2.30 meters basketball player, Yao Ming, Houston Rockets star was selected by Shanghai Lintas Advertising to be the guest star of an advertising campaign launched in the United States, Tuesday, Jan. 18, when Chinese President Hu Jintao was to begin his first state visit. Objective: To promote vigorous development and prosperity of socialist culture and our national soft power ", to quote an employee of the Information Office of China's State Council, sponsor of the transaction.It is not clear that Americans, regardless of the quality of the spot, will be sensitive to his bait. Not only because, by selecting Yao Ming, the Chinese show how they stay away from their daily lives: absolute star in the Middle Kingdom, this basketball regularly sees his wounded reputation melt in the United States.
Especially in these difficult times, this campaign has little chance of stopping a sinophobie low intensity fueled by a pervasive sense of decline of their countries associated in the minds of many Americans, an overwhelming ascendancy of China, which raises many debates and ... irrational fantasies.
The Pew Research Center has released, Wednesday, January 12, the latest version of an annual survey. To the question "What is the largest economy in the world?", 47% of respondents answered "China", only 31% of their own country! Before the financial collapse of 2008, opinion placed the United States far ahead at 41% against 30% only to China.
This shift reflects the deep scars left by the crisis and the "Wal-Martization" of the country more impoverished and more Americans find that cheaper products are often labeled "Made in China". They conclude that allowing them to dress so massively and to furnish became stronger. They are wrong, of course: China remains far from the U.S.
in terms of wealth. But fantasizing an economic superpower China, Americans support the idea of their own decline. The "anti-collapse" a reminder that this is not a first. In the 1980s, a joke traveled around the country. Washington would do if the third world war broke out? Answer: First, bombing Pearl Harbor! At the time, in addition to Columbia and Rockefeller Center, Americans saw the Japanese buy any Hawaii.
Their economy seemed invincible. Today, nobody remembers, nor the nippophobie who accompanied him. The "anti-collapse" noted that, similarly, the haunting of the White House and Congress vis-à-vis the "undervalued yuan" is a false debate. The appreciation of the Chinese currency by 5% would have an impact on U.S.
GDP "0.00 something," we recently said Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs. Also they deny the reality of Sino-US trade imbalance. The old criteria calculations, they say, have become ineffective. An example: catalog made in China, officially for the iPhone weighs 1.9 billion in US-China trade deficit.
Now researchers at Palo Alto have calculated that in reality China accounts for only 3.6% in value (it only assemble). While the U.S. does not do much better (6%), but Japanese companies contribute to 34%, German 17%, South Korea 13%, etc.. Equating the iPhone a "Chinese product" is an illusion.
China, how many Nobel science prizes? they ask again (the answer is zero). These voices are pleased to note that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in his latest speech, minus the question of the yuan to emphasize larger themes: the end of "practices that violate international commitments" (intellectual property theft, reverse engineering and copying Patent systematic protection of "indigenous innovation "...), and improving domestic demand in China.
These issues - the decline of the strategic dominance of the United States - also fuel the vision "decline" that Gideon Rachman summarized in the latest Foreign Policy: "The U.S. decline, we know the tune. Except this time it ' is different. " The argument of this camp is the opinion more persuasive because it's simpler: whereas the overall influence of the United States is declining, that of China, although it remains far, progress - and at a faster pace than expected.
The upcoming release of an airliner and a Chinese aircraft carrier has reinforced these fears. Especially as the Beijing regime instilled in Americans a doubt almost identity. Freedom and individual initiative are the meat of prosperity, proclaims their official orthodoxy. But the red capitalism, dominated by a state planner and undemocratic, it is economically more efficient.
Coming out of the crisis, while the Federal Reserve expects 3.4% growth in the United States in 2011, in Beijing, the economic planning agency expects 8% (after 10.1% official in 2010). The planning agency? Brrr ... It is in this country that disoriented Mister Hu arrives. Obama to Dr. Henry Kissinger in the Washington Post advised not to forget the obvious: "American Exceptionalism consider it natural to condition its attitude vis-à-vis other companies in their acceptance of American values.
(...) The stalemate, U.S. negotiators become restless and impatient ... "With the Chinese, this is not the right way, judge the man who carried out the historic reunion with China under Mao. Email: Cypel lemonde @. com. Cypel Sylvain Article published in the edition of 19.01.11
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