Made in China

People Love to talk about how buying products made in China costs American jobs, messes with our economy, and generally encourages lower quality products. That's all very true, but I think it misses, perhaps intentionally, the real problem.

The real problem is that China is Communist.

Everyone knows this, and seems to accept it. After all, they put out an image of being 'moderate' communists, they tell the world that they have a 'free market' and the certainly do seem to have a fair bit of capitalism. Therefore, we're all lead to believe that it's all OK, that somehow China is about as much communist as the United Kingdom is a Monarchy. Unfortunately, however, that's simply untrue.

The concepts that we hold dear are under constant attack in China. What we consider to be inalienable human rights simply don't exist in China, and anyone that tells you otherwise is simply lying to you. This is true from anyone on the street to the Chinese government itself, which often denies it's sickening policies when questioned about them by the outside world.

Don't believe me? Well, go ahead and Google It:

Tiananmen Square [google.com] vs Tiananmen Square [google.cn]

Remember, according to the Chinese Government, they don't censor the internet. They just have "some routing issues."

Free Speech does not exist in China. In fact, if you want to organize a club so you can talk about football, you have to register that group with the government or it will be considered to be an illegal organization.

In China, you do have Freedom of Religion. You can practice any religion you would like to practice, as long as it's listed on the list of government-recognized religions. That list is rather short- Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. Conducting or participating in any service not recognized by the government can result in arrest, detainment, fines, and in some cases, torture. Their judgement on what's accepted and what isn't is also pretty subjective- Catholics are often targeted by the police because they don't think it fits into Christianity, because of the link to the Vatican. Chinese police have also been known to confiscate religious literature and church property, resulting in hundreds of church closures.

It's in your best interest to not do the religion thing, though. Members of the communist party are officially required to be Atheists, so practicing your religion may indicate that you don't support the common good. That could cause problems.

But hey, China won't have this whole religion problem for much longer, because it's also against the law for parents to expose their children to any form of religion until they are 18 years old.

There's plenty of opportunity in China, if you're born in a city. If you're born in a rural area, you have two choices- grow rice, or fill out an application to see if the government will let you move to a city. Unless you have a good reason why, it will likely be denied- and no, wanting to improve your quality of life does not count as a good reason.

Of course the first trick is to Get Born, which is more difficult than it sounds - The Chinese Government also has a very well defined policy on population control. This means that parents are only allowed to have one child. Because of this restriction, parents are often put in the position of having to choose between keeping their baby or getting rid of it, either before or after birth. Boys are preferred by most parents, because they are seen as more useful and carry on the family name. As such, research published in 1990 shows that there are over 50 Million "Missing Women" in China, that is to say, females that, according to the natural ratio of male to female births, should exist, but don't.

But perhaps country-wide, state-sanctioned baby killing is ok for them. Kinda makes sense, after all. On paper.

Killing in general is not an uncommon thing for the Chinese Government to do- China usually accounts for about three quarters of all death sentence executions in the world. In Chinese law, there are 68 crimes that are punishable by death. Included in those 68 offenses are several non-violent, white-collar crimes such as tax fraud and embezzlement.

You DO, however, have a right to a swift (though usually not fair) trial- executions are usually conducted the day after sentencing, but in some cases, the very same day! The current record was set on January 9th, 1993- on that day, 356 death sentences were handed down, and 62 executions occurred that same day.

Chinese Government-sponsored killings aren't limited to China's boarders, either. Want to know the real reason why the US has never gotten involved in the genocide happening in Darfur? Because China is supporting Sudan, the country conducting the killings. China even threatened to veto UN Security Council actions aimed at combating the Darfur Crisis.


So no, the economic problems that are created by buying things from China are really not a problem. They just aren't, the market will decide what products are good and what products aren't. They simply mask the real problem.

The problem with buying things from China is that every dollar you spend is a vote of approval of their government and way of life.

China is Communist, and the reason they are still communist is because it's working out very well for them. The world approves of their actions and proves their support by sending money.

That's why I don't shop at Wal*Mart. The items there cost way too much.