By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
I had coffee this week with a friend who, after living in Everett for many years, moved, two years ago, to China. His wife is Chinese and wanted, following tradition, to be able to help her aging parents, back home. He had several interesting things to say about his adopted home, especially how foreigners are treated.
As a retired military lifer, he gets a decent government pension. For the first five years of living in China, that income is not taxed. After five years, he’ll qualify for what amounts to a permanent green card, allowing him pretty much all the benefits that Chinese citizens enjoy, like owning a business.
He and his wife live in a commodious apartment with an ocean view, for which he pays $400 per month. But they’ve just bought a brand-new condo, in the process of finishing of which to make it livable they are. It’s in a “small” city, by Chinese standards: 450,000 people. In pictures he showed, the city bursts with development: high-rise buildings everywhere. Cars. Restaurants. Other stuff. He plans to buy an electric car; the leading Chinese automaker, BYD, makes EVs now considered the best in the world. He intends to get their top model, which sells for $19,000. They’re pushing the envelope in battery technology, too, surpassing Elon’s by far (CNN: tinyurl.com/bydevs4u).
As a foreigner, my friend is allowed his own VPN, whatever that is, providing access to all of the internet that we have, here. Chinese citizens have no such freedom. I suppose his is because the government recognizes that most non-citizens are there doing mutually beneficial business.
My point is not to tout Chinese governance, but it’s apparent that its one-party autocracy is able to get things done there, and much faster than we do. Making efforts to combat climate change, for example, which Trump is deliberately undoing. My friend says his city has more EV charging stations than gas stations. When, if ever, might that happen here?
I have no desire to move to China, though I hear they have good Chinese food. I like living in a two-party, democratic republic. Especially when both parties have the greater good as central to their goals. Since Newt Gingrich and those of his kind came to power, that stopped being the case for the once-great Republican Party. It’s unpleasant.
As Trump steadily withdraws the U.S. from the world stage, speeding the time when our country will no longer be seen as “indispensable” or a source of generosity and humanitarianism around the world, China acts to fill that void. Unlike Trump, they understand the value of “soft power;” not just for the recipients, but for their national standing, too.
Trump’s America pulled its support for the World Health Organization, saver of countless lives. China just donated $500 million to it. MAGA likes the idea of letting the needy, here and abroad, fend for themselves. Moochers. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” wrote Emma Lazarus. What a load of liberal crap, even if it’s exactly what Jesus taught. We’re MAGA. We make our own rules.
Our drastic reduction of support for USAID is already costing thousands of lives, according to people who know. Especially in Africa, especially children, from disease and starvation. It’s likely China will step in there, too. And the world will look to them, not us, for leadership (ProPublica: tinyurl.com/2endaid4u).
It’s depressing to see the U.S. coddling dictators, insulting our allies, isolated, handing the future to other nations. RFK Jr. just announced that scientists with the National Institutes of Health will no longer be allowed to publish in such highly respected journals as Britain’s The Lancet, the Journal of the American Medical Association, The New England Journal of Medicine. Because, he said, without evidence, they’re “corrupt.” He should know; in Trump, he sees corruption up close. But maybe it won’t matter; he’s cutting funding for medical and other scientific research to the point where it may become impossible for those important labs to continue, no matter where they might have shared their results.
Happily for humanity, science is still valued in China, in Europe, in Israel. So research will continue, just not here. Unless Trump’s destructive tariffs make them too expensive, the scientific and technological advances in those countries will, presumably, be available to Americans. We’ll just have to wait for them; takers, not makers, dependent on countries with more outward-looking priorities.
As the economist Dani Rodrik wrote, “Three things made the U.S. a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.” (BlueSky: tinyurl.com/4destruction)
Meanwhile, Republican-controlled Congress ignores Trump’s increasingly blatant self-enrichment, while crafting a budget that represents the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy, cutting those things that might, you know, MAGA (Atlantic: tinyurl.com/money4them).
Anyone for dim sum?
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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