The "Made in China" Question

I started window-shopping for Christmas trees and decorations at a local mall the other day. A Filipino can’t help admiring even the artificial balsam trees (environmental regulations forbid cutting or selling evergreens anywhere in the country.) You cannot help wondering where such beautiful products are manufactured at such low prices.

In the US, more often than not, such products are made in Communist China whatever the ingenious labeling indicates. Here it is the same story as, I fear, in the whole world.

President Nixon, holding sovereign rank in the world’s greatest empire, visited Red China in 1972. There he followed the traditional imperial protocol to the point of helping Chou En-Lai doff his overcoat.

That Western gesture proved to symbol conscious Asians that America was indeed a tributary state of the central Kingdom. Chairman Mao acting in traditional Imperial style eventually conceded an audience to the tributary prince.

He proved Communist China’s worldwide supremacy to Asian eyes with Mr. Nixon’s indispensable help.

Nixon then severed diplomatic relations with President Chiang’s Nationalist Government on Taiwan in January 1973 leading almost all US allies to follow suit. Shortly afterwards the UN Security Council ejected the Nationalists from the controlling agency of the United Nations while the US refused of course to veto the proceedings.

President Carter unilaterally committed America to what may be the costliest building project in the history of the world on December 15, 1978, capping the shameful process.[1] Henceforth, as the most powerful nation put its rubber stamp of approval on Red China, the rest of the world inevitably followed suit.

The intrepid bishops of Taiwan’s Catholic hierarchy fearlessly denounced that day of infamy in a joint pastoral letter of March 20, 1979 with scintillating clarity. Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira underscored and extolled the Taiwanese prelates’ stately and courageous stand in his article, “An Oasis in the Sahara.”[2]


“I soaked up this limpid and crystalline text like a traveler in the Sahara - as the well-known figure has it - would drink from a generous spring found in an unexpected oasis. I was thirsting to hear bishops of the Holy Church take such a princely and gallant pastoral attitude in the face of Communism. In this epoch of cowardly omissions and cunningly defeatist or even cynically collaborationist attitudes, it is remarkably refreshing to hear the bishops of a whole nation speak like this in unison!”


Presidents Nixon and Carter’s folly opened the floodgates to a series of concessions one after another, year after year, that finally culminated in the U.S’ granting Communist China the most-favored nation status it now enjoys.[3]

In Divini Redemptoris, Pope Pius XI boldly stated, “Communism is intrinsically evil and no one may collaborate with it in any form whatever.” The notion of communism was muddled in modern minds, however, with the extinguishing of the light of reason.

When the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1991, media pundits, therefore, parroted and hailed the fall of communism almost completely unchallenged.

Even in Catholic circles, some dared to proclaim that Russia had converted.

Most people by far failed to see and analyze beyond the smiles of Communist leaders such as Russia’s Gorbachev and China’s Deng Xiao Ping.

They easily quickly winked at the errors of communism and the horrors of its artificial society, so brutally opposed to the natural order.

How different life was when many people subjected their ideas and thoughts to the rigors of logic. The principle of contradiction was still lively in souls not blinded by the all-pervading filth of today.

The late Filipino Senator, Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo was such a man. I ran across a timeless article of his, “Trade with Red China” in a bound set of the now defunct The Cross, a national Catholic monthly.

The Honorable Rodrigo refuted the advocates of open trade with Communist China in that September 1957 article. Great Britain’s shameful leadership also fell before his lucid reason.


“By what fantastic stretch of the imagination can it be said that we need the trade of the Communist Chinese? What is it that that iniquitous form of government produces or can produce by its abominable system of forced labor that we cannot live without? We have live without it so far.

“ And what product of our own free economy is so specialized –or so inferior – that it can be sold only to the victims and slaves of the communist system? We have all the free and friendly nations of Asia in which to sell our wares; we have all the free world in which to find honest men to pay an honest price for the honest product of our honest toil. What necessity compels us to deal with aggressors and murderers?

“….Let not the advocates of this trade reply that there is no intention of selling the Chinese Communist war or strategic materials. Any reasonably informed businessman can tell them that no matter what we sell to Communist China, no matter what the goods we provide, the very fact that we provide them will relieve their agriculture, industry, and labor force of that much of a burden and thus enable them to devote the energies thus saved to the production of the instruments of conquest and aggression.” [Paragraphs added for easy reading.]


Messrs. Nixon and Carter, more than anybody else, should have pondered similar thoughts and questions before their tragic decisions. Or did they consciously fly in the face of reason?

What could have been their MOTIVE?

American presidents head the richest and most productive economy in the world. Their actions have grave and long lasting repercussions throughout the world.

Look at the continuing consequences of their China policy!

Our store shelves overflow with all sorts of “Made in China” products. We usually have to buy them. I could scarcely find an alarm clock, an umbrella or a personal calculator not made in China when I lived in the United States. Now I find the same lamentable phenomenon here in the Philippines.

I repeatedly searched in vain from store to store returning home empty handed. Out of principle, I would rather do without than handle such products.

The bargains in Internet on-line stores are no exception. Their low prices almost always point to Chinese slave labor. Do not be fooled, avoid such ‘good buys’ unless you can verify where they are made.

We are in an appalling state of affairs. We must ask ourselves:

· Where is the public outcry against this betrayal?
· Where are the Christian world leaders who should defend the common good?
· Who valiantly opposes ‘legitimizing’ such totalitarian states in defiance of God’s eternal law?
· Where are the upright businessmen and investors refusing to even consider exploiting communist slave labor?
· Where are the free nations that stand their ground against the economic onslaught of the Red Menace?
· Is gold all that matters?
· Should we not fear the anger of our Creator at our heedless but culpable exploitation of the slave laborers victimized by that iniquitous system?[4]
· Does God no longer hear the cry rising from the earth against those who deprive the worker of his wages?[5]
· Is one who buys such products not an accomplice to such crimes?
· What about the continuing persecution against Catholics in China?[6] Can I claim mercy from Christ Crucified when I am indifferent to those whose situation makes them living images of my Redemeer?
· Where is the holy indignation against this injustice?
· And lastly: I AM A CATHOLIC, CAN I BUY PRODUCTS MADE IN COMMUNIST CHINA?

Unprincipled and doctrinally challenged men will have no qualms about these questions. To buyers, what matters most is to get the best bargain; to businessmen, it is to make quick profits.[7] The morality or consequences accepting such stolen goods may mean little now but will certainly weigh heavily on the exacting scales of the wrathful Judge of our wicked lives.

May the almighty and merciful God melt our hard hearts before it is too late: for ever and ever, time without end. Amen.

The voice of God himself known infallibly, only through the Dogmas of the Catholic Church, teaches that the all our works and prayers only heap up punishments for us on the Day of Judgment when we are in the state of mortal sin.[8]

As none of us can be ABSOLUTELY sure we are in the state of grace, our only hope is to continuously beseech His bountiful mercy so that we may come to know our hidden sins or persevere in His grace by His protection.

To others who also have difficulty grasping in some way these certainties, I offer the touching example given by the founder of the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP)- the late lamented Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira- to help us with this very problem.

Once, Professor de Oliveira was asked what should be the TFP member’s attitude regarding buying products made in Communist countries (note: not only China, but Russia, Vietnam and so on) that already crowded the shelves of stores almost everywhere.

He gave, as I recall, the example of two women selling the same product. One was a decent, honest and God-fearing housewife. The other, a woman of ill refute; in other words, a prostitute.

The good woman goes about doing her business through equitable and legitimate means while the whore employs unethical and unfair business practices. Now it is evident that a Catholic is obliged to buy from the former and resolutely avoid the latter.

In his example, the honest housewife represented free world economies while the prostitute represented Communist slave labor. Consequently we must in good conscience prefer products made in the free world and reject those made in Communist countries.

Professor de Oliveira also advised that we are obliged to search for legitimately made products within reasonable bounds. We cannot go searching on-and-on for a particular product. So we must observe prudence and balance in our purchases.

Due to their ubiquitous presence, neither can we avoid buying certain products like light fixtures, toys, Christmas decorations, pocket calculators and alarm clocks made in China. Of course certain people are required in order to maintain their state in life to buy much more costly US or European items.

Giant western multinational corporations continue to take their more advanced technology into China, pouring billions of dollars into construction of factories there. The most luxurious models of the huge Daimler-Chrysler, the company flagships, will soon roll out of Chinese factories[9]. Of course that fabulous know how will never be applied to furnish the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) with the trucks and armored vehicles it needs to achieve parity with advanced Western forces. Or will it?

Meanwhile as the world gazes in apathy and indifference, China, assisted by certain leftist financiers, boastfully uses Western technology, to build armed might and use Coca-Cola to undermine what violent repression has failed to crush.

Thus, I pose my favorite question: Is there not a GREAT SCHEME to all these?

Footnotes:

[1] Barry Goldwater, “The Betrayal of Taiwan by President Carter”, About Face: The China Decision and Its Consequences, Arlington House Publishers, New York, 1979, p. 23.
[2] Please see the American TFP’s website for the article’s full text ( www.tfp.org). http://tfp.org/TFPForum/PCO/oasis.htm
[3] http://thewinds.arcsnet.net/archive/economy/china5-97.html - On May 19, 1997, President Clinton announced that he would be renewing China's trading privileges in spite of its human rights record, and against the wishes of over sixty percent of Americans who are opposed to trading with the oppressive communist regime. Why does the U.S. to crack down on smaller nations for alleged human rights abuses while extending favorable treatment to one of the most oppressive governments in the world?
[4] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/10/200712.shtml - Wes Vernon, “How China Hides Its Slave Labor From the Free World”, NewsMax.com, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2003.

[5] Oppressing the poor by paying a worker unjust wages is another sin that "cries out to Heaven for vengeance" (cf. James 5:4; CCC 1867, 2409). U.S. corporations have moved their factories and set up sweatshops in communist China and other countries where workers are paid slave wages, in order that we may buy cheaper products. In his 1966 encyclical, "Mense Maio" ("For the Preservation of Peace"), Pope Paul VI said words which are applicable to our present world situation. http://www.cdop.org/catholic_post/post_10_28_01/wisi.cfm
[6] http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org/press/031027.html “Approximately A Dozen Underground Roman Catholic Priests and Seminarians Were Arrested and Another Church Was Demolished in China.” Press release, October 26, 2003.

[7] http://www.house.gov/sherrodbrown/slave510.htm U.S. Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today called for an investigation into U.S. corporations' importation of goods made by Chinese slave labor. Thursday, May 11, 2000.
[8] Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, TAN Books and Publishers, Inc, Rockford, Illinois, 1974
[9] “Daimler-Chrysler to make in China its Mercedes Benz”, The Manila Bulletin, September 12, 2003.