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China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

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Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#121
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our "trade war" with Canada is a proxy trade war with China. Our "trade war" with Europe is, to a much more limited degree, a proxy trade war with China. A big part of the rationale with all of these little trade wars is to make China stand alone on the global stage, so that they are more easily negotiated with. A secondary effect is to eliminate "Made in $country" goods that are 90% manufactured in China and finishe…

That doesn't make much sense at all. Ruining goodwill and relationships (and of course trade) with YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ALLIES is certainly not just proxy economic warfare. The EU economy as a whole is bigger than either China or the US. Don't try to find a logic when there clearly is none. Trade war with EU and Canada might be the most unhelpful thing Trump has done.

You're providing an emotional response to a logical appeal.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#122
post #97

Time is on China's side. The US can throw a tantrum all they want. They should play a long game. There is no benefit for them in retaliating to hurt the US as long as it does not cause issues in domestic politics. They should focus on not getting hurt too much and let time do the rest.

I haven't fully through this through, but at a naive level it seems to me like the U.S. has the upper hand. Less trade between the two countries means U.S. consumers pay higher prices on non-essential items. But the impact on the Chinese is much more significant: people will lose jobs.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#123
post #114
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US would need to implement tarrifs of several hundred percent to make a difference. A 20% tariff China can just make a small change to the price of their currency and ride it out. An article today has a quote from Jack Ma that he thinks this trade war will last 20 years. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/alibaba-stoc...

It can't last that long. Eventually the disputes will reach a WTO tribunal, at which point both sides will either need to acquiesce, or risk going it alone outside the WTO system, or perhaps destroy the WTO altogether. U.S. conservatives love bilateral trade deals, but that's only because most trade occurs through the WTO system, making bilateral negotiations tractable. If either the U.S. or China lost the benefit of…

Trump wants an excuse to pull out of the WTO.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#124

Extremely one sided comments, with a US centric view. The world is not the US, and HN readers are not only US citizens, so let me express a different point of view. Assumption: Trump wants fair trade. HN readers want fair trade. What is needed: fair trading rules, fair IP rules, fair capital structures, and a fair currency. Tackling some of the unfair trade practices does not address all those issues. In particular i…

There are some real grievances where China is not playing fair - forced partnerships, cheap loans for state-backed companies, etc. Lots of empty promises each year with no change to the rules and approaches. So while I think trump is insane and his policies are mostly harmful to both his country and the remainder of the world, pointing out the false pretences and pretend-market-economy of China is definitely not the…

Believe me, Trump doesn't want "Fair trade" when your slogan is "Make America Great Again".

Corporate America's welfare is around 100 billion as said by many rather partisan think tanks... but in reality, its trillions of dollars when you figure in realized costs such as below poverty level minimum wages, the collapse of pension and retirement programs, the exploding costs of for-profit healthcare.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#125
post #123
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't last that long. Eventually the disputes will reach a WTO tribunal, at which point both sides will either need to acquiesce, or risk going it alone outside the WTO system, or perhaps destroy the WTO altogether. U.S. conservatives love bilateral trade deals, but that's only because most trade occurs through the WTO system, making bilateral negotiations tractable. If either the U.S. or China lost the benefit of…

Trump wants an excuse to pull out of the WTO.

What Trump wants is "a win", which is an extremely subjective assessment on his part and doesn't even necessarily require any material change in position. Everything else is a means to that end, including the endless posturing and 1980s Wall Street-style hardball tactics.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#126

Extremely one sided comments, with a US centric view. The world is not the US, and HN readers are not only US citizens, so let me express a different point of view. Assumption: Trump wants fair trade. HN readers want fair trade. What is needed: fair trading rules, fair IP rules, fair capital structures, and a fair currency. Tackling some of the unfair trade practices does not address all those issues. In particular i…

To be fair, China doesn't really want "fair" trade either. China would like to become a high-tech autarky dominating modern global supply chains [1], is very happy to throw its economic weight around to punish countries for doing things it doesn't like [2][3], and has a habit of playing by international rules only when it suits them (America isn't great on this point either) [3][4].

1. https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-does-everyone-hate-made-china-2...

2. https://qz.com/1000541/norway-wants-china-to-forget-about-th...

3. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/asia/china...

4. https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/u-s-china-relations-the-hypo...

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won’t lose more than China does, but we’re still going to lose a fair amount of wealth and standard of living.

How so? As it is the only people who's standard of living has been rising in the past 30 years has been those at the top while the middle class etc. continue to lose ground.

As a counterpoint, poor people are the ones who benefit from everyday low prices at Walmart.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#128
This actually looks like the start of the disentanglement between the US economy and the Chinese economy. What will likely happens next (my best guess) is

1.) 40-60 percent of a company’s supply chain moves out of China

2.) China restricting the movement of capital/equipments out of China (similar to what happened with Korean companies last year)

3.) China growing homebrew competitors to the foreign companies leaving, part of the ‘made in 2025 in China’ strategy, via state enterprises or state spendings in startups. China will also make US companies’ operation in China very hard, either with license restrictions, or increased local ownership.

4.) China will disincentivize Chinese consumers from purchasing US (or foreign) products, via propaganda, taxes, or control (similar to what happened with Japanese and Korean products last few years). This would be hard, as Chinese consumers prefer higher quality, higher brand value, and higher perceived value foreign products.

5.) China will have to target US farmers with tariffs, as there isn’t much US imports to tax otherwise. Plus, there is also face saving.

6.) US will increase the tariff coverage to all Chinese imports, either triggered by tariffs on US farmers, or threats to US companies.

7.) China local governments will try to seize US owned corporate assets, or prevent factories from shutting down by its owners. This will escalate the urgency for US companies to move out of China.

8.) 70-100% of company’s supply line will be out of China

9.) Eventually, most direct trades between both countries shrink down to less than $50B. Down to a significant level where it starts to effect GDP for both countries (China way more than US)

10.) China will have no choice but to embrace its lost decade, ala Japan. It will tighten controls on its citizens. It will try to contain high inflation and high unemployment rate. It will try to unwind its debt for the next 10-20 years. Its gdp growth will go towards 0 or negative. Its GDP will shrink 20-30%.

(posted this in another thread but didn't get any discussion)

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#129
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manufacturing ecosystem in Shenzhen (for example) is unique. Any individual element of it is probably replaceable (at a considerable cost), but the presence of all those elements in the same place is not. The agglomeration benefits of this are HUGE, and losing them would introduce a thousand small frictions into the manufacturing process. Issues that can be sorted out in hours or days in Shenzhen (finding alterna…

This is a commonly espoused narrative. I’m sure there were synergies in steel and auto production in US cities connected by rail between Pennsylvania and Michigan. I’d say the key misunderstanding is that you’re conflating China with “markets” in “it took China roughly two decades to build this kind of ecosystem.” If you read it as, “Markets took two decades to build this kind of ecosystem,” it should be clear that t…

The Shenzhen special sauce is the high density of complimentary industries and specialized workforce.

It's certainly possible to replicate, but history has shown that it can be difficult. It would be like trying to supplant Hollywood.

Re: China Once Looked Tough on Trade. Now Its Options Are Dwindling

#130
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trade war is you and your buddy alternately shooting yourselves in the foot.

If your running a trade deficit how exactly are you shooting yourself in the foot?

Running a trade deficit doesn't inherently mean you are losing utility from the trade. Your trade deficit with Walmart (or Costco, or whatever) is negative but both of you gained from the trade. China cheats, and there is no doubt in that; but I am not convinced that US's trade deficit is purely or even mostly a result of that.
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