Washington Pot Slags Beijing Kettle

I guess when you're actually the pot, the only black thing you can see is the kettle.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (okay, before today I didn't know it even existed either) has released a scathing assessment of those perfidious Chinese fellas.  Today's report to Congress was the Commission's eighth missive since its creation in 2000.

At a press conference, Chairman Dan Slane unloaded on the wily Chinese:

The Chinese government quite simply intends to wall off a majority of its economy from international competition.

 China certainly needs to address its environmental problems, which include severe air and water contamination. However, the goal of maintaining eight percent GDP growth per year hinders China’s ability to enact effective environmental policies. China may be more interested in developing a world class green technology export sector rather than cleaning up its environment.

Remind me, what country has the greatest per capita greenhouse gas emissions?  What country's government won't be approving any measures to combat global warming?  Sorry to interrupt.

China is now capable of producing both advanced commercial and military aircraft. Unfortunately this improvement is primarily due to strong Chinese government support which often excludes foreign firms, and a requirement for
technology offsets from Boeing and Airbus, in return for market access in China. Two days ago China announced its first 100 orders for its large commercial aircraft, an aircraft expressly designed to compete with Boeing and Airbus. Alarmingly, China appears to be directly transferring improvements in commercial aviation to its defense aviation sector.

Boeing - meet the F-18.  Oh, you've already met?  Oh, you actually make the F-18 and lots of other military stuff.  Okay, I get it.

And, from the "Whistling Past the Graveyard" file, there's this:

We considered whether America’s growing debt implies that China, as America’s largest foreign creditor, has gained political leverage over the U.S. government. We found that there is no economic justification to believe that China has gained political leverage over the United States or that a decision by China to scale back or even to cease its purchases of U.S. Treasuries should be viewed with alarm.


Finally, China’s currency manipulation continues to harm U.S. manufacturing and
employment. There appears to be no real motivation by the Chinese to adopt market based approaches with regard to its currency.

And this is from a country that just conjured up 600-billion dollars of magic money?  600-billion?

And just who named this committee anyway?  It's supposed to be the U.S.-China Review Commission but it doesn't seem to want to review anything the U.S. is doing or factor that into its critique of China.

America has already fired the first broadside in its currency war with China.  It seems like this commission's report is ammunition for a second round.