Do you think we need to link human rights with trade in China?

Question

Do you think we need to link human rights with trade in China?

Answer 1

I find it difficult to see us getting anything from China because of the dangers their products have posed to us. I've seen better quality from Japan.

Answer 2

What is the point of even trying?  They run the show now.  We need them to finance our debt, we need their products because we won't/can't afford to buy U.S. goods, etc.  We don't have enough power to push them into anything.

Answer 3

No, it will only hurt the US.  Linking human rights with trade will inflame China and they will respond by not wanting to trade with us.  That would hurt the American economy a lot.  ALthough it could  make the trade deficit go down, it would do more harm- we would quickly lose a lot of goods (stores would no longer get as many goods to sell).  Supply would go waaaaaaay down.  Things would be more expensive- we would be consuming goods that are more expensive and since supply would go down, prices would head up.

China won't listen to the human rights complaints like that.  And they would hurt our economy if we tried that.  A more diplomatic approach would work better, rather than linking trade or protests/aggressive ways...as well I think that a more diplomatic way would work better.

Answer 4

No.  

It is no accident that the idea of human rights in Europe evolved along with the decline of military aristocracy and the rise of the commercial class.  All of a sudden, European rulers began to realize that they need to treat their subjects with dignity.  Why?  Because those subjects amassed enough wealth to buy themselves a government they wanted.  So the rulers essentially had a choice; have some respect for their people or be replaced.  The English royalty chose to have respect and survived (although not without an accident; King Charles I was beheaded in 1649); the French royalty chose to "let them eat cake" and literally paid for it with their heads in 1793.

If you "link human rights with trade in China", it will ensure that the Chinese will never see any human rights, because you will strip them of opportunities to prosper and through that become a force their government will have to reckon with...  

Think back to, say, South Korea.  If Korean companies were kept from trading with the U.S., they would never become strong enough to stand up to the military government; Korea would still be a military dictatorship...

Answer 5

What if China did the same thing to the US when it comes to the Death Penalty?

Attempting to impose morale values and leverage trade to do it will only hurt the US in the end. Its a lot easier to fill everybody's pockets with money and talk morality than to have the rich man telling the poor man how to live before he'll give him a dollar.