Candidates happy to play the blame game

We all know Mitt Romney, the 2012 US Republican presidential candidate, is saying that if he wins the election he will get tough on China from his first day in office.

From last weekend, we heard that we'd got it wrong, Romney had actually been working for China by outsourcing American jobs to China during his years at the helm of private equity firm Bain Capital.

In his latest campaign advertisement, US President Barack Obama accuses Romney's firm of being a "pioneer in shipping US jobs overseas, investing in firms that specialize in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China".

To emphasize Romney's sin, the narrator in Obama's ad changes his tone when saying "China".

The 30-second ad concludes by stating, Romney is "not the solution. He's the problem".

Just as Obama has turned up the heat on Romney for outsourcing American jobs abroad, he himself has become the target of pro-labor organizations for outsourcing jobs. Robert Scott of the liberal Economic Policy Institute said the growth of Chinese exports to the US from 2008 to 2010 cost 450,000 American jobs.

Scott seems to believe that Americans should have a totally self-reliant economy. He seems not to believe in the basic economic principle of comparative advantages, and the same seems true of Obama and Romney, as they try to blame each other for the outsourcing of American jobs.

Obama and Romney should probably both hire Lou Dobbs as their campaign manager. Dobbs, who worked for a long time at CNN, is now a Fox business anchor. He has long been a crusader against American companies outsourcing jobs overseas.

But this is all nonsense. I don't think either Obama or Romney really believes that outsourcing is bad for the US. In fact, all the statistics show that outsourcing has benefited the US enormously by letting the nation do what it does best. And anyone who thinks Chinese exports are bad for the US should know US exports to China have grown faster than to any other country.

It's not difficult to figure out how this farce began. When Obama and Romney each blame the other for the lack of American jobs, it is really because neither of them has a solution to the US' economic woes to offer the American people. They have decided that the best thing they can do is to try and divert attention by blaming someone else for the problem. China, sadly, has been selected by many US politicians as the ideal bogeyman to scare their people.

I don't know how long this farce will last, but the ordinary Americans I have talked to are increasingly frustrated by their top politicians who have been doing things for their own purposes rather than for the good of the nation.

For Obama and Romney, the most important thing is to get re-elected or elected. To achieve that goal, they are running incessant ads, repeating biased messages demonizing their rival and making China the scapegoat.

Just as the US National Debt, shown on the Internal Revenue Service screen in Times Square near my office, hit $15.8698 trillion this week, Obama was begging supporters to give more to his campaign after learning Romney had raised more money for two consecutive months.

Obama sounds desperate in his message to his patrons this week: "We can win a race in which the other side spends more than we do, but not this much more."

Money is always a factor in the US presidential race, but both candidates have bet on the "China card" for victory, which is misleading the public.

The author, based in New York, is Deputy Editor of China Daily USA. E-mail: chenweihua@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/13/2012 page8)