Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Lopsided


President Obama’s current trip to China has resulted in a number of lopsided agreements with the Dragon of the East. First he has unilaterally extended visas for Chinese nationals from one year to five years (student) and ten years (business and tourist) for which it appears there was no quid pro quo … see: CNBC Story.  Using some twisted logic, our fearless leader claims that this will increase employment in the U.S. If this is to be the case, it probably won’t be for current citizens.

Second, our green president has agreed to limit American greenhouse emissions (read CO2) by 25-28% below 2005 levels by 2025 … while China’s "sacrifice" is that the can increase their equivalent emissions until 2030 at which point they will be capped  … see: Washington Post Story. (But to try to be fair, China has also agreed to increase its share of green power generation to 20% of its total generation capacity by 2030 … basically an unattainable goal ... see the above link).

Also announced were cuts on tariffs for technology products (mostly out of China? … see: CBS News Story) and the installation of “warning measures to reduce the chance of accidental military conflict.“

Apparently, President Obama got no concessions on the much bigger dragons in the room … China’s continued undervaluation of its currency, the yuan; China’s exceeding lax enforcement of international intellectual property laws; China’s cyber-security incursions into the United States; and China’s increased subjugation of Hong Kong’s political process.

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