The website www.chinaview.cn reports that Wal-Mart, the “Made in America” company, will hold a board meeting in China. It’s about time Wal-Mart thank the Chinese up close for all those goods they import. According to chinaview.cn, “The meeting will be held in Shenzhen City in south China’s Guangdong Province. Walmart opened its first retail store in the Chinese mainland in 1996.” The news agency claims Rob Walton, chairman of Walmart, and son of Sam, selected China because of its “importance to the US-based retailing giant, because China has been for many years a major supplier of good quality goods and now is a market with great potential.” The Chinese news agency says Wal-Mart now has 35 stores in China, of which 30 are supercenters, and 18,000 workers.
It makes great sense to put Wal-Mart stores in China. That way, when Wal-Mart buys tons of cheap Chinese goods, it doesn’t have to import those goods to America, it can just pump the Chinese products in the back door, and sell them out the front door to the same Chinese workers who made them. In fact, if Wal-Mart opened nothing but Chinese stores, the company could cut out the American middle market, and just make its profits off the Chinese, which would greatly help our foreign trade deficit. Rob Walton reportedly said that he wanted his board to see first hand the Chinese market. But Wal-Mart board members don’t have to travel thousands of miles to see Chinese products. They just have to stop by their local Wal-Mart, where they will see more Chinese goods than in any other American merchant. Wal-Mart’s taste for Chinese take out is legendary. The company takes more Chinese products out of the country than any retailer in the world, and accounts for roughly 10% of our record-setting foreign trade deficit with China.