These days’ people in the United States, including many Christians, speak with alarm at the prospect of American jobs going "offshore" to Asian nations, particularly China and India. U.S. companies are now outsourcing hundreds of thousands tasks to labor pools in these two nations. They do this for the simple reason that they can pay workers in such places less than they can here at home where Americans expect higher wages. They also do it because advances in telecommunications have now made it possible to use cheaper Chinese and Indian laborers in telephone help-centers to deal with American consumers with questions. This is in addition to the many manufacturing jobs already transferred offshore during the last two decades.

It is no doubt true that some Americans have lost their jobs to Asians (although it is arguable that millions of new types of jobs have been created in America during the generally sustained economic growth we have experienced since the early 1980’s). The question is what should be the response of American Christians to these trends? It may be that we are called to look beyond the calculus of economic self-interest in this issue and the reason is rooted in two things, the imperative to help the poor that is a strong theme of the New Testament and the Christian principle of sowing peace between nations when possible.

Close to half of the population of the planet lives in the two nations in question. Extreme poverty has haunted both, especially India whose slums have been the source of some of the most disturbing photos of human want recorded in modern times. While China is well ahead of India in standard of living it was not that long ago, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s, that famine killed hundreds of thousands in the land of the dragon. But in both countries the ranks of the very poor are starting to thin significantly and the reason is economic development. As market Capitalism has been on the march globally China and India have become the standard bearers of the economic miracle such Capitalism is capable of producing. What we are now seeing in the double-digit GNP growth of these nations is the rise of a well-fed, well-housed and well-educated middle-class. Poverty has become a thing of the past for hundreds of millions of people.

At this point some might raise the specter of a politically repressive country like China being allowed to become an economic superpower. What must be remembered, however, is that rising standards of living have been matched with rising awareness of Western political values. History has shown that Capitalism works best within the framework of liberal democracy. Who is to say that the goals of the failed democratic movement in China during the late 1980’s will not be bloodlessly accomplished sometime in the 21^st century through the natural tendency of economic development to spur political reform?

Beyond this it is better to battle economically than militarily. Over the past 35 years the U.S. has been challenged by the strong market competition coming from its one-time military foes, Japan and Germany, but isn’t it better to be competing that way than shooting at each other? It is also a truism that America has in many ways benefited by international economic competition. We have become more productive out of necessity and that is a good thing. With both China and India now possessing nuclear weapons it is infinitely better that we compete in the marketplace than on the battlefield and nations that have a huge stake in the American market are unlikely to want to destroy the goose that lays a good deal of their golden eggs.

So for both reasons, the elimination of a large chunk of global poverty and the prospect of keeping national rivalries peacefully economic in nature, it behooves the followers of Christ in America to think carefully about the ramifications of taking an isolationist and protectionist stance in the debate about Asian outsourcing. Our interests are not necessarily the same as those who want to protect traditional American jobs at any cost. We must take an interest in the wellbeing of all people in every nation for Christ himself had this universal interest. Misguided economic nationalism may well not be conducive to His concerns becoming our own.