By Doug Cunningham

China is threatening to liquidate its $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds if Congress takes action against China for using currency manipulation for an unfair trade advantage. That would destroy the dollar’s value and possibly send the U.S. into recession. Democratic presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton say the U.S. nonetheless needs to get tougher with China.

[Clinton]: “We’ve got to get back to fiscal responsibility in order to undercut the Chinese power over us because of the debt we hold. We also have to deal with their currency mani8pulation. Let’s be tougher on China going forward!”

China’s Olympic spotlight is threatening to burn out under building pressure concerning rampant slavery and child labor violations. Jesse Russell reports.

China had been hoping to use the opportunity as host of the 2008 Olympic games as an opportunity to show the world a modern country thriving in the new world economy. However, recent discoveries of forced labor camps in Shanxi (shan-she) and Hunan (huh-nan) province have tainted the coming celebrations and distracted from the positive Olympic news reports coming out of Beijing (bay-jing). A report from the Chinese media says that more than 570 workers – including farmers and children as young as eight – have been rescued from working in brick kilns and iron and coal mines.

By Doug Cunningham

As the U.S. and China continue trade and economic development talks this week, the Change To Win labor federation has a delegation in China for the federation’s first fact-finding mission there. Change To Win’s Anna Burger says she and the other members of the labor delegation are exploring ways in which they can fight for good jobs in the global economy. Change To Win is participating in efforts with the All China Federation of Trade Unions to advance the interests of both U.S. and Chinese workers.

By Doug Cunningham

A horrific accident has left 32 workers dead in China. More than 25 tons of molten steel spilled into a room where workers were in the midst of a shift change after the pouring pot slipped off of a rail. The bodies of the workers were charred beyond recognition. DNA tests will be needed to determine identities. Four workers have been detained pending an investigation at the plant.

Even after years of scrutiny, many Chinese contract factories for major U.S. corporations are still being accused of violating labor laws. Jesse Russell reports:

Disney is the most recent major corporation to come under fire for alleged worker abuse at Chinese factories creating products for the company. The Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior has targeted three factories in the Guangdong province for violations of labor laws. According to the group workers are underpaid, forced to work overtime and are offered no insurance. Disney has said it takes the criticism seriously and has promised to launch an investigation. Guangdong is the same province of a Apple IPod factory that recently was alleged by a China Business News reporter to be violating Chinese labor laws. After an investigation Apple found some violations by the contractor Foxconn and immediately said it would work to correct any mistakes. The contractor had called for the Chinese government to freeze the reporter's assets for the criticism. After the story reached international levels Foxconn reneged and issued an apology to the reporter.

By Doug Cunningham

The AFL-CIO Thursday formally filed a petition charged China with violating trade laws by “unconscionable” abuse of its workers, a practice the labor federation says results in an unfair trade advantage that has cost American workers a million jobs. Thea Lee, Policy Director of the AFL-CIO, says the Bush administration should enforce our trade laws by imposing sanctions on China for its worker abuse.

[Thea Lee 1]: “It’s not only hurting Chinese workers, but it’s also having an adverse economic impact on American workers and on American businesses. What we’re asking is for the president to use all the tools at his disposal, including trade tools, to pressure the Chinese government to come into compliance with its own international obligations and even to enforce its own labor laws.”

By Doug Cunningham

Delphi's CEO says it's going to make its parts in China and there's nothing that can be done about it. New York businessman Jack Davis says there IS something that be done - tariffs can balance U.S.-China trade and save middle class American jobs.

[Jack Davis 1] : "Products are coming in at slave wages building the parts. That's just not the right thing to do. I'm against globalization. I want to get out of the NAFTA, I want to get out of the CAFTA, the WTO and put trade balancing tariffs on any country. If they want to sell us something, they have to buy something of equal value from us or they'll get a tariff on their product. And this is the only way I see to stop this hemorrhaging of jobs and industries."

By Jesse Russell

The National Labor Committee released reports last week of abuses in Chinese Disney book printing factory. The reports allege abuse, long hours, unpaid overtime and unsafe working conditions. Included are images of injured workers with smashed fingers and mangled limbs. At a press conference outside of a Disney store in midtown Manhattan the Director of the National Labor Committee issued a list of demands for the company:

[Kernaghan3] "Release the names and addresses of the factories you use in China to make the products that are sold in this store. Right now Disney hides these factories in China, so there's no way to know what's

By Doug Cunningham

Cheap Chinese textile imports into the U.S. have cost an estimated 26,000 U.S. jobs so far this year. Nineteen textile plants have closed down. A quota system controlling textile imports that was in place for thirty years expired January first and a flood of imports, mostly from China, followed. Now even the Bush administration is trying to slow down the flow of textiles from China. U.S. government reps are talking to the Chinese about reducing their clothing exports. UNITE-HERE, representing textile workers, has long tried to get government action against these imports. A World Trade Agreement provision allows the U.S. and other countries to re-impose textile limits on China to limit the flood. The National Council of Textile Organizations says that by using its currrencyt as a weapon and by heavily subsidizing it's textile industry China has effectively declared a textile trade war in the U.S.

Two thousand members of the United Steelworkers of America are striking against Cooper Tire Company in Arkansas. Workers there say the company wants to cut benefits and wages as it invests in China. Workers are picketing the plant that made 40,000 tires a day before the strike started March 13th. The company has gone to court trying to prevent picketing workers from blocking plant entrances. David Boone, president of United Steelworkers of America Local 752L, says striking workers are not doing anything illegal at the company's entrance. The union says workers had to strike to defend health be

Huge clothing and textile import increases from China are underway, threatening thousands of jobs in the U.S. and Canada. Import caps on textiles that had been in place have been lifted and China is expected to flood the U.S. with cheap clothing, capturing about 70 percent of the U.S. market. Chinese textile exports to the U.S. jumped more than 65 percent in January.

China has made a dramatic reversal in it's energy policies. According to British newspaper, the Independent, China has slowed or halted the building of 22 major dams and power stations out of concerns over the environmental impact. The Chinese State Environment Protection Agency says that the projects will not continue until a proper assessment of their impact is made. According to the Christian Science Monitor, a growing number of Chinese support tougher policies to protect nature.
The move comes just in time for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on Wednesday. The United States is one of the few countries to not sign onto the Kyoto Protocol. The Bush administration cites growing pollution in China and the unwillingness of the Chinese government to intervene in the environment as one of the primary reasons for not joining.

From farm goods to electronics, the U.S. rang up a record trade deficit in 2004 by importing more products than ever before. The trade deficit shot up 24.4 percent over 2003, with China clocking the largest imbalance ever recorded with a single country. The imbalance between the United States and China is $162 billion, 30.5 percent more than the previous year. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute China is exporting more products that use high skilled labor, such as electronics and computers, than ever before. The country is exporting less low-value labor intensive products, such as shoes and plastic products. In 2003, the U.S. trade deficit with China was already twice as large as exports. On a worldwide scale, the Commerce Department reports that American's have also begun accruing a deficit in food products, such as cheese and wine.

Wal-Mart has bowed to the will of the Chinese labor federation. The world's biggest retailer, well known for it's anti-union stance, said On Monday that it would allow the union to organize stores in that country. The All China Federation of Trade Unions issued a threat in October that it would sue Wal-Mart and other international companies if they refused to set up union branches in their China operations. The federation is the only union organizing body in that country and is controlled by the Communist Party. Wal-Mart operates 39 stores in China that employ 20,000 workers. The only Wal-Mart in the world with an accredited union is located north of Quebec City in Canada.

Garment workers union, UNITE-HERE, along with a coalition of trade associations filed its eight petition on Tuesday seeking safeguard restrictions against textiles from China. The petitions claim domestic textile production is being squashed by Chinese imports.

Lloyd Wood, director of media relations for the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition.

[Wood1] "After China joined the WTO Chinese-US import market share increased from less than 10 percent in 2001 to more than 70 percent as of June 2004. So, what we saw was when China had quota free access to the US market, they literally overwhelmed every other player in the market."

The AFL-CIO says job outsourcing is accelerating. Some 406,000 jobs will be exported to cheap overseas labor markets in 2004 compared with 204,000 three years ago. Mexico and China will get the more of those jobs than any other countries. Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Washington have ben hit hard. Ohio has lost nearly one in six of its manufacturing jobs. Since 2001 America has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs and 850,000 professional service and information sector jobs. Trade has played a major role in the massive jobs loss, according to the AFL-CIO.

Five reporters are being held in contempt of court for refusing to identify sources for stories about Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist once suspected of spying at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It is the second time in less than a month that a judge has ruled to hold journalists in contempt of court. On August 6, a US District Court judge sentenced Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, to jail and ordered him to pay a daily fine of $1000 for every day he refused to testify in a grand jury probe involving the 2003 leak of a CIA operatives name. The penalties in that case were suspended after Time and Cooper filed an appeal. Traditionally, reporters are rarely threatened in court to reveal confidential sources. In response to the rulings, the New York Times issued a statement saying it would be impossible for journalists to do their jobs if they live in an environment where they are forced to name sources.