There was another debate for Democratic presidential hopefuls on December 13. This is a different one than the event I wrote that three-part series on. I’m not planning on going through each and every debate to pull out the crazy talk on China, but I did see this on the Iowa Independent site, which included statements made by Chris Dodd last Thursday:

* Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd accused the "Chinese government" of using slave labor.

Dodd: "When you have the Chinese government, as they just did, even make it more difficult for us to access even entertainment, not to mention, of course, the intellectual property theft that goes on on a daily basis; here you’re still using slave labor; you know, you manipulate your currency to give you a 40 percent advantage over our manufacturers and our people working in this country here, that’s no longer just a competitor. That’s a very different relationship."

Slave labor does exists in China, Factcheck.org found. "In June 2007, a group of parents in Shanxi Province discovered that owners of many of the region’s brick kilns were kidnapping and enslaving children, forcing them to work up to 18 hours per day. But Dodd is wrong to suggest that the Chinese government is sanctioning slavery. Nearly 35,000 police officers descended on Shanxi province, raiding more than 7,500 work places. And less than a month after the story garnered international headlines, Chinese courts had sentenced 28 overseers at the kiln to prison and ordered another executed."

Well, at least they followed up on the slave labor comment. I guess some of the other statements Dodd made were a little too complicated to "fact check", so they let those slide. Too bad the press is letting Dodd get away with that "40 percent" stat that he appears to be repeating over and over. I also think his reference to exchange rates and how they negatively impact "our manufacturers" is quite a ridiculous comment in light of the foreign-invested enterprise situation over here, but I really should not be looking for nuance in a political campaign. The candidates that can do nuance are all retired or were already beaten (e.g. John Kerry).