Soul searching for Obama in Asia
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Obama should face up to reality and no longer live in denial, he should tell the US people some hard truths. Those companies that secured deals in India are also the ones that have moved tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs overseas.
He should say clearly that there is nothing wrong with that for the US, since the country gains much more in this global division of labor than developing countries such as China and India.
Statistics show that nearly half of the earnings reported by companies on the S&P 500 are from overseas. Fast growth in China and India has fueled the US economy, rather than balked it.
As a national leader, instead of repeating the dry rhetoric himself, Obama should put a stop to the continuous China bashing in the US, which blames China for US domestic economic woes, from unemployment, housing market bubbles to trade deficits and fiscal debts.
There are more honest voices in the US these days.
US economist and money manager Zachary Karabell wrote in the recent issue of Time magazine that: "China is far from perfect and seeks its own advantage, but holding it accountable for our domestic problems is beyond anachronistic. It reflects a dangerous refusal to deal with the world as it is".
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was in Hong Kong while Obama visited India, also criticized the China bashing in the US: "I think in America, we've got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at ourselves," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg also criticized the decision by the US Trade Representative's office to probe China's clean energy industry. "Let me get this straight: There's a country on the other side of the world that is taking their taxpayers' dollars, and trying to sell subsidized things so we can buy them cheaper and have better products, and we're going to criticize that?" asked Bloomberg.
If Obama does not choose to tell the truth about Asia and China as Mayor Bloomberg did, it means that he has not learned from what he himself described as the Democrats "shellacking" in the midterm election.
The author is Deputy Editor of China Daily US Edition. He can be reached at chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn.
