Reducing the Population of China, One Industrial Accident At a Time

When I go shopping, I try to avoid buying anything made in China, although it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so. Why? Well, in the first place, I'm holding their commie feet to the fire. Communists have murdered more than 100 million people and counting to prove that their particular brand of socialism is superior to all other forms of government and commerce in the world. By practicing capitalism, they're cheating. They are no longer communists, they are free market fascists. The Chinese should try to emulate their North Korean brothers -- eating tree bark and shoe leather soup, but proud. Let them enjoy the fruits of their fanaticism. Another reason is, I am not about to put money into the economy of a country that will someday go to war with us. The Chinese military buildup is alarming everyone in the Asian region. Someday (when we have a Democrat in office), the Chinese will consider us no longer a threat and will try to crush Taiwan. They very likely won't succeed, but the price in human life will be horrific. And third, I will not buy products made in a country where human and workers' rights are non-existent. One of the standing jokes in the newsroom is that I can't take my weekend until I write at least one story about a Chinese coal mine disaster. I easily make that quota every week. Last night, I had one story about 102 workers trapped (dead) in a flooded mine and another about 14 miners killed in an underground gas explosion. It's estimated that about 15,000 people die in Chinese mines every year. Human rights groups say it's easily three times that number. The "official" figure is 9,000. The concept of worker safety is non-existent in China. As I made my way home this morning, having earned my weekend, I bumped into a former Beijing bureau chief. He said while he was living there, his Boy Scout son had the assignment of putting together a first aid and safety kit. One of the required items was a pair of safety goggles. That poor kid looked all over Beijing and couldn't find a single pair of safety goggles. Seems that its cheaper in China to just hire a replacement worker than it is to buy a pair of safety goggles. If one worker loses his eyes, or a hand, or a foot, or his life, just hire another at slave wages. Or, use real slaves kept in education-through-labor camps. Saving a few bucks is just not worth all that. Yeah, I know that when my mom told me to eat all my food because there were people starving in China, she was just shining me on. But I like to believe that buying American can do something for the Chinese people and keep me at an arm's length from evil. It's a nice fantasy that lets me sleep easier.