Feeding the Dragon: Reevaluating U.S. Development Assistance to China

This notification is emblematic of the dysfunction in America's foreign aid spending priorities. The proposed program would essentially involve borrowing money from China to give back to China to help it fix its own domestic problems, many of which were created in the breakneck rush to develop. The program aims to boost the competitiveness of Chinese manufacturers at the expense of U.S. manufacturers and U.S. jobs. China's poor record on trade, human rights, and the environment speaks for itself. None of the organizations, universities, and entities that USAID funds in China are completely independent of Chinese Government control. The United States spends over $39 billion in taxpayer funds to support America's foreign policy objectives abroad, with the President's request for Fiscal Year 2012 amounting to more than $800 million in the Asia region alone. China's behavior demonstrates a concerted effort to advance economic growth, regardless of the consequences. Chinese leaders count on economic growth to offset the lack of political and religious freedoms in that country. As a result, American manufacturers face unprecedented challenges from illegal Chinese Government subsidies, an artificially low exchange rate, and rampant systematic theft of intellectual property. The U.S. intelligence community has released a report detailing the depth and breadth of China's organized industrial espionage efforts. The U.S. Government assistance to China is unjustifiable in a time when China continues to steal American intellectual property and drive U.S. competitors out of business. The fact that USAID conducts oversight of the program from its regional headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, is surprising. The U.S. Trade Representative Office has launched a Section 301 investigation into alleged dumping of solar panels and wind energy goods into the United States, and has filed a formal complaint against China at the World Trade Organization over the country's failure to declare over 200 government subsidy programs in the clean tech sector. Given the state of the U.S. economy and with government debt approaching a record $15 trillion, it is absurd to think that any U.S. Government entity would spend a single dollar trying to encourage China to do the right thing. China is America's strategic competitor in many areas, and there is no evidence to show that American foreign assistance to China is paying dividends in the relationship. China has enough resources to spend on its own, and U.S. assistance to China should not be at any cost to the taxpayer.