What should we do about the rise of China? To answer this question, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) convened an “independent task force,” a group of thirty experts, including Commentary contributors Aaron Friedberg and Arthur Waldron. The group has just issued its findings under the title: U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course.
Like all such documents, the report has its share of compelling and tedious moments. The most revealing section of this one is its nine dissents, a record-breaker for the consensus-seeking CFR. (For the record, Friedberg and Waldron are among the dissenters.) In his demurral, Winston Lord, U.S. ambassador to the PRC under Ronald Reagan, complains that the report “seriously understates the harshness of the Chinese political system and the backsliding in recent years on political reform and human rights.”
Coming at the same issue from another direction is Maurice Greenberg, the insurance tycoon and former chairman of AIG, who in his own dissent takes issue with what he calls the report’s “persistent urging of democracy in China.”
Greenberg, who has been making a mint in China, notes that since 1975 when he began to travel there, he has seen “unbelievable change,” especially in the economy. The key to it all, he maintains, is political stability, which we should not endanger. The United States should therefore “stop pressing China to adopt a democratic political system–that is up to them. If it is to occur, it has to be their own choice.”
I do not know what this particular logical fallacy is called in Latin, but one is left wondering who is the “them” that Greenberg is referring to here? And if democracy in China “has to be their own choice,” who is going to be making this choice? The Chinese people or their self-appointed and self-perpetuating Communist leaders?
But let’s not be in a rush to solve this difficult conundrum. The Chinese market is huge. There’s money to be made.
Hmmm.
So let me get this straight.
You think the Democrats are going to have the courage to pass a more liberal immigration reform than the POS “comprehensive immigration reform act” that McCain tried to push. Something that a huge percentage of American voters oppose.
And you think the Democrats don’t have the courage to pass card check because unions are being shown in a bad light.
That’s an interesting thing.
Of course the Dems are getting cold feet on this, they know nows not the time for this nonsense and it will back fire on them.
Plus Dems do not realistically think they will expand unions in the private sector, their union growth model in on government union expansion.
The Dems have never had any intention of passing card check. It’s been their strategy for decades to portray themselves as the “party of the working family” during an election campaign and then move on to social engineering after the vote. There’s no payback for union membership but it doesn’t matter because there is no alternative. Labor can’t get in a coalition, as in a parliamentary system, because there’s only two options. The Dems don’t need to pander to labor to get their vote, it’s automatic. So why should they expose themselves? Card check is already a dead issue.
There will necessarily be matches applied to these “cold feet.” Unless I am missing something, there is no way Congress can bail out Detroit (i.e., the UAW) unless it is prepared to issue an interminable succession of increasingly expensive bailouts or unless it can force the unionization of the non-UAW plants (the “Roosevelt solution”). The former is rapidly going to become unacceptable to a public that has financial problems of its own. The latter cannot possibly work without card-check. The UAW owns enough democrats that it is hard to see it standing idly by as it is crippled or destroyed by the bankruptcy of the formerly “Big 3.” This could get interesting!
Memo, if I’m reading you right, I have to respond the McCain style immigration reform was certainly not vastly unpopular. It’s unpopularity was primarily in the GOP, and the percentage of independents and Democrats who are super-jerkoffy on the immigration issue is not great. Immigration might get some folks riled up but you are kidding yourself if you think a bunch of anti-immigration yahoos reflect the sentiments of most people. In other words, the Democrats have no real reason not to pass immigration reform along the centrist lines, but it may not be necessary to do so, the status quo is essentially acceptable. Immigration was such a political issue because Republicans thought riling up sentiment was good. This turned out not to be true. Democrats don’t need to do anything, or they could if they want.
As for card check, they will wait until either after the first midterm election victory, or after Obama’s reelection. There’s no rush as long as its inevitable.