US Gives Little To China Compared To Other Nations

May 16, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Offers of aid pour into China this week. The Chinese are grateful and are keeping a close count on who is offering what. It is quite revealing, this list. Also, Japan is seeing auto sales at home continue to collapse as the working class is vanishing into deeper and deeper poverty even as Chinese workers move upwards, rapidly. This is our future, by the way. And Germany's economy grows faster than even the Japanese economy even while German workers succeed in keeping up with inflation unlike Japanese and American workers. Thanks to the strong euro. And strong sales to Sovereign Wealth nations like China, Russia and the Arabs.

BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Several more countries have offered aid to China whose southwest Sichuan province was hit by a massive earthquake on Monday.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz has decided to donate 50 million U.S. dollars in cash and 10 million dollars worth of relief materials.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that his country will provide to China 1 million pounds (about 2 million U.S.) in aid.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his government will provide a first instalment of 500,000 euros (800,000 U.S. dollars) in aid to the German Red Cross to help China in its relief work.

Russia delivered Wednesday its second batch of humanitarian aid to China where a devastating earthquake has claimed nearly 15,000 lives in its southwestern Sichuan province, local media reported.

A cargo plane from the Emergency Ministry took off here Wednesday evening, carrying some 30 tons of aid to the quake-hit areasThe Japanese government has decided Tuesday to give 500 million yen (about 5 million U.S. dollars) of emergency grants in aid to China to support the earthquake disaster relief efforts, Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura announced in the evening.

Komura said the Japanese government made the decision after receiving a request from Beijing, and will consider giving further aid if necessary

.The Vietnamese government has decided to donate 200,000 U.S. dollars to victims of a recent earthquake in China's southwestern Sichuan province, local newspaper Saigon Liberation reported Thursday.

Here is an old cartoon I did two years ago. Appropriate today.

The U.S. embassy to China, on behalf of the U.S. government, Wednesday handed over 500,000 U.S. dollars of cash to the Red Cross Society of China for quake relief in southwestern China.

OK: the US is giving China basically nothing. Less than much smaller and 'weaker' nations. Note who is at the top of the giving list: Saudi Arabia. I have detailed over the last three years, the Chinese moves towards Saudi Arabia. Step by step, the Chinese have been displacing the Americans in Saudi Arabia. This is an insidious process that is mostly subterranean. The fact that the official Chinese news service put both SA and the US in the same headline is important.

The US cannot fathom the depth of anger the Chinese government feels towards our government. The US has outsourced much of its pollution to China. Both Japan and the US have moved their factories to China in order to pollute China or exploit cheap Chinese labor. But for both countries to turn against China and pretend all the multinational corporations that are doing this is all CHINA'S fault is too much to bear. When China raised the value of the yuan, for example, both the US and Japan plunged their currencies against all others in the world and instead of rewarding China for doing this, punished the Chinese.

I will note that Japan has changed leaders and its tune vis a vis China. Note the generosity of the Japanese which the Chinese government has lauded.

Another thing: a big, big propaganda point in the US is the lie that China doesn't want any aid. This noxious pretense flies in the face of Chinese acceptance and gratitude to the nations that ARE offering help. On top of all this, China doesn't want the sort of 'help' given to poor Indonesia when the Boxing Day Eartquake/Tsunami killed hundreds of thousands. Ships filled with all the detritus of US closets came pouring in, tying up dock workers, all flooding Indonesia with rags and junk! They poured this noxious pollution onto the beaches of this crippled nation and departed. I saw photos of mountains of discarded, dirty clothes on the beaches there. China doesn't want this sort of 'help'. They want specific things which is quite rational.

To do this, anyone offering help has to work through the Chinese government. Just as they can't let in armies of paramilitary people with dogs to dig out the survivors for fear the CIA and other secret organizations will use this as a chance to operate against China under cover, China can't just let anyone do whatever they want. Just as the US will not let in a flood of Chinese with military training and dogs if the San Andreas blows out.

Which it will.

Another cartoon from 2 years ago.

China offers help to rebuild New Orleans. This story is from Hurricane Katrina. When China offered help, the US Congress and Bush went nuts. They thought the Chinese would give us up to $2.5 trillion to rebuild! China declined. The US was undergoing a record building boom at the time of this hurricane. Since we were lavishing trillions of dollars building houses on top of the San Andreas fault as well as very close to the ocean in all the hurricane-prone states, the thought that we deserved Chinese funds to continue this madness was pure madness.

Another cartoon from two years ago.

Click here for April, 2006, Diplomacy News to see stories about the messy Hu/Bush visits. I wrote extensively about the insulting visit Bush gave Hu back in April, 2006. The US boasted openly about making Hu 'lose face.' Our attitude about this tragic earthquake continues this tradition. Instead of supporting the government of China to deal with this horror, we are sniping at China from the sidelines. I can't wait until we are in the same boat and weeping for world sympathy and aid.

All nations, to show solidarity and a desire for peace, have to suspend global power struggles when tragedies hit. This is common courtesy. Back to the markets today, the news from Asia is, as always, interesting. The impact of this Chinese earthquake is barely felt yet. But will be, increasingly, after the Olympics, when China turns inward to rebuild and to deal with the problem of all its public schools which are mostly cement structures.

Broad Impact Looms As Vehicle Ownership Falls In Japan

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The number of vehicles in Japan has started declining, a trend that will not only have an impact on related businesses, such as insurers, repair shops and gas stations, but also affect the nation's road-building policy.
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Economic Slowdown At Home Could Block Mizuho's Recovery Path

TOKYO (Nikkei)--Despite Mizuho Financial Group Inc.'s (8411) assurances that it will stage a rebound this fiscal year following a profit plunge in fiscal 2007, a domestic economic slowdown is likely to weigh on the banking group's earnings.
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MARKET SCRAMBLE: Surging Costs Test Firms' Discipline

TOKYO (Nikkei)--At a time when soaring raw materials costs threaten to eat into profit margins, companies that act quickly to prevent a decline in profitability are likely to emerge as winners and benefit from higher share prices.
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BOJ Seen Turning 'Dovish' As Uncertainty Prevails

TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Bank of Japan's policy-setting board is shifting toward a "dovish" policy stance under the new leadership of Masaaki Shirakawa, according to five prominent BOJ watchers.

Older car registrations have been falling for more than a year. Now new car registrations are falling in Japan. This is due to the same problem we see in the US: wages are dropping vis a vis real inflation. And the central banks, as they flood the world with Funny Money™ are making this worse and worse. And thanks to this inflation, the ability to buy things like cars is collapsing. This is why banks must track the real costs of inflation which is in food and fuel. Those shoot up, economies collapse. Of course, the 'cure' is to have low interest rates. But this is obviously a failure. Japan has super-low rates but thanks to the brutal cutting of wages to clip inflation, no one in Japan can afford to buy anything even if the interest on a loan is cheap. And thanks to food and fuel inflation, no one can save money anymore.

INFLATION KILLS SAVINGS. And no banking system can run on no savings for very long which is why the system is collapsing. I will note that no one within the banking system with the exception of outsiders like Volcker even mention savers at all! They don't for a reason: they want to increase debts, not savings! But we can see in Japan, this 0% system is a total failure. Also, as industrialists seek to squeeze out inflation of commodities via squeezing workers, Japan, one of the world's biggest economies, is DYING. And this is like a cancer within the global economic system. As Japan dies, its disease spreads. As Japan ceases to buy world market goods, trade falters across the planet. This is why the G7 have to turn to Japan and stop this madness. The commodities cost too much in Japan thanks to the weak yen. But to gain profits via trade, Japan wants above all, a weak yen!

Euro zone under calls for single seat in international forums

The euro zone members were called on Thursday to speak in one voice with a single seat in international forums such as International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"The euro area must build an international strategy so that it can play a full part in pursuing global stability and project and defend its interests in the world," EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told an economic forum in Brussels celebrating 10 years of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).

"This means first developing common positions on international issues so that we can speak with a strong single voice. Once accomplished, the logical next step will be to consolidate our representation and obtain a single seat in international forums," he added.

Europe wants to have their cake and be one party but also be many little party goers at the same time. Like Russia when it joined the UN. All the provinces that left the Soviets after the fall of the communist dictators were put in the UN as separate nations. Europe wants to be a host of small principalities and nations while being one entity when it comes to important things like money. The US didn't fall for this scheme when the UN was created for fear that the US would explode apart if each state were treated as a separate nation.

So Europe is the world's biggest economy this year while not being really a nation with any real unity. Indeed, as we see in today's news from Italy, ethnic cleansing is very much alive in Europe. Many Eastern Europeans have flooded into Western Europe even as Western Europe sucks in more and more former Soviet satellites. And this is causing a reaction that is exploding across Europe. A very unstable and weak Holy Roman Empire situation, I would suggest.

Europe, like Japan, wants a stronger dollar so they can continue merrily exporting more goods than they buy from the US. Germany, due to its strong industrial base, is the most powerful part of this disjointed union which is why I call it the Fourth Holy Roman Empire, der vierte Reich.

Led by Germany, a Strong Quarter for Europe

Surprising even the most optimistic forecasters, the German economy grew 1.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, delivering its best performance in over a decade despite the global financial crisis and recessionary fears enveloping the United States.

The euro zone, where Germany accounts for a third of economic output among 15 members, grew 0.7 percent during the period, the statistics agency Eurostat reported Thursday. The region’s numbers, which represent quarter-on-quarter growth, also got a surprising lift from France, where the economy grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter.

The figures, which were about double what most economists expected, suggested that the European economy was demonstrating a resilience that seemed unlikely as recently as last autumn. However, economists said the numbers obscure severe slowdowns in Ireland and Spain, which have been battered by the global housing decline, and a probable recession in Italy.

Germany has increased its partnerships with China working on huge construction projects like the rail system. German engineers will be flooding into China soon to help with the rebuilding of the road and rail infrastructure. I notices from photos of the earthquakes, the major highways in the Chengdu region were built on the German model: huge cement slabs that are then paved over. Many of our highways are built on a lighter foundation. So it seems to me that the Chinese are using German technology and standards rather than American.

There there are the Arab countries: they prefer to buy from Germany when it comes to machinery. And also Japan these days. So both are doing well in the auto markets. Unlike you know who.

U.K. Two-Year Notes Have Biggest Four-Day Decline Since 1996

U.K. two-year government bonds dropped the most in 12 years this week as traders abandoned bets the Bank of England will cut interest rates next month.

``The unwind has been massive,'' said Matteo Regesta, a London-based interest-rate strategist at BNP Paribas SA, France's biggest bank. ``We have to completely change the way we look at the gilt market.''

And here it is: the Horns of Dilemma. Inflation is rapidly increasing in England, the US and Japan. But none can escape this since all need to keep interest rates low in order to keep increasing the indebtedness of the home bases. We need to go further and further into debt but his is a deteriorating condition with a final end of bankruptcy. We can't do this while our economies are also contracting! Contracting economies usually are forced into a depression cycle but not if savings are destroyed. Then the banking system collapses as it did after the 1929 stock market collapse. Ignoring inflation caused by efforts to stop this lending collapse is even worse. It leads to hyper inflation. So we are caught in a trap we made ourselves. And getting out via trade won't work. Not if we are alienating our potential markets. Like the Chinese.

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Comments

[raphael]

Dear Elaine,
What will happen after the olympics? Will the chinese ever tell us to drop dead, and stop lending us billions? Hyperinflation is happening right now, what will happen if China deserts us? Im concerned that our blatent disrespect to China will have grave consequences in the future. Please respond if possible. Thank you so much. I love your writing. You have helped me learn so much.

[blues]

George W. Bush: Bachelor's degree in history from Yale. MBA from Harvard.

[blues]

My dear raphael,

The answer to your question is, as you certainly now suspect, obvious.

[Buffalo Ken]

The US needs to learn how to take care of ourselves. Being kind and helpful to China would probably be a good way to do this (for us and for China). We cannot rely on other countries to take care of us. These other countries are taking care of themselves as they should.

If our so-called "leaders" can't take care of the citizens, then perhaps it is time for a change.

Don't you think?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Couple all this with the open insults slapped on our dear leader in Saudi Arabia and we see the future perfectly clear. Pull down our pants and clutch our ankles. We are screwed.

[DeVaul]

I cannot help but feel that there is something unseemly about offering "aid" in the form of "dollars" to China since all of our foreign aid is borrowed from... China!

I have never heard of anyone going to the local bank to borrow money so that they can donate it to the bank's owner after his home burns down. If I were the banker, I would be insulted by this.

You cannot feed the person who feeds you.

[eschew]

So true, DeVaul.

What the US can offer is Search and Rescue teams with dogs to sniff through all the rubble. Nothing like rolling up the sleeves and getting our hands dirty to show some respect for fellow human beings.

[DeVaul]

That would be a very nice gesture or better yet, to offer real goods such as tents, medicine, and other equipment instead of pieces of paper borrowed from the person who is in need of help.

Unfortunately, our rescue teams are full of CIA spies and informants. We overplayed the spy game on the world stage, and now no one trusts us. I sure wouldn't. What a shame.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Yup, as I said, we send in help you can bet, spies will be a good part of this help.

[CK]

Burma did not want the CIA/American Aid workers that come with american disaster aid.
Can't say as I blame them for not wanting them.
Likewise the Chinese. The USA do have some spectacularly inane people working in it's disaster response teams.
Meanwhile, yours truly has the distinct pleasure of having to replace his heating system this week. The 40 year old Columbian furnace was leaking sievelike and could no longer be nursed along through another winter. Out with the old boy and in with a sparkling new Budurus boiler, external water tank and logamatic control box. German engineering, german cast iron, unfortunately also Euro based pricing. The promise is a 50% reduction in fuel oil consumption. If that is correct, payback period is under 4 years at current oil prices and usage...over 25% ROI...beating current inflation at least. It isn't solar, it isn't wind ( there are legal restrictions on windmills and solar panels here...mustn't put those things where other folks might see them. But the Budurus rep did say that they do solar and can install it properly.

[CK]

Ok I spelled it wrong ( and pronounced it improperly when speaking with the rep) he became a wee bit testy at the mispronunciation.
It's Buderus and here is their solar link:
http://www.buderussolar.com/

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I have a Japanese system which is extremely efficient and run by a sophisticated computer system whereby I can control the water to an amazing degree.

But 90% of my heating is now primitive firewood I collect in the forest. It is super-cheap, of course.

[OC]

You should keep an eye on the order which China accepted aid from foreign countries - Taiwan, Korea,Japan, Russia and Singapore and those countries whose offer of aid are rejected...

It is very revealing as who the dragon considers as close friends...and who is not.

[Dragon]

Heil meil 胡锦涛 and Heil meil 温家宝 for their excellent Führung. Meine Geliebten Führer! We will give everything to defend 中國.

鳳凰寬頻

[CK]

@Elaine: I envy you your wood supply. Which Japanese system did you install?
@OC: The Chinese were the first to aid Burma. No restrictions on the aid, no meddlesome secret agency spys necessary.

[Sands]

I've also been somewhat surprised by the claim that China doesn't want outside help. I've seen pictures of rescue teams from all over the world, including that breakaway province called Taiwan! I'm also surprised that American politicians seem completely oblivious to the amount of goodwill that could have been generated both in China and at home. China's one-child policy along with collapsing schools have meant that whole generations have been wiped out in some towns. That really hits a nerve in China. And I'm sure ordinary Americans could have empathized with the Chinese parents. Yet the politicians twiddle their fingers! "Here's some chump change, please don't feel insulted".

On Japanese car sales I think there are two forces at work. One is that they have a tax policy that makes it very expensive to drive cars older than five years. This is essentially a hidden subsidy to automakers since it destroys the used car market. Except now it's biting them in the ass because people don't really see a point in going repeatedly into debt just to buy a car every five years. The other reason is that the population is graying fast and they can't really afford such profligacy with their pensions. Not that I'm too critical of the tax, seems to me that it serves a useful purpose as the environmental tax the politicians disingenuously touted it as.

I was fairly sure that France would show solid growth but I was less sure about Germany since their economy relies on exports and the Euro has been so strong. A pleasant surprise, though somewhat spoiled by the perennially gloomy Germans throwing up yet another "woe is me" confidence poll. Europe should be further buoyed by decent growth in the Benelux and Nordic countries. Unfortunately a much more mixed picture in Central Europe. Some countries have definitely entered a bust, such as Estonia dropping from 11% growth in 2006 to what will probably be negative growth in 2008 (ouch!).

Regarding heating, you could try small scale geothermal energy. Sufficiently deep under ground the temperature is at constant cool levels, representing a temperature differential with the surface that can be exploited with surprising efficiency.

[Brock]

China has 1.5 trillion dollars in savings (foreign reserves). Why in the hell would the US, who is basically broke, give them a cent? China can more afford to rebuild than could the USA after Katrina.

And, the CCP is evil. Flat out evil.

[Paul S]

Note re CIA: they have folks placed in various positions at the State govt. level. One of my home state's former governors was recently interviewed on the radio and confirmed this. He said the current governor knows this to be true as well. Kinda makes you wonder why they do that. Especially with the CIA's record of GROSS incompetence. President Kennedy was right; we should have smashed the CIA into a thousand pieces. Re "Dubaya's" latest meeting with his masters in Saudi Arabia:"Dubaya" should be grateful the Saudis didn't spit in his face. I read "Dubaya's" solution: we need to explore for oil domestically. Does our ruling class have absolutely NO shame? (Rhetorical question. I know the answer.) No talk of getting off the oil habit, no talk about alternative fuels, just find a new source of price gouging for the oil companies. I note in passing how difficult it has been to even raise the CAFE standards for domestic cars. And of course, no talk of stopping the oil companies from buying any alternative energy source and then burying it so the oil profits keep flowing.

[Crimson Ghost]

Elaine:

Here is a blog you should follow.

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/winter/

Your blog and this one are on the same wave length to put it mildly.

It has unearthed pig men scams that even you have missed.

[visitor]

And, the CCP is evil. Flat out evil.

Posted by: Brock | May 17, 2008 at 12:11 PM
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Hahahaha.... Look who is talking! Yeah, apparently CCP wasn't evil enough to wipe out almost the entire native Indian populations. (People like you were in their country and you called the Indians the savages) CCP wasn't evil enough to enslave the Africans. (People like you enslaved human beings and you call the blacks the Black terrorists) CCP wasn't evil enough to go other countries to over throw governments and cause genocides. (People like interfere in other people's internal affairs and you call them the natives left leaning communists) AND APPARENTLY CCP isn't evil enough to cause millions of innocent Iraqis displaced and killed. (People like you cause genocides in Iraq and you call the Iraqis the Al-Qaedas) Hahahaha..... For every accusation you make against the CCP, I will show you an example that proves you are 10 times worse. What do you have to say about that? Hahahaha..........

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

You are correct, visitor. But the history of humanity is all about blood, warfare and enslavement! Curiously, the only reason the Mongols didn't kill all the Chinese peasants in 1200 was because a Chinese official explained how one could get great wealth taxing the labor of these fine, oppressed people!

The Mongols seriously wanted to eliminate them!

American Indians made poor slaves. This is because they believed in the warrior ethic and itched to fight back. But Africans who fight just as hard at home, were displaced and their tribes broken up and so they didn't have the unity of tribal interrelationships to forge fierce fighting guerilla warriors.

The machine gun, by the way, was invented to kill American Indians AND African warriors in Africa! The brutal suppression of stone age or copper age people was ferocious and a crime against humanity that we still refuse to repay.

[Royal Dutch]

THE POX ON POLITICS AND EARTHQUAKES
VOTE WITH YOUR MONEY
SEND THIS OUT TO EVERYONE ASAP
http://thisjune5th.com/

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I guess I just had a revelation tonight concerning how we humans have to deal with our situation today. Arg. It is rather sad, actually.

I suspect the Chinese might do it. Use gold as the Great Regulator again. If they do this, they take over international currency rules.

[Gary W]

They're welcome to those rules, since everyone else has borked them profoundly. It might be all right if they don't confiscate all the gold like the US did for the Lesser Depression.

Re the Mongols: didn't they kill everyone, from Central Asia to Eastern Europe, because they didn't want to see farms and cities and people going about their business, they wanted to see endless grasslands for their livestock. Hmm?

[DeVaul]

I read the coverage of the earthquake in China in the Wall Street Journal. It was sickening. They could not find enough room to criticize nearly everything the Chinese were doing to help their citizens. Of course, no real mention of Katrina or New Orleans.

The Chinese mobilized over 100,000 soldiers in less than two days. Can we do this?

They proceeded to the collapsed schools first because they had orders to save children first and elderly last. Is this a crime against humanity?

Chinese troops "parachuted" into the epicenter as soon as the clouds cleared. They then carried survivors out on their backs to the nearest refugee camp 9 hours a way. Did we do this in New Orleans?

China's leader was on the scene in less than 24 hours. Neither he nor any other official claimed not to know that people were starving, stranded, or dying of thirst.

I could go on, but that is enough. If I was outraged by reading the WSJ, then I can only imagine the reaction of the Chinese leadership, who I know also read the same articles.

I do not think China will stay its hand for much longer. I wouldn't.

[Sands]

The Mongols were bloodthirsty but not genocidal. If they were the kind of people you imagine then there would be a large depopulated swathe of land from China through Russia into Mesopotamia and India (It does tickle my fancy to imagine pagan Lithuania repopulating the Russian steppes). The Mongols did pillage cities that failed to resist sieges, but that was sadly enough acceptable behavior through much of the world.

[Phil the thrill]

CHINA IS #1 gold MINER IN THE WORLD!!!

this isn't by accident!