Buy Chinese Vs Buy American

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On today's UK Telegraph, China's 'Buy Chinese' decree with £400bn stimulus package risks US protectionism row

• China has issued a ‘Buy Chinese’ order as part of its £400bn government stimulus package in a move that could fuel tensions between Beijing and Washington over claims of trade protectionism during the current financial crisis.
  
  By Peter Foster in BeijingPublished: 8:45AM BST 17 Jun 2009
  
  The edict, issued from the highest level of China’s government, comes less than six months after China described the short-lived ‘Buy American’ clauses in the US stimulus package as “protectionist poison” that would undermine the world economic recovery.
  
  The government order, issued by nine Chinese ministries and the legislative office of the State Council, China’s cabinet, requires government-backed stimulus projects to seek explicit permission before buying foreign goods and services.
  
  “Government investment projects should buy domestically made products unless products or services cannot be obtained in reasonable commercial conditions in China,” it said, “Projects that really need to buy imports should be approved by the relevant government departments before purchasing activity starts.”
  
  The order appears to contradict assurances given last February by China’s deputy commerce minister, Jiang Zengwei, that China would “treat domestic and foreign goods equally so long as we need them.”
  
  At the same time China bristled over attempts by the US Congress to insert ‘buy American’ clauses for iron and steel into their stimulus package.
  
  Yao Jian, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesman, told reporters “Some countries raised clauses to prioritise the purchase of products of their own countries in their economic stimulus packages.
  
  “We express deep concern about these [measures] ... under the current financial crisis, measures issued by all countries should not cause negative impacts, and especially they should not send out wrong messages.”
  
  Ian Crawford, the executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said he was “very surprised” at the explicit nature of the ‘buy local’ directive, even though China already had extensive buy local provisions for government contracts.
  
  China has remained unwilling to ratify a World Trade Organisation (WTO) treaty that requires it to give foreign firms equal rights when bidding for government procurement contracts – an agreement signed by the US and most other major economies.
  
  “China has made such an issue about protectionism with the rest of the world, but it now appears that it can no longer hold itself up as ‘whiter than white’ on this issue,” he said, “The UK has maintained very open markets and we would urge and hope that China would do the same.”
  
  Foreign businesses operating in China have increasingly complained in recent months that they are being denied fair access to stimulus projects which will account for a significant proportion of Chinese GDP growth this year.
  
  Concerns were raised after official from the Ministry of Railways gave interviews promising to ‘buy domestic’ while European wind-turbine manufacturers complained that bidding procedures had effectively excluded them from a £3bn green power project.
  
  The Chinese directive which was jointly issued by the ministries of industry and information, supervision, housing, transport, railways, water resources and commerce said it was responding to concerns among Chinese industry associations that foreign buyers were being wrongly favoured in government procurement processes.
  
  Analysts said that the move also partly reflected growing concern among the Chinese leadership at the comparative slowness of private sector activity in the economy and the need to focus investment on creating jobs at home.
  
  A spokesman for the US Embassy said that China already had long-standing and extensive “buy china” requirements which the new order relating to the stimulus package appeared to reflect.
  
  “President Obama has emphasized the importance of avoiding protectionism in responding to the financial crisis,” he added.

oO

One side call Buy American.

Now the other side call Buy Chinese.

Die lah.

We Malaysians... err.. wazzap doc? What are we selling? What are we buying?

How now?

Do you think that all these could be a real massive threat to the recovery of global economy recovery?