Zachary Karabell, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

The recent outcry over poisonous pet food and the recall of lead-tainted toys sourced by Mattel in China proves one thing: We have a China problem. It is not, however, a China problem in the way most people think. It is not a problem with safety standards that threaten our children and our pets. It is a problem with the very fact of China as an emerging force on the global economic stage, and it underscores a profound and worrying trend in American political and economic life. For half a century we fought for the creation of a global capitalist system. Now that we have one, we seem to have forgotten one little thing: Capitalism means competition, and we are acting like we can’t handle it.

I hear so many people complain about China and our trade with that nation, but what so few realize is just how good that trade is both for our country and for China.

For us, we get a ready supply of cheaply-manufactured goods that save us money without forcing Americans to work in the low-pay (by our standards) factories that make them.  For China, they get a huge market for their manufactured goods, which in turns provides good-paying factory jobs (by their standards) to people who would otherwise be trying to grow enough food to eat by subsistence farming.

I’ll grant that China’s social and political climate is atrocious.  The nation is a communist dictatorship and fiercely oppresses it’s people.  But then, the oppression isn’t as bad as it once was and a big reason for that is trade with America.  Which is also a big reason why China isn’t a military threat (aside from the reality of their exaggerated global military power) to us either.  If China attacks us they lose the market their economy depends on.

We should embrace trade with China, and also embrace the competition that nation’s businesses represent for American businesses.  America clawed it’s way to the top of the world’s economic pyramid through a free market that allowed our best and brightest to invent, innovate and generally engage in commerce with as little intervention from the government as possible.  But every time we pass a protectionist policy that impedes international trade, and every time we pass a new tax or burdensome regulation on business, we hurt our ability to stay on top of that pyramid.