death by china -- a documentary

[clay dube]

Some of you have asked me for my views on a documentary that has been screened in Pasadena recently. We screened http://deathbychina.com at USC on 8/15.

Peter Navarro has written two books arguing that the biggest US problem is Chinese governmental policies and practices. His first was The Coming China Wars (2007) and last year he published Death by China with Greg Autry, a UCI grad student. Navarro turned Death into a documentary film that he's started screening in California, New York, and, later, in Ohio. Check out the film's website for the trailer to get a sense of the over the top language and animation. Navarro works hard to push every aversion button (food safety, lost jobs, suspicion of a communist government) and does highlight real problems in the US-China trade relationship. But - he's sloppy with the argument, making mistakes, grossly simplifying the US-China economic relationship, and assuming that manufacturing has been the biggest force producing the economic downturn and that all manufacturing job losses have been to China. We meet several unemployed workers but have no sense of what skills they possess, what work they might take (would the university grad or the person with the advanced degree want an iPhone assembly job). Navarro argues that manufacturers are not drawn to China for low wages. But in fact, they have been --- which is why low end, low skilled jobs are now migrating from Southern China to SE Asia and Bangladesh. Wages in China have been rising. See this April New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/business/global/in-bangladesh-strong-promise-of-economic-growth.html?pagewanted=all .

Some manufacturing jobs may come back to the US (as wages rise elsewhere and transportation costs rise everywhere). That's happened for some who produce fast fashion: http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/09/03/34127/apparel-makers-bring-production-back-los-ang/

Most of the jobs that have left, however, will not be coming back. US workers must compete on skills (you must be able to add a great deal of value, or be in a field where time to market is critical) and local need (you can't outsource the auto maintenance, gardening, painting, and many other jobs). This is a more complicated discussion than offered in Death or by many politicians. I hope that all forum members will be on the look-out for political ads that bring up China and will share them in the forum or by sending links or scans to me directly at [email protected].

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