Americans, Chinese, the same battle.
They do to others what they will do to us.
To paraphrase a hubber on his interests on Chinese matter, he answered condescendingly "what do I care". It has always been an American attitude to isolate itself dismissively from the rest of the world as if they did not exist or, if they did, it was to serve them. In those times, America was number one. A moon that never was conquered, the launching of the successful Microsoft phenomenon, the four-wheeled all-terrain stepping with determination on hostile lands... gave a rosy and ambitious daguerreotype of a new Narcissus. Years later, as America is going down the drain (is it the expected end of an empire?) facing governmental internal turmoil, national upheavals expressing a general disarray in the uncontrolled fall of the economy or at best controlled by the 1%, recording its lowest employment rate..., China, its principal adversary (on the monetary policy primarily) is cruising on the third gear economically. Humanly, it is another story.
"What do we care?". Think twice now. Who are the commanders of the economy? International companies that outsourced their productions off-shores drained by alleviated tariffs and trade barriers, by economies of scale (cost advantages)... such as Nike, Adidas, Apple, Hewlett Packard... Maybe we should start boycotting companies that deserted the land of the American Dream? How many of us monitor the pulse of the global economy for the sake of curiosity, of information? Or at least, of the recent giant? Not that many. It is a pity because it gives insights as for the mentality, what I would call the "modus cogitandi", the way those corporations think explaining and justifying their "modus operandi" (no need to translate).
What is happening in China now? Strikes. Who would have guessed strikes in a former communist country, I meant, in a new capitalistic economy, still ruled by repression? Doesn't economic growth rhyme with fatter gross domestic product? With the pursuit of happiness? No, only in America!
The China Labor Watch, headquartered in the U.S., stated of revolutionary movements in Shanghai and Singapore where thousands of workers fought their lay offs, the diminution of their salary, the dismissal of their supplementary hours, in the land of all permissible abuses for corporations. The Chinese workfo(a)rce whence is harvesting the wear and tear of capitalism trickling down on the demand postulate.
Now, what do we see? Same pattern than in the U.S., motivated corporations cutting, trimming the few leaps acquired in economical and social rights. A factory worker, to the shame of those windows of capitalism, earns $100 monthly. How low do our companies desire us to bend? Whose feet shall we kiss? Isn't America, China, the same fight? An inflation rate still important (5,5%) although it dropped, a weak yuan concur to cripple the national purchasing power. It is the mirrored image of the Chinese predicament.
In the last decade, it is taken for granted now, that the revenues of the corporations increased by 400%.
Seeing the discrepancy between the two classes (it is what all is about), the corporate establishment, the bourgeoisie of the XXI's century, has always aimed at the annihilation of the proletariat, the suppression of its freedom (long term goal). If the fight is topical in 2011, it means that we understood nothing through history. Societies don't guarantee us anymore to live and prosper and, at the end of line will smile at us sarcastically the revolution.
To the international situation of the world, one has to be vigilant. It is a fair representation of what our "democracies" will shift to if power will be given to infringe on our freedom. We had Unions, we had social advantages... The corporations are setting the marks of their dictatorship on the Chinese labor structure. Work for pennies and shut up is the motto. It is the model, they will apply here if there's no wave of change. It is a good reason to care.