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

nytimes.com

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

#261

Post by dis-sys »

abandonliberty wrote: post #258
dis-sys wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With all of the talk of how China is or is not playing fair, I feel like their internet bans get taken for granted, and I wish there was more pressure to play fairly there. In a fair environment, you'd be seeing Facebook/Google/Twitter used by hundreds of millions Chinese when most Americans paying their bills using Alipay and talk to their friends using WeChat. US dominance in tech is _NOT_ something called fair.

what's blocking WeChat?

WeChat is not blocked, just like a long list of US internet services not blocked in China - Amazon, NH, booking.com, ebay, uber, airbnb, expedia and many more.

That being said, Huawei and Alipay's expansion into the US has been repeatedly blocked by the US federal government [1]. By citing the same national security concerns, using such logic, Cisco and Microsoft should have long been banned in China - but they are not, both are making good $ in China.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-moneygram-intl-m-a-ant-fi...

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

#262

Post by teknologist »

gonvaled wrote: post #74

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…

> The Chinese, the Europeans, all countries have equally fair, if not fairer, demands, which must be respected.

So when Chinese consumers have to pay a 25%+ "foreign goods tax" on things made in China and bought in China you'd say that's fair would you?

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

#263

Post by simonh »

jayalpha wrote: post #253
gonvaled wrote: post #74

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…

The Chinese cheat all the time. - high subsidiaries for their exports - blind eye on IP theft - forced technology transfer - closed market for many industries and services - forced "joint ventures" for certain industries - legal system the favors Chinese companies - systematic attack on western industries Feel free to ask and I will give specific examples. Based on the kind of business relationship of the US and Chin…

I’m sure you are right that the Chinese cheat, but a fair and equitable free trade system must be based on rules and independent arbitration. Trump is doing everything he can to undermine and destroy every vestige of a rules based independently arbitrated global trade system. His policies are explicitly stated to be purely in US interests only, by him personally. That’s not the basis for a free trade system.

Finger pointing at China doesn’t excuse any of this, even Trump’s policies against China, on the basis of free trade.

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

#264

Post by teknologist »

jayalpha wrote: post #253
gonvaled wrote: post #74

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…

The Chinese cheat all the time. - high subsidiaries for their exports - blind eye on IP theft - forced technology transfer - closed market for many industries and services - forced "joint ventures" for certain industries - legal system the favors Chinese companies - systematic attack on western industries Feel free to ask and I will give specific examples. Based on the kind of business relationship of the US and Chin…

Another point is that companies manufacturing products in China can get tax deductions by hiring Chinese workers. Essentially rewarding companies for the exploitation of low paid workers and making the company more dependent on Chinese labour. It makes the threat of "do this for us or we'll shut down your China operations" that much more impactful.

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

#265

Post by learc83 »

cuboidGoat wrote: post #246
learc83 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The main selling point of the EU is that it is literally a single market. The EU is legally a single market, but culturaly and linguistically it's not.

The same is also true of the USA.

92% of the US speaks English proficiently and 80% primarily. Cultural differences across the US are miniscule compared to the differences between EU countries.

Turn on a TV in NYC and in North Dakota, the vast majority of the content is exactly the same. The only differences are local news and advertising for local businesses.

Turn on a TV in France and Poland for comparison.

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

#266

Post by teknologist »

chmod775 wrote: post #179
joefranklinsrs wrote: post #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…

Even though the US are China's biggest trading partner, US trade "only" accounts for about ~18% of China's total trade. China is still trading with other countries. While it may take a hit from US companies pulling some manufacturing out of China, some of those will be replaced by other - both Chinese and foreign - companies. Especially other foreign companies operating in China will profit from reduced competition f…

> The US will have to bootstrap a lot of manufacturing to replace Chinese labor.

Just abandon the H1B program and make it easier for foreign labour to come in to do the work. Problem solved.

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

#267

Post by teknologist »

dis-sys wrote: post #252
lacker wrote: post #144

One of the things that seems the most unfair to me about global trade is that for many American internet companies, China just totally bans them. Everything from Facebook and Google to smaller players gets hit by the great firewall. That is way more impactful than a tariff of 5% or 25%. With all of the talk of how China is or is not playing fair, I feel like their internet bans get taken for granted, and I wish there…

> With all of the talk of how China is or is not playing fair, I feel like their internet bans get taken for granted, and I wish there was more pressure to play fairly there. In a fair environment, you'd be seeing Facebook/Google/Twitter used by hundreds of millions Chinese when most Americans paying their bills using Alipay and talk to their friends using WeChat. US dominance in tech is _NOT_ something called fair.

This is an amusing point of view. WeChat is really the worst messenger out there from a technical standpoint. No attempt encryption at all (who knows if they even use SSL?) and the stickers and social networking features still resemble 1st gen. messenger apps

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

#268

Post by teknologist »

dis-sys wrote: post #261
abandonliberty wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's blocking WeChat?

WeChat is not blocked, just like a long list of US internet services not blocked in China - Amazon, NH, booking.com, ebay, uber, airbnb, expedia and many more. That being said, Huawei and Alipay's expansion into the US has been repeatedly blocked by the US federal government [1]. By citing the same national security concerns, using such logic, Cisco and Microsoft should have long been banned in China - but they are n…

Those companies had to obtain ICP licenses and participate in forced partnerships and open up their servers to the government.

Your claim of fairness here is simply quite laughable

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

#269

Post by cromwellian »

What would happen if say, Foxconn no longer assembled phones? How would Apple, for example, recover their supply in any reasonable time? You can't just spin up that capability overnight.

Seemed to me that if China wanted to amp this up and play hardball, they could just give Tim Cook a phone call and tell him they won't be making iPhones anymore. Estimates I've seen is that about 40% of Foxconn is Apple products. They could probably replace this demand with more Japanese/Korean/Domestic IHVs, combined with banning domestic sale of iPhones and accelerating the marketshare loss that's been ongoing.

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

#270

Post by dang »

NathanCH wrote: post #166
gricardo99 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly even at step 1. How many companies have 40-60% of their supply chain in the US? I would guess very few.

I mean, it doesn't have to be order numnuts

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