Why are questions about Communist China asked only in the Democratic
presidential debates? We want to know what the Republican candidates
plan to do about China sending us poisoned foods and toys.

All presidential candidates should be asked what they plan to do
about the fact that free trade with China means acquiescing in gross
discrimination against U.S. products and jobs. The Chinese avoid a
level trading field by artificially undervaluing their currency up to
40 percent, subsidizing their products, and imposing import duties
against U.S. products that are ten times higher than tariffs on their
products in U.S. stores.

Our free-trade negotiators routinely accept trade agreements
that give other countries the right to charge higher tariffs than we
charge for similar products. For example, the Chinese Chery car will
face a 2.5 percent tariff when sold in the U.S., but U.S. autos
entering China will be taxed at 25 percent.

Foreign countries get by with this discrimination by calling
it a Value Added Tax (VAT) instead of a tariff, but it amounts to just
as high a barrier against free trade. The result is that millions of
American jobs have moved overseas.

All presidential candidates ought to be asked what they plan
to do about China's organized theft of our intellectual property and
counterfeiting of our products. Communist China is the world's top
producer of illegal copies of music, movies, software, designer
clothes, and medicines.

All candidates should be asked what they plan to do about
China putting its billion dollars of profits from U.S. trade into
military weaponry to threaten, not only Taiwan, but the United States,
especially our communication satellites.

The toy advertised by Wal-Mart as the top toy of the season
had to be recalled after it was discovered that children in Texas,
Delaware, New Hampshire, Illinois and Utah fell sick and were
hospitalized because of swallowing the toy's bead-like parts. After 4.2
million were recalled, China finally admitted that the beads in this
toy, called Aqua Dots, contained a substance that can turn into the
"date-rape" drug after children swallow them.

That drug, gamma-hydroxy butyrate, causes breathing problems,
loss of consciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma, and death. Aqua Dots
were supposed to have been coated with a nontoxic chemical, but that
chemical costs three or four times the price of the poisonous compound,
so the Chinese manufacturer couldn't resist using the cheaper product.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's website,
26 million toys and other products made in China have been recalled by
U.S. companies since August. Even the Boy Scouts of America had to
recall a million Chinese-made plastic badges that contained unsafe
amounts of lead.

Chinese products for children found to contain unacceptable
levels of lead include vinyl baby bibs, Thomas the Tank Engine sets,
Baby Einstein Discover & Play Color Blocks, Pirates of the
Caribbean medallion squeeze lights, Totally Me! Funky Room Decor Sets,
Hannah Montana handbags, and Barbie doll accessories.

Australia recalled hundreds of blankets imported from China in
October because they contained formaldehyde up to ten times the level
permissible under international standards. The World Heath Organization
has classified formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen.

Seafood from China is a potentially more dangerous import.
About 80 percent of seafood consumed by Americans is imported, and the
Food and Drug Administration inspects and tests only one percent.

Lab tests show that China uses antibiotics to treat fish
raised in filthy waters where bacteria, viruses and parasites breed.
Lab testers say that when seafood is rejected for an illegal chemical,
the Chinese simply switch to another harmful chemical.

Often found in imported fish is a fungicide called malachite
green, which is illegal to use in food in the U.S. because studies show
it can cause cancer and birth defects.

Alabama has its own tests and rejects 50 to 60 percent of all
fish imports. Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture Ron Sparks personally
visited Asia to witness seafood farmed in sewage.

Chinese products are so cheap because the workers in
Guangdong, where most of the Chinese toys are made, are primarily
females age 17 to 25 who work an average of 16 hours a day, 6 or 7 days
a week, for about $50 per month. They live in unhealthy, overcrowded
dormitories, where a bed is all they have of their own.

With the 2008 Olympic games coming soon, Communist China is
stepping up its censorship under the official slogan "constructing a
harmonious society." Visitors who click on China's largest Internet
site, called Sina.com, are greeted by two cute cartoon police figures,
one male and one female, who pop up on their screens every 30 minutes.

These images link to the Communist internet police in order
to report any information the government might deem illegal. It's
important for Americans to realize that China is still a very Communist
and anti-American country.

Used with permission.

Liberty Letters Comments: I know, I know, there is an economic "miracle" going on on Red China - that's what the media left and right keep telling us. Freedom is on the way, and well, this is the early stages of Capitalism; you can't really expect these guys to play by 21st Century rules, can you? Hmmm … let's see, we send over our dollars, our industry, our technology, our private industries hard earned patents, give them absolute veto power in the U.N. Security Council, turn a blind eye to their true involvement with terrorist groups and North Korea, and they hate us - but we need to make special rules for them so that they can have the money, technology, military might, and political control to bury us. Makes perfect sense to me.

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