Q&A Friday #2: Should We Trade With China?

04 Jun, 2004 by John Hawkins

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Question: “Should the US be trading with China?” — Billary2004

Answer: There are two schools of thought about this.

School of thought #1) Treat China like Cuba. Don’t trade with them, deny them funds, try to keep them weak as possible, and hope for their government to be overthrown.

School of thought #2) Trade with China and hope that will help nudge them towards Democracy while our economic ties and military superiority keep any violence from breaking out.

In an ideal world, I’d prefer #1, which is how we deal with Cuba. China is a large, dangerous, communist nation with a growing economy, that is rapidly improving its armed forces, that seems to have no problems with waging wars of conquest, considers our country to be an enemy, & is clearly building up for a war with Taiwan (that may or may not ever come). By trading with China, we’re helping them buy the very weapons that they’re aiming at us and our Taiwanese allies across the Taiwan Strait.

However, because China has the second largest economy in the world, we almost have to go with option #2. There are tremendous economic benefits to working with China and if we chose not to trade with them, other nations in Europe and Asia would take up most of the slack.

So, option #2 it is. Let’s just hope it works out….