Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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The Washington Post had a front page article touting the growth of investment by Chinese firms in the United States as a way of creating jobs. In fact, as the chart accompanying the article shows, the vast majority of the investment involves buying up existing firms. In most cases, this will not create any jobs.
The amount of new investment has averaged less than $1 billion a year. This is less than 0.5 percent of the U.S. trade deficit with China and not the sort of economic development that would ordinarily merit a front page article.