By QIANG TOUCAO
Politics Correspondent
BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has made a surprise U-turn on China, in apparent pursuit of the narrow demographic of independent US voters whose sympathies may lie with Beijing.
Romney smiled convincingly as he promised Americans that his five-point economic plan would put America “back on track – ahead of China” in terms of lack of social welfare.
The Republican nominee, trailing in the polls following another lackluster debate performance, made his comments at yet another rally in Ohio, this time alongside a photo-op with a group of Chinese peasants, surnamed Zhou – imported especially for the occasion.
Romney praised the Zhou family grandson for sending home his paycheck every month, so that Grandma Kangmei can prepare a bag of rice and pay the family’s coal bills. The grandson works for a “black jail,” detaining petitioners who appeal for proper regulation.
Kangmei needs every penny because son, best friend and husband Jianguo died from AIDS – all infected in a blood-selling scandal led by donor companies in cahoots with local officials.
“President Obama still believes in the failed European ideal of a socialist welfare state but in China, people don’t look to the government for help. They look after themselves,” said a grimacing Romney, as he posed beside the bewildered Zhous.
“Look at this family: they recently pooled all their blood together to raise money to send their children to work. Those… uh, those are the kind of hard-working American values I’m talking about.”
Continuing with a fixed grin, a manic-eyed Romney highlighted the country’s education system as key to China’s success.
“China’s emphasis on standardized testing ensures the country will always have a pool of unskilled laborers, thankful for work under any conditions; laborers who lack the critical skills to see through nationalistic rhetoric that blames their problems on other countries, instead of structural inequities.
“Heck, most lack even the basic ability to grasp the last sentence I just said, let alone do anything about it,” Romney said, gripping the shoulders of frail 87-year-old elder statesman Lao Father Zhou. “Isn’t that right, Grandma?”
With just 12 days to go before Americans go to the polls, Romney has vowed to say or do anything in order to secure stray votes, including those who may have been put off by his previous remarks about China.
But aides claim his new China stance is merely a coalescing of previous, leaked comments in which the former Massachusetts governor has expressed admiration for Oriental economic values.
“Under Obama, US regulators over-enforce the law and kill jobs,” a gluttonous Romney told a private donors’ dinner in mid-August. “In China, it’s the complete opposite. There is an official embedded in the heart of every major enterprise, asking: ‘How can we work together to make even more money?’”
Republicans and Beijing officials have more in common than one might think, said one senior Romney staffer on condition of complete deniability.
Both favor low taxes – with the ultra-rich often paying none at all – while China’s minimal enforcement of environmental and safety regulations have led to double-digit economic growth. For those who gain the most, the benefits outweigh the many hazards.
“Complain about pollution and melamine all you want, but what’s a little cancer compared to a trillion in cash reserves?” the staffer pointed out. “They’re eating our lunch. And we’re eating their lead-based products.”
According to the staffer, Romney has always embraced some aspects of Chinese culture – such as money.
“The Chinese don’t believe in big government. They believe in Big Brother. And there’s nothing more important to real Americans than family,” he added.
But Romney’s speech today threw caution to the wind, claiming America requires a firm, dashing, attractive-yet-married venture capitalist at the helm, rather than a Mao Zedong-like statesman.
“The Chinese know that too much regulation, as they painfully experienced in the 1960s, is the very worst thing that can happen to an economy,” Romney argued in Ohio, his arms hanging uncomfortably around Mrs Zhou’s two pre-teen daughters.
“If every single able-bodied man doesn’t stop waiting for handouts and start their own business immediately, hungry Americans will hunt and eat each other to extinction,” warned Romney, checking anxiously to gauge some voters’ reactions before adding, “That may not have been elegantly stated.”
PICTURE CREDIT: Lola
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