No on Chicken Feet

In the annals of colonial exploitation, Western powers maintained the seats of industrial manufacture and exploited natural resources and agricultural bounty from their distant colonies. The colonies were treasured for their vast tracts of productive farms and shockingly cheap “plantation workers.” Western Europe grew fat on that model, accumulating global wealth at an unprecedented level, while the colonies often stayed at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, complaining of exploitation but lacking the organization, willpower and modern weaponry to do much about it… until well into the 20^th century.

So it is with less than mild amusement that I watch as the global patterns of the 19^th and early 20^th century are flipped on their hairless little heads. If there is a part of the world that appears to be upside down, it would be Europe herself, now pretty heavily reliant on currency subsidies from mega-wealthy Asia players like China. Nations that long ago represented the highest order of power and development in the early years of ascending Western culture – Italy (Roman Empire) and Greece (Sparta and Athens) – are now the decimators of European values as their over-leveraged and lethargic economies are the focus of global economic fears.

And as China has become the manufacturing Mecca on earth, the U.S. trade deficit with the Peoples Republic has risen to $295 billion in 2011, a $22 billion increase from 2010. That said, the United States is in fact growing her net exports to the PRC: “American exports to China have increased by 468 percent since 2001, when the country joined the World Trade Organization, and are up by nearly 50 percent since 2008.” New York Times, March 11^th. Wow! Chinese like our manufacturers that much? Must be our design excellence and quality for the finest of products. Not exactly. China might want more of our highest technologies, but we are a tad sensitive about that, and while the Chinese people might crave more of our filmed entertainment (which they have completely available online through piracy) in their theaters, their cultural purist censors have capped that import severely.

No export fans. In a paean to yesteryear, China is much more interested in importing traditional colonial fare like natural resources and agricultural products, and since we have mined out a good deal of the former, we have a heavy emphasis on the latter. Our massive export industry to China is… agriculture! Okay, our horrifically cheap plantation workers are mechanical and occasionally the migrant farm workers from south of the border, but the Chinese long for our crops, particularly those that support the rapidly escalating standards of living as reflected in diets with more meat and higher qualities of other products. And, despite its size, China doesn’t have the vast fertile agriculture lands or sufficiently trained managers to manage large-scale farming using the latest techniques and equipment.

Protectionist barriers in China still create an unfair “Great Wall of Protectionism” that often violates World Trade Organization rules, but we are cleaning up with our food products… except of course the highly prized American chicken feet (a PRC delicacy) which are currently banned in a nasty trade dispute over allowing Chinese tires into the U.S. And American beef is not permitted, even though the bovine infections that gave rise to the ban ended nine years ago. What agricultural products do they covet most?

“The top export last year was food, reflecting China’s insatiable demand for soybeans, which are used here for livestock and poultry feed — and are cheaper than importing feed grain… ‘China imported more soybeans from the U.S. because people’s living standard has improved and they need more nutritious food,’ said Zheng Fengtian, a professor of agriculture and rural development at Beijing’s Renmin University. Importing soybeans ‘satisfies people’s needs for meat, eggs and milk,’ he said…

“In the snack department, a major American export on the rise has been tree nuts — almonds, pistachios and, more recently, pecans, causing a major transformation in the once-struggling U.S. pecan industry, with more investment and more trees being planted… Many urban Chinese prefer imported American and other foreign goods — such as dairy products — after a series of scares here over contaminated food.” NY Times. Oh sure, as their population ages, they are also beginning to import a lot more America pharmaceuticals, but it is strange that they really see us… and most of the rest of the world… as their suppliers of raw materials and foodstuffs. As for sophisticated manufacturing, they can handle that themselves.

I’m Peter Dekom, and at least this export scenario pretty much decimates the argument that our government should continue agricultural subsidies at any level!