Corporate China is Bushworld

More than was true of the Soviet Union, China's collusion with U.S. capitalism is overt. PRESCOTT BUSH JR. is the acknowledged "Rainmaker" of China. Our rapatious capitalists love dictatorships, love oppressed, desperate labor, love U.S. loan guarantees.

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CHINA & THE BUSH FAMILY: MIDDLE KINGDOM RAINMAKERS
MAY 11, 2015
The Bush family: Middle Kingdom rainmakers
By Zach Coleman

… Prescott Bush Jr:
… Now 81, Prescott Bush still travels to China two to four times a year…

Prescott Bush Resources, his consulting company, has put together more than 30 joint ventures in China since 1978, according to the website of Global Access, a US consulting company active in China, which retains Prescott as chairman of its advisory board. “Mr [Prescott] Bush has also facilitated meetings and approvals at the highest levels of the Chinese government,” the site adds in its biography…

Prescott capitalized explicitly on the family tie-in by forming the US-China Chamber of Commerce in 1993 after serving on its predecessor, the Hong Kong-US Business Council, during his brother’s presidency.

“My brother, George, has been instrumental in the development of US and China relations since 1974,” he wrote in his letter to prospective members. The chamber pitches itself as a networking hub, which “provides the business communities in both countries with direct access to leading business people and government officials who are important in their business development efforts”.

Members of the chamber’s “Chairman’s Circle” include US agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Wanxiang America, whose parent company markets products made in China to US customers. ADM and Wanxiang are also among the China clients listed on Prescott’s corporate biographies, which also typically mention Norinco, Anheuser-Busch and China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs Import & Export Corp (Cofco)...

Norinco has operated under a cloud of suspicion in the US for years because of its links to the Chinese military and a case involving the smuggling of thousands of Norinco AK-47 assault rifles into the US in 1996. The Bush Jr administration last month slapped new sanctions on Norinco for its Iranian activities, which involved shipping missile technologies to Iran.

By contrast, as president, Bush Sr granted a “national interest” waiver to allow a deal to proceed for shipping $300 million of Hughes Aircraft satellite equipment to China in December 1989, overriding sanctions imposed by Congress a month before in response to the Tiananmen Square incident – regarded as a massacre of peaceful demonstrators by most observers. Prescott had visited China just before his brother that February and returned weeks after the Tiananmen violence for talks with officials on several deals, including one for a US company pitching a satellite communications network that would utilize the Hughes equipment...

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I love the similarity here to Hunter Biden's saga. Poor old Joe Biden, just doing business as usual and getting slammed for it.

https://excellentrap.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/china-the-bush-family-midd...

CHINA & THE BUSH FAMILY: MIDDLE KINGDOM RAINMAKERS
MAY 11, 2015
The Bush family: Middle Kingdom rainmakers
By Zach Coleman

… Bush Sr and his brother Prescott both lowered their profile in the family business last year. Yet the Bushes’ business suddenly hit the headlines again in November, when documents and testimony from the divorce trial of the president’s brother Neil showed that he had signed a contract to receive US$400,000 a year from Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing, a Chinese company co-founded by a son of former president Jiang Zemin, in return for business information and advice. Fair enough, but Neil Bush has no background in technology. His brother’s administration, however, is leaning on Beijing to reduce tax discrimination against imported semiconductors.

… Neil Bush
As a member of the younger Bush generation, Neil only entered the China trade 10 years ago, setting up Interlink Management Corp as a matchmaker between US and Asian firms, especially the Charoen Pokphand Group of Thailand, a conglomerate controlled by a Sino-Thai businessman. Through Interlink, Neil helped CP Group form a joint venture with Koll Real Estate for a $300 million mall in Shanghai and a joint venture with Beaulieu of America to sell carpet in China.

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https://excellentrap.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/china-the-bush-family-midd...

CHINA & THE BUSH FAMILY: MIDDLE KINGDOM RAINMAKERS
MAY 11, 2015
The Bush family: Middle Kingdom rainmakers
By Zach Coleman

… George Herbert Walker Bush
Since his presidency, Bush Sr has stayed out of the undignified business of actual deal making. Instead, he has been collecting hefty fees from US companies to be their icebreaker.

… Companies that have hired Bush Sr to talk in China have included the CP Group, Arco, the Chubb Group, IMC Global and the Carlyle Group….

… In 2002, the northern city of Tianjin, together with Business Week magazine, hired Bush Sr to headline a conference in the city. The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, an affiliate of the Foreign Ministry, picked up the tab for trips that year to Shanghai and Beijing and last October to Beijing. The association also co-sponsored a conference at Texas A&M University in November together with the university, its George Bush School of Government and Public Service and the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation that featured a who’s who of past and present officials, such as former vice premier Qian Qichen, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger. The Bush Foundation lists the Chinese government as a $50,000- $100,000 contributor in the lobby of the presidential library.

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https://excellentrap.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/china-the-bush-family-midd...

CHINA & THE BUSH FAMILY: MIDDLE KINGDOM RAINMAKERS
MAY 11, 2015
The Bush family: Middle Kingdom rainmakers
By Zach Coleman

… George W Bush
Bush Jr arrived in China for a six-week visit on June 4, 1975, after finishing Harvard Business School and stayed through his 29th birthday. His father commented in his diary that his son was impressed by China’s universal health-care system after getting his tooth fixed for 60 cents – US.

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edg's picture

I find it amusing and ironic that the vaunted "Chinese miracle" was brought about by US consumer passion for cheap big-screen TVs and other cheap goods financed by trillions of dollars of US debt funded by China using American consumer's hard-earned dollars.

It's like a giant Ponzi scheme that transfers up to $500 billion per year to China, without which they'd still be a 3rd world cesspool and some of America's billionaires and rich corporations would be impoverished paupers.

I find it ironic and amusing that Americans are praising China for growth underwritten by that giant Ponzi scheme, portions of which fund the arms race between the US and China.

And I find it sad that the debt created by ours and previous generations' lust for cheap goods must someday be repaid by our progeny in one way or another.

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CB's picture

@edg
in return for their cheap natural resources and labor? There was a time the US sold cars, washing machines, blue jeans, cotton goods like t-shirts and underwear, records, record players, radios, TV's, movies, etc., etc., and ended up becoming the richest nation on the face of the earth. We sold a pair or two of blue jeans for a ton of bauxite or 500 pounds of raw rubber and then sold them tires, pots and pans, and radios at a healthy (for America) price. This wasn't a ponzi scheme - it was a good old fashioned Company Store just like poor American workers shopped at in the day.

But times have changed. Those cesspool countries have real human beings not much different from us. Same emotions, hopes, dreams and pains that an American has. They want the same standard of living and they will work very hard to achieve it.

BTW, to calculate the trade deficit you have to subtract exports to China.

Historically, I doubt China has yet to come close in taking more from America than America took from China in the last 200 years.

I see the US government is determined to destroy the high tech industry in America. It's way to late to cut off China. They have the ability to design and produce most of these goods domestically just like Huawei can now source all their chips outside of the US. Any trade war in high tech will eventually hurt the US more. China is now pumping out way more technicians and engineers from it's universities than the US is doing. China is doing nothing that the US has not been doing for 150 years.

What's that saying? "Cut of your nose to spite your face."


US slaps new restrictions on exports to China

The United States imposed new restrictions on exports to China, including on civil aircraft components and items related to semiconductors.


Did Tencent Ditch Intel for Huawei to Power Its Cloud Gaming Platform?

Is the Chinese tech giant cutting the American chipmaker out of its next-gen gaming platform?

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@CB

as much as I can of the debate here over whether China is our arch enemy or a force for improvement, and I agree with your positions, learn from your references, and vote in support of your comments virtually every time I read them. You're incredible, and you're credible.

I think I just want to point out the corporate element of the Chinese rise to manufacturing power because it seems like our media pretends it doesn't exist, as if all our socks and underwear just vanished and re-emerged in an act of theft by China. How fiendish of China to steal our manufacturing base!

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edg's picture

@Linda Wood

Our manufacturing base wasn't stolen. It was given away by greedy corporations, fueled by consumer acceptance of cheaper goods, and facilitated by bribed politicians. The middle and lower classes are paying the price for the loss of manufacturing jobs.

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snoopydawg's picture

@edg

for something that they had no control over. Again. You posted this comment in another essay here.

I find it amusing and ironic that the vaunted "Chinese miracle" was brought about by US consumer passion for cheap big-screen TVs and other cheap goods financed by trillions of dollars of US debt funded by China using American consumer's hard-earned dollars.

And then you look at what actually happened..

Our manufacturing base wasn't stolen. It was given away by greedy corporations, fueled by consumer acceptance of cheaper goods, and facilitated by bribed politicians. The middle and lower classes are paying the price for the loss of manufacturing jobs.

WE did not do that. The corporations did on Wall Street's orders because they insisted profits came before all else. Where were we suppose to buy American products from if this country's manufacturing sector was sent overseas? I remember when products sold here lasted much longer than the cheap crap that comes from wherever it's made now. My coffee machines used to be made of more than just plastic crap. But then companies offshored their factories and I now have to buy a new one every year because I can't afford to buy one that lasts longer at the time of purchase. This is not my fault. And not all products come from China.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

edg's picture

@snoopydawg

Please see my comments here: https://caucus99percent.com/comment/487858#comment-487858 And here: https://caucus99percent.com/comment/487936#comment-487936

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edg's picture

@CB

Trade Deficit = Exports - Imports. The deficit in 2019 was $345.6 billion, the lowest in 6 years thanks to the tariffs.

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edg's picture

@CB

You're confusing the United States with Britain. Britain was the top extractive colonial power in China in the 18th, 19th, and part of the 20th centuries. The US's primary imports from China during the 200 years prior to 1979 were workers (coolies) and a bit of tea and silk.

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CB's picture

@edg
than "a bit of tea and silk". It is estimated the US received about 10% of the profits from the opium trade in China. The British had considerable military expenses to cover.

Here's the story of just one American opium trader - Warren Delano, grandfather of FDR. Forbes was another family that got wealthy from the opium trade.

“A Fair, Honorable, And Legitimate Trade”

The opium trade is remembered as a British outrage: English merchants, protected by English bayonets, turning China into a nation of addicts. But Americans got rich from this traffic—among them, a young man named Warren Delano. He didn’t talk about it afterward, of course. And neither did his grandson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
...
Ned had arrived at a tense but profitable time for the American traders. A curious, on-again, off-again war had been under way between Britain and the Chinese emperor since June, and the neutral Americans were its beneficiaries.
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The British dominated it as they did every aspect of the China trade, but their American competitors were fast gaining on them. The very first American in the China trade, Samuel Shaw, who sailed with the Empress of China to Whampoa in 1784, had foreseen the big profits those who followed him would make handling opium, which, he said, could be “smuggled with the utmost security.” It had taken a little time for Americans to make good his prediction, not because they had higher moral standards than their British rivals but because they had a less dependable source of supply.
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Opium proved as good for the dollar as it was for the British pound. By 1839 every American house at Canton handled the drug, with the lonely exception of D. W. C. Olyphant & Company, opposed to the trade on moral grounds and ridiculed by its rivals as “Zion’s Comer.”

Russell & Company, which Warren now headed, was the biggest U.S. dealer in opium, and the third largest firm in the Indian opium trade, British or American.
...
Warren Delano did have to bother about China again, for Ned’s fears about his overextending himself proved accurate. He had made himself a millionaire by age forty-eight, but the Panic of 1857 ruined him, and in 1860 he was forced to go back to China, to Hong Kong this time, where he spent five more years recouping his losses in the two trades that had initially made him so rich so rapidly—tea and opium.
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For a long time American historians also seem to have been content to let the Yankee trader’s pursuit of opium profits largely be forgotten.
...

How Profits From Opium Shaped 19th-Century Boston

Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of Boston's leading merchants, has been taking risks with shipments to China for nearly 40 years. But now, he may have gone too far.

Perkins drafts a letter to his nephew and business partner in the Chinese port city of Canton, now known as Guangzhou. The message is an apology and a warning: More than 150,000 pounds of Turkish opium is on its way.

Another thing that hit China bad during this time was the country could not produce textiles as cheap as the Americans could with their machinery. All textiles in China were hand woven. This left a huge number of Chinese unemployed.

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edg's picture

@CB

The discussion was centered on what was exported FROM China, not what was imported into it. If you want to discuss the execrable opium trade, open another discussion. Don't switch topic midstream in this one.

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CB's picture

@edg
It's a two way street. If you want to discuss why there is an imbalance you need to understand the historical background between the two nations. The US and China have had an extremely troubled relationship that has been mostly negative towards China up until the 1980's

In 1979 China created four special economic zones and opened their country to foreign in vestment. Most of the foreign investment came from Hong Kong at 80% (Hong Kong bought it's way back to China). The US supplied 7%.

China's largest trading partner is was the EU followed by the US. The ASEAN countries will most likely surpass the US this year leaving the US in third place. With twice the population and double the growth rate of the US, the ASEAN will continue to boost China's GDP at an even faster rate. Waging a trade war with China which will only hurt the US. For items other than services, the US have priced themselves out of the market. Manufacturing will not be coming back. BTW, it was the US that originally promoted free trade with China. You reap what you sow.

When you view the following chart, take note the curve also represents the increasing fortunes of the Chinese people.

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CB's picture

@edg
in building America's transcontinental railroad.
(Side note: Calling Chinese or East Indians 'coolies' is now considered disparaging and offensive - equivalent to calling blacks 'ni**ers'.)

Building the Transcontinental Railroad: How 20,000 Chinese Immigrants Made It Happen
At first railroad companies were reluctant to hire Chinese workers, but the immigrants soon proved to be vital.

They toiled through back-breaking labor during both frigid winters and blazing summers. Hundreds died from explosions, landslides, accidents and disease. And even though they made major contributions to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, these 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese immigrants have been largely ignored by history.
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Leland Stanford, president of Central Pacific, former California governor and founder of Stanford University, told Congress in 1865, that the majority of the railroad labor force were Chinese. Without them,” he said, “it would be impossible to complete the western portion of this great national enterprise, within the time required by the Acts of Congress.”

More Chinese immigrants began arriving in California, and two years later, about 90 percent of the workers were Chinese.
...

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edg's picture

@CB

You really are a trip, dude or dudette. Of course "coolie" is pejorative. That's why I put it in parentheses.

And the "coolie" system was a European innovation, not American. According to Britannica,

Coolie, (from Hindi Kuli, an aboriginal tribal name, or from Tamil kuli, “wages”), in usually pejorative European usage, an unskilled labourer or porter usually in or from the Far East hired for low or subsistence wages.

The so-called coolie trade began in the late 1840s as a response to the labour shortage brought on by the worldwide movement to abolish slavery. The majority of these contract labourers were shipped from China, especially from the southern ports of Amoy and Macao, to developing European colonial areas, such as Hawaii, Ceylon, Malaya, and the Caribbean.

By the late 19th century, free immigration began to supersede the coolie trade. The Chinese, Japanese, and Hindustani workers who came to Australia and California after the discovery of gold in these areas around 1850 were commonly regarded as coolies, but they were technically free immigrants, not contract labourers.

Source: Encyclopædia Britannica

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CB's picture

@edg
I'm just wondering why you used it to describe Chinese workers in the US. There is a long and sordid history of anti Chinese discrimination in the US which is again rearing it's ugly face at this time.

Watch Chinese discrimination skyrocket with the release of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee Corona Big Book

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