Real Apprecation In China, One Way or the Other

Just last week I noted that because of QE2 a real appreciation in China will occur one way or the other: either its currency will appreciate faster or its domestic prices will soar.   The former seems unlikely because of China's commitment to its export-driven growth strategy.  Consequently, China will most  likely stay tied to the Fed's QE2 monetary policy via its crawling peg and continue to allow domestic prices to soar.   I also mentioned that this real appreciation should contribute to a rebalancing of the global economy.  As if on cue, the New York Times reports the following yesterday:

HONG KONG — Inflation is starting to slow China’s mighty export machine, as buyers from Western multinational companies balk at higher prices and have cut back their planned spring shipments across the Pacific.

Markups of 20 to 50 percent on products like leather shoes and polo shirts have sent Western buyers scrambling for alternate suppliers. But from Vietnam to India, few low-wage developing countries can match China’s manufacturing might — and no country offers refuge from high global commodity prices... The trend, if continued, could ease tensions by beginning to limit America’s huge trade deficit with China.

This is an interesting article throughout, but the one thing it fails to do is connect China's high inflation to the Fed's monetary policy.  It is no coincidence that inflation is accelerating now.

"Barack Obama braces for Jon Huntsman 2012 bid."

A big headline over at Politico that had me wondering: Who's Jon Huntsman?

He's: 1. the U.S. Ambassador to China, 2. the former Governor of Utah, 3. Republican, 4. wealthy, 5. good-looking, 6. Mormon, and 7. was co-chairman of McCain's campaign in '08.

“I couldn’t be happier with the ambassador’s service, and I’m sure he will be very successful in whatever endeavors he chooses in the future,” Obama said of Huntsman.... “And I’m sure that him having worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary.”

I love when the Prez gets sarcastic.

“It’s also good to see Jon Huntsman, our ambassador to China,” [White House Chief of Staff William Daley said...] “Or as we call him around the White House: the Manchurian Candidate. I want Jon to know that the president has no hard feelings. In fact, he just did an interview with the Tea Party Express saying how integral he has been to the success of the Obama administration.”

So... they sound worried, right?

[T]he appointment of Huntsman was, in the first place, unmistakably political. With senior Obama advisers openly fretting about the prospect of facing off against a telegenic, wealthy, center-right Republican, shipping him off to Beijing was hailed as a savvy play.

Helloooo, savvy plan!

No way, the assumption went, could he somehow return stateside and capture his party’s nomination after serving in the Obama administration.

Okay, let's look back at the news reports from 2009, when Huntsman was appointed ambassador:

For Mr. Obama, whose advisers already have their eyes set on his re-election in 2012, the selection of Mr. Huntsman is something of a political coup. He has emerged as one of the nation’s most visible Republican governors and was expected to at least consider seeking his party’s presidential nomination to run against Mr. Obama....

It was far from certain whether Mr. Huntsman would have actually sought the Republican presidential nomination – his centrist views could have created a challenge in early-voting states – but if he is confirmed by the Senate for the ambassadorship to China, he is part of the Obama team at a time when China is of critical importance. And he is out of the mix in the 2012 presidential race.

“When the president of the United States asks you to step up and serve in a capacity like this, that to me is the end of the conversation and the beginning of the obligation to rise to the challenge,” said Mr. Huntsman, who was joined by his wife Mary Kaye, and the couple’s seven children, one of whom was adopted from China....

“Governor Huntsman has respect for China’s proud traditions,” Mr. Obama said Saturday. “He understands what it will take to make America more competitive in the 21st century and will be an unstinting advocate for America’s interests and ideals.... I hope the good people of Utah will forgive me and understand how proud they should be of their governor for his willingness to serve... He always puts country ahead of himself. That’s what Jon has always done.”

So everyone knew what was going on. It was hailed as a savvy plan. What now? The savviest people are the one who can outfox somebody else's savvy plan.

"Rosie O'Donnell Show On Rush's Hu Mocking: Why Can't Chinese Accents Be Imitated?"

Rosie basically defends Rush. If what Rush did was so bad, how can we tolerate the Swedish Chef?



Here's Rush defending himself, bringing up Sid Caesar and Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Back in the old days, Sid Caesar, for those of you old enough to remember, was called a comic genius for impersonating foreign languages that he couldn't speak. But today the left says that was racism; it was bigotry; it was insulting. And it wasn't....

Have you ever seen the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's?... Then somebody needs to call Mickey Rooney and say, "Pal, that movie is very popular. You don't know how much of Chinese, Japanese culture you destroyed." They had Mickey Rooney playing, I forget whether it was a Japanese or Chinese character, complete with the buckteeth and the fake phony accent. I mean it's one of the greatest movies reputed of all time, Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, any number of people in that movie.

But do you really want to use Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" as part of your self-defense?



ADDED: I must say, I never found the Swedish Chef funny. It's just about laughing at the sound of a foreign language. Pretty low humor. I think the criticisms of the humor are overdone and obviously politically motivated.

AND: In case you didn't listen to the Rosie clip, Rosie's defense of Rush is interesting because she herself was savaged for imitating Chinese speech. That was back in 2006. Here's Michelle Malkin attacking her — mainly for hypocrisy. Malkin's point is: Don't ever go PC on conservatives, now, because you yourself were not PC.

"'Call me garbage,' one of the twins said again. 'I dare you.'"

"'O.K.,' I said, trying, for once, to be a good mother. 'You’re garbage.'"

Elizabeth Kolbert writes about "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" in the New Yorker. Bonus: An illustration by Barry Blitt. (Click my Barry Blitt tag if you can't remember by loving Barry Blitt.)

"Somewhere in Hell, your hero, Richard M. Nixon, is laughing his ass off at you."

That's the subject line on email just sent to me and other bloggers to inform us of an article in a left-wing newspapers about the how right-wing bloggers dealt with the Hu Jintao visit to the White House.

"Chinese Pianist Plays Propaganda Tune at White House: US humiliated in eyes of Chinese by song used to inspire anti-Americanism."

Memeorandum points us to this article in the Epoch Times:

Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain."...

The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades....

The song Lang Lang played describes how beautiful China is and then near the end has this verse, “When friends are here, there is fine wine /But if the jackal comes /What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The “jackal” in the song is the United States....

“In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S.,” says Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had in China been a doctor in the Chinese military. “It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating...

[One] Chinese commenting on a forum responded to the Lang Lang performance by writing, “Defeat America, defeat Obama” (writing Obama’s name with the wrong first character, one meaning “sunken” or “dented.”)

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene says:

The media in general will make less of this than they did of Michaele and Tareq Salahi.

This is "fuck you, ignorant barbarians" crashing.

William says:

Didn't the Red Chinese lose tens of thousands of men in the Korean War in order to insure the prolonged rule of one of the most fucked up regimes in that region's long history of fucked up regimes? I would think that playing that tune is more likely to remind the world of the stupidity of Communist rulers than humiliate the United States. I think Obama should get Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen to write a commemorative song about Carter's failed rescue mission to Iran. He should play that song at all state functions. Same deal as this.

"[O]nly the color of [Michelle Obama's] dress paid direct homage to China..."

"... red symbolizes good luck and happiness."

And Communism.

"The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner hosted a dinner for the guy holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner in prison..."

"... and the media does not get the irony of this at all."

"Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem."

"They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently."

Go read the whole thing. It's very interesting, beginning with a list of 10 rules that few American parents would be able to accept — at least not without modification. Never "get any grade less than an A"?! How can the parent dictate such a thing?

"Retire early, unless some interesting project is underway on the computer. Rise at 3am."

It's the New Year's Eve plan of one of our very favorite commenters, rhhardin. He continues:

Chinese folk song I just put up; having recorded it in 1998 off Radio Taiwan.

Maybe somebody knows the recording, I was thinking. YouTube goes everywhere, unless they've banned it.

It's been through four transcodings, as well as being off shortwave in the first place; but the original has a nice bass line. Video is of transcoding 3 from real audio to mp3. Transcoding from mp3 to wmv was still to come.

Beats Rufus Wainwright.

I featured Rufus in the post where rh comments. He continues:

I may set the backyard bird microphone to record the midnight gunshots before bed, though, if the wind is quiet and the grain elevators shut down for a while.

The shots last for about a half hour; and some guy always starts five minutes early. The clocks are not good out here.

Dogs respond.

It's the Ohio way.

We look forward to the gunshots recording, to more information about "At the Faraway Place - Love Song of the Plain" by Zai Na Yao Yuan De Di Fang, and to all the other recordings and photographs that rh might bestow upon us in the coming year, capturing the mystic essence of Ohio.

"When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, the local boss, Xiong Dechang, forced his father to bury his son alive on the spot."

News from half a century ago trickles out. The boy was one of 45 million deaths in Mao's Great Leap Forward. Another death was the father himself, who died one week later — of grief, as people who lived through that time, perceived it.

Starvation was the punishment of first resort. As report after report shows, food was distributed by the spoonful according to merit and used to force people to obey the party...

As the catastrophe unfolded, people were forced to resort to previously unthinkable acts to survive. As the moral fabric of society unraveled, they abused one another, stole from one another and poisoned one another....

One police investigation from Feb. 25, 1960, details some 50 cases in Yaohejia village in Gansu: “Name of culprit: Yang Zhongsheng. Name of victim: Yang Ecshun. Relationship with Culprit: Younger Brother. Manner of Crime: Killed and Eaten. Reason: Livelihood Issues.”

The term “famine” tends to support the widespread view that the deaths were largely the result of half-baked and poorly executed economic programs. But the archives show that coercion, terror and violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward.

Via Instapundit, who writes:

Socialism starves. Capitalism enriches. It’s been proven over and over again. But remember: Communism is about “human dignity.”...

"I regret that Mr. Liu and his wife were denied the opportunity to attend the ceremony that Michelle and I attended last year."

Liu and spouse have a fifth rate social life.

New Wikileakage — "a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism."

The NYT passes along the "brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats."

¶ Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.
¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

Much more at the link.

The 2,500-year-old bowl of noodles.

Cold now, but awesome.

"We should unite together to establish a Dog Party to fight for our rights."

"If anyone’s dog is taken away we should demonstrate."

"Liu Xiaobo, an impassioned literary critic, political essayist and democracy advocate repeatedly jailed by the Chinese government for his writings..."

"... has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of 'his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.'"

He is the first Chinese citizen to win the Peace Prize and one of three people to have received it while incarcerated....

In announcing the prize on Friday, the committee noted that China, now the world’s second biggest economy, should be commended for lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But it chastised the government for ignoring basic rights guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution and the international conventions to which Beijing is a party. “In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China’s citizens,” the committee said, adding, “China’s new status must entail increased responsibility.”

The official Chinese response: "“Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law.”

Impactfully yours, Thomas Friedman.

He's here to tell you that the Tea Party movement you see out there is actually the Tea Kettle movement "because all it’s doing is letting off steam" — and the real Tea Party movement is... well, guys like him:

The important Tea Party movement, which stretches from centrist Republicans to independents right through to centrist Democrats, understands this at a gut level...

This = "our politics has become just another form of sports entertainment, our Congress a forum for legalized bribery and our main lawmaking institutions divided by toxic partisanship to the point of paralysis."

... and is looking for a leader with three characteristics. First, a patriot...

A patriot isn't a characteristic. It's a type of person.

Second, a leader who persuades Americans that he or she actually has a plan not just to cut taxes or pump stimulus, but to do something much larger — to make America successful, thriving and respected again.

A leader isn't a characteristic.

And third, someone with the ability to lead in the face of uncertainty and not simply whine about how tough things are — a leader who believes his job is not to read the polls but to change the polls.

Someone isn't a characteristic.

Convert those 3 items to characteristics: patriotism, leadership, and... uh... leadership. That's what the real tea partiers know and the kettlefolk can't get through their steam-puffed noggins.

Democratic Pollster Stan Greenberg told me that when he does focus groups today this is what he hears: “People think the country is in trouble and that countries like China have a strategy for success and we don’t....”

Here it comes. The part of the Friedman column where we find out that China does it better. This time, a pollster is rolled out to mouth what I presume is the thesis of Friedman's new best seller.

And supposedly, Friedman has told us what the "real Tea Party" is. As for the Tea Party movement that he says is fake and would like to disparage as "Tea Kettle":

That is not to say that the energy behind it is not authentic (it clearly is) or that it won’t be electorally impactful (it clearly might be)....

Impactfully yours, Thomas Friedman.

"State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond..."

"... parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death."

New details from the Great Leap Forward, 1958-1962, in which 45 million people died.

Buying the baby the beautiful gift that is U.S. citizenship.

"For the $1,475 basic fee, Zhou and Chao will arrange for a three-month stay in a center -- two months before the birth and a month after. A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips."

What a fabulous product! Talk about travel souvenirs.

"Still I am a Marxist..."

... says the Dalai Lama, conceding that capitalism has done China some good: "Millions of people's living standards improved." Marxism remains dear to him because it has "moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits." Only. Only improving the lives of millions.

(Also posted at Instapundit.)

***

The Dalai Lama also cited the election of Barack Obama as a sign that "human beings being more mature."