Han Ma búyào xièxiè (Hummer no thanks)

Our country has been in such denial about who we are and what our place in the world really is that the Communist Chinese are giving us lessons!

At the end of last year China admonished the United States in essentially the same way the World Bank lectures Third World nations: "the US should take the initiative to adjust its policies, raise its savings ratio appropriately and reduce its trade and fiscal deficits" (Zhou Xiaochuan, December, 2008). Mr. Zhou was telling us what social workers tell poor families: you’re living beyond your means; cut up your plastic, stop buying things you can’t afford, and get a job.

Now, Red China is giving the U.S. a lesson in global climate change! A few weeks ago we put up a story HERE about Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery of China purchasing Hummer. Now, however, China has nixed the deal.

It turns out the Hummer is a dinosaur gobbling, green house gas belching monster, something neither the dwindling oil supply nor our destabilizing climate can afford. China has refused to allow the Hummer to be produced by a Chinese corporation.

If you’re still in denial, you probably think, as most of us once did, that freedom of the market will take care of problems like gas-guzzlers. It won’t. Thinking like that is why China is giving us lessons.

IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS, China is one of the most polluted places on Earth, but the Chinese government has taken a high profile stance against pollution and is spending major yuan to clean up problems. The Chinese government has stated that pollution is causing birth defects; in a nation where a couple can only have one child, fear of birth defects raises pollution to top priority. Also: at nearly 5 tons and 15 MPG, the Hummer doesn't burn more fuel than a 1989 Ford Bronco II at a third the weight.

Yuan: General term for PRC "dollar".

A growing appreciation of the fragile nature of the environment.