Romney rips Obama on China despite investments

Source: Boston Globe

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney sharpened his criticism of President Obama’s handling of China’s trade practices this week, claiming the administration was dawdling as the global power gained strength by stealing American ingenuity and artificially lowering its currency.

But the Republican presidential nominee — both during his business career and in some recent financial investments made on his behalf — has invested in Chinese manufacturing companies that use some of those same practices, according to Romney’s financial forms statements and a review of shareholder disclosure statements.

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When Romney was in charge of Bain Capital, for example, the firm invested millions in a company that manufactured household appliances using cheaper labor in Dongguan, China.

Romney also has between $500,000 and $1 million invested in a Bain Capital fund that has been used to purchase shares of GOME, a Chinese electronics company, according to the financial disclosure form Romney filed in June. That company — in which Bain has been one of the largest outside shareholders — is being sued by Microsoft Corp. for selling computers with pirated versions of its Windows and Office software.

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Read more: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/09/14/mitt-romney-faults-president-obama-for-jobs-lost-china-but-gop-candidate-investments-include-chinese-manufacturer/EbgpCQi1UscTtiBTs6eMSK/story.html

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That Chinese company manufacturing appliances in Dongguan is apparently Global Tech Appliances (it isn't completely clear from the article when Global Tech is mentioned later, but the company is located in Dongguan). Romney was the sole shareholder, director, and controlling person of Brookside Capital, a Bain affiliate that acquired 6% of Global Tech in 1998.

The Globe article says that "Romney appeared to reference the Global Tech investment in a video that appeared on YouTube about three weeks ago." This was the video, shot surreptitiously and purportedly at a fundraiser, where Romney talked about the factory he'd bought in China, which employed 20,000 young women working for a pittance and sleeping 12 to a room in dormitories.

The Globe explains that besides those horrendous working conditions existing at Global Tech, the company was successfully sued for millions in the US by a French manufacturer whose patented deep-fat fryers had been copied illegally.

In Fairfax VA on Thursday, Romney criticized China for stealing patents.