In Boston, Mike Pence received the JFK Profile in Courage Award. He received it for his conduct on January 6 (2021). I lead my Impromptus today with this matter. Other topics include the lettering on Pope Francis’s tombstone — controversial (believe it or not). My column is here.
Two days ago, in his newsletter, Kevin D. Williamson addressed the question of trade with China. On this subject, many of us have long felt an ambivalence. Kevin addresses that feeling very well. “I don’t care very much about ‘Made in the USA,’” he writes. “I do care a good deal about ‘Made in China.’” He further says, “My friend Jay Nordlinger tells the story of his effort to personally boycott China, which lasted about 48 hours.” More on that in a moment.
Reading Kevin’s newsletter, I thought of Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican primaries. I will let an article from the New York Times tell the story, or part of it:
Among all the elements of Mitt Romney’s 59-point economic plan, his vow to crack down on China’s trade policy would seem the most out of place.
That is not because his promise to label China a “currency manipulator” and impose tariff penalties is unique. Plenty of politicians in both parties talk tough about Beijing.
What is unusual is that Mr. Romney, a former financial executive identified with Republicans’ free-trade, pro-business wing, has promised to go further than Presidents Obama or George W. Bush in confronting China. Some other business-friendly Republicans warn that his approach could set off a counterproductive trade war that would damage the United States economy.
As for my story — the story of my personal boycott (short-lived) — maybe I could quote a piece I published on the opening day of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.
Some years ago, I decided I would boycott products from China. I had heard too much testimony about slave labor in China. For example, I had interviewed Charles Lee, a Falun Gong practitioner who had been imprisoned. While in prison, he was tortured, of course — this is routine in police states — and he was also made to work. He manufactured Christmas lights, for the U.S. market. He also made Homer Simpson bedroom slippers. You put your foot where Homer’s mouth is.
The economic rise of China is one of the great stories of modern times. The Chinese were desperately poor, and now they are not. Thomas Sowell, the economist and philosopher, made this point to me about ten years ago. He said, “I grew up in an era when, if you didn’t eat your food, your mother would say, ‘There are children starving in China.’” Now, however, “something like a fourth of Chinese adults are overweight, which was utterly unthinkable at one time.” So, “that’s really a great humanitarian story.”
I could not agree more. I wish the Chinese, and everyone else, nothing but prosperity.
By the way, for my piece on, and with, Tom Sowell, published in 2011, go here. Its title is “A Lion in High Summer.” The lion is still with us.
Back to that piece from 2022:
But on the matter of my personal boycott: How could I determine which products came from free labor and which from slave? Which came from legitimate business, so to speak, and which from a gulag camp?
Telling no one, I started a private little boycott. It was a matter of conscience. A day or two later, it rained. I needed an umbrella. I went to one store. All the umbrellas were made in China. I went to another store. Same. Dripping wet, I went to a third store. Same. I bought an umbrella.
Yeah. This issue will be with us for as long as the PRC is, probably — and that looks set to be for a very long time.