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

nytimes.com

321–330 of 385 posts

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

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man i am from India, at the same time you gotta call a spade a spade. US has been too liberal and gave a leeway to everyone to export goods to US without any tariffs. But every country Including my own puts a import tax on goods imported from the US. This isnt fair business, and US has actually lost a lot of money trying to be the leader in fair trade practice and globalisation. Other countries are just plain stealin…

US promoted free trade after WWII, when it was the last man standing and the only manufacturer. Free trade meant "we sell made in America all around the world". Leading by example meant opening their market, at no cost since nobody was in a position to export. The rationale was "open your markets as we do, and we will all get richer". But the real intent was to foster the dominance of American manufacturing So we did…

That isnt true. The countries that participated in the WW-II had industrial capability which is why European nations and Japan were the first to participate in free trade.

Germany and Japan were almost totalled but it took them just a decade to comeback because they still had the weapons factories which they repurposed to produce goods.

> .. painfully opening markets for 70 years, and slowly, by finding cracks in the system ..

Developing nations real problem was their protectionism. When India opened up its markets in 1991 it has seen a lot of progress compared to the previous time. Competition is fair practice, it forces people to produce better quality products or unique goods where they can compete in. India found its strengths and weaknesses so did China. The point is to compete with strength and weakness both, Not to compete on strengths alone. because if you do that others will do the same. This is what trump is doing now, protecting its weaknesses as China and India does.

> This is what is causing problems in the US, by losing jobs ..

US does not have a job problem, the current unemployment is 3%, which is the lowest in a century in American job markets.

> Basically, now that the world is starting to benefit from globalisation ...

US has always benefited from globalisation for being the market innovator, US invented so many things in the last 100 yrs that is indispensable to the rest of the world. For instance Semiconductors, Telephone, Mobile Phone, Television, Light Bulb , Internet, Airplane, Satellite communication. What has china and India invented in the last 100 yrs? The best way to compete is invention and innovation, ofcourse for some the pace will be different than others. China has a lot of funds now what invention comes out of Chinese labs? They are still involved in espionage in US companies so many Chinese spies have been caught in the last 10 yrs itself. I dont think chinese manufacturing has the gall to compete on fair grounds because if they do they should lift import tariffs on everything. Trump too will remove all the tariffs. It is that simple.

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

#322
We are running into a problem here: how do you kill a parasite without killing the host? The US is not an export economy, it produces very little tangible goods. Its a very insular economy that because of its superpower history has deeply spread its cancer cells across the global economy. How do you fight it?

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

#323

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…

>And we have not yet started talking about the weaponizing of the dollar, which can be recently seen in the conflict with Iran. Not just with Iran, but everywhere. Most people do not realize the monopoly of USD in banking transactions. Essentially US can pass laws or even through executive order control the economic and trade policy of other countries. Turkey and India are barred from buying Russian equipments. This…

Interesting, and related to the Iranian Oil Bourse [1], which was supposed to trade in Euros, among other currencies.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse

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

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IP laws have been written by the US, for the US, and its terms keep on changing to continue protecting US interests. The IP laws should be a trade-off: temporary protection of inventors / creators, so that progress happens and consumers get a good deal. Instead, HN is already aware how IP laws get abused. The effects of those abuses are felt largely outside the US: it allows the US to foster its economic and cult…

"The IP laws have been written by the US, for the US, and its terms keep on changing to continue protecting US interests." What? The US has only written IP laws in it's own jurisdiction. Europe, and other nations definitely write their own laws. Nations make agreements with each other for their own benefit, for example, there is an IP section within the WTO. If China, or anyone else, thinks they are better of without…

Come on, we all know how the US has asserted itself internationally. Napster, Mega, the list is endless.

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

#325
I have been asking around if anyone has seen tariff effects yet. So far very little. I have noticed that can soda pop prices have increased about ten cents a can after being stable most of this century. An acquaintance who owns a family farm said the bottom fell out of soybeans- one of the Big Three crops in the US. No one is buying so farmers are putting into storage.

My guess is the traditional Black Friday bargains wont look that good this year due to the tax-everything-from-China policy. Then maybe the US consumer could wake up. The rightwing fake news will blame it on Democrats of course.

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

#326
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Trump is doing everything he can to undermine and destroy every vestige of a rules based independently arbitrated global trade system" I'm sorry but China is flagrantly violating so many of it's own agreements. The IP agreements of the WTO for one. There would be little fuss if China was sticking to it's own agreements.

You're out of date, a lot of that is in the past. They've still got a way to go, but they've been rapidly cleaning up their act, largely because so many Chinese companies are developing their own IP. They are doing what the US did. Rip of European IP until they had IP based industries of their own then get religious about it.

You couldnt be farther from the truth. US ripping off European IP? Almost all of the IP in semiconductors in US based not european, yet EU pays nothing by means of producing satellite communication equipments. Name a thing that US ripped from EU?

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

#327
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're out of date, a lot of that is in the past. They've still got a way to go, but they've been rapidly cleaning up their act, largely because so many Chinese companies are developing their own IP. They are doing what the US did. Rip of European IP until they had IP based industries of their own then get religious about it.

You couldnt be farther from the truth. US ripping off European IP? Almost all of the IP in semiconductors in US based not european, yet EU pays nothing by means of producing satellite communication equipments. Name a thing that US ripped from EU?

I think the commenter is referring to further back, i.e. grabbing German Engineers and all that tech maybe?

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

#328
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're out of date, a lot of that is in the past. They've still got a way to go, but they've been rapidly cleaning up their act, largely because so many Chinese companies are developing their own IP. They are doing what the US did. Rip of European IP until they had IP based industries of their own then get religious about it.

You couldnt be farther from the truth. US ripping off European IP? Almost all of the IP in semiconductors in US based not european, yet EU pays nothing by means of producing satellite communication equipments. Name a thing that US ripped from EU?

"Name a thing that US ripped from EU?"

How about 46.000 patents, as a start? https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

By the way, Europe is not the same as the EU :-)

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

#329

I initially used to think China might have more leverage against any potential trade war agains the US, as: 1. The Chinese had option of imposing high tariffs on politically significant US agricultural products, like soyabean, which are not very large in $ value, but affect a lot of areas. 2. Since some swing states are highly influential in US elections, the Chinese always had the option of imposing tariffs which im…

> Now reading this article, it seems being a predominantly export driven economy and having a huge trade surplus with the US, the Chinese don't really have that much leverage.

You shouldn't be basing your opinion on opinion news articles. Just 2 years ago, the nytimes was telling us the world was headed to economic armageddon with no end in sight. Look at us now.

One day the news tells you Trump is going to start ww3 with china and the next you'd think china is weak and have to submit to Trump's demand.

> Both of these thoughts arose from the fact that as a democratic country, the US would have to take into account both short and long term trade prospects.

If that was the case, we wouldn't have the rust belt. We wouldn't have the collapse of detroit. We wouldn't have NAFTA or trade with China. Most americans were never for lopsided trade with china or mexico or even canada. I think foreigners have an idealized view of the US, democracy and how things work.

Trade with china for the last 40 years was basically "wage arbitrage" ( which some might call exploitation of cheap chinese labor ). US corporations moved production to china to use the abundant and cheap labor. The reason why we didn't have tariffs on "chinese" imports is because most "chinese" imports to the US are actually american goods. Or it's a sino-american partnership/company. This is why Trump is getting so much backlash from corporate america. The tariffs hurt american goods.

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

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IP laws have been written by the US, for the US, and its terms keep on changing to continue protecting US interests. The IP laws should be a trade-off: temporary protection of inventors / creators, so that progress happens and consumers get a good deal. Instead, HN is already aware how IP laws get abused. The effects of those abuses are felt largely outside the US: it allows the US to foster its economic and cult…

I advise you to reflect on the bias of your own view points. China has been pulling the same bullying tactics towards EU and S.Korea/Japan as well. IP transfer, forced partnership, etc. Notice how EU, South Korea and Japan haven't really been opposing this ordeal between China and US? They would also like to see China start playing fair, unfortunately there is very few economies can standup to China right now. China…

The US did initially include the European Union in this trade war, but when the EU threatened to respond with a import levies that affected Harley Davidson motorbikes manufactured in a Republican-voting state, the US backed down [1].

Chinese media (and social media particularly) does regularly cover stories about Chinese people outside of China involved in situations such as these, whether it's a high-profile business figure [2], or ordinary Chinese people involved in non-ordinary conflicts. Including the narrative that Chinese people don't get justice or support from local police when they are victims to criminal activity, that's regularly reported in Chinese media.

UK media does the same thing, any disaster always has a mention of how many British citizens are involved, sometimes who they are. And a regular diet of outrage of British tourists coming face-to-face with the legal consequences of their behaviour across the world.

Brexit revelations shows me that China trades using WTO rules with Europe. There does seem to be movement on that front too. [3], [4]

Though, with trade arrangement with WTO rule, it's worth asking why US aren't resolving their dispute within the WTO. We shouldn't glorify bullies, even if they are bullying other bullies.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43926092 [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hna-chairman/chinas-hna-c... [3] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-eu/eu-pushes-china-o... [4] https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-china-eu-trade-...

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