By Daniel Ikenson
If you harbor any doubts that the parameters of U.S. trade policy are defined by a few politically-important domestic industries, take a look at the debate over whether Japan should be allowed to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. Did you miss it? That’s because there really hasn’t been much debate; there has been near-unanimous [...]
The TPP Trade Negotiations Need More Japan and Less Detroit is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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News yesterday of the expulsion of Melissa Chan, an American reporting for Al-Jazeera in China, brings into stark focus the great disparity between the U.S. willingness to grant visas to Chinese journalists—who are then allowed complete freedom to report in the U.S.—and the difficulty that foreign journalists have in not only getting permission to work in China, but also their ability to work openly and without intimidation once they are there. Yesterday’s expulsion was foreshadowed last week. Chen Gaungcheng, a blind country lawyer, has been punished with years of imprisonment … More
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The Chinese minister of defense, General Liang Guanglie, is currently visiting the United States, and as usual, he is getting the red carpet rolled out for him. He is meeting Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and visiting a number of U.S. military installations, including Southern Command and Fort Benning. General Liang has already made clear that Secretary Panetta is welcome to visit China in the second half of this year. On these visits, the Chinese typically get to see American forces and equipment, although usually little different from what is … More
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The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (a bureaucratic second-line player in the Chinese system) has now promised to treat any request by Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng to leave China just like any other citizen, even as the U.S. State Department promises that there are fellowships waiting for him in the U.S. This follows the dramatic flight by Chen to the U.S. embassy after two years of house arrest and periodic beatings, only to then walk out of the U.S. compound. Complicating this situation is the revelation that U.S. authorities apparently … More
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On her first visit to China in 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Chinese leaders that she considered human rights secondary to other, greater issues. “Our pressing on those issues can’t interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis,” she said. Have those words ever come back to bite her! Over the past week, the case of blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng has exposed the Clinton–Obama foreign policy as few events ever have, and it has exposed it as either spineless or … More
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In recent days, the international spotlight on Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese lawyer and human rights activist who has spent his life trying to expose and stop forced abortions and sterilizations in China, has refocused attention on coercive population control programs. Meanwhile, the 45th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) met at the U.N. last week to discuss the priority theme of adolescents and youth. The CPD meeting, typically a favorite of population-control activists and radical feminists, was no different this year. In UN parlance, “sustainable development” is … More
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A top activist for human rights in China warned on Thursday that if the United States wants to maintain its image as a global human rights leader, dissident Chen Gaungcheng and his family must join Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she returns from China this week. Chen has become the center of a diplomatic firestorm after he was reportedly pressured by U.S. officials to leave the American embassy in Beijing. He may now face reprisal from the Chinese government, which has also imprisoned and tortured his wife since Chen … More
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This is the third of our four-part series on Occupy Wall Street, transcribed from a recent Heritage Foundation event on the movement. In part three, Ben Domenech, research fellow at the Heartland Institute and editor of The Transom, reflects on his own interaction with Occupiers and explains why he’s not ready to write them off. He argues that supporters of capitalism need to find a way to reach those who have become disillusioned. Part 3: The Untrained Grasshopper I wanted to talk about the response from the right to Occupy … More
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Commentary continues to swirl around human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng’s treatment by the U.S. embassy in Beijing and by Chinese officials. While the future of U.S.–China relations on the matter remains to be seen, international concern for Chen’s plight has refocused attention on the horrific human rights atrocities of China’s one-child policy, which Chen has sacrificed his livelihood and now safety to expose. A well-known forced abortion opponent in China and the around the world, Chen has found himself a victim of the country’s disregard for the rule of law … More
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China has the world’s second-largest GDP, the world’s largest monetary base, and the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves. Its large internal and external economic imbalances can matter a great deal to the global economy. There are claims China is now rebalancing. It isn’t. Claims of rebalancing are based on the current account surplus, a broad measure of trade and other international activities that are concluded over a short period. China’s current account surplus with the world has fallen sharply as a percentage of GDP. However, the current account surplus tells … More
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