Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A583-W351
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A583-W351
Release
Date: November 6, 2010
发布日：2010年11月6日
Topic:
America's Midterm Elections -- by Wei Jingsheng
标题：美国的中期选举 -- 魏京生
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America's
Midterm Elections
--
by Wei Jingsheng
The
just-concluded midterm elections in the US have aroused great concern, in a
degree even more than the presidential election. Just the campaign contributions alone have reached more than
four billion U.S. dollars, exceeding the previous presidential election. Why is there such a concern for these
midterm elections? The following
several reasons are very important.
The
most important is the economy. Not
to say that Americans are only concerned about the economy, but the current
economic problems are indeed extraordinary: the economy has been in decline
these years and is still unable to recover from the recession, while the
unemployment rate remains very high at about 10%. In daily life, one can feel the impact of the economic
downturn. The price of goods has
gone down; people do not dare to buy things, do not dare to spend money, and
even usually lively tourist areas and shops have become deserted. This situation makes ordinary people
care about politics, wondering how the politicians actually put a strong and
prosperous America into such a bad shape.
For
the past decade, people have seen among the biggest economic problems in the
USA is that unfair foreign trade has taken away a lot of people's jobs; mainly
that poor and low quality products from China have gradually eliminated the
U.S. manufacturing jobs. Large
companies earn excess profits from the exploitation of Chinese workers, and the
gap between the rich and poor in the US has rapidly expanded. While American workers gradually lost
their jobs, the wealth gap widened further. The consequences of the expansion of the foreign trade
deficit are the developing of poverty in the American society year after year. Simply put, the U.S. economy made no
progress, but went backwards.
People's pockets have less and less money due to the operational errors
of the politicians.
Ten
years ago, people already sensed the problem. In the debate regarding giving China permanent MFN status
(also called PNTR: Permanent Normal Trade Relations), 70% of Americans said
"no" to China. That was
because the Chinese government would not give the U.S. the same treatment at
the same time. A lack of balance
would result in trade imbalances and damage to the U.S. economy. But, the U.S. politicians under the
control of the money from large enterprises passed the resolution under
President Clinton, which put the United States at the disadvantage of an unfair
trade relationship.
In
the past 10 years, the negative consequences from such unfair trade relations
have become not only more and more obvious, but also beyond expectations. Not only has it resulted in U.S. jobs
flowing away, it also induced the gradual impoverishment of the American
society. The wealth got more and
more concentrated into the minority rich, while the politics also leaned in
favor of these rich. In an
macroscopic view, as the trade deficit between the U.S. and China grew bigger
and bigger, the rich were getting richer in both countries, while the poor were
getting poorer in both countries.
For the capitalists of both countries, China is their economic
miracle. For the poor and middle
class in both countries, the "Chinese model" is their disaster.
As
the ordinary people gradually came to realize this problem, voters under
democratic politics began to pay attention. The reason that the little-known Barack Obama was elected as
the president two years ago was due to an important slogan: change. "Change" of what? That was to reform American politics,
to turn it back on the right track of what people hoped for, with a focus on
the U.S. interests. Or to say to
let the balance of politics lean in favor of ordinary Americans, instead of a
few rich men.
In
order to create the best conditions for the Obama administration, voters not
only gave the Democrats the power of the presidency, but also the control of
the Senate and House. The
Democrats' power was getting close to the power of a Roman dictator. But they let everyone down. In the past two years, the situation
has not improved, but continues to deteriorate rapidly.
The
Chinese people may only notice that the Obama administration said publicly that
it will no longer care about human rights in China, as well as making
concessions to the Chinese government on everything. The Obama administration is so soft to the Chinese
government that it almost behaves like a little brother to China. Yet, in
return, Communist China became more and more hard-line, to the degree of the
"father of the reigning emperor". But what the Americans noticed was mainly the economic
problem, the issue that the large companies of the USA and China took away
Americans' jobs and business, and the issues of the United States national
interests and the interests of the people.
The
lower and middle class who supported Obama to be elected as president two years
ago have felt cheated that there was no essential change to the basic pattern
of big businesses control in Washington politics which sacrifices the interests
of the ordinary Americans. Most of
the major policies enacted since President Obama took office were using
taxpayers' money to do things beneficial to the big businesses. There are a bunch of bootlicking
scholars who are repeatedly trying to expound that only by robbing the poor for
the rich will the economy turn around.
However, most people are not fools. They do not believe these scholars who take contributions
from the rich to speak falsely, so they use their votes to express their
views. They no longer believe in a
one-party dominating politics.
They want to have an opposition party to restrain the government.
Thus,
the middle and lower class voters who elected Obama as the President not long
ago, this time pulled more than sixty House Democrats off, far more than the
thirty-nine seats that the Republicans needed to control the House of
Representatives. Even nearly half
of the voters were in favor of the informal Tea Party, thus directly influenced
the election. This anger forced
the politicians of the two parties to drive up the issue of China as a top
issue before the election. They
attacked each other as pro-Communist in Beijing in support of the wrong policy
of making American workers lose their jobs. Even President Obama had to admit after the election that
the failure of the midterm elections was because "we lost track of the
ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the first place."
Whether
Obama is trying to be re-elected president in two years or not, the midterm
elections will for sure make his administration adjust its policy. First, of course, it has to be
concerned about U.S. economic interests; to try to reduce the trade deficit,
and increase job opportunities. It
has to reduce the influence of money in politics; return to the essence of
democracy. Also, it has to pull
away from the honeymoon with the Chinese Communist government, and instead take
tougher measures, including tough diplomatic measures, against the trade
barriers of the Chinese Communist Party.
In
fact, even before this midterm election, the Obama administration had already
begun this adjustment. Economically, starting from the Chinese currency RMB
exchange rate issue, it has extended policy deliberations to the trade barriers
issue. On the diplomatic front,
starting from the support of India against China, it has extended to support of
Vietnam and Japan in the fight for maritime sovereignty against China. The purpose of maintaining such
pressure is to force China to make concessions on economic problems. This policy is the largest U.S.
national interest, as well as the biggest political interest of the Obama
administration.
In
the current situation, the most beneficial policy for China would be to seize
the opportunity to gain its end.
It could reduce both economic and diplomatic difficulties, as well as
reduce the domestic inflation in China so that the plight of China's economic
and political difficulties will ease.
In fact, this path also would be beneficial for the Communist Party to
remain in power. If it can begin a
political precedent of focusing on public opinion, then it is even favorable to
China's democratization process, and favorable to a peaceful evolution in
China.
However,
China's politics is not democracy, but a one party dictatorship relying on the
big bourgeoisie. The Communist
leadership does not want to give up the opportunity to exploit people, so it
will not stop its policies designed to make American and Chinese capitalists to
get rich. Therefore, we can expect
that the economic and political confrontations between the US and China will
tend to be more serious, along with more serious diplomatic crises. Meanwhile, the hard-liners within the
CCP and the Chinese big bourgeoisie will continue to drag China to the abyss of
the collapse.
To
hear Mr. Wei Jingsheng's commentary, please visit:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2010/WeiJS101105midtermUSelections.mp3
(Written
and recorded on November 5, 2010.
Broadcasted by Radio Free Asia.)
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中文版
Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A583-W351
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A583-W351
Release
Date: November 6, 2010
发布日：2010年11月6日
Topic:
America's Midterm Elections -- by Wei Jingsheng
标题：美国的中期选举 -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2010/report2010-11/WeiJS101106midtermUSelectionsA583-W351.htm
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美国的中期选举
-- 魏京生
刚刚结束的美国中期选举引起了人们很大的关注，程度甚至超过了总统大选。光是捐款就达到了四十亿美元，超过了上一次的总统大选。为什么这一次的中期选举如此引人关注呢？有下面的几个原因非常重要。
最重要的是经济问题。不是说美国人只关心经济问题，而是现在的经济问题确实非同寻常：经济连年下滑，陷入危机至今不能复苏，失业率保持在10%左右始终居高不下。在日常生活中都能感觉到经济不景气的影响。物价一路下滑；人们不敢买东西，不敢花钱，往常热闹的旅游区和商店里都显得冷冷清清。这使得普通老百姓也不得不关心政治：看看政治家们是怎么搞的，居然把富裕强大的美国搞得这么糟糕。
十年来人们看到的最大的经济问题，就是不公平的对外贸易抢走了很多人的工作，主要是从中国来的劣质产品逐渐地消灭了美国的制造业岗位。大公司从剥削中国工人上面赚到了超额的利润，美国的贫富差距迅速地扩大了。美国的工人渐渐地失去了他们的工作，使贫富差距进一步扩大。外贸逆差逐年扩大的后果，就是美国社会贫困化的发展。简单地说，就是美国的经济没有进步，反而在倒退。人们的手头越来越紧，原因就在政治家们操作失误。
从十年前人们就感觉到出了问题。在有关给予中国永久的最惠国待遇的争论中，就有70%的美国人说不应该给中国。因为中国不会同时给与美国同等的待遇，因此就会造成贸易的不平衡，危害到美国的经济。但政治家们在大企业金钱的操纵下，通过了克林顿总统提出的议案，使得美国处于不公平的贸易关系中。
十年来，这种不公平的贸易关系的后果越来越明显，而且超出了人们的预料。不但工作机会外流，社会逐渐贫困化，而且财富越来越集中，政治也越来越倾向于富人。从宏观上看，随着美中两国贸易逆差越来越大，中美两国的富人越来越富，穷人越来越穷。对中美两国的资本家来说，中国是他们的经济奇迹。对中美两国的穷人和中产阶级来说，中国模式就是他们的灾难。
在普通民众逐渐认识到这个问题之后，民主政治下的选票就开始关注这个问题了。两年前的总统大选，名不见经传的奥巴马能够当选总统，靠的就是一个重要的口号：
改革。改革什么呢？改革美国的政治，使它回到人们希望的、关注美国利益的轨道上来。或者说，使得政治的天平更多地倾向于普通美国人，而不是更多地倾向于少数富人。
为了给奥巴马政府创造最好的条件，选民们不但给了他们总统的权力，还给了他们参、众两院的控制权。民主党的权力已经接近古罗马的独裁者了。但是，他们让大家都失望了。两年来情况不但没有好转，而且在继续恶化，迅速地恶化。
中国人可能只注意到了奥巴马政府上台以后公开表示不再关心中国的人权问题，而且事事都对中国让步。软到了不能再软，都快成中国的小兄弟了。得到的回报却是中共方面越来越硬，快要成美国的太上皇了。但是美国民众注意到的主要是经济问题，是中美大企业联合夺走美国人的工作和生意的问题，是美国国家利益和老百姓利益的问题。
两年前支持奥巴马当选的中下层老百姓，都有一种受骗的感觉：大企业控制华盛顿政治，牺牲美国草民利益的格局基本没有改变。奥巴马上台以来操作的重大政策，几乎都是对大企业有利而掏普通老百姓的腰包。尽管有一帮马屁文人在反复地论证只有劫贫济富才能使经济好转。但是，大多数人并不是傻瓜。他们不相信这些拿着富人的捐款说假话的学者，他们要用自己的选票来表达自己的看法；他们不再相信一党独大的政治；他们希望有一个反对党来制约政府。
于是，当年把奥巴马推上总统位置的中下层选民，这一次把六十多名民主党众议员拉下了马，远远超过共和党控制国会众议院所需要的三十九票。甚至有接近一半的选民支持非正式的茶党，直接影响选情。这迫使两党政治家在选前就把中国问题当作了头等的和主要的问题来炒作。他们互相攻击对方亲中共，支持了错误的政策而使美国工人失去了工作。奥巴马总统也不得不在选举后承认：这次中期选举的失败，就是因为没有更多地关注美国人民的意愿。
不管奥巴马是不是想在两年后连选连任总统，这次中期选举必然使他的政府调整政策。首先当然是不得不关注美国的经济利益；设法消减贸易逆差，增加工作机会。不得不减少金钱对政治的影响；回复到民主政治的本质。也不得不拉开和中共之间的蜜月关系，转而对中共的贸易壁垒采取更强硬的措施，包括外交上的强硬措施。
实际上，从这次中期选举前，奥巴马政府就已经开始了这种调整。在经济上，从人民币汇率问题延伸到贸易壁垒的问题。在外交上，从支持印度对抗中国，延伸到支持越南和日本与中国争夺海洋主权。保持这些压力的目的，是迫使中国在经济问题上让步。这是美国最大的国家利益，也是奥巴马政府的最大的政治利益。
从现在的形势来看，对中国最有利的政策应该是顺水推舟。这既可以减轻经济和外交上的困境，又可以减轻国内的通货膨胀，使中国经济和政治的困境得到缓和。其实，这也有利于共产党继续执政。如果从此开创了注重民意的政治先例，则甚至有利于中国的民主化进程，有利于和平演变。
但是，中国的政治不是民主政治，而是依靠大资产阶级支持的一党专政。他们不愿意放弃剥削老百姓的机会，所以也不会停止让中美资本家们富起来的政策。所以，我们可以预计中美之间的经济和政治对抗会趋向于更加严重，外交危机也会更加严重，而中共内的强硬派和大资产阶级会继续把中国拖向崩溃的深渊。
聆听魏京生先生的相关录音，请访问：
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2010/WeiJS101105midtermUSelections.mp3
（撰写并录音于2010年11月5日。自由亚洲电台播出。）
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