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Can One Live without China?

Is there anything these days which hasn't been made in China? It would seem not!

FP [Foreign Policy] posed the question:

"Is it possible to go for a whole year without buying any products made in China? One woman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, wanted to find out. FP spoke with author Sara Bongiorni about her new book, the hidden role China plays in our everyday lives, and what it’s like to be a mother of two without a coffee maker."

FOREIGN POLICY: So first, tell us about your book, A Year Without “Made in China”. What motivated you to write it?

Sara Bongiorni: I used to be a business reporter, and I would see this trade data coming from the U.S. Commerce Department each month. You see billions and billions of dollars worth coming in, and you can’t really make sense of it. It’s just so huge, and I felt very disconnected from that information.

So then this impromptu idea just popped into my head. It was two days after Christmas at the end of 2004, and my husband and I were in the living room. There were still holiday presents and toys just strewn across the floor. I started going through them a little bit, and I realized that most of our Christmas gifts came from China. And as I looked around the house, I thought, “Well gosh, most of the other stuff’s from China, too!”

I wanted to see if it was possible for us to avoid buying anything made in China for a year. So, I turned to my husband and said, “Hey, do you want to try this?” And he was like, “Absolutely not. That’s a terrible idea.” I twisted his arm, tried to make it sound fun, and convinced him that we should try this as a kind of experiment. So, on January 1, 2005, we kicked off this year-long—I use the word—“boycott,” but it’s not a political book; it’s not a China-bashing book or a protectionist book. It’s very much a personal story, an attempt to understand our family’s connections to the global economy.

FP: Was it difficult to find out what was made in China?

SB: It was very difficult! And what I found was that there’s just really no way to live what would be considered an ordinary consumer life without a heavy reliance on merchandise from China. It really upended our lives."

Read the full piece here.

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