Large Fierce Mammal

Xi Jinping and Justin Trudeau at the September 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

The title of today’s piece is common usage short form for part of a longer expression attributed to Lucius Cassius, “… whom the Roman people used to regard as a most honest and most wise judge, was in the habit of asking time and again in lawsuits: ‘to whom might it be for a benefit?’ (cui bono fuisset?)” ~ Wikipedia

Also applicable to today’s point —

“American sociologist Peter Blau has used the concept of cui bono to differentiate organizations by whom has primarily benefited: owners; members; specific others; or the general society.” ~ Wikipedia

In the throes of the current unpleasantness as we now all find ourselves, a lot of people will think it more than a little addlepated to even suggest that any person or group could possibly find benefit in any way. But I beg to differ. We can all benefit, or rather, they can benefit who survive to correct the sins of the past.

Permit me to clarify.

The present situation is a double whammy built from two existential crises:

1. The actual illness we face with all its attendant risks to life and limb; and
2. The effects efforts to mitigate item 1 are having on the income realities of individuals and national economies as a whole.

Complicating resolution of either is the globalist economic model embraced by Western democracies that turned China into the world’s factory, a reality that could not have been more perfectly demonstrated than by means of a contagion that started its onslaught by shutting the factory down. Overnight, government leaders found themselves stammering through explaining to their respective bodies politic not why essential medical equipment and medicines were in short supply — as with the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects a global pandemic — but why shortages were such a complicating factor.

In short, globalism and the foundational principles of global economics had hoist the lot of them by their own petard.

This is not to say that the very same body politic shares no complicity in crafting the bomb that blew up in our faces these few short weeks ago. For example, in 2007, American journalist Sara Bongiorni wrote A Year Without “Made in China” chronicling her family’s attempt to live a full 12 months free of anything bearing that label.

An abstract of Ms. Bongiorni’s book published by The Economist listed these “take-aways”:

• China rules the global market in many sectors, including electronics, clothing, athletic shoes and toys.
• Cheap labor, a manipulated money supply and state-sponsored subsidies give China a competitive edge in international trade.
• United States consumers constitute one of China’s largest markets, but the U.S. faces a trade deficit with China of more than $202 billion.
• More than two million American workers have lost positions to China’s industries.
• One family addressed the job loss and trade imbalance by refusing to buy Chinese products for a year. This is their story.
• Avoiding the lure of cheap and abundant merchandise from China proved difficult.
• Shoes, sunglasses and appliances from China cost dramatically less than products produced elsewhere.
• Most Halloween, Christmas and Fourth of July merchandise is created in China.
• Even products assembled in the U.S. include components manufactured in China.
• Many sectors, such as the shoe and toy industries, have completely halted production in the U.S.

A Google or YouTube search for, “no more made in China”, will yield a wealth of similar results. But cheap, abundant, quality, only occasionally toxic-flammable-explosive, goods have delivered a resounding, “So what?” to such dire warnings because, to paraphrase, the Chinese will beat any price, and they will not — indeed CANNOT be undersold!

This being said, it should come as no surprise at all that when appearance of COVID-19 in China caused an instantaneous shutdown of the world’s factory, everything in the West unravelled. While it was never a secret, the way in which China has become intertwined with domestic production of essential medical and safety supplies finally came home to roost for the average citizen in a way no cawing storm crow could ever have managed.

U. S. based 3M, producer of the much talked about N95 respirator, makes the masks in their Chinese factory. Some producers of hand sanitizer have lots of the constituent chemicals on hand, but are hampered in delivery because the dispenser bottles they typically use are made in China. The list of “always there” items goes on and on, including finished goods openly produced entirely in China, and things marked as made anywhere BUT China that couldn’t be made absent critical components that are.

None of this was new news when the afore mentioned book detailed one family’s travails in trying to live a year untouched by China. China had not suddenly and overnight come to rule, “… the global market in many sectors, including electronics, clothing, athletic shoes and toys,” created a system of, “Cheap labor, a manipulated money supply and state-sponsored subsidies …” giving it, “… a competitive edge in international trade,” that caused, “More than two million American workers (to) have lost positions to China’s industries,” so that, “Many sectors, such as the shoe and toy industries, have completely halted production in the U.S..” Neither had they done it alone because, like vampires, they couldn’t step over the threshold absent invitation.

Coming forward to more proximate days, an article posted by CBC News on 28 February 2020 under the title Diplomats warned federal government about getting too tight with China, committee hears, carried some interesting, albeit tardy, revelations:

“Global Affairs briefing papers released by a House of Commons committee show that Canada’s professional foreign service has been warning politicians that it’s dangerous for Ottawa to get too close to China.

“Seven documents were released by a Commons committee on Canada-China relations that was formed in January after opposition parties united to outvote the Liberal minority, which opposed the creation of such a committee.

“The last of the documents is described in a cover letter by Global Affairs’ top civil servant as ‘a concise diagnostic for the incoming minister of foreign affairs to set the stage for strategic advice on how to approach relations with China’. Deputy Minister Marta Morgan writes that the paper distills the new approach to China, and that ‘Minister Champagne has called for a new framework for Canada-China relations.’

“That paper, written in October 2019, warns that ‘while Canada has long framed its China policy through the lens of economic opportunity, it now needs to take account of Beijing’s long-term strategic challenge to Canada’s interests and values.'”

Wow. If only we’d known sooner.

But we do now, so what are we going to do about it?