Whet
1/23/2011, 08:07 PM
Unbelievable that we are still giving financial aid to China. I wonder if we had to borrow the money from China to give to China..
Editorial: Why Does The U.S. Still Give China Aid?
Posted 01/21/2011 07:19 PM ET
Foreign Policy: While Chinese President Hu flaunted his country's power during his Western tour, his No. 2 economy raked in billions in Western aid. That's right. We're still subsidizing China. Why?
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, foreign aid to China totals $2.6 billion a year. The biggest donor is Japan, followed by Germany, France and Britain, then the U.S. All of these countries, meanwhile, are in debt to China and running massive deficits.
U.S. aid, at $65 million a year, is relatively small thanks to sanctions imposed following Beijing's 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square. Still, why are we sending China any succor at all?
It's hard to justify giving foreign aid to a communist state whose state-run organ, "The People's Daily," wrote on the eve of Hu's visit to Washington:
"China's emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S."
But the aid is next to impossible to justify when you consider the following facts:
• Beijing spends at least $100 billion a year building up its military and training the world's largest army.
• It spends billions more on a space program.
• It spent tens of billions on the 2008 Olympics.
• It holds some $2.5 trillion in foreign reserves.
• It boasts the world's most billionaires after the U.S.
Yet China still has its hand out, as if it were a Third World developing nation. And we keep treating it like a charity case.
China's also one of the biggest World Bank borrowers, taking out more than $1.5 billion a year in loans. In the last two years China has become a major lender to the Third World — lending more, in fact, than the World Bank over that time.
In Africa, China's acting like a new colonial power. Hu recently pledged to double aid to Africa to gain access to the continent's oil. Beijing's already pumping billions into Nigeria, Angola and Sudan, where it's also arming the brutal Khartoum regime.
Human-rights groups say China is using its foreign aid to prop up abusive regimes. But when did Beijing worry about human rights?
So here we are giving charity to China (financing it by taking loans from China, our debtholder), which China uses to finance its wicked projects in Africa under the guise of charity.
Are we really this foolish? Apparently so.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ought to investigate why we're still funding Beijing. Germany and Britain are phasing out humanitarian aid to China. Even Japan, whose generosity has been driven in part by a desire to make amends for its invasion of China in the 1930s, is cutting its aid down to grants and technical help for environmental and medical projects.
We shouldn't be giving a government that's developing the means to knock out our defenses and kill us with missiles one penny. Let it earn it by making things for Wal-Mart.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/560621/201101211919/Editorial-Why-Does-The-US-Still-Give-China-Aid-.htm
Editorial: Why Does The U.S. Still Give China Aid?
Posted 01/21/2011 07:19 PM ET
Foreign Policy: While Chinese President Hu flaunted his country's power during his Western tour, his No. 2 economy raked in billions in Western aid. That's right. We're still subsidizing China. Why?
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, foreign aid to China totals $2.6 billion a year. The biggest donor is Japan, followed by Germany, France and Britain, then the U.S. All of these countries, meanwhile, are in debt to China and running massive deficits.
U.S. aid, at $65 million a year, is relatively small thanks to sanctions imposed following Beijing's 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square. Still, why are we sending China any succor at all?
It's hard to justify giving foreign aid to a communist state whose state-run organ, "The People's Daily," wrote on the eve of Hu's visit to Washington:
"China's emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S."
But the aid is next to impossible to justify when you consider the following facts:
• Beijing spends at least $100 billion a year building up its military and training the world's largest army.
• It spends billions more on a space program.
• It spent tens of billions on the 2008 Olympics.
• It holds some $2.5 trillion in foreign reserves.
• It boasts the world's most billionaires after the U.S.
Yet China still has its hand out, as if it were a Third World developing nation. And we keep treating it like a charity case.
China's also one of the biggest World Bank borrowers, taking out more than $1.5 billion a year in loans. In the last two years China has become a major lender to the Third World — lending more, in fact, than the World Bank over that time.
In Africa, China's acting like a new colonial power. Hu recently pledged to double aid to Africa to gain access to the continent's oil. Beijing's already pumping billions into Nigeria, Angola and Sudan, where it's also arming the brutal Khartoum regime.
Human-rights groups say China is using its foreign aid to prop up abusive regimes. But when did Beijing worry about human rights?
So here we are giving charity to China (financing it by taking loans from China, our debtholder), which China uses to finance its wicked projects in Africa under the guise of charity.
Are we really this foolish? Apparently so.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ought to investigate why we're still funding Beijing. Germany and Britain are phasing out humanitarian aid to China. Even Japan, whose generosity has been driven in part by a desire to make amends for its invasion of China in the 1930s, is cutting its aid down to grants and technical help for environmental and medical projects.
We shouldn't be giving a government that's developing the means to knock out our defenses and kill us with missiles one penny. Let it earn it by making things for Wal-Mart.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/560621/201101211919/Editorial-Why-Does-The-US-Still-Give-China-Aid-.htm