China’s government propaganda newspaper Global Times mocked President Joe Biden in an editorial on Sunday for attempting, and failing, to “reengineer the dynamics of the U.S. economy” through the just-passed $1.2-trillion “infrastructure” bill.
Democrats ended a week marked by significant political losses in Tuesday’s state and local elections with the passing of the “infrastructure” bill, which in reality features a large number of expenditures outside of the definition of the word. Far-left Democrats appeared to have doomed the bill before its passing late on Friday, the result of 13 Republicans breaking ranks and supporting Biden’s project.
The Global Times dismissed the bill as a “feeble” attempt to compete with China’s communist economy and its extreme spending on shoddy but flashy infrastructure. America’s capitalist economy, the newspaper declared, made it impossible for Biden to fully control the nation’s economy and thus facilitate the rejuvenation of American infrastructure wholesale.
The Times, in a separate editorial, praised the bill and declared its success impossible without Biden flooding the United States with Chinese imports.
Admitted the $1.2-trillion bill was “not highly comprehensively supported” by the American people, the Global Times accused Biden of attempting to dismantle the fundamentals of the American economy.
“Most of U.S. major infrastructure construction was driven by the private sector. Now the Biden administration is trying to take that over with an American-style ‘planned economy,'” the editorial observed. “This is a move trying to reengineer the dynamics of the U.S. economy, using its weak spots to back one of the country’s most daunting tasks. Thus, the chances that the plan will be effectively implemented are slim by any means.”
The Global Times branded the bill an act of desperation in a cold war with China.
“Infrastructure in China is promoted under the guidance of government. This is adequate for China’s actual conditions and a maximization of using China’s resources,” the propaganda outlet observed. “But if the U.S. imitates China, the likely outcome is a disordered and feeble plan that does not fit the U.S.’ conditions and market needs.”
“The expensive infrastructure programs in the US cannot bring about the return of new tax sources, and this will push the country into a false prosperity papered over by quantitative easing and excessive money-printing,” the editorial concluded.
The editorial concluded that the American people – due to innate laziness – would sink the goals of the “infrastructure” bill and that, if Biden truly wanted to reengineer the American economy, he would first need to turn lazy Americans into a “responsible and hard-working” populace like the Chinese.
“It is tantamount to a fairy tale to revitalize U.S. competitiveness relying merely on a stimulus bill. The US has its advantages, but if it wants to be as competitive as China in some spheres,” the Global Times editors declared, “it should turn American people into people who are as diligent as Chinese and turn American officials into being as responsible and hard-working as their Chinese peers.”
In reality, China relies not on a superior culture but an army of millions of slaves, most from ethnic minorities like Uyghurs and Tibetans. The Chinese Communist Party has built an estimated 1,200 concentration camps in East Turkestan, the Uyghur homeland China refers to as Xinjiang, many of them equipped with manufacturing facilities where escaped inmates say authorities force prisoners into slave labor. Outside of Xinjiang, extensive reporting by human rights groups and government researchers has revealed that the Chinese government sells Uyghur slaves to factories and cotton fields through state-approved websites.
The Chinese Communist Party denies, without substantively refuting allegations, that it engages in slavery.
A separate editorial published on Sunday in the Global Times did not dismiss the “infrastructure” bill as an inevitable failure but depicted China’s slave manufacturers as the key to its salvation.
“While the Biden administration may not necessarily want to increase imports from China to support the infrastructure plan, no other country except China can meet its need for large amount of industrial goods under such a grand infrastructure program,” the state propaganda outlet contended. “Therefore, the expansion of U.S. infrastructure investment will inevitably lead to the increased imports from China.”
The Global Times did not allow for the possibility of domestic American manufacturing meeting the needs of the bill.
“[A]n awkward reality is that the hollowing-out of the U.S. manufacturing sector means that its domestic industries don’t have the production capacity to support the ‘once-in-a generation’ infrastructure construction,” according to the Global Times.
The “infrastructure” bill contains provisions nominally meant to protect American manufacturing. The final text of the bill, however, also includes critical cutouts to allow companies to seek waivers from using American workers. The bill permits the federal government to allow the outsourcing of jobs otherwise labels as meant for Americans for vague reasons, such as in the event that giving the jobs to Americans “would be inconsistent with the public interest.” The bill also allows for importing goods or hiring foreign workers if American production would “increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent” or if the American products are not “of a satisfactory quality.”
Once obtained, companies do not have to renew a waiver for five years.
While six Democrats voted against the bill, 13 Republicans rescued it from failing: Reps. John Katko (R-NY), Don Bacon (R-NE), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Fred Upton (R-MI), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Don Young (R-AK), Tom Reed (R-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), and Rep. David McKinley (R-WV). An overwhelming number of the 13 are from the greater New York area, which is set to receive significant funding from the bill.
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