• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Human rights abuse tariffs of China?

middleagedgamer

DP Veteran
Joined
Jan 22, 2008
Messages
1,363
Reaction score
72
Location
Earth
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Other
When I read about the human rights abuses in China, it feels like I'm reading a dystopian novel, like Nineteen Eighty-Four or somewhat.

But... it's not a novel. Novels are fiction! The human rights abuses in China are really happening!

The United States should impose tariffs on China, not to discourage Americans from importing goods (because it wouldn't apply to other nations, like Canada or France), but to discourage the trading of goods that come from the human rights-abusing China.

To revoke these tariffs, I'm not asking for much. I would be more than happy to support the revocation of these tariffs if just the following three things are met:

1. Genuinely free elections. Currently, the Chinese Constitution requires the government to adhere to the policies of the Communist Party. A single-party system is just as bad, politically, as a monopoly is bad, economically, and for the exact same reasons.

If the people of China actually want these totalitarian laws, then let the people speak for themselves. Give them free elections. Give them the opportunity to say no, and then, if they consciously choose not to say no, I will consent.

2. An independent media, owned by at least two different companies. The Chinese government owns - they don't just use totalitarian laws to control: They own, in the traditional sense - the nation's largest media conglomerate. This is the epitome of putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The people are shielded from ideas that might differ from those of the Communist Party. Turn the media over to the private sector, and give it to at least two (maybe more) privately-owned companies, so as to prevent a monopoly. These companies don't have to be American; heck, they can be Chinese for all I care! Just as long as they're private, and not controlled by totalitarian laws.

3. A truly independent committee for declaring laws unconstitutional. China allegedly has a body that is supposed to declare laws unconstitutional, but this is a puppet committee that is at the whim of the People's National Congress. I want a truly independent committee that, like the U.S. Supreme Court, is entitled to serve a life tenure, unless they break the law, and definitely not because the People's National Congress disagrees with their rulings. It doesn't have to be a "court," per se, so long as it's truly independent of undue PRC influence.

Follow these simple guidelines, and, you too, can keep from getting tariffs induced against under this new policy! A lot of the Middle East nations would probably avoid this tariff because, even though they abuse human rights (such as women's rights and gay rights), at least they have genuinely free elections, privately-owned media, and a separate body for hearing the constitutionality of laws. Most of the time, once a country does these three things, the remainder of human rights just falls into place.

These tariffs that I support would only be designed to encourage these three things to be done. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't think they're all that radical, because the revocation of them come with modest requests.

Thoughts?
 
Tariffs are a double edged sword, the economic damage caused by them tends to travel both ways. Not a very good option.
 
Tariffs are a double edged sword, the economic damage caused by them tends to travel both ways. Not a very good option.
Oh, what? You mean, China will put tariffs on American goods?

China already isn't buying American goods!
 
No...

When tariffs are placed against china the cost of goods goes up, meaning we can afford less of their stuff. And they make alot of our stuff.
 
No...

When tariffs are placed against china the cost of goods goes up, meaning we can afford less of their stuff. And they make alot of our stuff.
All we have to do is start buying from some country that has free elections, and independent media, and an independent body who evaluates the constitutionality of laws.

Problem solved.
 
Who would be able to produce at the same price as china? At the same scale? Without interrupting supply to our economy for half a decade?
 
Who would be able to produce at the same price as china?
India would be a nice place to start.

Also, we could go to Mexico. They always come here to find work; let's give them jobs, so they don't have to, anymore.

At the same scale?
Numerous countries.

Without interrupting supply to our economy for half a decade?
What honestly makes you think it will take five years for us to get settled into this new change?

Also, are you actually telling me that all you care about is money, and if people are getting imprisoned for criticizing their government, just so that you only pay 99 cents for your dishwashing soap, instead of a $1.19, you don't mind?
 
You dont seem to comprehend. Mexico's workers were given rights and wages etc after doing what they were told by the US then US companies reallocated their production resources to asia as a reward.

Even if you began building in India it takes years to develop the business connections and build the means of production to supply demand.

The example of paying an extra 20c for soap with rights attached to it is nice. But the suppliers of oppressive policies will find other countries who are driven by economic necessity.
 
But the suppliers of oppressive policies will find other countries who are driven by economic necessity.
I disagree. Look at Cuba. No other country, besides the United States, embargoes them, but because the United States - and ONLY the United States - embargoes them, they are on the verge of bankruptcy.

China needs us to buy their products a lot more than we need them to sell them to us. We're the biggest consuming nation in the world; we practically have a monopsony on international trade. We can buy from whoever we damn well plase.
 
we practically have a monopsony on international trade. We can buy from whoever we damn well plase.

I have never heard or learned anything that implied such.

I disagree. Look at Cuba. No other country, besides the United States, embargoes them, but because the United States - and ONLY the United States - embargoes them, they are on the verge of bankruptcy.

I'm not aware of the economic details of this, but dozens of nations around the world are on the verge of bankruptcy...

One tariff, two tariff, red tariff, blue tariff | Youthink!
 
I have never heard or learned anything that implied such.
Then, perhaps you aren't looking in the right places.

I'm not aware of the economic details of this, but dozens of nations around the world are on the verge of bankruptcy...
Show me how this recession is a direct result of tariffs against human rights, and I'll consent.

Assuming that that article is true, it still would not convince me. The tariffs they speak of are protectionist tariffs, designed to protect American industry, rather than further the advancement of human rights, by means other than military force.
 
Who would be able to produce at the same price as china? At the same scale? Without interrupting supply to our economy for half a decade?

No one can produce at the same price as China. China has a near infinite supply of near slave labor and has generally no environmental laws what so ever. With fair labor and environment laws comes increase in production value as well. You have to pay for that. Currently China is able to undercut everyone through the absence of labor and environment laws. If we put tariffs on China to compensate for this, we would indeed end up paying more since fair practices often times will cost more.
 
Making the yellow people suffer is not going to make them more like the white people. Why not let the Chinese themselves figure out what they are going to do with their country? You may be surprised and see them create an even more democratic system that does not even remotely resemble the system devised by white people.
 
China will stop buying our debt in response and maybe even call the debt they currently hold. Our entire economy crashes as a result, along with China's. The inevitable chaos in China results in even more repressive policies in order to maintain order. Meanwhile in the U.S., the collapse of the dollar and massive increase in the costs of goods seriously drives down the standard of living.
 
China will stop buying our debt in response and maybe even call the debt they currently hold. Our entire economy crashes as a result, along with China's. The inevitable chaos in China results in even more repressive policies in order to maintain order. Meanwhile in the U.S., the collapse of the dollar and massive increase in the costs of goods seriously drives down the standard of living.

They can stop buying our debt, others will. And they can call it in as much as they want, but what are they really going to do to get it?

The result would be that both countries would be severely hurt. However, America has the ability to restore its industry and manufacturing capabilities where as China would be left looking for another country to sell its crap to. America would recover faster than China and on the other side will have our industry returned as well. It's not a road we should really go down; but in the end while both countries would suffer; America stands well ahead in terms of recovery.
 
When I read about the human rights abuses in China, it feels like I'm reading a dystopian novel, like Nineteen Eighty-Four or somewhat.

But... it's not a novel. Novels are fiction! The human rights abuses in China are really happening!

The United States should impose tariffs on China, not to discourage Americans from importing goods (because it wouldn't apply to other nations, like Canada or France), but to discourage the trading of goods that come from the human rights-abusing China.

To revoke these tariffs, I'm not asking for much. I would be more than happy to support the revocation of these tariffs if just the following three things are met:

1. Genuinely free elections. Currently, the Chinese Constitution requires the government to adhere to the policies of the Communist Party. A single-party system is just as bad, politically, as a monopoly is bad, economically, and for the exact same reasons.

If the people of China actually want these totalitarian laws, then let the people speak for themselves. Give them free elections. Give them the opportunity to say no, and then, if they consciously choose not to say no, I will consent.

2. An independent media, owned by at least two different companies. The Chinese government owns - they don't just use totalitarian laws to control: They own, in the traditional sense - the nation's largest media conglomerate. This is the epitome of putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The people are shielded from ideas that might differ from those of the Communist Party. Turn the media over to the private sector, and give it to at least two (maybe more) privately-owned companies, so as to prevent a monopoly. These companies don't have to be American; heck, they can be Chinese for all I care! Just as long as they're private, and not controlled by totalitarian laws.

3. A truly independent committee for declaring laws unconstitutional. China allegedly has a body that is supposed to declare laws unconstitutional, but this is a puppet committee that is at the whim of the People's National Congress. I want a truly independent committee that, like the U.S. Supreme Court, is entitled to serve a life tenure, unless they break the law, and definitely not because the People's National Congress disagrees with their rulings. It doesn't have to be a "court," per se, so long as it's truly independent of undue PRC influence.

Follow these simple guidelines, and, you too, can keep from getting tariffs induced against under this new policy! A lot of the Middle East nations would probably avoid this tariff because, even though they abuse human rights (such as women's rights and gay rights), at least they have genuinely free elections, privately-owned media, and a separate body for hearing the constitutionality of laws. Most of the time, once a country does these three things, the remainder of human rights just falls into place.

These tariffs that I support would only be designed to encourage these three things to be done. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't think they're all that radical, because the revocation of them come with modest requests.

Thoughts?

Yeah, I have thoughts. Stay the F out of their business. Wars are fought because of the kinds of economic sanctions you're talking about imposing in order to socially engineer an entire country. It's time we got out of that business. Whatever happened to the prime directive?
 
It doesn't matter if we alter the China/U.S. relationship now or wait. Eventually this marriage is going to fall apart. China is subsidizing U.S. debt so that the U.S. can buy its crap; the U.S. buys its crap because it's cheap and profitable for the parent companies. What people fail to understand is that consumerism of the past two generations is new and is a failing experiment. It has been extremely profitable for a select few but other than that, look at what it has done to our health, human rights, and the environment.

The system is going to change. We have a choice as to whether or not we want to facilitate the change or have it forced upon us. Either the environment will collapse (which it is on its way to doing), human rights and/or human health will decline to political proportions, or the dollar will become so worthless that we won't be able to buy goods anyway. Oh, and of course oil could run out too. The system is so delicate right now that I'm amazed it has survived this long.
 
It doesn't matter if we alter the China/U.S. relationship now or wait. Eventually this marriage is going to fall apart. China is subsidizing U.S. debt so that the U.S. can buy its crap; the U.S. buys its crap because it's cheap and profitable for the parent companies. What people fail to understand is that consumerism of the past two generations is new and is a failing experiment. It has been extremely profitable for a select few but other than that, look at what it has done to our health, human rights, and the environment.

The system is going to change. We have a choice as to whether or not we want to facilitate the change or have it forced upon us. Either the environment will collapse (which it is on its way to doing), human rights and/or human health will decline to political proportions, or the dollar will become so worthless that we won't be able to buy goods anyway. Oh, and of course oil could run out too. The system is so delicate right now that I'm amazed it has survived this long.

Well, I'm not sure that consumerism is a failing experiment, though I don't like it much. Consumerism isn't bad in and of itself. It's being a consumer on credit that's the boogey-man. I can't understand how you can equate consumerism with human health. Life spans are ever-increasing, I'd argue that assumption.

As to human rights violations being tied to consumerism, well, we've just got to stand by and let some of this happen. It's part of our own history, of course -- as is slavery. Who are we that we would deny others that same evolution?
 
Whatever happened to the prime directive?

It's not Star Trek and even then they violated the crap out of the Prime Directive.

Brannigan's Law is like Brannigan's love: hard and fast
 
They can stop buying our debt, others will. And they can call it in as much as they want, but what are they really going to do to get it?

If the Chinese call if their debt and we don't pay, do you seriously anyone is going to touch our debt right after we make it clear we don't honor our commitments?

The result would be that both countries would be severely hurt. However, America has the ability to restore its industry and manufacturing capabilities where as China would be left looking for another country to sell its crap to. America would recover faster than China and on the other side will have our industry returned as well. It's not a road we should really go down; but in the end while both countries would suffer; America stands well ahead in terms of recovery.

That is irrelevant. Destroying the country is utterly moronic, watching China get hurt even more isn't going to make it better.
 
Well, I'm not sure that consumerism is a failing experiment, though I don't like it much. Consumerism isn't bad in and of itself. It's being a consumer on credit that's the boogey-man. I can't understand how you can equate consumerism with human health. Life spans are ever-increasing, I'd argue that assumption.

Our rise in health quality is not due to consumerism, but medical advancement. Arguably, our life spans would be more if we didn't have so many cheap, chemical-laden products lying around. The use of plastics on this scale is new as of the 1950's. Our unquenchable thurst for new stuff to buy has lead to environmental devastation, which directly affects us. Occurrence of cancer has increased to obscene levels in just 50 years. If our medicine is advancing it's because so many people are now ailing.

As to human rights violations being tied to consumerism, well, we've just got to stand by and let some of this happen. It's part of our own history, of course -- as is slavery. Who are we that we would deny others that same evolution?

Multi-national corporations are the only true global citizens in the year 2010. The game is not the same anymore as it was during slavery. Economically we are much closer to complete globalization than we were during slavery. Everything you do in the United States has some relationship with dozens of other countries. Everything you buy is sourced from many nations. It is so interconnected now that it is virtually impossible to free yourself from the chain unless you grow your own food and try to construct your own self-sustaining livelihood.

The people in China are being kept down by their government. Their government has money for the military, and they use the military to hurt the people. And where does their money come from? Us. We share part of the responsibility no matter how distanced we like to pretend we are. Every rural peasant in China who is living in squallor and starvation is dying partially because we are addicted to shopping.
 
Last edited:
If the Chinese call if their debt and we don't pay, do you seriously anyone is going to touch our debt right after we make it clear we don't honor our commitments?

Done it before, to France. Didn't seem to stop people. Well we didn't really default on the debt. We just refused to pay it back in gold.

That is irrelevant. Destroying the country is utterly moronic, watching China get hurt even more isn't going to make it better.

China doesn't concern me. They knew the sucker bet when they bought all that debt. It's written in our dollar. Even if they called it in, we could print off the money for it. Of course it would have horrible effects, but as I said America is better able to enact recovery.
 
Our rise in health quality is not due to consumerism, but medical advancement. Arguably, our life spans would be more if we didn't have so many cheap, chemical-laden products lying around. The use of plastics on this scale is new as of the 1950's. Our unquenchable thurst for new stuff to buy has lead to environmental devastation, which directly affects us. Occurrence of cancer has increased to obscene levels in just 50 years. If our medicine is advancing it's because so many people are now ailing.

I wasn't implying that good health had anything at ALL to do with consumerism. Although, probably, a case could be made that our consumerist propensity to make pharma drug pushing so popular may have been partially responsible for those medical advancements.

Multi-national corporations are the only true global citizens in the year 2010. The game is not the same anymore as it was during slavery. Economically we are much closer to complete globalization than we were during slavery. Everything you do in the United States has some relationship with dozens of other countries. Everything you buy is sourced from many nations. It is so interconnected now that it is virtually impossible to free yourself from the chain unless you grow your own food and try to construct your own self-sustaining livelihood.

I'm not sure what your response has to do with letting other countries make their own mistakes as they climb the economic ladder.

The people in China are being kept down by their government. Their government has money for the military, and they use the military to hurt the people. And where does their money come from? Us. We share part of the responsibility no matter how distanced we like to pretend we are. Every rural peasant in China who is living in squallor and starvation is dying partially because we are addicted to shopping.

And who is responsible for all the jobs our consumerism creates in those squallid countries? Economic development is a way out of poverty, not in. To say that every rural peasant in China living in squallor and starvation is dying because we are addicted to shopping is nonsense.
 
Back
Top Bottom