Yes, China’s got problems:

For one thing, “going Foxconn” in the People’s Republic has become to suicide what “going postal” is to homicidal rage in the U.S.  Additionally, after decades of slave wages, workers are clamoring for more, and since there are hundreds of millions of workers, it’s a hell of a clamor.  Add currency fluctuations and you’ve got the distinct possibility that China’s no longer the first place companies look to outsource, and China’s exports may no longer be as competitive as those from the new sweatshop nations.

Of course, this hasn’t kept China from quietly flexing its muscles by provoking the world’s financial markets in order to gauge from the reaction just how much clout they’ve got.  Back on May 27th I tweeted:

Chinese toying with us-they leak rumor re European bonds yesterday, stocks nosedive.  Issue statement to the contrary, market’s up.

To unwrap the tweet, at the time, China intimated that, due to the weakness and disorder in the Eurozone, it was going to severely curtail its future purchases of European bonds, as it didn’t look like collecting interest or even getting its principal back was a sure thing.  Western markets immediately swooned.

The next day, as if to correct misconceptions that developed out of thin air, they issued a statement that the rumors floating around were frivolous, unsubstantiated, and simply not true.  Western markets breathed a collective sigh of relief and headed higher.

And this past weekend, in a variation on the same theme, the Wall Street Journal sent out a market alert stating that:

Despite a weekend announcement by China’s central bank that it would take steps to increase the flexibility of its currency, the People’s Bank of China Monday set the dollar-yuan parity rate at 6.8275, the same level as Friday.

The move led to a reversal of some early morning market moves. The euro, yen, Australian dollar and Korean won, for example, had all gained against the U.S. dollar, and Asian stock markets were up, with the Nikkei gaining 1.5% early. But the U.S. dollar immediately regained ground against other currencies, and stock markets fell back slightly. The Shanghai Composite index was recently down 0.2% after opening higher.

The Chinese, having written and read The Art of War, have been sending the economic equivalent of probes and scouts into enemy territory to assess their own strength and their adversary’s weakness.  The advance men came back smiling, like the cat who’s about to eat the canary.

I guess if someone had loaned me the money I’m living on, I’d tend to hang on their every word as well.

                          

Celebrating the Chinese New Year, here’s something that caught our eye in the UK Times Online: A couple of quotes: “Even before the global financial crisis, those in absolute poverty (earning less than US$1 a day) doubled in China over the past decade… The general economic outlook is so dire that the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, has increasingly issued warnings about the possibility of political and social collapse.” The subtitle of the article says it all: “Beijing’s “authoritarian capitalist” model has gone as far as it can. Chaos, corruption and indecision have been ignored.”
Times Online

                          

LOS ANGELES: Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight won’t be screened in Chinese cinemas.

Warner Bros studios said in a statement yesterday that the acclaimed film — the second-highest-grossing movie in US box-office history — would be canned in China, with “cultural sensitivities” cited as one of the reasons for the no-show.

“Based on a number of pre-release conditions that are being attached to The Dark Knight, as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film, we have opted to forgo a theatrical release of the film in China,” the statement said.

Explanations being bantered about include a character who’s a Chinese money launderer, and the presence of the late Heath Ledger, whose “Brokeback Mountain” was banned in China as well.

Both of those reasons are small minded diversions, and they’re wrong.

“The Dark Knight” portrays a society in chaos, disorder in the streets, and a lack of central authority that can restore whatever passed for normalcy.   With China’s economy experiencing a downturn as a result of the global swan dive, Chinese unemployment is rising, and workers who migrated to the cities are unhappily returning to their old peasant-farmer lives.

The keepers of the poorly named People’s Republic are concerned with the effect that the on screen chaos of “The Dark Knight” would have on a populace who have been kept in check over the past decade by the Chinese boom and the subsequent rise of the middle class along with the general standard of living.

There are already rumblings of social unrest; Party leaders fear that Eastern fascination and emulation of Western culture may include copycat riots.  They err on the side of caution.  I think we call it censorship here.

Readers of these pages know that “Batman: The Dark Knight” disgusted me, but one of the things I have to be thankful for this holiday season is that movies I’m disgusted by still have the right to do huge box office in this otherwise fraying nation.

                          

Just reported: 450,000+ new jobless claims, stupid.

There’s a 50/50 chance of another rate cut in December, making the dollar worth even less than it is now to the rest of the world. Monopoly money backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, which isn’t saying a lot lately, stupid.

The Chinese, who have been propping up our economy by buying our T-Bills, so that we can buy WalMartian goods from them, are probably losing a bit of patience, stupid.

It’s not the lipstick, whether on a pig or a pit bull, stupid.

It’s your future, it’s your kid’s future, and it’s their kid’s future, stupid.

It’s THE future, stupid.

Start paying attention, or pay the price for insisting on remaining…stupid.

That old definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, applies directly to the upcoming election.

Obama may be an X factor in certain respects, but McPalin have all their cards on the table and it’s the same losing hand that got us here. If this country chooses a comfortable demise over an uncertain but plausible opportunity, then the American spirit is gone.

Stupid.