【外交政策0217】中国不是打破规律 而是在玩另一种游戏

lilyma06

China's not breaking the rules. It's playing a different game.
      Posted By Clyde Prestowitz            http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/17/chinas_not_breaking_the_rules_its_playing_a_different_game

  In theirOval Office meeting earlier this week, President Obama predictably warnedChina's visiting president-in-waiting Xi Jinping that China must play by therules in international trade. It sounded right and fair and slightly tough asit was carefully crafted to do by top White House political advisers, and the president may even believe it. But he shouldn't have said it.
Put asidefor the moment the indelicacy of implicitly calling the soon to be president ofthe a country that is the world's second most powerful and that highly values"face" (pride,dignity) a cheater. I mean, can you imagine the reaction here ifXi had lectured Obama on playing by the rules? But I digress.
There arethree problems. The phrase "all must play by the same rules" implies that allare playing the same game, but in actuality they are not. In many instancesthere are no rules or the rules are vague, untested, and unclear. Even wherethere are rules, many countries have been ignoring them for a long time andthere is thus strong precedent for not playing by the rules or even forinterpreting the rules such that they are actually said to bless the apparentviolations.   
I have said before this before and I mustemphasize it again. The fundamental premise of all U.S trade/globalizationtalks and discussions is that the participants are all playing the same game ofliberal, neo-classical, free market, resource endowment and comparativeadvantage based free trade. This is a totally false premise that immediatelygets the discussions off in irrelevant directions. The global economy is, infact, sharply divided between those who are playing the free trade game andthose who are playing some form of mercantilism. Of course, there is a spectrumof attitudes and policies, but roughly speaking the Anglo/American countries,North America, and parts of Europe are playing free trade. Most of Asia, muchof South America, the Middle East, Germany and parts of Europe are playingneo-mercantilism. It's like watching tennis players trying to play a game withfootball players. It doesn't work, and insisting on playing by the rulesdoesn't help, because both sets of teams are playing by the rules -- of theirgame.  
In any case,there are a lot fewer clear cut rules than most people think. For example,probably the biggest single factor in the off-shoring of large chunks of U.S.based production and millions of jobs abroad has been the packages of financialinvestment incentives offered by China and others to global companies toencourage them to relocate production. More jobs have been lost to thesepackages than to currency manipulation. But you can't complain about rulesviolations because there are no rules to cover these investment incentives. Atthe federal level, American doesn't offer such incentives but there is not WTOor IMF or other rule against it. Nor is the United States proposing any rulesin this area.
Take thecase of currency manipulation. China is surely manipulating its currency, butso have and do many other countries. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, andothers all used currency manipulation is a major element of their export ledmiracle growth strategies. Some of these countries still to engage in currencymanipulation and recently others such as Brazil and Switzerland have gotteninto the game. Germany enjoys an undervalued currency because of itsincorporation in the Euro. So here is a case where rule violation has been soprevalent that the violation is, in a way, the rule. So if something is to bedone about it, that something will have to be a lot more powerful than a callfor everyone to "play by the same rules."
We firstneed to get everyone playing the same game, and that is more likely to turn outto be football than tennis.



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