Yes, I was suggesting this in the post. In general across South East Asia this is the line most people are taking.

Incidentally, this piece in the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/07/business/worldbusiness/07yuan.html?

“For Leon Liu, a manager of the Xingan Quanyi Bamboo and Wooden Products Company, a manufacturer of wooden coat hangers for hotels and expensive retailers, a more valuable yuan will mean that bamboo grown near the company’s factory in Rong Jiang Village in southernmost China will become too expensive. He is considering wood imports from Indonesia, and possibly even opening a hanger factory there.”

Of course, you can see from my currency post that I don’t imagine any yuan ‘float’ will be that rapid or that dramatic, but the underlying point is sound: as the yuan rises China will itself ride up the value chain, and eventually much of the ‘low value’ work can even leave China in search of lower wages.

Re-localisation is an ongoing process.

In general I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying.

“Some industry executives, however, disputed that much had changed. They argue that with the scrapping of quota controls, firms that once disguised their China-made goods as Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan exports are simply reporting the real country of origin.

“A large part of this increase is just a switch from declared `Hong Kong origin’ to `China origin’, rather than an actual increase in China manufacturing,” said one French textile trader. “China quotas used to be more expensive than Hong Kong quotas, so people used Hong Kong quotas for goods made in China. What you see is just the reality that used to be the case for many years.” As evidence, the trader argues that mainland logistics firms have not seen any large rises in textile shipments from China in recent months.”

I’m sure Deborah that this is true. But unfortunately if there is one thing that is constant in our human condition it is that we are permanently buffeted by processes of change. So unfortunately what we work hard one day to build up, only gets knocked down the next. This has been with us from the start. Capitalism, or whatever, has changed nothing in this sense.

The German philosopher Heiddeger said we are ‘thrown’ in the world. That about sums it up for me. It is an existential condition, and there really isn’t much we can do about it.

I put things like this since your plea really seems to come from the heart, and not from any particular concern with any particular decision. It seems a more general malaise which preoccupies you.

Of course we may find ourselves enraged by things we don’t like, but if there is nothing really to be done, then that inner rage will only eat us up. We only end up harming ourselves allowing ourselves to be lead by these feelings. In this sense some reconciliation with reality is not only desireable but necessary.

Yes the globalisation processes traversing our planet are producing changes in the lives of people who do not understand were these changes come from. Is this unjust: yes, in a certain sense it is. Is there anything to be done to stop this from happening: I doubt it.

If we all close ourselves off from each other not only will we lose the benefits of richer communication, we will also be poorer to boot.

I’m afraid all those politicians who have so lost your confidence are all we have. The difference between the EU or US citizen who loses their business or their job as a result of a globalisation process and those poor people in Indonesia who lost everything in the wake of the Tsunami, is that we have errected institutional structures backed by law and political processes to give us some protection. This, I humbly submit is where you need to look if you, as you seem to suggest, are one of those adversly affected by globalisation.

“Even the Chinese workers are receiving little for their individual efforts.”

It may be little, but it’s a lot more than they previously received.