U.S.-China Relations and Exchange Rate Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - Progressive Response ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Progressive Response 10 June 1999 Vol. 3, No. 21 Editor: Tom Barry ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in PR. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents I. Updates and Out-Takes *** DYNAMICS OF U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS *** By John Gershman *** CAPITAL FLOWS AND EXCHANGE RATE POLICY *** By Ellen Frank, Emmanuel College II. Comments *** CHINESE FRIENDS *** *** INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER: THINK ABOUT IT *** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Updates and Out-Takes *** DYNAMICS OF U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS *** By John Gershman (Ed. Note: The following analysis of U.S.-China relations by John Gershman of the Institute for Development Research points the way to a more reasonable and principled approach to U.S.-China relations-an approach not dominated by unwarranted fears of a Chinese military threat and not held hostage to those conservative and progressive nationalists who would deny China membership in the WTO and normal trading status with the United States. This analysis is excerpted from a forthcoming FPIF report, "Still the Pacific Century? U.S. Policy in the Asia-Pacific.") It is ironic that China's ability to play a key role in preventing the Asian and global economic crisis from worsening is because its economy is not an open, liberalized one in the image the U.S. has been trying to export elsewhere. China's lack of foreign exchange convertibility has prevented extensive speculative attacks on its currency. But that does not mean all is well. China is also in the midst of a massive economic transformation: it has allowed the first bank to fail since 1949 and is the process of privatizing large sections of its economy, including enterprises previously managed by the military. The financial sector, both state banks and the provincial and municipal fund-raising and investment institutions known as ITICs, are also in serious trouble. It has also begun a restructuring of the non-bank financial institutions. Managing this transformation, at a time when overall and export growth rates are slowing and the political effects of the dramatic inequality that has accompanied rapid growth is becoming more salient, are massive challenges. The social and ecological costs of China's transformation since 1979 have been immense. Growing inequality within urban areas and between urban and rural areas suggests that significant grievances and unrest lie just below the surface. There are regular reports of demonstrations, particularly in rural areas, relating to corrupt local officials, floods, and high taxes. After the flooding of the Yangtze in mid-1998, there were 130 reports of rural rebellion in four provinces, including attacking and occupying government offices. The tension between neoliberal internationalists and strategic traders is apparent in the negotiations over China's accession to the WTO. The framework agreement negotiated as of May 1999 involved some special benefits for United States companies to the exclusion of other WTO members, such as a delayed reduction of U.S. quotas for Chinese textile exports. The Clinton administration originally planning for one big vote in the summer of 1999, on renewal of China's Normal Trade Relations (NTR, formerly known as most-favored nation (MFN)) and congressional approval of China's entry into the WTO. Revelations of illegal campaign contributions by members of the Chinese military and nuclear espionage by China, the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and subsequent anti-U.S. demonstrations supported by the Chinese government have combined to cool relations and have administered the coup de grace to the 'strategic partnership' launched with great fanfare by China and the U.S. in October 1997. That partnership was in reality stillborn, but recent events have demolished any illusion that U.S.-Chinese relations had developed in a broader partnership. This is not to say that relations will be bad -- in fact they will probably remain quite stable. The administration is now facing the results of allowing commercial interests to so dominate other concerns in shaping policy, that building a domestic constituency for China's admission into the WTO is difficult. A combination of the failure to reach a quick agreement with the U.S. and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy has strengthened certain forces within China opposed to such significant Chinese concessions. Congressional support for renewal of NTR, let alone China's entry into the WTO, will be difficult, but legislators looking at building possible business support for the 2000 elections will probably be willing to at least renew NTR. The Clinton administration should not present unusual conditions for China's accession to the WTO. It is in the U.S interest to bring China into the multilateral trading system and treat China like any other country. China has bent over backwards to accommodate U.S. business concerns in drafting the U.S. agreement, an agreement which actually gives U.S. corporations special benefits. It is better for U.S. workers and businesses for China to be brought into the international trading system. The dominance of corporate interests in shaping US policy towards China under the Bush and Clinton administrations has undermined U.S. objectives in the security (discussed below) and human rights realms. What has this meant for human rights? China's record on human rights is clearly mixed and uneven. At the national level, explicit challenges to the Communist Party's monopoly of power are met with repression. Yet some, albeit closely watched, spaces in 'civil society' have been carved out for organizations (other than independent labor unions) that are not explicitly political, and there is a not insignificant process of fairly competitive elections in China's rural villages. More than 75% of China's total population lives in rural areas and votes for their village committees every three years. 1998 was the first year since 1990 that neither the U.S. nor the European Union proposed a resolution on China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission session in Geneva. China invited High Commissioner Mary Robinson to visit China and Tibet, which she did in September 1998, and China fulfilled its promise to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which it did in October 1998. Although both the invitation and the promise to sign the ICCPR were of long standing, they were used by the West to justify dropping the Geneva resolution, and the fact that both the visit and the signing took place were interpreted as the Chinese quid pro quo. It remains unclear when China will ratify either the ICCPR or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which it signed in 1997. In 1999, the U.S. sponsored a resolution critical of China, but did so in a somewhat unenthusiastic manner, waiting until shortly before the Commission met to announce its intention to do so, rather than trying to build support earlier. In contrast to China's foreign policy stance on military and economic issues, it has been much less eager to embrace multilateral institutions in the human rights field. The September 1998 visit by UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson received mixed reviews, but it served as a useful illustration of both improvements in the human rights situation as well as the obstacles remaining. It also sets the stage for the United States to advance its agenda as part of a multilateral, and not merely a unilateral agenda. Some human rights organizations gave Clinton high marks for his comments during his visit in June 1998 that the Tiananmen crackdown was wrong and for arguing that "stability in the twenty-first century will require high levels of freedom" in China. But summitry has mainly been a missed opportunity for the U.S. human rights agenda, in contrast to its commercial one. The two main issues relating to self-determination and human rights regarding China are Hong Kong and Tibet. (Taiwan is discussed below under security). The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from Great Britain to China on July 1, 1997, and the installation of the new Special Administrative Region (S.A.R.) government were arguably the most important events in the territory's history. The political transition produced no dramatic crackdowns, no arrests, and no bans on demonstrations. In May, 1998 pro-democratic candidates in the Hong Kong Legislative Council won 60% of the popular vote and 14 of the 20 directly-elected seats in the 60 seat body. Since the turnover, however, the government has gradually constricted political space open for expressions of political dissent and the rights of workers to organize. The U.S. should monitor the human rights situation to insure that China maintains its commitments to respecting democracy and human rights. The Clinton administration has continued a long-time U.S. government policy of ambivalence about Tibet. The United States should pressure the Chinese government to respect human rights in the region. In the near term, at least three issues of particular importance surrounding Tibet should be pursued: release of Tibetan prisoners who have not used violence; securing verifiable information on the whereabouts and current status of the nine-year-old Panchen Lama, the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism; and securing improved access to Tibet for the international press and human rights organizations. China's impact on the global as well as regional environment points to a positive role for the United States to support the transfer of sustainable transportation, energy, and ozone-safe technologies in a rapid fashion, through the Export-Import Bank and OPIC, as well as through other bilateral and multilateral efforts. The China Threat The major issue in U.S. security policy in Asia concerns China. The dominant security policy current in the Clinton administration holds that China has essentially replaced the former Soviet Union as the chief strategic threat to the United States in the region, and the U.S. should essentially retain its containment strategy, with China as the new target. The basis of this strategy includes a strengthening of cold war-era bilateral military alliances with the development of a Theater-based Missile Defense system that would cover South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Revelations in early-to-mid 1999 indicating a pattern of Chinese nuclear weapons and missile technology espionage dating from the 1970s to the mid-1990s has raised fears of China as an enemy to the highest level in 20 years. China's occupation of 11 islands and reefs in the Spratlys, including Mischief Reef, 378 kilometers from the Philippines, is also used as evidence of China's expansionist nature (virtually all habitable portions have now been taken by various claimants, including Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei). But the view of China as an expansionist power needing to be contained ignores several facts. First is that China has the largest number of bordering countries of any country in the world, including long-time adversaries Russia, Vietnam, and India. The new Central Asian states carved out of the former Soviet Union are seen as potential threats, in part because they may ally with minority groups within China. In China's nuclear arsenal of roughly 400 warheads, only about 20 are capable of reaching the United States (which has more than 8,300 operational warheads, nearly all of which could be targeted against China). China's long-range ballistic missiles number fewer than two dozen, carry a single warhead, and are liquid-fueled. All 982 U.S. ballistic missiles, including 432 aboard invulnerable Trident submarines, carry multiple warheads (MIRVs) and are solid-fueled, and thus can be launched on short notice. China's expansion into the islands of the South China Sea are of concern, but they do not seem to reflect 'new' expansionist designs, as China has claimed them as part of its territory for years. The U.S. should support the ASEAN position that competing claims in the Spratly's should be settled through a multilateral forum. The accusations of espionage are more telling of the weaknesses in U.S. security than of providing any significant evidence that the Chinese have used this data to gain a qualitative strategic advantage relative to the United States. A more balanced conclusion would be that the espionage reveals that the privatization of the management of the nuclear weapons labs did not adequately take into account national security concerns and that the growing dominance of commercial over security issues (as in the case of the missile launches by Loral and Hughes) is evidence of the dangers of commercial diplomacy as the leading value for shaping policy towards China. Within the Clinton administration, a faction led by the Treasury and Commerce departments and promoted by transnational corporations opposed and continues to oppose security-based restrictions on trade and commerce, arguing that China's partial liberalizations make it a land of enormous trade and investment opportunity. Finally, China's main concern remains managing a dramatic process of economic transformation described earlier. An alternative view agrees with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies assessment that "China does not have the resources to project a major conventional force beyond its territory," and points to China's engagement with multilateral institutions and conventions as a reflection that China is willing, if it can participate as a full partner, to participate in multilateral security institutions. China has demonstrated an increasing willingness to participate in efforts to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by subscribing to or signing since 1992: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). In addition, China has placed what the U.S. views as the most objectionable portion of its peaceful nuclear technology agreement with Iran on hold. In the Taiwan Straits, more than three years after China's military exercises opposite Taiwan on the eve of that island's first popular presidential election, the security situation shows "no threat of imminent hostilities" according to the Pentagon. Both China and Taiwan have pursued low-key military manuevers, with China focusing upon routine training while Taiwan has reduced the size and scope of its military exercises and played down other activities which Beijing might misconstrue as provocative and destabilizing. Senior officials from the two quasi-official organizations responsible for managing cross-Strait relations (Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation and China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait) met in mid-October 1998 and resumed direct contacts that had been suspended since 1995. While there was no significant movement on substantive political issues, agreements were reached on less dramatic issues of ongoing dialogue, cooperation, and visits. Today, China's main concerns are dealing with massive economic and political transformations. In such a context, an aggressive U.S. military posture strengthens the realpolitik advocates within China's security apparatus. A better strategy would recognize the longer-term strategic benefits of enmeshing the U.S., China, and Japan within multilateral security frameworks that provide the opportunity for confidence-building measures, mutually verifiable force reduction and disarmament commitments, and that address the multiple nonmilitary threats to security in the region. (John Gershman jgershman@igc.org is Research Associate at the Institute for Development Research in Princeton, NJ.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** CAPITAL FLOWS AND EXCHANGE RATE POLICY *** By Ellen Frank, Emmanuel College (Excerpted from a new FPIF policy brief, which is posted at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol4/v4n17cap.html) As neoliberal policies foster greater privatization of the international financial system, countries must rely almost entirely on private financial flows to finance trade, to settle international accounts, even to meet domestic credit needs. In efforts to attract private funds, countries from Thailand and Mexico to Korea and Brazil have deregulated financial transactions, lifting controls on interest rates, on capital flows, and on the convertibility of domestic currencies. For most countries, this tilt toward financial liberalization has proven more a curse than a blessing. Liberalization schemes, particularly those promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S., are fraught with dangers and dilemmas for emerging market economies. One of the most damaging consequences of liberalization is that it imposes upon emerging markets a set of unacceptable and ultimately unworkable exchange rate policies. An overriding goal of U.S.- and IMF-sponsored liberalization programs is to enhance the attractiveness of the target country's financial assets to financial investors. To be attractive, countries must attempt to insure investors against private financial loss. Governments are advised to permit full and free convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars so that investors can enjoy full dollar liquidity. To further minimize investors' risk of dollar losses, countries are encouraged to stabilize the value of their local currencies against the U.S. dollar. Full and free convertibility, however, has proven to be incompatible with exchange rate stability. Once countries lift controls on short-term capital movements and allow full convertibility of their currencies, the process of exchange rate determination is privatized as well. For all practical purposes, the external value of a country's currency in a liberalized financial market is determined by speculative trading in the international currency markets--something over which emerging market governments exercise little control. Financial players understand this reality well. But international policy officials routinely misrepresent the dynamics of the financial market. They blame the inevitable currency crises on internal failures of emerging market governments rather than on the speculative nature of international financial markets. Governments--like China--that prohibit trading in their currencies can maintain a stable currency peg by preventing private transactions at other than the stated exchange rate. In contrast, countries that allow full convertibility have only weak levers by which to stabilize their exchange rates. Like Argentina, they can institute a currency board, which issues domestic currency only in proportion to foreign exchange reserves. This is not a simple commitment to keep. In practice, a currency board commits the state to intensely restrictive economic policies that serve to curb private lending and slow wage growth--thereby demonstrating to financial markets the state's serious commitment to the dollar peg. Even then, attacks on the currency by speculators can overwhelm the government's ability to maintain the currency peg, as Argentina recently discovered. Brazil and other governments attempted to stabilize their currencies by catering to the whims and demands of financial markets, adopting restrictive fiscal policies and high interest rates. Implicit in the concept of pegs such as Brazil's is the promise that foreign exchange reserves will, if necessary, be deployed in defense of the peg (to buy domestic currency when speculators are selling it) and that the government will raise interest rates to whatever level is needed to protect investors from currency losses. Countries that wish, like Mexico, to adjust their dollar peg from time to time must generally compensate investors against losses by settling interest rates higher than countries that submit to an unchanging peg. Emerging market efforts to placate investors with pegged exchange rates, however, have proved pointless in the face of expanded currency speculation. Eventually, the real economic stresses of dollar pegging (repressed economic growth to prevent inflation, current account imbalances) become obvious to speculators, and the gains to be won by attacking the peg (the massive foreign exchange reserves committed to the currency's defense) grow irresistible. Result: speculative assault on the currency, futile and costly efforts by the government to hold the peg, and finally, economic collapse. In the aftermath of the crisis, blame is ascribed: to the government for "overvaluing" its currency; to the IMF for delaying a bailout; to the markets themselves for excessive speculation. The fundamental incompatibility between a privatized financial system and a realistic exchange rate policy is rarely broached. Problems With Current U.S. Policy U.S. advice to emerging market governments has been inconsistent, even contradictory, yet the U.S. resolutely refuses to acknowledge its policy failures. Officials in the Clinton administration, as well as in the IMF, are intransigent in their insistence that countries liberalize financial regulations, yet they provide no realistic guidance on how countries are to manage their exchange rates in a speculative and deregulated environment. When liberalized capital flows result in excessive speculation against emerging market currencies, U.S. officials blame exchange rate volatility on emerging market governments who, it is claimed, have caused investors to "lose confidence" in their currencies. In country after country, the U.S. and the IMF first encouraged countries to stabilize their currencies, and then (when the costs of doing so became intolerable) advised those same countries to abandon their exchange rates to the market, often with devastating effects. The U.S. advised Brazil, for example, to defend its currency against speculators by raising interest rates and cutting government outlays. Indeed, Brazil's defense of its currency became a condition for releasing bailout moneys. That the Brazilian economy was already staggering under short-term interest rates nearing 50% did not seem to faze U.S. officials. Not until Brazil had spent half its foreign exchange reserves defending its dollar peg did U.S. officials--afraid that Brazil would be unable to make payments on its external debt--reluctantly advise a devaluation. In Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea, U.S. officials blamed speculative attacks on the governments, claiming they had "overvalued" their currencies even though there was no evidence of overvaluation and despite having previously encouraged exchange rate stability to bolster investor confidence. Moreover, U.S. Treasury officials have publicly excoriated efforts by governments to stabilize their currencies by restricting convertibility and short-term capital inflows. Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers called efforts to reinstate capital controls "a catastrophe," yet weeks later accused emerging markets of irresponsibly "lurching for short-term capital." U.S. policy has been characterized by a blindness to the inconsistency of its own advice and an unwillingness to countenance even mild criticism. Another major problem is that U.S. proposals to avert future currency crises sacrifice the interests of emerging economies and, indeed, increase the likelihood of speculative currency attacks. The policy of defending exchange rates with a combination of high interest rates, foreign exchange reserves, and IMF-led bailouts has been a virtual invitation to speculators. In 1998 alone, speculators captured $130 billion in emerging market reserves and nearly $150 billion in bailout funds. When speculators shifted their focus from Asia to South America last year, the Clinton administration proposed making additional "bailout" funds available with which to defend Latin currencies. Critics immediately pointed out that such a fund, far from dissuading speculation against currencies, would actually embolden speculators by rewarding them for attacking pegged exchange rates. The evidence that bailout funds that were intended to protect dollar pegs are, in fact, a lure to speculators is now irrefutable. Critics of U.S. policy have argued that emerging markets would be far better advised, in the wake of a speculative attack, to abandon their pegs and lower interest rates, thereby stimulating domestic growth. But such proposals have been met with derision by Treasury officials, who seem to prefer policies that protect international financial interests against currency losses, even if these policies destroy the economies of emerging and indebted countries. Finally, the U.S. has, in its public statements, refused to consider the obvious linkages between speculative attacks on currencies and the more general failure of the privatized international financial system to provide realistic financing and policy options for emerging markets. U.S. policy regarding exchange rates and capital flows is inseparable from policy related to country indebtedness. Countries are expected to finance debt service payments and trade imbalances with private capital flows and to attract those flows by protecting investors against losses. This policy is a failure. Yet until some alternative means of financing transactions with the rest of the world is devised, indebted countries must expose themselves to speculative capital. As long as the U.S. and the IMF prohibit controls on short-term capital, speculative finance will predominate, and countries will lurch helplessly between futile efforts to sustain damaging and unsustainable pegs and uncontrollable devaluations of their currencies. Toward a New Foreign Policy International financial policy must be reformed. Reforms should be predicated on the goals of promoting sustainable growth, relieving poverty, and reducing economic conflicts between nations. Countries need to exercise control over their exchange rates in order to pursue internal development goals, yet must, at the same time, agree to be bound by the economic needs of other countries if world tensions are to be alleviated. Emerging markets should be helped to devise exchange rate policies that serve the needs of internal development and recognize the legitimate interests of their trading partners. Exchange rate policy must be dictated by the demands of development and trade--not by the demands of creditors and private financial markets. All other aspects of the international financial structure should be evaluated on how they best support responsible and development-enhancing exchange rate policies. The U.S. should use its leadership in international organizations like the IMF and the G-7 to promote discussion and development of a supportive international financial architecture. The range of particulars is wide, but any reforms should be founded on three overriding principles. 1) The power of private financial markets to set exchange rates and thereby dictate internal economic policy must be curbed. This can be accomplished through the reinstitution of capital controls and/or through the establishment of a transaction tax to curb currency trading, as many have proposed. Controls and curbs are only partial solutions, however. By themselves, they can serve to isolate countries from needed international trade and financing opportunities. Internal economic and political pressures may require that countries run imbalances in external payments, and such imbalances need to be financed. If governments are to retain policy independence, financing must be available from sources other than the private market. A publicly organized international lending facility is essential, not (as some have proposed) to act as a lender of last resort to international banks but to serve as a lender of first resort for payments imbalances between sovereign nations. 2) Exchange rate systems must respect the needs and inputs of all participating countries. The U.S. should not lend its support, tacit or explicit, to any plan for the "dollarization" of Latin American economies or to proposals for a pan-American monetary union. It is not that such an outcome is, in itself, undesirable. There are numerous models for workable and development-enhancing exchange rate systems, and regional monetary unions may well be among the most viable. However, monetary union in the Americas is premature. Monetary unions must be founded on institutions that respect the needs of all participants. No such institutional structure exists in the Americas today, nor do current proposals for monetary union include in their visions a pan-American central bank that is democratic in character. Proposals to dollarize the economies of Argentina or Mexico are driven by the financial elite, who would sacrifice any remaining economic autonomy in South America to protect the dollar value of their wealth. Such plans are not based on any understanding or belief that the dollarized economies would be given a voice in the management of dollar liquidity. (3) The first priority in debt negotiation must be the stable, sustainable, and democratic development of the world's economies. The details of international debt restructuring and repayment must be consistent with other development-enhancing changes in the international financial system. Again, the range of particulars is wide, including debt forgiveness, international bankruptcy clauses, and repayment in local currencies or in a newly issued international settlement currency. What is essential is that policy negotiations keep sight of fundamental principles and remember that the financial system must serve the needs of the world economy, not the other way around. (Ellen Frank is an associate professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston and is on the editorial board of Dollars and Sense magazine.) Sources for More Information Association pour une Taxation des Transactions Financires pour l'Aide aux Citoyens (ATTAC) Email: attac@attac.org Website: http://www.attac.org/ Center for Popular Economics Email: cpe@acad.umass.edu Economic Affairs Bureau Email: dollars@igc.apc.org Economic Policy Institute Email: epi@epinet.org Website: http://www.epinet.org Fifty Years is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice Email: 50years@igc.org Website: http://www.50years.org Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Email: iatp@iatp.org Website: http://www.iatp.org Asia Crisis Homepage http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/asia/AsiaHomepage.html Jubilee 2000 Web Page http://www.oneworld.org/jubilee2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Comments *** CHINESE FRIENDS *** Your post is the only bit of sanity that I have run into this morning. I have the feeling "Stop the World, I want to get off." My partner for life is Chinese. I visited China alone a little over a year ago. She put me in the care of her relatives and it was a love-in. There was mutual respect and liking. And I felt proud to be an American. You might be interested in my letter sent to a young family member last night. "Dong Dong and family, "Xiao Haun's mother called when we were out and left a message then called Haitao. She is upset about the bombing of the Embassy. "So am I. I am thinking about writing an article to be titled "The Death of America." When I visited you one of the things I liked was the way you called the United States "America." This word had some of the dream still alive--of a country that was good to live in and good to people in other countries. "We know very little about other countries--yet think that we can be the world's policeman. We can drop bombs and make a better world. There isn't even a major US group protesting our using bombs as though they are pieces of candy. I know--we talk about Democracy, human rights, international law as though they belong to us--and casually drop bombs and fund rebel groups. "There is a chance that the whole problem in Kosovo would be minor if the U.S. were not involved. We may have funded the Kosovo Liberation Army the same way that the CIA funded guerrillas in Tibet. And our actions are simply stupid. How does destroying a nation's bridges, power plants, factories, airports, buildings contribute to peace? Americans have this idea that they can conduct a useless war with no soldiers getting mud on their feet. We conduct our foreign policy with our back to the world. The only thing that counts is votes and money. I am sure that it only took about $300,000 in campaign funds for Clinton to permit the sale of the antimissile radar system for Taiwan. "Democracy is in deep trouble here. Congress and the President are corrupt to the bone. And there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Americans get their news about the world. China looks so good in comparison--opening up a new horticultural center while we are bombing the world. There is something very wrong with the United States and it is so destructive in the world. Things like our funding the killing of about 100,000 Indians in the highlands of Guatemala. When we killed about 1000 persons in Panama when we invaded this was kept from Americans. No photos of mass graves. Later a news executive justified this by saying "There was absolutely no market for that news. Probably nothing that I have written is news to you. We can all be sorry together. "Regards, Jack" Jack Button -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER: THINK ABOUT IT *** Comrades: I have the utmost respect for your work, so I hope that my criticism will not be dismissed lightly. A friend picked up your issue of Foreign Policy in Focus with Tom Barry's analysis of the Yugoslavia debacle ["Bombs Away," available at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol4/v4n13koso.html ] at the protest in Washington last Saturday. I was appalled to find the International Action Center website listed among the "Sources for More Information." Sources for More War Propaganda is more like it! Haven't you noticed that IAC/Workers World/Ramsey Clark are virtually waving pom-poms for Milosevic? They represent the politics of the Hitler-Stalin Pact--the notion of a left-fascist alliance against the West. I know this is not what you want to promote. Please think about it. Bill Weinberg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Progressive Response aims to provide timely analysis and opinion about U.S. foreign policy issues. 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IRC Tom Barry Co-director, Foreign Policy Project Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) Box 2178 Silver City, NM 88062-2178 Voice: (505) 388-0208 Fax: (505) 388-0619 Email: tom@irc-online.org IPS Martha Honey Co-director, Foreign Policy Project Director, Peace and Security 733 15th Street NW, Suite 1020 Washington, DC 20005 Voice: (202) 234-9382 Fax: (202) 387-7915 Email: ipsps@igc.apc.org ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.13.99-00:54:41-13115