Robert J. Samuelson writes, Chinese working conditions don't look too different from those in the U.S. a century ago.

The AFL-CIO says that repressive labor practices have depressed China's factory wages by 47 percent to 86 percent, lowered the prices of Chinese exports and cost about 727,000 U.S. jobs.

But

China's economic liberalization has been a vast engine of human progress that, in turn, has depended heavily on trade. In the past 25 years, reports economist Andy Xie of Morgan Stanley, China's economy has expanded by a factor of almost nine, but exports have grown 45 times. Here are some measures of social gains from the World Bank:

• From 1978 to 2002, the average annual per-person income rose from $190 to $960. It's probably now above $1,000. (The U.S. figure: about $36,000.)


• Life expectancy increased from 61.7 years in 1970 to 71 in 2002.


• Adult illiteracy fell from 37 percent in 1978 to less than 17 percent in 1999.


• Infant mortality dropped from 41 per 1,000 live births in 1978 to 30 in 1999 (the U.S. rate: about seven)

And

Ironically, the AFL-CIO trade complaint actually debunks the popular notion that a job drain to China is a major cause of the weak U.S. labor market. Assume that 727,000 jobs were lost to "repressive" labor conditions (and some economists doubt the estimate). They're equal to less than 1 percent of total U.S. employment, about 4 percent of manufacturing jobs in 2000 or about three months' job growth in the late 1990s. The main problem today is not massive job loss abroad. It's feeble job creation at home.

A cynical (but plausible) theory is that the trade complaint aims to embarrass the White House in an election year.

Via Russell Roberts

Let them eat Les Big Macs McDonald's: The French have grown fond of the ubiquitous American fast food.

France has 1,008 McDonald's restaurants, second in Europe only to the 1,235 in Britain and the 1,244 in Germany, and though each country's total sales are a closely held company secret, France is leading them both.

Via Daniel Drezner

China Rebuts U.S. Criticism on Rights By Edward Cody

Accused by the United States of backsliding on human rights, the Chinese government issued a 40-page white paper on Tuesday describing 2003 as "a year of great, landmark significance for progress in human rights in the country."

The document amounted to a detailed response to the Bush administration's March 22 proposal for a resolution by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights condemning China's human rights record.

...even as the white paper was being distributed here, the New York-based organization Human Rights in China reported that three women active in a group called Tiananmen Mothers were arrested Sunday, citing unspecified sources in China...

The white paper on human rights, the seventh since 1991, underlined the Chinese government's irritation at the Bush administration's decision to seek a condemnation of China in Geneva this year after abstaining from doing so last year.

"The Chinese government remains extremely sensitive to international pressure and this white paper is an attempt to rebut that criticism in a comprehensive fashion," Liu Qing, president of Human Rights in China, said in an e-mail from New York.

Why are they so sensitive? It sounds to me like a good reason to censure them. Meanwhile, China Retaliates Over U.S. Fingerprint Visa Policy. I guess they hope they can influence this American policy, but like the sensitivity over US criticism, it looks like the Chinese gov't is playing to its home audience. However, retaliation seems counter-productive to me; it means less Americans are going to visit China.

Study: Outsourcing Tech Jobs Aids U.S.

Outsourcing white-collar jobs to low-wage countries such as India and China has thrown some Americans out of work, but a new report predicts that the trend will ultimately lower inflation, create jobs and boost productivity in the United States...

Outsourcing dramatically reduces labor costs, allowing companies to sell goods ranging from software to tax-preparation services at lower costs or higher profit margins. Greater profits theoretically allow companies to buy new equipment, build laboratories and conduct scientific experiments - even in expensive Silicon Valley and other U.S. tech hubs.

Savings from outsourcing allowed companies to create 90,000 new jobs in 2003, with more than one in 10 of them in Silicon Valley or elsewhere in California, researchers said. The report predicts that in 2008, outsourcing will create 317,000 jobs - 34,000 in California.

From the Information Technology Association of America.

Taiwan's President Maintains Hard Line By Philip P. Pan and David E. Hoffman

President Chen Shui-bian declared Monday that his narrow reelection victory was a mandate from voters to press ahead with an aggressive agenda to develop Taiwan as an 'independent, sovereign country' despite the risk of war with China...

Chen's comments came days after Beijing issued an unusually strong warning that it would not tolerate turmoil in Taiwan and announced plans to issue a legal ruling as early as Friday that could quash growing demands in Hong Kong for direct elections to choose the territory's leaders. By speaking out at such a sensitive moment and drawing a link between Taiwan's future and China's approach in Hong Kong, Chen raised the stakes for those in the Communist Party leadership who want to stifle the pro-democracy movement in the territory.

"In Taiwan, we have full democracy, and our freedom and democracy are fully protected," he said. "We do not wish to return to the era of authoritarianism. We don't want our freedoms to be restricted or taken away. . . .

"Right now, the people of Hong Kong are fighting for direct elections for their chief executive and general elections for the entire legislature, but the Beijing authorities are unable to consent," Chen said. "They even say, 'Wait another 30 years and we'll see.' I think this is very ridiculous.

"For the 23 million people of Taiwan, this is the greatest warning, and also the clearest signal. 'One country, two systems' is totally unattractive to the Taiwan people," he added, referring to the formula under which Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and which Beijing says Taiwan must eventually accept. "What has happened in Hong Kong has shown that this system, this formula, is a total failure."

Chen said Taiwan has noted "major problems" with Beijing's administration of Hong Kong, recalling that about 500,000 people turned out there for a demonstration last July "because they felt their freedom and democracy had been infringed upon."...

Chen defended his plan to write a new constitution for Taiwan, approve it in a referendum in 2006 and enact it by 2008, when Beijing is scheduled to host the Summer Olympics. China has argued that a new constitution would sever Taiwan's legal ties with the mainland, and senior Chinese military officers have declared that China is willing to go to war against Taiwan over the issue, even if it means a global boycott of the Games.

According to the Associated Press' WILLIAM FOREMAN: "The Americans have been analyzing bullets, blood samples, medical photos and other evidence from the March 19 shooting that grazed Chen's stomach. The bullet hit Chen as he was campaigning in an open Jeep in the southern city of Tainan.
Some skeptics say it's highly suspicious that the bullet conveniently ended up in the president's jacket.
But a ballistics expert with the U.S. team, Michael G. Haag, told cable station TVBS that "it's not unheard of for bullets to be just about to pump out of somebody who's been shot, or out of their skin, and to be found in somebody's clothing.''
Doubters have also said that it was suspicious how one bullet pierced the Jeep's windshield and hit the vice president's knee. They say the bullet couldn't have followed such a trajectory.
But Haag told TVBS: "As soon as (the bullet) changes the medium that it's in, air to glass, air to wood, or air to water, then deflection ... occurs and the bullet's path can change.''
Some have said Chen's injury doesn't resemble a gunshot, because a bullet wouldn't leave such a long scar.
But another team member told TVBS that many factors could influence the wound's shape and size.
"That varies greatly depending on the nature of the ammunition, how close the wound is, what part of the body,'' said Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a forensics expert who investigated Kennedy's assassination. "

James Wood, in his review of John Le Carré's Absolute Friends writes that the reason people see him as a literary novelist

may be that his books seem to reproduce on the political level what the great novelists are prized for doing on the human level. The complexity, the ambiguity, the command of moral grayness, the willingness to raise questions rather than answer them--these, at the level of character, are what the liberal humanist novel is supposed to do....

Later on, Wood argues that a great writer reveals something new, deep, or truthful. Anyway, it looks like he's so annoyed by Le Carré's strident anti-Americanism that he decides there's nothing about the book to like. I know how something like that can greatly reduce my pleasure in a work, but I still think he's being a little unfair.

The New Europe: After May 1, East Europe's 'Haves' May Have More

As Europe expands in a quest for prosperity and elusive unity, many among its new members in the East fear that hundreds of thousands of people may be left behind in a new underclass, throwbacks to the lost era of command economies and state control.

The European Union has always known its relative disparities, and to create a unified whole it has over the decades self-consciously transferred wealth from richer countries like Germany and Luxembourg to poorer ones like Portugal, Greece and Ireland.

But never before has the union invited into its well-padded ranks the kind of economic malaise to be found in rural Poland, the eastern reaches of Slovakia and Hungary and the countryside of the Baltics.

So daunting is the challenge that the 15 current members have decided that leveling the playing field is not an option, at least not fully, not for the foreseeable future.
Most of the agricultural subsidies that take up almost half of the European Commission's annual budget of $120 billion will not be available to farmers...in the other new eastern members, because extending the benefit was deemed too costly.
Farm subsidies for the new entrants will start at just a quarter of the western levels, rising to parity only by 2013. In the meantime, small-scale farmers in the East worry that they will be wiped out by agribusiness in the West, where subsidies on average provide a quarter of the income of most current European Union farmers.

That really stinks. Welcome to Europe!

Peter S. Goodman has a cute juxtaposition in In China, Socialism With a Lifted Face (washingtonpost.com):

Once, Chinese mothers bound the feet of their daughters in the name of securing acceptable futures and making them fit brides. On this day, mother and daughter waited for an appointment with a plastic surgeon. For about $118 -- about half of their monthly household income -- he would stitch double folds into the young woman's eyelids, making her eyes appear rounder and, as current fashion dictates, more pleasing...

Forty years ago, when the plastic surgery unit at the hospital opened, it focused on accident and burn victims, soldiers wounded in the Korean War and people born with defects. So it went through the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, when female film stars wrapped their chests in sackcloth lest they appear buxom, which was tantamount to being bourgeois. Now the same white-tiled rooms of the hospital are used to insert silicone implants imported from the United States into the breasts of any woman with $2,500 to spend.

"Young people today accept Western culture," says Cao Yilin, who heads the plastic surgery unit at Shanghai's Ninth People's Hospital. "They think the breast is a symbol of the woman, so a woman without a breast is not really a woman." Moreover, artificially enhanced breasts have become a status symbol, an indication of an ability to afford the accouterments of a wealthy life. "Now, no one derides this as capitalist," Cao says. "In China now, the person who has money is seen as someone who ought to be proud."

A decade ago at Beijing's Plastic Surgery Hospital, nearly all the patients were actresses and entertainers, says Chen, the surgeon. They still amount to nearly one-third of the patients. Bar hostesses, concubines and mistresses make up an additional one-tenth, Chen believes. But now one-fifth to one-third are people looking for jobs and hoping to enhance their prospects. Of the total, a third are between 30 and 40 years old people who, Chen says, "have a lot of money and a lot of time." Ninety percent of the patients are women.

This Chicago Tribune editorial seems reasonable. The message from Taiwan

As for relations with China, the people showed a mature understanding that Taiwan's de facto independence is too valuable to risk by gratuitous unilateral steps toward formal independence--which run a great risk of provoking a military response from China.

If Chen ultimately is found to have won, he ought to recognize that on this issue, he has been repudiated by his constituents, who prefer conciliation to confrontation.

He should back off his campaign to distance his territory from the mainland and concentrate on preserving Taiwan's freedom, autonomy and prosperity, while putting off difficult issues for the future, when they may be easier to resolve.

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the presidential election, the message to Beijing is that the island's people value their right to determine their future in a democratic system. If the Chinese government hopes to win Taiwan's citizens over to peaceful reunification, it has a lot to learn from this election.

The Associated Press doesn't seem to think much of the blues: Half-Million Taiwanese Protest Election:

Lien's handling of the controversy has been confusing. Sometimes he demands a recount, and other times he talks about holding the vote again. Sometimes he treats the unexplained shooting as the most important issue.

Many believe an internal power struggle is going on between moderates who just favor a recount, and hard-liners who want a new election. Lien is presiding over a coalition of his Nationalist Party and the smaller People First Party.

On Saturday, one of the most popular moderates in the Nationalist Party, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, said that Lien should just accept the results of a recount.

But the hard-liners have been more visible, and at times they have used violence to push their points. On Friday, members of the People First Party helped incite a crowd of about 2,000 to storm the Central Election Commission as it prepared to certify Chen's victory. The angry mob broke windows, tossed eggs and scuffled with riot police.

On the other hand, Ching Cheong has a pretty low opinion of Chen as seen in Chen in a quandry - MARCH 28, 2004

President Chen now has a chance to prove his innocence. He should be under no illusion that there is real anger simmering because of a string of dubious acts which he and his DPP perpetrated in order to win the election.

Among these was his attempt to bundle a so-called defensive referendum with the March 20 election to boost his chances.

A number of retired high court judges had come out warning that such a move was unconstitutional. He turned a deaf ear to them.

But the most outrageous to the average Taiwanese was the bizarre shooting on the eve of the polls. Though no public figure has been bold or reckless enough to say it was faked, choosing instead to say only that the incident left many unanswered questions, the track record of Mr Chen and the DPP suggests that the worst could not be ruled out.

Taiwanese author Kao Chi-ming wrote a book a few years ago disclosing that Mr Chen had masterminded a plot to accuse the KMT of poisoning him when he was running for a local election in Tainan. After the latter became president, Mr Kao went into exile in the United States.

Even if the March 19 shooting was a genuine attempt on the President, the DPP had clearly exploited it to its advantage.

By ordering a national security alert, it effectively barred military and police officers, traditionally KMT supporters, from voting.

The Cabinet first claimed that not a single man in uniform was affected but after the abrupt resignation of Defence Minister Tang Yao-ming, it was forced to admit that only 13,000 officers were affected.

The under-reporting angered those in uniform and they called the media volunteering evidence, thus forcing the Cabinet to admit a second time that the number affected was about 35,000.

This figure was more than sufficient to turn the result around had they voted as the DPP's margin was less than 30,000.

Most unethical of all, after the incident, the opposition alliance, out of respect and sympathy for Mr Chen and concern for national security, called off campaigning.

However, in southern Taiwan, which is DPP country, the party used all means - broadcasting vans, unlicensed radio stations, cellphone messages and so on - to spread the word that the opposition had collaborated with China to kill the President.

This led effectively to a swing of votes away from Messrs Lien and Soong, whose goodwill was repaid with venom.

Hence the refrain from the many thousands who braved the elements to demonstrate outside the presidential palace: 'We are not just supporting Lien and Soong, but more important, truth, justice and fairness.'

Taiwanese people do have an innate sense of fair play.

It's that last sentence I can't really agree with; I see an awful lot of partisanship amongst the Taiwanese, and it seems the foreign reporters tend to fall on one side or the other.

Sydney Smith, aka MedPundit, is dubious about the Actual Causes of Death I cite below, pointing out that the

Journal of the American Medical Association published a paper deceptively titled Actual Causes of Death, 2000 that claimed that obesity was gaining on tobacco as the number one cause of death in the United States. Except that the paper's objective wasn't to quantify actual causes of death, it was to attribute the risk of death to various behaviors -- behaviors that were preselected by the researchers.

She then cites SCIENCE WITHOUT SENSE on attributed risk:

ATTRIBUTABLE RISK MAY NOT BE SCIENTIFICALLY JUSTIFIABLE. IT IS CALCULATED FROM VERY UNCERTAIN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATIONS. THESE ASSOCIATIONS MAY NOT REFLECT TRUE BIOLOGICAL CAUSE-AND-EFFECT. AT BEST, A STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION IS A REPRESENTATION OF WHAT WAS OBSERVED IN A PARTICULAR POPULATION STUDIED AND IS NOT APPLICABLE TO OTHER POPULATIONS NOT STUDIED.

Sane Weight Loss in a Carb-Obsessed World: High Fiber and Low Fat By JANE E. BRODY, who writes on the expense of low-carb products, and points out that the world's slimmest people, the Far Easterners who mainly subsist on rice, don't eat a low-carb diet. She then explains how to avoid gaining weight:

As a recent 12-week study of 34 men and women in their 60's so clearly demonstrated, those who consumed, without caloric restrictions, a diet high in fiber-rich carbohydrates (63 percent of calories, with 26 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories), low in fat (18 percent of calories) and moderate in protein lost more weight and a higher percentage of body fat than did those who ate the same number of calories of a typical American diet, that is, one high in fat (41 percent of calories) and relatively low in carbs (45 percent of calories).

The study showed that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet could result in weight loss and reduced body fat while preserving muscle mass, even without any change in caloric intake, as long as the carbs were low in added sugars and refined starches. And the weight is lost without having to avoid delicious, health-promoting fruits and instead eating lots of fiber-free and fat-laden eggs, cheese and meats. (The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Arkansas for the Medical Sciences and Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock and was published in January in Archives of Internal Medicine).

How can this happen? It happens because fiber-rich carbohydrates offer three major benefits to the weight-conscious eater: they hold water in the gut, take longer to digest and some of their calories are eliminated unabsorbed. In other words, they can fill you up before they fill you out.

In fact, some of the so-called low-carb products now on the market seek to cash in on this well-established dietetic principle. In foods like low-carb bread and pasta, producers substitute fibrous carbs for some of the more refined ones, resulting in a product that is claimed to provide fewer "net carbs" than the original.

But will such foods result in a leaner population any more than the low-fat, fat-free food fad did? Not very likely, given the lack of attention most Americans pay to portion control. All that many people did on low-fat and fat-free products was gain more weight because they figured that fat-free gave them license to eat as much as they wanted, without regard to serving size and calories per serving...

A diet high in fat and low in carbs has yet to be tested for long-term safety and effectiveness. But fiber-rich balanced diets, replete with whole grains, fruits and vegetables along with reasonable quantities of fish, poultry, meat and dairy products, have been repeatedly shown to be conducive to enjoyable eating and to achieving and maintaining a normal body weight and long-lasting health.

She advocates eating mostly

whole grain breads and cereals; lots of vegetables, salads and fresh and dried fruits; poultry, fish, meat and dried beans and peas and skim milk.

and less

white rice and pasta, potatoes, winter squash, avocados, regular cheese, eggs, cookies and ice cream and an occasional piece of cake or pie.

She also advocates "portion control" (eating less of the high calorie stuff) and regular daily physical exercise.

In Pledge Case, Passing the Test:

'Do we know what the vote was in Congress . . . to adopt the 'under God' phrase?' Rehnquist asked, feigning ignorance of the fact that it passed unopposed in 1954.
When Newdow acknowledged as much, the chief justice pounced: 'Well, that doesn't sound divisive.'

But Newdow would not be ambushed. 'That's only because no atheist can get elected to public office,' he countered, evoking spontaneous laughter and a sound rarely, if ever, heard at oral argument in Rehnquist's tightly run courtroom -- applause.

That's all very well, but this is an issue that the Democrats are going to run even faster away from than gay marriage. According to CNN,

A new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the reference to God. Almost nine in 10 people said the reference to God belongs in the pledge despite constitutional questions about the separation of church and state, according to an Associated Press poll.

Karl Rove will be happy with this case.

Our city council: COUNCIL TO DECIDE WHETHER TO FAVOR LOCAL BUSINESSES FOR CONTRACTS

The Carbondale City Council will vote tonight on whether to favor Carbondale businesses within state and federal guidelines when awarding contracts.

A "yes" vote from the council will create an ordinance amendment giving a slight edge to Carbondale businesses in city purchases or contracts of more than $10,000. The ordinance as it reads now awards contracts to the "lowest responsible bidder" regardless of where the bidder's business is located. This amendment would allow the council to award the contract to a local bidder instead of to the lowest bidder if the local bid is within two percent or $2,000 of the lowest bid...

Councilwoman Sheila Simon said she believes the amendment "strikes a good balance" in that it gives an edge to Carbondale businesses -- but not too much or too expensive an edge.

Councilwoman Maggie Flannagan, though, said she felt the amendment was unnecessary.

"Fundamentally, I feel our budget process should be open," she said. "Our (Carbondale) vendors are strong enough to compete in the marketplace. When the field is level, everyone has an equal opportunity."

The local paper didn't follow up, but the campus paper, the Daily Egyptian did: City council has busy night of basketball honors, bids:

The Carbondale City Council adopted a resolution, which would give preference to local companies in regard to contract bids at their meeting Tuesday night.

The resolution, which was passed unanimously, will provide a 2-percent or $2,000 advantage to local companies when being considered as the lowest bidder. Allowing the city keep local dollars in Carbondale as well as maintain fiscal responsibility.

Maggie Flannagan wimped out. Thanks for the 2% tax, folks!

By the way, Sheila Simon is the late Paul Simon's daughter, and is backing Barack Obama for the US Senate. Is this what I should expect of Obama? He's a little too anti-trade for me, advocating "Protecting Workers Under Trade Agreements", and "Ensuring Free and Fair Trade", code expressions for protectionism. Another thing--Sheila Simon is suggesting in ads that her father would endorse him, but according to Fundrace.org (a campaign finance site not quite as extensive as opensecrets.org), Paul Simon contributed to Carol Moseley Braun's presidential campaign.

Update
That doesn't say much in favor of Paul Simon's judgement to me, although maybe he was a little more Machavellian than I give him credit for: he knew she didn't have a chance, or had to support her because she was from Illinois.

The Daily Ablution fiskin' Rifkin, with a bonus showing the high price of oil.

Frédéric Bastiat: World-Class Economic Educator (via Dan Drezner)

Chomsky backs 'Bush-lite' Kerry. That's no recommendation for me.

George Koo mentions that some have characterized the alleged assassination attempt as "kurouji" 苦肉計 (loosely translated as deception via self-inflicted wounds), which Brainysmurf also mentioned. Kurouji (not to be confused with 黑氏, a place in Japan) is supposedly one of the (apocryphal) 36 strategies, of which is said, 三十六計，走為上計 ("of the 36 strategies, leaving is the best").

PCB Case Payouts Roil Alabama City

A $300 million settlement of federal claims over PCB contamination in Anniston, Ala., will give plaintiffs an average of $7,725 each while paying their attorneys millions apiece -- including $29 million to the firm of California lawyer Johnnie Cochran Jr...

Attorneys in the case said about 27 lawyers, working for eight law firms, would share the $120 million approved for legal fees. That works out to an average payment of more than $4 million for each lawyer.

After the attorneys and other costs are paid, the 18,447 plaintiffs will get an average of $7,725 and as little as $500 each, according to documents from claims administrator Ed Gentle.

Cochran's firm recruited plaintiffs with TV commercials and a community meeting and helped guide the litigation.