, you don’t stop a lucrative mess, do you? – No. So you need to keep the place messy for a while. But you need to be able to use your intelligence to shift responsibility from your own reasons for keeping the place messy to someone else’s actions. You need to be able to tell the world that “the place is messy because there are some evil monsters hiding in caves who want to do harm to innocent people. So, the place needs a good clean-up so that it can be safe and prosperous after the monsters have been exterminated. Therefore, since most die-hard monsters are always difficult to exterminate, the clean-up is going to have to take some time before the place is completely clear!”

In fact, we are dealing with a pretence clean-up that is set up to take exactly as much time as is needed for the desired results to be driven in full. In this situation, withdrawal plans are made on the basis of the estimation of the amount of time left for the enterprise to derive the predicted gains in full. And, believe me: once the predicted gains are derived in full, all remaining monsters will be left alive, and no one will talk about them anymore as constituting an obstacle for the prosperity of the place. And that is most often the right time to fake peace process encounters, as if the monsters were suddenly hit by God, to make peace. Yet, this is because, once the desired results are driven in full, the monsters are no longer needed by the propaganda strategy that invented them in the first place. That’s a great game, indeed.

Those who are not interested in paying some attention to what is going on in the world today are free to believe in chanceful timing in precisely this kind of situations. At the end of the day, this is what the game is all about – to manipulate perception; to make use of mediagenic sensationalism; to make it possible for people to convene that it is true, indeed, that these people are monsters; but above all, that “there is no much that can be done to improve the condition of the poor innocent people of the Middle East until the monsters are fully exterminated. There is very little wonder that Alexis Tocqueville has had to refer to this game as the thing that made it possible for the Anglo-Saxons “to exterminate the Indian race without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. ”

How did they do that? – Very easy! – They did it through the use of such upliftingly vilifying rhetoric against the human integrity of the Indians to such an extent that the entire world ended up convinced that the Indians were so vile that they did, indeed, deserved to be exterminated.

We are surely going to need another four-hundred years before we realise that today’s Middle Eastern monsters; the ones that deserve to be exterminated without one single great principle of morality being violated in the eyes of today’s world are, too, but innocent humans struggling to survive in their own lands, as were the Indians four-hundred years ago. But the game has to keep playing its tune, just for now!

This is the game that has characterised the main principle behind Western manoeuvres over the under-civilised world; the world of those whom the West needs to brutalise for gain and dominance; a game that consists in creating misimpressions, so well crystallised in the propagation of this new type of intelligence that recommends that you say what you don’t think and do what you don’t say; as expressed, for instance, in the pretentious advocacy for what is known in the Anglo-Saxon world as “equal opportunities”; that noble enunciation – “equal opportunities” – but under which you are, quite bizarrely, still required to tick a box for your blood. Things that are “equal” do not fall into different boxes, do they?

In fact, what we are confronting in the face of this game is the question of the place and value of the principle of “universality” and even considerably more so in terms of “universal equality” between humans. When the civilised people of the West say “equal something” as referring to inter-human relations, what do they mean? Do they mean that they may exist equally, but not considered equally? Or do they mean that they may be considered equally, but not judged equally? Or do they mean that they may be judged equally, but not retributed equally? […?] Because, at the end of the day, equality must end somewhere, at some point, since they are eventually dropped into different boxes.

Is this Western principle of equality between humans only a matter of selecting a few faces from all races to be utilised in organised Western media games where they are set up to interact together in a way to force themselves to try to bombard the world with the dogmatic – but most certainly fake – idea that they are all equal? Do we really need to take all these troubles to try and prove that we are equal? Who told us that in order for us to respect our fellow humans we need the precondition that we be equal first? Equal in matters of what? By means of what type of metrics do we establish equality between humans? Because, here is the question: if some humans have the power to crash into others, conquer and enslave them, destroy their inheritances, and rule over them along which exercise they brutalise them and rape their lands in total impunity, how do we prove the principle of equality between humans? Do we even need humans to be equal for them to be humans?

You may now be thinking: “what a crazy idea to trash human equally legislations and codes of practice!” But, this is not my point. My point is that between what you are told and what is verifiably true on the question of who is good and who is evil on God’s earth; or on the question of who deserves life and who deserves extermination; or on the question of who has the right to do what and who has not, or on the question of who is equal to whom and who is not, the primordial principle, before all considerations, is such that the human being is not something that needs equality conventions to be human. It does not even need to be human in the first place. All it needs is to be able to compete; because it is by the force of its ability to compete with other entities of its own genus that it truly is what it fundamentally is.

On this note, this book is, first, a vital socio-political exercise in modern history to request the liberalisation of means of competition for all humans; because humanity is not a doctrinal temple where to preach morals and goodness.

Neither is it a dogmatic theatre where to confront creeds and ideologies. Nor is it a constraining harem where to summon inhibitions. Humanity is a place where intelligent beings coexist and evolve. They coexist by the force of some fundamental mechanisms that establish their inherent nature, irrespective of morals and gospels – mechanisms that govern their ability to produce offspring and fight for its survival; mechanisms that dictate their feeling of family bond; mechanisms that control their relations with others etc. etc. And they evolve by the force of some other fundamental mechanisms that are set off by their inner faculties, irrespective of ideologies and regulations – mechanisms that guide their sense of perception and judgement; mechanisms that fuel their aspiration for an always perfectible perfection; but, above all, mechanisms that command their societal instinction. Because this is, indeed, what humanity is – an aggregation of societal clusters, each one of which is constituted by affined parts that are produced and assimilated to unique patterns of interconnection and operation; but most importantly, guided by a unique mode of vision and expression; a mode of vision and expression that remains fundamentally open to the rest of the extant world for exchange and mutual enrichment; yet, free to recoil from it when matters of self-preservation become paramount.

This intuition is a gift that we have all procured from creation and evolution; a gift that is meant to be respected for humanity to be humanity. Respect for one’s own way of existence, and respect for one’s neighbours’ ways of existence. But, above all, respect for everyone’s ability to compete by his own way of existence as well as the different valuable means of competition that proceed from these different ways of existence.

What is wrong with Western intelligence in the face of this principle is its fraudulent subtleties; its ability to fake its moves. Some time ago, when we used to go for a conquest, we used to call it ‘conquest’. And the world watching us knew what to expect from us. Today, when we set out for a conquest, we rather call it ‘liberation. ’ And from the confusion between what we do and what we say, and the incurring brouhaha of supputations and speculations that creep up at the pace of our blundering gallops towards human annihilation, the world ends up with no clear idea of what to expect from us. Is this what defines Western intelligence – duplicity?

I was, yet, to presume that the improvements that we have made in our knowledge and understanding of the nature of the human being over the past thousand years should not make it possible anymore for any human community to cherish the belief that another community may need crashing into; otherwise this amounts to denying conscience and existence to others. And, although some of us may keep arguing that the intention of those who have often crashed into others – personified in imperialism and colonialism – has never been to deny them conscience and existence, but rather to improve them, the question is: to improve them in matters of what?

Some used to propound that they needed to be taught about speech. Yet, we now know that there is not one single human community born and raised mute.

Others have expounded that they needed to be taught about God. Yet, we now know that there is not one single human community that does not have its own theogonic system of belief.

Many others have vaunted that they needed to be taught about how to treat their females. Yet, we now know that there is not one single human community on earth that does not know how to treat its females.

Some others have responded by saying that they needed to be taught about freedom. Yet, we now know that there is not one single human community on earth only constituted of prisoners.

It has also been voiced that they need to be taught about good governance. Yet, we now know that there is not one single human community on earth that does not have a sound way of running itself.

At times, the emphasis has been put on the need to teach them about technology. Yet, we now know that there is not one single human community that does not have an identifiable form of technological development.

In other words, we have improved a lot in our knowledge and understanding of all this. But, above all, we have achieved an even much sharper improvement in our awareness of the fact that, whatever the motivations for crashing into others might be, most communities that undergo this type of intervention end up disoriented, corrupt, self-destructive, and unproductive to their own wellbeing and, therefore, to the wellbeing of the human enterprise as a whole, since we are all constituents of the human enterprise, however much would some of us want to exclude others from it. Tony Blair’s “scar on human conscience” has no other reason, but for this.

There is, thus, a pressing need for us to acknowledge our duty to stop crashing into others and start observing some respect for the principles of human coexistence – to make it possible for each human collectivity to be left to enjoy its own Eden in its own tastes and mode of existence, to explore its own genius for its own improvement in its own mode of vision and expression, to advance at its own pace without having to be bombarded with fake crusades and poisonous liberations.

We need to understand that it is not necessary for some of us to feel irritated when they see others muddling in repugnant rusticity due to their very high level of civilisational retardation. We should not worry about changing others more than the Father in Heaven is Himself worried about their change; because change is like death. It always comes in the end. And when change comes, as it always comes, in order for it to be true, it must come from inside; not from outside. It must proceed from an internal willingness for improvement, rather than from an external whim for alteration. And when it comes from inside, as it has to come from inside, if this should entail exploring and emulating better functioning external models, it must be the burden of those willing to change to emulate the models that fit them, but should not be incumbent upon those eager to impose change. And, if all those who are not yet willing to change should be excluded from the so-called “international community” for failing to fulfil the conditions required by such a structure, I suggest that they be left alone. And if no one should do business with them for this reason, so be it! But let no one disturb them either, until they change, by themselves.

The European Union itself has done it by leaving many nations that are yet on the European continent out of the club for failing to meet the conditions required; and those that have been taken in have been taken in one by one, or wave by wave, on individual merits. Why should the United Nations not proceed alike? Is this Western mentality of multiple standards manoeuvres and fake moves completely irrational?

On this point, this book is, secondly, a compelling anthropo-political exercise in human history to spell out the real challenges that await each individual human community; but above all, to show that there is not one single human community on earth that be with no values; and therefore that all humans have the ability and the right to rediscover their true intrinsic values by which they can change by themselves, rather than giving in to the imperialistic fake moves the intention behind which has always been to corrupt other people’s values; to turn other human communities into mere sets of servants and clients.

To achieve this, what we are going to do is to strip up the fake heraldic moves that the European conquerors have employed to shape out and settle in a perpetual state of ignorance, corruption, self-destruction, and political chaos all over the under-civilised world.

Now – and this is the point – when we remember that the Black African world has been the main target of European assaults over the past five-hundred years, we should have a pretty clear idea of how big a role Western fakery may have played in the detrimental plight of the people of Black Africa in today’s world; which has, by ricochet, extended to the plight of all people of Black African stock all over the world, and who constitute a considerable lump of what we now refer to as “Black people”.

Therefore, the exercise that we are assigned to carry out in this book is to look into the philosophical, scientific and political manoeuvres that the Western world has employed to shape out and settle in a state of total decadence in the lives and minds of today’s Black people, as now fully manifest in Black people’s inability to make sense of the principles of human development, as well as the existential inflictions that have resulted from this state of things and that have turned Black people’s lives into an infernal spectacle of daily torture and distress; which has caused the question as to what is wrong with Black people to be raised in the first place.

But our exercise in this book is also, and most importantly, to give clear indications of the only effective wayout that we can and must follow; because, we simply have to get out!

This is why the primary objective of this book is not only to prove what is wrong with what we are doing, but also to show what is right with what we should be doing instead.

So, what is wrong with Black people?

Once again, we remind that the answers to the profoundest angles of this question are to be found in “What is Wrong with Black People?” (ISBN 978-1-84799-323-6); the only book that, in our knowledge, can help us understand what is actually going on in the world today; a book in which the most unsuspected – yet, the most damning – causes of the suffering of the people of Africa as well as the struggles of their brothers and cousins of the West are not only laid open with courage, but also resolved with vision, for a greater understanding of the true needs and aspirations of Africans in today’s world.

Many people would think that trading raw materials is mutually beneficial between countries. The US economy depends on profiting globally, and we understand the benefit of using cheap labor in foreign countries through FDI. However, what happens when a state financed enterprise in China strategically buys up raw materials like iron and petroleum. I am not just talking about an even percentage, I mean “greater than 90% of the world’s raw supply of iron” and complete control over the U. S. petroleum supply. 1 Fortunately, the US government noticed what they were up to and made it illegal for another county to purchase a controlling interest in the U. S. petroleum supply. On a side note, it was only five years ago that the North Korean government financed a massive plant to produce billions in counterfeit U. S. currency. Everyone knows that the U. S. military forces are superior to any other country, but there is one thing that we do not have. China has a “population of 87 million exceeds most European nations”. 2 Many of these people are living in less fortunate conditions. You might even assume that they would prefer a better life, and the right leader could influence them to do so at the expense of other nations. We are vastly out numbered, so what makes our military forces superior? The answer is technology, industry, petroleum, and iron. Technology is always either for sale, or it can be gathered through espionage. China can buy the same level of technology from intermediaries or allied governments. Industry can be built with economic growth. Currently China is the number one growing economy in the world. It nearly controlled our petroleum supply domestically and failed, so China decided to buy petroleum from Saudi Arabia through German intermediaries. Now our gas prices are going through the roof and stock analysts are saying its some kind of market fluke created by a belief that oil prices will continue to soar. Iron, the main export that I would like to discuss, is five times its original price four years ago when China started buying up the world’s supply of raw iron. Right now, they are using this iron to create cranes and other machinery to export to the US and other nations, but most of the iron is being stockpiled in China for future use. What future use? We can only speculate. Why would China stockpile their ever-increasing supply of iron and still buy more, regardless of the price (literally)? What big plans do they have for such an immense stockpile of iron? Aren’t bullets, guns, factories, and tanks made out of iron? Absolutely, here is a piece of an article on the Chinese economy. “In recent years China’s booming economy, fueled by large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and rapid export growth, has emerged as a significant force in the global economy. This year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest recipient of FDI, and its bilateral trade surplus with the United States reached $117 billion in the 12 months up through August 2003. Both inward investment and export growth create strong demand for China’s currency, the Yuan. All things being equal, such demand pressures should cause the Yuan to appreciate relative to the U. S. dollar and cause China’s external position to return to balance. ”3Since China is the number one growing economy on the planet, they also have the number one growing currency relative to the US and other nations. Everyday China is become more industrialized. They used to be a purely state controlled economy, but they are starting to develop into more of a free economy in some areas. Overall, they are not shutting down as many businesses that do not pay the government officials regular bribes, which is definitely a move in the right direction. The US wants to encourage free trade with China because of their enormous population. This means that US companies would have access to a huge new market of consumers. It also means improving the quality of life in China. It is also widely known that many native Chinese women perform acts of prostitution or marry solely to support their family. It is also common in China to see people walking barefoot because they cannot afford sandals, or seeing people including children who are starving. China also has more than 300 organized crime syndicates with a history that goes back to the Shaolin Monks. China is a desperate nation, so desperate that they engage in foreign currency scams to inflate the value of the Renminbi (pronounced Yuan). In 2000, the exchange rate was 8. 3 Yuan per U. S. dollar. Today, the exchange rate is 7. 6 Yuan per US dollar. Here is the second piece of the article above. “But all things are not equal: China pegs the Yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate and strictly regulates imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. In order to maintain the Yuan’s fixed value, China must create a residual supply of Yuan to counter growing demand for its currency; China achieves this by buying dollars in foreign exchange markets. Between December 2000 and July 2003, China more than doubled its foreign reserve holdings from $168 billion (16% of its GDP) to $361 billion (31% of its GDP). ”4“How should the United States respond? On nine occasions between 1988 and 1992, the U. S. Treasury found that similar external surpluses accompanied by much smaller accumulation of foreign reserves constituted evidence that countries—including China—were manipulating their currency’s value for competitive trade advantage. When such a finding is made, U. S. law requires the Treasury Secretary to undertake negotiations to end such manipulation. Current evidence indicates that China is engaged in just such a manipulation of the Yuan for competitive gain. ”5Today, foreign “investment, combined with China’s swelling export earnings, have pushed the country’s foreign exchange reserves beyond $600 billion”. 6 One thing that I learned from experience is that desperate people and people that try to steal from others generally cannot be trusted. This is why, among all the other evidence I provided above, I do not think we should let the Chinese government do whatever they want. They should not have a majority of the world’s iron, petroleum or our country’s economic and physical security in the palm of their hands. What good are tanks and supply trucks that do not have gas? This may seem silly today, because we are not at war with China. In support of this opinion, many nations like Japan learned long ago that warfare in the physical sense is foolish and destructive, because it diminishes the productive capacity of the nation unless they can build new factories just as fast as their enemies can blow them up. Today, the real modern warfare is economics. If China shuts down U. S. companies that depend on buying iron at a certain price in order to earn a profit after U. S. labor costs, then they take our market share and our productive capacity depends on whether China will sell us what we need. Prices are good today because Chinese labor costs are low, but it will not stay that way according to economic theory. Eventually the FDI, which exceeds our nation, will create even more jobs and economic prosperity in China. The end-result will increase wages, and hopefully it will improve working conditions. However, if China does not sell to us anymore and they do the same bullying routine in other international markets, then we could be at a serious economic and military disadvantage. Should we trust China and believe that they want to change for the better? Here is an article that may shed some light on that question. “China wants to suspend human rights talks with the United States. The news came after Washington said yesterday that it will condemn Beijing’s serious violations with a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission currently underway in Geneva. The Chinese foreign minister called the action taken by the Americans a ‘serous meddling in China’s internal affairs. ’ China’s Vice Foreign7 Minister said the ‘clash intentionally provoked by the United States has now seriously damaged any basis for dialog and discussion on human rights issues between both countries. China must immediately suspend talks and discussion. ’ Yesterday, US State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, expressed the American government’s disappointment with Beijing’s inadequacies in improving human rights conditions in the country, after commitments it undertook in 2002 and 2003. Boucher also stressed Washington’s concern about ‘backward steps’ being taken by China, as reported in the American government’s world human rights report released last Feb. Last year the United States asked for a resolution, stating that Beijing had made limited, though significant progress in the sphere of human rights. The resolution was presented each year after the brutal repression of the student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. This year various human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, asked that the United States to put back a motion to blacklist Beijing. Even American trade union representatives requested that their government condemn China for the way it trades its labor force. Meanwhile Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty on China, reporting that the Chinese legal system does not guarantee fair trials and often punishes innocent persons. Yesterday the AI published a report titled ‘Executed according to law?’ ‘The report was released following statements made by a member of Chinese Parliament who said that every year there are at least 10,000 people sentenced to death in China 5 times more than all cases of capital punishment registered worldwide’. ”8The Chinese people are very much like our own with the exception that they communicate more through context and women are not valued very highly in their society. They also have four different cooking styles based on the four different regions. They speak different languages in each region, and they have a wide array of different traditions based on the former cultures that lived there before. China does not tolerate freedom of speech and they frequently kill anyone who is suspected on saying negative things about the current government. There is no defense orfair trial, and basic human rights are not valued by their government. Their economy is state controlled, but they are slowly changing into a free enterprise economy. I think that trading with China is mutually beneficial as long as they are not buying up significant amounts of raw materials that affect our national security. After the “911 attacks on New York and the Pentagon”, security measures at the ports are very strict in the US. 9 The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle have cameras, tall fences, and security personal strategically placed. They also conduct more customs inspections than before, and canines are commonly used to find people and contraband. The US also has a satellite system that detects nuclear radiation, infrared (heat signatures), records and filters every electronic conversation in the US, and video records the activities of the world’s ports. They also pay very close attention to refrigerated and abnormally heavy containers for biological weapons and shielded nuclear material. China does not perform any significant security measures other than custom inspections accompanied by armed guards. Custom inspectors frequently accept bribes to expedite export and import processing, which creates a huge delay for companies who did not pay bribes or paid less. Dogs are also used for detecting contraband, but they use german sheppards instead of beagles. German sheppards are know to be effective in chasing down people and enforcing security. However, beagles have two hundred times the ability to smell contraband. This means that their port security is seriously lacking unless they physically inspect every crate, which they do not normally do whenever a bribe is taken to expedite the customs process. Recently, the Port of Tacoma purchased three cranes from China to unload containers off the ships. They purchased scrap iron from suppliers in Washington State, melted the iron down, manufactured the cranes, and sold them back to us for less than domestic companies could make them. Inventories of iron are currently state managed and exceed “70% of iron imports internationally”. 10 US laws regarding customs are identified as governing security measures domestically. Otherwise, maritime laws apply to shipments. The political ramifications of cutting off certain resources to China will make them an enemy. In order for the US to be effective at cutting off the massive purchasing campaign of iron by China, it will need allies who are all the current trading partners to do the same thing. However, this would also make them enemies of China, and suppliers are becoming very wealthy by selling their raw materials for a higher price to China. This means that international trading partners must have a significant reason to cut China off or limit them other than the US’s economic prosperity. Culturally we also have to consider that the Chinese want a better life, and they want independence. It is unlikely that the US will be able to push the Chinese government into giving their people human rights without completely replacing their government or waiting a significant number of years for their human rights policies to catch up with the rest of the civilized countries in the world. Geographically, China has taken over Hong Kong, which is the largest shipping location of Chinese imports and exports. The decision of the Chinese government to take over Hong Kong assures their ability to distribute goods internationally without major changes in worldwide distribution. Economically, we must understand that China has a lot to offer in terms of cheap labor and outsourcing, but it may come with a steep cost in the near future. Letters of credit are guaranteed by international banks in Malaysia and China based on current deposits. This insures payment on receipt of goods for both imports and exports. The global marketing process for government contracts is the same as it is in the US. Foreign bidders are required to send a proposal to the government authority issuing the contract. Whether they choose to buy or not from a foreign source is a balance between price driven economics and supporting local companies. China has no restrictions on the treatment of their employees, the ages of workers, the hours they work, the healthcare of employees or their working conditions. US employers must abide by laws concerning the treatment of minors, paying overtime, paying wages, paying health and unemployment benefits, discrimination, etc. Foreign investment in China is carefully controlled in specific sectors and industries. Foreign investment in the US is allowed as long as it does not negatively impact our national security. This is why the US government stopped China from purchasing a controlling position in the U. S. ’s primary oil supplier. However, it is almost a guarantee that they will try again. If you choose to do business in China, please carefully consider the implications of your actions. Making a great profit is very important, but it can never come at the expense of our lives, the lives of our children or the world’s stability and security. I think the world has a great opportunity everyday to change for the greater good, maybe our enemies will decide that building a better world for everyone is better than petty arguments over land, money and religion. BibliographyFlannery, Russell. At Your Service, China! New York, NY: Forbes, 2007Goodman, Peter S. China Ends Fixed-Rate Currency. Washington DC: Washington Post, 2005Hersh, Adam S. China’s currency manipulation and U. S. trade. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003http://www. epinet. org/content. cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_10302003seHill, Charles W. L. Global Business Today 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2008R. , M. Beijing suspends human rights talks with United States. Geneva: Asia News, 2004 http://www. asianews. it/view4print. php?l=en&art=524

Many people would think that trading raw materials is mutually beneficial between countries. The US economy depends on profiting globally, and we understand the benefit of using cheap labor in foreign countries through FDI. However, what happens when a state financed enterprise in China strategically buys up raw materials like iron and petroleum. I am not just talking about an even percentage, I mean “greater than 90% of the world’s raw supply of iron” and complete control over the U. S. petroleum supply. 1 Fortunately, the US government noticed what they were up to and made it illegal for another county to purchase a controlling interest in the U. S. petroleum supply. On a side note, it was only five years ago that the North Korean government financed a massive plant to produce billions in counterfeit U. S. currency. Everyone knows that the U. S. military forces are superior to any other country, but there is one thing that we do not have. China has a “population of 87 million exceeds most European nations”. 2 Many of these people are living in less fortunate conditions. You might even assume that they would prefer a better life, and the right leader could influence them to do so at the expense of other nations. We are vastly out numbered, so what makes our military forces superior? The answer is technology, industry, petroleum, and iron. Technology is always either for sale, or it can be gathered through espionage. China can buy the same level of technology from intermediaries or allied governments. Industry can be built with economic growth. Currently China is the number one growing economy in the world. It nearly controlled our petroleum supply domestically and failed, so China decided to buy petroleum from Saudi Arabia through German intermediaries. Now our gas prices are going through the roof and stock analysts are saying its some kind of market fluke created by a belief that oil prices will continue to soar. Iron, the main export that I would like to discuss, is five times its original price four years ago when China started buying up the world’s supply of raw iron. Right now, they are using this iron to create cranes and other machinery to export to the US and other nations, but most of the iron is being stockpiled in China for future use. What future use? We can only speculate. Why would China stockpile their ever-increasing supply of iron and still buy more, regardless of the price (literally)? What big plans do they have for such an immense stockpile of iron? Aren’t bullets, guns, factories, and tanks made out of iron? Absolutely, here is a piece of an article on the Chinese economy. “In recent years China’s booming economy, fueled by large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and rapid export growth, has emerged as a significant force in the global economy. This year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest recipient of FDI, and its bilateral trade surplus with the United States reached $117 billion in the 12 months up through August 2003. Both inward investment and export growth create strong demand for China’s currency, the Yuan. All things being equal, such demand pressures should cause the Yuan to appreciate relative to the U. S. dollar and cause China’s external position to return to balance. ”3Since China is the number one growing economy on the planet, they also have the number one growing currency relative to the US and other nations. Everyday China is become more industrialized. They used to be a purely state controlled economy, but they are starting to develop into more of a free economy in some areas. Overall, they are not shutting down as many businesses that do not pay the government officials regular bribes, which is definitely a move in the right direction. The US wants to encourage free trade with China because of their enormous population. This means that US companies would have access to a huge new market of consumers. It also means improving the quality of life in China. It is also widely known that many native Chinese women perform acts of prostitution or marry solely to support their family. It is also common in China to see people walking barefoot because they cannot afford sandals, or seeing people including children who are starving. China also has more than 300 organized crime syndicates with a history that goes back to the Shaolin Monks. China is a desperate nation, so desperate that they engage in foreign currency scams to inflate the value of the Renminbi (pronounced Yuan). In 2000, the exchange rate was 8. 3 Yuan per U. S. dollar. Today, the exchange rate is 7. 6 Yuan per US dollar. Here is the second piece of the article above. “But all things are not equal: China pegs the Yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate and strictly regulates imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. In order to maintain the Yuan’s fixed value, China must create a residual supply of Yuan to counter growing demand for its currency; China achieves this by buying dollars in foreign exchange markets. Between December 2000 and July 2003, China more than doubled its foreign reserve holdings from $168 billion (16% of its GDP) to $361 billion (31% of its GDP). ”4“How should the United States respond? On nine occasions between 1988 and 1992, the U. S. Treasury found that similar external surpluses accompanied by much smaller accumulation of foreign reserves constituted evidence that countries—including China—were manipulating their currency’s value for competitive trade advantage. When such a finding is made, U. S. law requires the Treasury Secretary to undertake negotiations to end such manipulation. Current evidence indicates that China is engaged in just such a manipulation of the Yuan for competitive gain. ”5Today, foreign “investment, combined with China’s swelling export earnings, have pushed the country’s foreign exchange reserves beyond $600 billion”. 6 One thing that I learned from experience is that desperate people and people that try to steal from others generally cannot be trusted. This is why, among all the other evidence I provided above, I do not think we should let the Chinese government do whatever they want. They should not have a majority of the world’s iron, petroleum or our country’s economic and physical security in the palm of their hands. What good are tanks and supply trucks that do not have gas? This may seem silly today, because we are not at war with China. In support of this opinion, many nations like Japan learned long ago that warfare in the physical sense is foolish and destructive, because it diminishes the productive capacity of the nation unless they can build new factories just as fast as their enemies can blow them up. Today, the real modern warfare is economics. If China shuts down U. S. companies that depend on buying iron at a certain price in order to earn a profit after U. S. labor costs, then they take our market share and our productive capacity depends on whether China will sell us what we need. Prices are good today because Chinese labor costs are low, but it will not stay that way according to economic theory. Eventually the FDI, which exceeds our nation, will create even more jobs and economic prosperity in China. The end-result will increase wages, and hopefully it will improve working conditions. However, if China does not sell to us anymore and they do the same bullying routine in other international markets, then we could be at a serious economic and military disadvantage. Should we trust China and believe that they want to change for the better? Here is an article that may shed some light on that question. “China wants to suspend human rights talks with the United States. The news came after Washington said yesterday that it will condemn Beijing’s serious violations with a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission currently underway in Geneva. The Chinese foreign minister called the action taken by the Americans a ‘serous meddling in China’s internal affairs. ’ China’s Vice Foreign7 Minister said the ‘clash intentionally provoked by the United States has now seriously damaged any basis for dialog and discussion on human rights issues between both countries. China must immediately suspend talks and discussion. ’ Yesterday, US State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, expressed the American government’s disappointment with Beijing’s inadequacies in improving human rights conditions in the country, after commitments it undertook in 2002 and 2003. Boucher also stressed Washington’s concern about ‘backward steps’ being taken by China, as reported in the American government’s world human rights report released last Feb. Last year the United States asked for a resolution, stating that Beijing had made limited, though significant progress in the sphere of human rights. The resolution was presented each year after the brutal repression of the student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. This year various human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, asked that the United States to put back a motion to blacklist Beijing. Even American trade union representatives requested that their government condemn China for the way it trades its labor force. Meanwhile Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty on China, reporting that the Chinese legal system does not guarantee fair trials and often punishes innocent persons. Yesterday the AI published a report titled ‘Executed according to law?’ ‘The report was released following statements made by a member of Chinese Parliament who said that every year there are at least 10,000 people sentenced to death in China 5 times more than all cases of capital punishment registered worldwide’. ”8The Chinese people are very much like our own with the exception that they communicate more through context and women are not valued very highly in their society. They also have four different cooking styles based on the four different regions. They speak different languages in each region, and they have a wide array of different traditions based on the former cultures that lived there before. China does not tolerate freedom of speech and they frequently kill anyone who is suspected on saying negative things about the current government. There is no defense orfair trial, and basic human rights are not valued by their government. Their economy is state controlled, but they are slowly changing into a free enterprise economy. I think that trading with China is mutually beneficial as long as they are not buying up significant amounts of raw materials that affect our national security. After the “911 attacks on New York and the Pentagon”, security measures at the ports are very strict in the US. 9 The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle have cameras, tall fences, and security personal strategically placed. They also conduct more customs inspections than before, and canines are commonly used to find people and contraband. The US also has a satellite system that detects nuclear radiation, infrared (heat signatures), records and filters every electronic conversation in the US, and video records the activities of the world’s ports. They also pay very close attention to refrigerated and abnormally heavy containers for biological weapons and shielded nuclear material. China does not perform any significant security measures other than custom inspections accompanied by armed guards. Custom inspectors frequently accept bribes to expedite export and import processing, which creates a huge delay for companies who did not pay bribes or paid less. Dogs are also used for detecting contraband, but they use german sheppards instead of beagles. German sheppards are know to be effective in chasing down people and enforcing security. However, beagles have two hundred times the ability to smell contraband. This means that their port security is seriously lacking unless they physically inspect every crate, which they do not normally do whenever a bribe is taken to expedite the customs process. Recently, the Port of Tacoma purchased three cranes from China to unload containers off the ships. They purchased scrap iron from suppliers in Washington State, melted the iron down, manufactured the cranes, and sold them back to us for less than domestic companies could make them. Inventories of iron are currently state managed and exceed “70% of iron imports internationally”. 10 US laws regarding customs are identified as governing security measures domestically. Otherwise, maritime laws apply to shipments. The political ramifications of cutting off certain resources to China will make them an enemy. In order for the US to be effective at cutting off the massive purchasing campaign of iron by China, it will need allies who are all the current trading partners to do the same thing. However, this would also make them enemies of China, and suppliers are becoming very wealthy by selling their raw materials for a higher price to China. This means that international trading partners must have a significant reason to cut China off or limit them other than the US’s economic prosperity. Culturally we also have to consider that the Chinese want a better life, and they want independence. It is unlikely that the US will be able to push the Chinese government into giving their people human rights without completely replacing their government or waiting a significant number of years for their human rights policies to catch up with the rest of the civilized countries in the world. Geographically, China has taken over Hong Kong, which is the largest shipping location of Chinese imports and exports. The decision of the Chinese government to take over Hong Kong assures their ability to distribute goods internationally without major changes in worldwide distribution. Economically, we must understand that China has a lot to offer in terms of cheap labor and outsourcing, but it may come with a steep cost in the near future. Letters of credit are guaranteed by international banks in Malaysia and China based on current deposits. This insures payment on receipt of goods for both imports and exports. The global marketing process for government contracts is the same as it is in the US. Foreign bidders are required to send a proposal to the government authority issuing the contract. Whether they choose to buy or not from a foreign source is a balance between price driven economics and supporting local companies. China has no restrictions on the treatment of their employees, the ages of workers, the hours they work, the healthcare of employees or their working conditions. US employers must abide by laws concerning the treatment of minors, paying overtime, paying wages, paying health and unemployment benefits, discrimination, etc. Foreign investment in China is carefully controlled in specific sectors and industries. Foreign investment in the US is allowed as long as it does not negatively impact our national security. This is why the US government stopped China from purchasing a controlling position in the U. S. ’s primary oil supplier. However, it is almost a guarantee that they will try again. If you choose to do business in China, please carefully consider the implications of your actions. Making a great profit is very important, but it can never come at the expense of our lives, the lives of our children or the world’s stability and security. I think the world has a great opportunity everyday to change for the greater good, maybe our enemies will decide that building a better world for everyone is better than petty arguments over land, money and religion. BibliographyFlannery, Russell. At Your Service, China! New York, NY: Forbes, 2007Goodman, Peter S. China Ends Fixed-Rate Currency. Washington DC: Washington Post, 2005Hersh, Adam S. China’s currency manipulation and U. S. trade. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003http://www. epinet. org/content. cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_10302003seHill, Charles W. L. Global Business Today 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2008R. , M. Beijing suspends human rights talks with United States. Geneva: Asia News, 2004 http://www. asianews. it/view4print. php?l=en&art=524

At the start, Cardinals jumped out with quite good lead behind good performances by the defense and offense. When game started cardinals were in high passions as they were able to put seven points on the score board while eagles were attempting to set it. By halftime, Eagles were able to drive into Cardinals territory i. e. in the red zone but they succeed in getting six points only. While Cardinals drove into the territory of Eagles three times and were able to get 17 points out of their sticking drives. After all eagles are the strong opponents, they were not ready to surrender easily. They came back with furious attack and took the lead from Cardinals in fourth quarter. In that time, Cardinals Answered with a championship-worthy and gusty drive that helped them to retook lead to win victoriously. Here are details of some guys who played like real heroes for Cardinals. Fitzgerald was the man for the Cardinals on Sunday. He had an awesome 9 receptions for 152 yards, which included 2 huge catches. He also set a single post-season record by receiving 419 yards. In doing so he beat the record set by the legendary Jerry Rice. This is one reason why this match is going into the list of historical football results. Cardinals have had their best season ever since 1933 as they beat Atlanta, Carolina and the Eagles in their playoff games. McNabb was also on fire. Thanks to his 62 yard throw to the novice DeSean Jackson, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was able to pass it onto Jackson who scored with just 10:45 left. This gave Philadelphia its 25-24 edge. Warner was 21-for-28 for 279 yards along with 4 TDs and McNabb finished with 27-for-46 for 375. yards. McNabb had his longest run of 22-yard since 2007. However, a motion penalty was given because of deafening noise in the stadium which put a harness on him. David Akers further improved his personal post-season record by scoring a 45-yard field goal which also happened to be his 19th straight. The Cardinals have a special skill for takeaways and this is what got the ball back for some precious time. Unfortunately, Aaron Francisco was held back on the runback by the Eagles’ Jackson. This resulted in a much-needed recovery for Philadelphia. Eagles got into serious trouble only a little while later when Warner pitched to J. J. Arrington who tossed it to the quarterback. The long pop-up pass by him was received by Fitzgerald after Quentin Demps fell. McNabb remained impassive and sent a pass to Kevin Curtis who sped down 47 yards with half of Arizona’s defenders chasing after him. They only caught up with him at the 19 which led to the setting up of Aker’s 33-yard. It was all for nothing for the Eagles as Fitzgerald remained unstoppable. His performance on Sunday has definitely earned him a place among football icons. A 1-yard TD catch put an end to Fitzgerald’s butchering of the Phillies. Stay in touch with the latest on this wild-card team. I see many more fireworks performances coming from them. If you can’t take time out from work to watch the games, stay informed of football live scores through websites like ScoresPro. com

Many people would think that trading raw materials is mutually beneficial between countries. The US economy depends on profiting globally, and we understand the benefit of using cheap labor in foreign countries through FDI. However, what happens when a state financed enterprise in China strategically buys up raw materials like iron and petroleum. I am not just talking about an even percentage, I mean “greater than 90% of the world’s raw supply of iron” and complete control over the U. S. petroleum supply. 1 Fortunately, the US government noticed what they were up to and made it illegal for another county to purchase a controlling interest in the U. S. petroleum supply. On a side note, it was only five years ago that the North Korean government financed a massive plant to produce billions in counterfeit U. S. currency. Everyone knows that the U. S. military forces are superior to any other country, but there is one thing that we do not have. China has a “population of 87 million exceeds most European nations”. 2 Many of these people are living in less fortunate conditions. You might even assume that they would prefer a better life, and the right leader could influence them to do so at the expense of other nations. We are vastly out numbered, so what makes our military forces superior? The answer is technology, industry, petroleum, and iron. Technology is always either for sale, or it can be gathered through espionage. China can buy the same level of technology from intermediaries or allied governments. Industry can be built with economic growth. Currently China is the number one growing economy in the world. It nearly controlled our petroleum supply domestically and failed, so China decided to buy petroleum from Saudi Arabia through German intermediaries. Now our gas prices are going through the roof and stock analysts are saying its some kind of market fluke created by a belief that oil prices will continue to soar. Iron, the main export that I would like to discuss, is five times its original price four years ago when China started buying up the world’s supply of raw iron. Right now, they are using this iron to create cranes and other machinery to export to the US and other nations, but most of the iron is being stockpiled in China for future use. What future use? We can only speculate. Why would China stockpile their ever-increasing supply of iron and still buy more, regardless of the price (literally)? What big plans do they have for such an immense stockpile of iron? Aren’t bullets, guns, factories, and tanks made out of iron? Absolutely, here is a piece of an article on the Chinese economy. “In recent years China’s booming economy, fueled by large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and rapid export growth, has emerged as a significant force in the global economy. This year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest recipient of FDI, and its bilateral trade surplus with the United States reached $117 billion in the 12 months up through August 2003. Both inward investment and export growth create strong demand for China’s currency, the Yuan. All things being equal, such demand pressures should cause the Yuan to appreciate relative to the U. S. dollar and cause China’s external position to return to balance. ”3Since China is the number one growing economy on the planet, they also have the number one growing currency relative to the US and other nations. Everyday China is become more industrialized. They used to be a purely state controlled economy, but they are starting to develop into more of a free economy in some areas. Overall, they are not shutting down as many businesses that do not pay the government officials regular bribes, which is definitely a move in the right direction. The US wants to encourage free trade with China because of their enormous population. This means that US companies would have access to a huge new market of consumers. It also means improving the quality of life in China. It is also widely known that many native Chinese women perform acts of prostitution or marry solely to support their family. It is also common in China to see people walking barefoot because they cannot afford sandals, or seeing people including children who are starving. China also has more than 300 organized crime syndicates with a history that goes back to the Shaolin Monks. China is a desperate nation, so desperate that they engage in foreign currency scams to inflate the value of the Renminbi (pronounced Yuan). In 2000, the exchange rate was 8. 3 Yuan per U. S. dollar. Today, the exchange rate is 7. 6 Yuan per US dollar. Here is the second piece of the article above. “But all things are not equal: China pegs the Yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate and strictly regulates imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. In order to maintain the Yuan’s fixed value, China must create a residual supply of Yuan to counter growing demand for its currency; China achieves this by buying dollars in foreign exchange markets. Between December 2000 and July 2003, China more than doubled its foreign reserve holdings from $168 billion (16% of its GDP) to $361 billion (31% of its GDP). ”4“How should the United States respond? On nine occasions between 1988 and 1992, the U. S. Treasury found that similar external surpluses accompanied by much smaller accumulation of foreign reserves constituted evidence that countries—including China—were manipulating their currency’s value for competitive trade advantage. When such a finding is made, U. S. law requires the Treasury Secretary to undertake negotiations to end such manipulation. Current evidence indicates that China is engaged in just such a manipulation of the Yuan for competitive gain. ”5Today, foreign “investment, combined with China’s swelling export earnings, have pushed the country’s foreign exchange reserves beyond $600 billion”. 6 One thing that I learned from experience is that desperate people and people that try to steal from others generally cannot be trusted. This is why, among all the other evidence I provided above, I do not think we should let the Chinese government do whatever they want. They should not have a majority of the world’s iron, petroleum or our country’s economic and physical security in the palm of their hands. What good are tanks and supply trucks that do not have gas? This may seem silly today, because we are not at war with China. In support of this opinion, many nations like Japan learned long ago that warfare in the physical sense is foolish and destructive, because it diminishes the productive capacity of the nation unless they can build new factories just as fast as their enemies can blow them up. Today, the real modern warfare is economics. If China shuts down U. S. companies that depend on buying iron at a certain price in order to earn a profit after U. S. labor costs, then they take our market share and our productive capacity depends on whether China will sell us what we need. Prices are good today because Chinese labor costs are low, but it will not stay that way according to economic theory. Eventually the FDI, which exceeds our nation, will create even more jobs and economic prosperity in China. The end-result will increase wages, and hopefully it will improve working conditions. However, if China does not sell to us anymore and they do the same bullying routine in other international markets, then we could be at a serious economic and military disadvantage. Should we trust China and believe that they want to change for the better? Here is an article that may shed some light on that question. “China wants to suspend human rights talks with the United States. The news came after Washington said yesterday that it will condemn Beijing’s serious violations with a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission currently underway in Geneva. The Chinese foreign minister called the action taken by the Americans a ‘serous meddling in China’s internal affairs. ’ China’s Vice Foreign7 Minister said the ‘clash intentionally provoked by the United States has now seriously damaged any basis for dialog and discussion on human rights issues between both countries. China must immediately suspend talks and discussion. ’ Yesterday, US State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, expressed the American government’s disappointment with Beijing’s inadequacies in improving human rights conditions in the country, after commitments it undertook in 2002 and 2003. Boucher also stressed Washington’s concern about ‘backward steps’ being taken by China, as reported in the American government’s world human rights report released last Feb. Last year the United States asked for a resolution, stating that Beijing had made limited, though significant progress in the sphere of human rights. The resolution was presented each year after the brutal repression of the student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. This year various human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, asked that the United States to put back a motion to blacklist Beijing. Even American trade union representatives requested that their government condemn China for the way it trades its labor force. Meanwhile Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty on China, reporting that the Chinese legal system does not guarantee fair trials and often punishes innocent persons. Yesterday the AI published a report titled ‘Executed according to law?’ ‘The report was released following statements made by a member of Chinese Parliament who said that every year there are at least 10,000 people sentenced to death in China 5 times more than all cases of capital punishment registered worldwide’. ”8The Chinese people are very much like our own with the exception that they communicate more through context and women are not valued very highly in their society. They also have four different cooking styles based on the four different regions. They speak different languages in each region, and they have a wide array of different traditions based on the former cultures that lived there before. China does not tolerate freedom of speech and they frequently kill anyone who is suspected on saying negative things about the current government. There is no defense orfair trial, and basic human rights are not valued by their government. Their economy is state controlled, but they are slowly changing into a free enterprise economy. I think that trading with China is mutually beneficial as long as they are not buying up significant amounts of raw materials that affect our national security. After the “911 attacks on New York and the Pentagon”, security measures at the ports are very strict in the US. 9 The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle have cameras, tall fences, and security personal strategically placed. They also conduct more customs inspections than before, and canines are commonly used to find people and contraband. The US also has a satellite system that detects nuclear radiation, infrared (heat signatures), records and filters every electronic conversation in the US, and video records the activities of the world’s ports. They also pay very close attention to refrigerated and abnormally heavy containers for biological weapons and shielded nuclear material. China does not perform any significant security measures other than custom inspections accompanied by armed guards. Custom inspectors frequently accept bribes to expedite export and import processing, which creates a huge delay for companies who did not pay bribes or paid less. Dogs are also used for detecting contraband, but they use german sheppards instead of beagles. German sheppards are know to be effective in chasing down people and enforcing security. However, beagles have two hundred times the ability to smell contraband. This means that their port security is seriously lacking unless they physically inspect every crate, which they do not normally do whenever a bribe is taken to expedite the customs process. Recently, the Port of Tacoma purchased three cranes from China to unload containers off the ships. They purchased scrap iron from suppliers in Washington State, melted the iron down, manufactured the cranes, and sold them back to us for less than domestic companies could make them. Inventories of iron are currently state managed and exceed “70% of iron imports internationally”. 10 US laws regarding customs are identified as governing security measures domestically. Otherwise, maritime laws apply to shipments. The political ramifications of cutting off certain resources to China will make them an enemy. In order for the US to be effective at cutting off the massive purchasing campaign of iron by China, it will need allies who are all the current trading partners to do the same thing. However, this would also make them enemies of China, and suppliers are becoming very wealthy by selling their raw materials for a higher price to China. This means that international trading partners must have a significant reason to cut China off or limit them other than the US’s economic prosperity. Culturally we also have to consider that the Chinese want a better life, and they want independence. It is unlikely that the US will be able to push the Chinese government into giving their people human rights without completely replacing their government or waiting a significant number of years for their human rights policies to catch up with the rest of the civilized countries in the world. Geographically, China has taken over Hong Kong, which is the largest shipping location of Chinese imports and exports. The decision of the Chinese government to take over Hong Kong assures their ability to distribute goods internationally without major changes in worldwide distribution. Economically, we must understand that China has a lot to offer in terms of cheap labor and outsourcing, but it may come with a steep cost in the near future. Letters of credit are guaranteed by international banks in Malaysia and China based on current deposits. This insures payment on receipt of goods for both imports and exports. The global marketing process for government contracts is the same as it is in the US. Foreign bidders are required to send a proposal to the government authority issuing the contract. Whether they choose to buy or not from a foreign source is a balance between price driven economics and supporting local companies. China has no restrictions on the treatment of their employees, the ages of workers, the hours they work, the healthcare of employees or their working conditions. US employers must abide by laws concerning the treatment of minors, paying overtime, paying wages, paying health and unemployment benefits, discrimination, etc. Foreign investment in China is carefully controlled in specific sectors and industries. Foreign investment in the US is allowed as long as it does not negatively impact our national security. This is why the US government stopped China from purchasing a controlling position in the U. S. ’s primary oil supplier. However, it is almost a guarantee that they will try again. If you choose to do business in China, please carefully consider the implications of your actions. Making a great profit is very important, but it can never come at the expense of our lives, the lives of our children or the world’s stability and security. I think the world has a great opportunity everyday to change for the greater good, maybe our enemies will decide that building a better world for everyone is better than petty arguments over land, money and religion. BibliographyFlannery, Russell. At Your Service, China! New York, NY: Forbes, 2007Goodman, Peter S. China Ends Fixed-Rate Currency. Washington DC: Washington Post, 2005Hersh, Adam S. China’s currency manipulation and U. S. trade. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003http://www. epinet. org/content. cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_10302003seHill, Charles W. L. Global Business Today 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2008R. , M. Beijing suspends human rights talks with United States. Geneva: Asia News, 2004 http://www. asianews. it/view4print. php?l=en&art=524

Although many marketers have experimented with event-triggered marketing, they tend to stick to more simple applications, such as one-off email initiatives. For example, a customer who experiences a technical glitch or abandons an online shopping cart may receive an automatically pushed message. Large databases and good timing are no longer sufficient to gain new customers and/or effectively market to existing ones. Traditional marketing practices are now dated, as there are significantly more channels for building two-way customer relationships, from phone to print to web to email. Thus, dated one-dimensional practices must evolve, just as the technology has. Current event-triggered campaigns require two things: a way to track and capture previous customer interactions across all points of contact, and a way to use that information to personalize messages. Using collected customer data to effectively trigger personalized marketing messages, offers, and initiatives is a key component of a successful event-triggered campaign. Research from Gartner suggests that an event-triggered campaign can save up to 80 percent of a marketer’s direct mail budget. This is accomplished by delivering targeted on-demand services, such as signing up a customer for a new rewards club, rather than mass printing and mailing a brochure. So, while there may be upfront costs in changing existing processes and technologies, the long term payout will be worth the effort. And that’s just the beginning. Once cross-channel event-triggered marketing has been established as a strategy, marketers can set goals in terms which apply to the organization as a whole: new customers and increased revenue from current customers due to better conversion rates for up-sells and cross-sells. Once a full complement of measurable strategies have been put in place, marketers can arrive at the next budgeting meeting in a greater position of strength, and more easily gain approval for the necessary processes and technology upgrades required to make event-triggered campaigns an integral part of long-term marketing strategy. To begin, marketers must set clear goals for event-triggered campaigns targeting both new customers and existing customers. It is of course possible to focus on only one of these groups, and this approach may be the best way to test and evaluate campaigns on a smaller scale. Start by setting easily manageable benchmarks and metrics that can be tracked throughout the campaign. Now, take a look at your existing technologies and processes. Are you able to properly leverage the data you collect about your customers across all channels? Does your technology allow you to properly flag something and make appropriate adjustments if it’s not corresponding with your current metrics?Gartner has found that event-triggered messages have a response rate that is five times higher than that of non-targeted push messages. These results are attainable for campaigns than pull information from a single database that has automatically tracked customer data from all points of customer contact, from brick and mortar stores to websites to customer support calls and more. If these communications between the customer and company aren’t used, it’s much more difficult to measure the effect of cross-selling or up-selling customers. By using event-triggered methods based on previous customer actions and trends, marketers gain a full set of tools to initiate new contacts, and bring old ones back for more.

I belong to a social club of sorts, a group of gentlemen who gather on Thursday evenings to indulge in a few of the finer drafts offered by our local craft brewers. Back in college you might have referred to our get togethers as a frat or something equally tawdry. However, I can assure you that our club is nothing of the sort, although it is a club, make no mistake. One can’t just stagger in off the street and buy us a round to get invited (although you’re welcome to try). We pay membership dues and we support a number of local charities, including the Food Bank and a Children’s Literacy Program. We also lend our collective corporate expertise out to small businesses on occasion. We were sitting around the table last Thursday night enjoying a new organically brewed pilsner when a few of the guys started throwing around ideas about another area we could focus our considerable marketing skills on. At this point I should mention that fully half of our membership have either a Marketing degree or an MBA or both, so that’s why these sort of things keep coming up instead of more typical drinking topics like football, golf, hockey or beach volleyball. The couple who own the organic brewery happened to pop by that night and a few of us approached them with our ideas for expanding their business. Key to this effort was the idea of having high quality, embroidered tee shirts and hoodies made up. We’ve had shirts printed before to promote some of our club causes and events and I firmly believe that a small business like a craft brewery is going to get a lot more bang for its buck by giving away tee shirts to customers than it would ever see through radio or print advertising. Not only that, but the campaign keeps going for as long as people keep the shirts.   It’s brilliant. The brewery owners took a little convincing, but when we sat down and explained the costs associated with a mid-market radio campaign compared to the cost of having a few hundred tee shirts printed up and distributed, they were impressed. I pulled out my iPhone and showed them a site where they could order shirts made from certified organic cotton -something they could use as part of the promotion to tie into their organic beer. That sealed the deal. The boys and I come pretty cheap as far as marketing expertise is considered, so long as you catch us on a Thursday night. It only cost the organic brewery folks a few cases of their product and a dozen tee shirts.

Many people would think that trading raw materials is mutually beneficial between countries. The US economy depends on profiting globally, and we understand the benefit of using cheap labor in foreign countries through FDI. However, what happens when a state financed enterprise in China strategically buys up raw materials like iron and petroleum. I am not just talking about an even percentage, I mean “greater than 90% of the world’s raw supply of iron” and complete control over the U. S. petroleum supply. 1 Fortunately, the US government noticed what they were up to and made it illegal for another county to purchase a controlling interest in the U. S. petroleum supply. On a side note, it was only five years ago that the North Korean government financed a massive plant to produce billions in counterfeit U. S. currency. Everyone knows that the U. S. military forces are superior to any other country, but there is one thing that we do not have. China has a “population of 87 million exceeds most European nations”. 2 Many of these people are living in less fortunate conditions. You might even assume that they would prefer a better life, and the right leader could influence them to do so at the expense of other nations. We are vastly out numbered, so what makes our military forces superior? The answer is technology, industry, petroleum, and iron. Technology is always either for sale, or it can be gathered through espionage. China can buy the same level of technology from intermediaries or allied governments. Industry can be built with economic growth. Currently China is the number one growing economy in the world. It nearly controlled our petroleum supply domestically and failed, so China decided to buy petroleum from Saudi Arabia through German intermediaries. Now our gas prices are going through the roof and stock analysts are saying its some kind of market fluke created by a belief that oil prices will continue to soar. Iron, the main export that I would like to discuss, is five times its original price four years ago when China started buying up the world’s supply of raw iron. Right now, they are using this iron to create cranes and other machinery to export to the US and other nations, but most of the iron is being stockpiled in China for future use. What future use? We can only speculate. Why would China stockpile their ever-increasing supply of iron and still buy more, regardless of the price (literally)? What big plans do they have for such an immense stockpile of iron? Aren’t bullets, guns, factories, and tanks made out of iron? Absolutely, here is a piece of an article on the Chinese economy. “In recent years China’s booming economy, fueled by large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and rapid export growth, has emerged as a significant force in the global economy. This year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest recipient of FDI, and its bilateral trade surplus with the United States reached $117 billion in the 12 months up through August 2003. Both inward investment and export growth create strong demand for China’s currency, the Yuan. All things being equal, such demand pressures should cause the Yuan to appreciate relative to the U. S. dollar and cause China’s external position to return to balance. ”3Since China is the number one growing economy on the planet, they also have the number one growing currency relative to the US and other nations. Everyday China is become more industrialized. They used to be a purely state controlled economy, but they are starting to develop into more of a free economy in some areas. Overall, they are not shutting down as many businesses that do not pay the government officials regular bribes, which is definitely a move in the right direction. The US wants to encourage free trade with China because of their enormous population. This means that US companies would have access to a huge new market of consumers. It also means improving the quality of life in China. It is also widely known that many native Chinese women perform acts of prostitution or marry solely to support their family. It is also common in China to see people walking barefoot because they cannot afford sandals, or seeing people including children who are starving. China also has more than 300 organized crime syndicates with a history that goes back to the Shaolin Monks. China is a desperate nation, so desperate that they engage in foreign currency scams to inflate the value of the Renminbi (pronounced Yuan). In 2000, the exchange rate was 8. 3 Yuan per U. S. dollar. Today, the exchange rate is 7. 6 Yuan per US dollar. Here is the second piece of the article above. “But all things are not equal: China pegs the Yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate and strictly regulates imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. In order to maintain the Yuan’s fixed value, China must create a residual supply of Yuan to counter growing demand for its currency; China achieves this by buying dollars in foreign exchange markets. Between December 2000 and July 2003, China more than doubled its foreign reserve holdings from $168 billion (16% of its GDP) to $361 billion (31% of its GDP). ”4“How should the United States respond? On nine occasions between 1988 and 1992, the U. S. Treasury found that similar external surpluses accompanied by much smaller accumulation of foreign reserves constituted evidence that countries—including China—were manipulating their currency’s value for competitive trade advantage. When such a finding is made, U. S. law requires the Treasury Secretary to undertake negotiations to end such manipulation. Current evidence indicates that China is engaged in just such a manipulation of the Yuan for competitive gain. ”5Today, foreign “investment, combined with China’s swelling export earnings, have pushed the country’s foreign exchange reserves beyond $600 billion”. 6 One thing that I learned from experience is that desperate people and people that try to steal from others generally cannot be trusted. This is why, among all the other evidence I provided above, I do not think we should let the Chinese government do whatever they want. They should not have a majority of the world’s iron, petroleum or our country’s economic and physical security in the palm of their hands. What good are tanks and supply trucks that do not have gas? This may seem silly today, because we are not at war with China. In support of this opinion, many nations like Japan learned long ago that warfare in the physical sense is foolish and destructive, because it diminishes the productive capacity of the nation unless they can build new factories just as fast as their enemies can blow them up. Today, the real modern warfare is economics. If China shuts down U. S. companies that depend on buying iron at a certain price in order to earn a profit after U. S. labor costs, then they take our market share and our productive capacity depends on whether China will sell us what we need. Prices are good today because Chinese labor costs are low, but it will not stay that way according to economic theory. Eventually the FDI, which exceeds our nation, will create even more jobs and economic prosperity in China. The end-result will increase wages, and hopefully it will improve working conditions. However, if China does not sell to us anymore and they do the same bullying routine in other international markets, then we could be at a serious economic and military disadvantage. Should we trust China and believe that they want to change for the better? Here is an article that may shed some light on that question. “China wants to suspend human rights talks with the United States. The news came after Washington said yesterday that it will condemn Beijing’s serious violations with a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission currently underway in Geneva. The Chinese foreign minister called the action taken by the Americans a ‘serous meddling in China’s internal affairs. ’ China’s Vice Foreign7 Minister said the ‘clash intentionally provoked by the United States has now seriously damaged any basis for dialog and discussion on human rights issues between both countries. China must immediately suspend talks and discussion. ’ Yesterday, US State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, expressed the American government’s disappointment with Beijing’s inadequacies in improving human rights conditions in the country, after commitments it undertook in 2002 and 2003. Boucher also stressed Washington’s concern about ‘backward steps’ being taken by China, as reported in the American government’s world human rights report released last Feb. Last year the United States asked for a resolution, stating that Beijing had made limited, though significant progress in the sphere of human rights. The resolution was presented each year after the brutal repression of the student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. This year various human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, asked that the United States to put back a motion to blacklist Beijing. Even American trade union representatives requested that their government condemn China for the way it trades its labor force. Meanwhile Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty on China, reporting that the Chinese legal system does not guarantee fair trials and often punishes innocent persons. Yesterday the AI published a report titled ‘Executed according to law?’ ‘The report was released following statements made by a member of Chinese Parliament who said that every year there are at least 10,000 people sentenced to death in China 5 times more than all cases of capital punishment registered worldwide’. ”8The Chinese people are very much like our own with the exception that they communicate more through context and women are not valued very highly in their society. They also have four different cooking styles based on the four different regions. They speak different languages in each region, and they have a wide array of different traditions based on the former cultures that lived there before. China does not tolerate freedom of speech and they frequently kill anyone who is suspected on saying negative things about the current government. There is no defense orfair trial, and basic human rights are not valued by their government. Their economy is state controlled, but they are slowly changing into a free enterprise economy. I think that trading with China is mutually beneficial as long as they are not buying up significant amounts of raw materials that affect our national security. After the “911 attacks on New York and the Pentagon”, security measures at the ports are very strict in the US. 9 The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle have cameras, tall fences, and security personal strategically placed. They also conduct more customs inspections than before, and canines are commonly used to find people and contraband. The US also has a satellite system that detects nuclear radiation, infrared (heat signatures), records and filters every electronic conversation in the US, and video records the activities of the world’s ports. They also pay very close attention to refrigerated and abnormally heavy containers for biological weapons and shielded nuclear material. China does not perform any significant security measures other than custom inspections accompanied by armed guards. Custom inspectors frequently accept bribes to expedite export and import processing, which creates a huge delay for companies who did not pay bribes or paid less. Dogs are also used for detecting contraband, but they use german sheppards instead of beagles. German sheppards are know to be effective in chasing down people and enforcing security. However, beagles have two hundred times the ability to smell contraband. This means that their port security is seriously lacking unless they physically inspect every crate, which they do not normally do whenever a bribe is taken to expedite the customs process. Recently, the Port of Tacoma purchased three cranes from China to unload containers off the ships. They purchased scrap iron from suppliers in Washington State, melted the iron down, manufactured the cranes, and sold them back to us for less than domestic companies could make them. Inventories of iron are currently state managed and exceed “70% of iron imports internationally”. 10 US laws regarding customs are identified as governing security measures domestically. Otherwise, maritime laws apply to shipments. The political ramifications of cutting off certain resources to China will make them an enemy. In order for the US to be effective at cutting off the massive purchasing campaign of iron by China, it will need allies who are all the current trading partners to do the same thing. However, this would also make them enemies of China, and suppliers are becoming very wealthy by selling their raw materials for a higher price to China. This means that international trading partners must have a significant reason to cut China off or limit them other than the US’s economic prosperity. Culturally we also have to consider that the Chinese want a better life, and they want independence. It is unlikely that the US will be able to push the Chinese government into giving their people human rights without completely replacing their government or waiting a significant number of years for their human rights policies to catch up with the rest of the civilized countries in the world. Geographically, China has taken over Hong Kong, which is the largest shipping location of Chinese imports and exports. The decision of the Chinese government to take over Hong Kong assures their ability to distribute goods internationally without major changes in worldwide distribution. Economically, we must understand that China has a lot to offer in terms of cheap labor and outsourcing, but it may come with a steep cost in the near future. Letters of credit are guaranteed by international banks in Malaysia and China based on current deposits. This insures payment on receipt of goods for both imports and exports. The global marketing process for government contracts is the same as it is in the US. Foreign bidders are required to send a proposal to the government authority issuing the contract. Whether they choose to buy or not from a foreign source is a balance between price driven economics and supporting local companies. China has no restrictions on the treatment of their employees, the ages of workers, the hours they work, the healthcare of employees or their working conditions. US employers must abide by laws concerning the treatment of minors, paying overtime, paying wages, paying health and unemployment benefits, discrimination, etc. Foreign investment in China is carefully controlled in specific sectors and industries. Foreign investment in the US is allowed as long as it does not negatively impact our national security. This is why the US government stopped China from purchasing a controlling position in the U. S. ’s primary oil supplier. However, it is almost a guarantee that they will try again. If you choose to do business in China, please carefully consider the implications of your actions. Making a great profit is very important, but it can never come at the expense of our lives, the lives of our children or the world’s stability and security. I think the world has a great opportunity everyday to change for the greater good, maybe our enemies will decide that building a better world for everyone is better than petty arguments over land, money and religion. BibliographyFlannery, Russell. At Your Service, China! New York, NY: Forbes, 2007Goodman, Peter S. China Ends Fixed-Rate Currency. Washington DC: Washington Post, 2005Hersh, Adam S. China’s currency manipulation and U. S. trade. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003http://www. epinet. org/content. cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_10302003seHill, Charles W. L. Global Business Today 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2008R. , M. Beijing suspends human rights talks with United States. Geneva: Asia News, 2004 http://www. asianews. it/view4print. php?l=en&art=524

Many people would think that trading raw materials is mutually beneficial between countries. The US economy depends on profiting globally, and we understand the benefit of using cheap labor in foreign countries through FDI. However, what happens when a state financed enterprise in China strategically buys up raw materials like iron and petroleum. I am not just talking about an even percentage, I mean “greater than 90% of the world’s raw supply of iron” and complete control over the U. S. petroleum supply. 1 Fortunately, the US government noticed what they were up to and made it illegal for another county to purchase a controlling interest in the U. S. petroleum supply. On a side note, it was only five years ago that the North Korean government financed a massive plant to produce billions in counterfeit U. S. currency. Everyone knows that the U. S. military forces are superior to any other country, but there is one thing that we do not have. China has a “population of 87 million exceeds most European nations”. 2 Many of these people are living in less fortunate conditions. You might even assume that they would prefer a better life, and the right leader could influence them to do so at the expense of other nations. We are vastly out numbered, so what makes our military forces superior? The answer is technology, industry, petroleum, and iron. Technology is always either for sale, or it can be gathered through espionage. China can buy the same level of technology from intermediaries or allied governments. Industry can be built with economic growth. Currently China is the number one growing economy in the world. It nearly controlled our petroleum supply domestically and failed, so China decided to buy petroleum from Saudi Arabia through German intermediaries. Now our gas prices are going through the roof and stock analysts are saying its some kind of market fluke created by a belief that oil prices will continue to soar. Iron, the main export that I would like to discuss, is five times its original price four years ago when China started buying up the world’s supply of raw iron. Right now, they are using this iron to create cranes and other machinery to export to the US and other nations, but most of the iron is being stockpiled in China for future use. What future use? We can only speculate. Why would China stockpile their ever-increasing supply of iron and still buy more, regardless of the price (literally)? What big plans do they have for such an immense stockpile of iron? Aren’t bullets, guns, factories, and tanks made out of iron? Absolutely, here is a piece of an article on the Chinese economy. “In recent years China’s booming economy, fueled by large inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and rapid export growth, has emerged as a significant force in the global economy. This year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest recipient of FDI, and its bilateral trade surplus with the United States reached $117 billion in the 12 months up through August 2003. Both inward investment and export growth create strong demand for China’s currency, the Yuan. All things being equal, such demand pressures should cause the Yuan to appreciate relative to the U. S. dollar and cause China’s external position to return to balance. ”3Since China is the number one growing economy on the planet, they also have the number one growing currency relative to the US and other nations. Everyday China is become more industrialized. They used to be a purely state controlled economy, but they are starting to develop into more of a free economy in some areas. Overall, they are not shutting down as many businesses that do not pay the government officials regular bribes, which is definitely a move in the right direction. The US wants to encourage free trade with China because of their enormous population. This means that US companies would have access to a huge new market of consumers. It also means improving the quality of life in China. It is also widely known that many native Chinese women perform acts of prostitution or marry solely to support their family. It is also common in China to see people walking barefoot because they cannot afford sandals, or seeing people including children who are starving. China also has more than 300 organized crime syndicates with a history that goes back to the Shaolin Monks. China is a desperate nation, so desperate that they engage in foreign currency scams to inflate the value of the Renminbi (pronounced Yuan). In 2000, the exchange rate was 8. 3 Yuan per U. S. dollar. Today, the exchange rate is 7. 6 Yuan per US dollar. Here is the second piece of the article above. “But all things are not equal: China pegs the Yuan to the dollar at a fixed rate and strictly regulates imports and the allocation of foreign exchange. In order to maintain the Yuan’s fixed value, China must create a residual supply of Yuan to counter growing demand for its currency; China achieves this by buying dollars in foreign exchange markets. Between December 2000 and July 2003, China more than doubled its foreign reserve holdings from $168 billion (16% of its GDP) to $361 billion (31% of its GDP). ”4“How should the United States respond? On nine occasions between 1988 and 1992, the U. S. Treasury found that similar external surpluses accompanied by much smaller accumulation of foreign reserves constituted evidence that countries—including China—were manipulating their currency’s value for competitive trade advantage. When such a finding is made, U. S. law requires the Treasury Secretary to undertake negotiations to end such manipulation. Current evidence indicates that China is engaged in just such a manipulation of the Yuan for competitive gain. ”5Today, foreign “investment, combined with China’s swelling export earnings, have pushed the country’s foreign exchange reserves beyond $600 billion”. 6 One thing that I learned from experience is that desperate people and people that try to steal from others generally cannot be trusted. This is why, among all the other evidence I provided above, I do not think we should let the Chinese government do whatever they want. They should not have a majority of the world’s iron, petroleum or our country’s economic and physical security in the palm of their hands. What good are tanks and supply trucks that do not have gas? This may seem silly today, because we are not at war with China. In support of this opinion, many nations like Japan learned long ago that warfare in the physical sense is foolish and destructive, because it diminishes the productive capacity of the nation unless they can build new factories just as fast as their enemies can blow them up. Today, the real modern warfare is economics. If China shuts down U. S. companies that depend on buying iron at a certain price in order to earn a profit after U. S. labor costs, then they take our market share and our productive capacity depends on whether China will sell us what we need. Prices are good today because Chinese labor costs are low, but it will not stay that way according to economic theory. Eventually the FDI, which exceeds our nation, will create even more jobs and economic prosperity in China. The end-result will increase wages, and hopefully it will improve working conditions. However, if China does not sell to us anymore and they do the same bullying routine in other international markets, then we could be at a serious economic and military disadvantage. Should we trust China and believe that they want to change for the better? Here is an article that may shed some light on that question. “China wants to suspend human rights talks with the United States. The news came after Washington said yesterday that it will condemn Beijing’s serious violations with a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission currently underway in Geneva. The Chinese foreign minister called the action taken by the Americans a ‘serous meddling in China’s internal affairs. ’ China’s Vice Foreign7 Minister said the ‘clash intentionally provoked by the United States has now seriously damaged any basis for dialog and discussion on human rights issues between both countries. China must immediately suspend talks and discussion. ’ Yesterday, US State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, expressed the American government’s disappointment with Beijing’s inadequacies in improving human rights conditions in the country, after commitments it undertook in 2002 and 2003. Boucher also stressed Washington’s concern about ‘backward steps’ being taken by China, as reported in the American government’s world human rights report released last Feb. Last year the United States asked for a resolution, stating that Beijing had made limited, though significant progress in the sphere of human rights. The resolution was presented each year after the brutal repression of the student protestors in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. This year various human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, asked that the United States to put back a motion to blacklist Beijing. Even American trade union representatives requested that their government condemn China for the way it trades its labor force. Meanwhile Amnesty International called for a moratorium on the death penalty on China, reporting that the Chinese legal system does not guarantee fair trials and often punishes innocent persons. Yesterday the AI published a report titled ‘Executed according to law?’ ‘The report was released following statements made by a member of Chinese Parliament who said that every year there are at least 10,000 people sentenced to death in China 5 times more than all cases of capital punishment registered worldwide’. ”8The Chinese people are very much like our own with the exception that they communicate more through context and women are not valued very highly in their society. They also have four different cooking styles based on the four different regions. They speak different languages in each region, and they have a wide array of different traditions based on the former cultures that lived there before. China does not tolerate freedom of speech and they frequently kill anyone who is suspected on saying negative things about the current government. There is no defense orfair trial, and basic human rights are not valued by their government. Their economy is state controlled, but they are slowly changing into a free enterprise economy. I think that trading with China is mutually beneficial as long as they are not buying up significant amounts of raw materials that affect our national security. After the “911 attacks on New York and the Pentagon”, security measures at the ports are very strict in the US. 9 The Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle have cameras, tall fences, and security personal strategically placed. They also conduct more customs inspections than before, and canines are commonly used to find people and contraband. The US also has a satellite system that detects nuclear radiation, infrared (heat signatures), records and filters every electronic conversation in the US, and video records the activities of the world’s ports. They also pay very close attention to refrigerated and abnormally heavy containers for biological weapons and shielded nuclear material. China does not perform any significant security measures other than custom inspections accompanied by armed guards. Custom inspectors frequently accept bribes to expedite export and import processing, which creates a huge delay for companies who did not pay bribes or paid less. Dogs are also used for detecting contraband, but they use german sheppards instead of beagles. German sheppards are know to be effective in chasing down people and enforcing security. However, beagles have two hundred times the ability to smell contraband. This means that their port security is seriously lacking unless they physically inspect every crate, which they do not normally do whenever a bribe is taken to expedite the customs process. Recently, the Port of Tacoma purchased three cranes from China to unload containers off the ships. They purchased scrap iron from suppliers in Washington State, melted the iron down, manufactured the cranes, and sold them back to us for less than domestic companies could make them. Inventories of iron are currently state managed and exceed “70% of iron imports internationally”. 10 US laws regarding customs are identified as governing security measures domestically. Otherwise, maritime laws apply to shipments. The political ramifications of cutting off certain resources to China will make them an enemy. In order for the US to be effective at cutting off the massive purchasing campaign of iron by China, it will need allies who are all the current trading partners to do the same thing. However, this would also make them enemies of China, and suppliers are becoming very wealthy by selling their raw materials for a higher price to China. This means that international trading partners must have a significant reason to cut China off or limit them other than the US’s economic prosperity. Culturally we also have to consider that the Chinese want a better life, and they want independence. It is unlikely that the US will be able to push the Chinese government into giving their people human rights without completely replacing their government or waiting a significant number of years for their human rights policies to catch up with the rest of the civilized countries in the world. Geographically, China has taken over Hong Kong, which is the largest shipping location of Chinese imports and exports. The decision of the Chinese government to take over Hong Kong assures their ability to distribute goods internationally without major changes in worldwide distribution. Economically, we must understand that China has a lot to offer in terms of cheap labor and outsourcing, but it may come with a steep cost in the near future. Letters of credit are guaranteed by international banks in Malaysia and China based on current deposits. This insures payment on receipt of goods for both imports and exports. The global marketing process for government contracts is the same as it is in the US. Foreign bidders are required to send a proposal to the government authority issuing the contract. Whether they choose to buy or not from a foreign source is a balance between price driven economics and supporting local companies. China has no restrictions on the treatment of their employees, the ages of workers, the hours they work, the healthcare of employees or their working conditions. US employers must abide by laws concerning the treatment of minors, paying overtime, paying wages, paying health and unemployment benefits, discrimination, etc. Foreign investment in China is carefully controlled in specific sectors and industries. Foreign investment in the US is allowed as long as it does not negatively impact our national security. This is why the US government stopped China from purchasing a controlling position in the U. S. ’s primary oil supplier. However, it is almost a guarantee that they will try again. If you choose to do business in China, please carefully consider the implications of your actions. Making a great profit is very important, but it can never come at the expense of our lives, the lives of our children or the world’s stability and security. I think the world has a great opportunity everyday to change for the greater good, maybe our enemies will decide that building a better world for everyone is better than petty arguments over land, money and religion. BibliographyFlannery, Russell. At Your Service, China! New York, NY: Forbes, 2007Goodman, Peter S. China Ends Fixed-Rate Currency. Washington DC: Washington Post, 2005Hersh, Adam S. China’s currency manipulation and U. S. trade. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2003http://www. epinet. org/content. cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_10302003seHill, Charles W. L. Global Business Today 5th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2008R. , M. Beijing suspends human rights talks with United States. Geneva: Asia News, 2004 http://www. asianews. it/view4print. php?l=en&art=524