Quote from atozcom:
Of course we want to export some of our environmentalist, lawyers and all kind of rights group to these countries to add to their cost. We want to make sure they have similar restriction on oil drilling, building dam, burn coal, clean water, clean air... They are having it easy right now. We do want to compete with them on a level playing field.
While we are getting cheap stuff from Walmart. We should be feeling very guilty about the dark side of China. The Chinese are screwing up their environment. They are polluting their air and water. They are digging everywhere for fuel and raw material. They are killing a lot of miners in thier primitive operations. They are cutting down tree. They are turning forest to desert. They are going to have a lot of problem soon. [/QUOTE]
There is no level playing field between a developed and developing Country. Hence, by forcing the rules, the scale becomes more tilted in favour of the developed nation.
Besides, when the US was building up all the infrastructure, were such rules in place? One does not need to look far away in the history. Even in the 30's, the working conditions for construction labour working on "Hoover Dan", were much abysmal than the conditions of workers in China today.