a sane china policy

James Dorn wrote the Cato Daily Commentary today, which is entitled Let Business Trump Quest For Dominance and which sums up my own feelings about doing business with China exactly. Excerpt:

If future U.S.-China relations are to improve, the prevailing zero-sum, mercantilist mentality must give way to a more positive way of thinking about economic relations and security. What China needs is less government and more markets. And the surest way to achieve that result is to strengthen the policy of engagement. Denying China access to our markets while requiring it to open its markets is hypocritical and will only play into the hands of hardliners who already distrust the U.S.

Since 1978 China has dramatically transformed its economy and increased economic freedom. Congress should see China's prosperity as a positive development, not a threat to U.S. security.

Cato has a bad habit of supporting international trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA that enable "managed trade" for corporate elites at the expense of true free trade, but sometimes they have some very good things to say in support of free trade. Read the whole commentary.