China is competing unfairly in the globalised market place using depressed wages, working conditions and copyright piracy, Andrew Brons MEP has warned.
Speaking during a debate held in the European Parliament yesterday on “Research and Innovation Funding,” Mr Brons said that “emerging economies in the Far East are the worst offenders for copying Western technology, in blatant disregard of patent rights.
“JCB, the manufacturer of excavation machinery, has had to take action against three Far Eastern manufacturers for product copying,” Mr Brons said. “These manufacturers were brazenly exhibiting copied products at the Bauma construction equipment show in Munich.”
Mr Brons added that the Free Trade principle that international trade always makes the world as a whole richer is the result of “comparative advantage.
“However, the question the free traders find it more difficult to answer is whether it makes all participants in Free Trade richer.
“The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations and another NGO found that working conditions in many Chinese factories supplying electrical products for multinationals like Apple were inhumane and included excessive compulsory overtime, and public humiliation of poorly performing workers. Pay was the equivalent of 65 pence or 72 cents per hour,” Mr Brons said.
“The multinationals might claim that the conditions and pay rates were not their fault because they were simply the customers of the Chinese factories. However, the product price demanded by the multinationals led directly to those pay rates and conditions.”
Speaking again in the European Parliament, Mr Brons said that it was “self-evident that research and development – two very different concepts – need to be facilitated in all states.
“They are more and more necessary when our economies are subjected to unfair competition from low wage emerging economies. The only way in which the high-wage developed world can hope to compete with these emerging economies is to be ahead of them in new technology,” he said.
“However, the benefits of this research and innovation will be blunted if the fruits of this research are not protected by an effective patent system, preferably administered by member states.”
Today, Mr Brons continued with this train of thought with a prepared question to the Commission on EU Trade and Third Country Relations.
“Whilst free trade might be shown in Economics textbooks to make the world as a whole richer, would you not agree that trading with countries like China, with an artificially low exchange rate, deliberately depressed wage rates and a brazen disregard for patent rights leads to: unfair competition; job losses; and the destruction of industries in the developed world, particularly Europe?” Mr Brons asked EU Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht.
“Indeed the conditions and pay rates in China’s factories are inhumane and allow China and its collaborators in multinational companies to use Chinese goods to compete unfairly with goods produced in the developed world,” Mr Brons continued.
“Has the Commission raised the question of working conditions in China with that country or with the multinationals?”
In response, Mr De Gucht said that “wage rates, by themselves, were not responsible for China’s competitiveness.”
Mr Brons responded by pointing out that he had not attributed China’s competitiveness only to wage rates. “I had mentioned working conditions, the artificially low value of the currency and the abuse of patent rights,” Mr Brons said, to which Mr De Gucht was, not surprisingly, silent.
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Mr. De Gucht defending the indefensible. Having been shot down in flames by Andrew Brons he predictably remained silent.
No wonder these bloated self important euro politicians habitually avoid debate on any subject with the BNP MEP’s.
Son-of-Sommevet
The question of the rise of the Chinese economy is important and must be addressed without delay. We have seen British manufacturers sacking British workers in order to have their products made in China with a deliberately low wage for the workers and companies subsidised by the government. Of course the Chinese economy is in such a strong state, we have given them our manufacturing industry and are now paying a massive price for doing so.
Europe must without delay place a high import tariff on goods being shipped into Europe. Only then we may be able to kickstart a British mabufacturing industry that was once the envy of the world. We did not lose this just by the stupidity and greed of the Trade Unions, although thay played a major part in the downfall our many of our industries, we also lost it by the shortsighted policies of British companies seeking a higher short term profit by having lower product costs. Short term greed meant long term recession.
The long term result of this stupidity is the loss of our industries which we will struggle to regenerate.
Made in China should be read as : a betrayal of British workers and British industry.
Take action against the stranglehold of Chinese manufacturers now, tomorrow will be too late.
The slave labour conditions that prop up the Chinese economy are those the Tories would have us aspire to – if this country is to remain competitive. Many Tories, in the Commons and particularly in the House of Lords, have inherited fortunes built on the exploitation of British men, women and children (not to mention plantation slaves). Isn’t that the original source of the Cameron family fortune? No wonder they hanker after the “good old days” and look enviously towards China and its version of capitalism.
Off topic – the article here (particularly the last three paragraphs), says it all in my opinion. It will bring cold comfort to Griffin and the wretches he has appointed to his entourage I suspect.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15083475
Knowing what we know about Griffin how can anyone with any self respect or integrity ask anyone to support the man – or his pocket?