News Release

U.S.-China Relations: Neither Collision nor Collusion

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HENRY ROSEMONT, [email] Rosemont is distinguished professor emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and visiting professor of religious studies at Brown University. His books include “A Chinese Mirror: Moral Reflections on Political Economy” and translations of Chinese classics. Rosemont said today: “If President Obama bases U.S. relations with China on principles of competition and criticism, the new regime of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang will almost surely respond in kind, and the governments of both countries will become less capable of dealing with their own internal large-scale problems.

“Moving to a policy based on cooperation on the other hand – diplomatically, militarily and economically — both countries can contribute to solving their own and each other’s problems at the same time, as well as problems more worldwide in scope. As the major power in the relationship, the initiative for a new policy must lie with the U.S., especially with all the anti-China rhetoric that infected the recent election campaign.” Rosemont wrote the piece “Is China a Threat?” http://www.fpif.org/reports/is_china_a_threat

LORI WALLACH, http://www.citizen.org/trade
Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Wallach said today: “After both presidential candidates and congressional candidates nationwide campaigned intensively against U.S. job offshoring, the American public would be alarmed to know that President Obama’s Asia trip has focused on expanding to many new nations a NAFTA-style ‘free trade’ agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that would greatly expand U.S. jobs offshoring, give Chinese firms a waiver to ‘Buy American’ procurement policies and further erode the U.S. manufacturing base. On the trip, some administration officials touted TPP as a tool to contain China’s influence and facilitate the U.S. Asia pivot, while Secretary of State Clinton announced that she would welcome China joining TPP.”