Tug-Of-War Over Trade

As China becomes the world's factory, U.S. manufacturers are getting hurt. Do the Chinese play fair? The answer is more complex than you might imagine

By Matthew Forney/Beijing Monday, Dec. 22, 2003
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    Show me the money The world's spotlight is on the yuan

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    China's detractors still have powerful weapons at their disposal. Before agreeing to allow China into the World Trade Organization, Washington negotiated a deal giving it broad powers to block Chinese products that "surge" into the market--no proof of dumping or other wrongdoing required. As elections draw near, pressure to use those powers could come from people like Doug Bartlett. His father started Bartlett Manufacturing, a circuit-board maker in Cary, Ill., in 1952. By 2000, the family business had $22 million in sales and employed 180 people.

    Since that banner year, the company has been in free fall. Bartlett says cheap Chinese imports have driven down both sales and his labor force to half their former levels. He blames China's "manipulated" currency and subsidized exports. Now he faces the stark choice of abandoning his community and moving operations abroad, or lobbying for more protection. "We hope to hang on until somebody comes to their senses in Washington," he says, "[but] I don't hold out much hope." And even if Washington wants to protect him, it doesn't have much ammunition to use against China. --With reporting by James Carney and Douglas Waller/Washington, Paul Cuadros/Chapel Hill, Joyce Huang/Taipei and Leslie Whitaker/Chicago

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