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Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

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Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#31

Post by mdemare »

coldtea wrote: post #12
Barrin92 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Milton Friedman has pointed out, the loser of protectionist policies are the countries that practice them. If China wants to subsidize its industries and sell Americans cheap goods then that is primarily an issue for the Chinese people, not for American consumers. Absorbing global manufacturing has made Americans the richest people with the highest purchasing power on the planet, has subjected American companies t…

> As Milton Friedman has pointed out, the loser of protectionist policies are the countries that practice them. Milton Friedman says that because he's a policy advisor of countries that benefit from others dropping their protectionist policies. At a certain state of development (and when you are not yet top dog to dictate what "free" trade means to other countries), you need some well balanced protectionist policies.…

Milton Friedman has been dead for 13 years.

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#32

Post by mdemare »

londons_explore wrote: post #15
zaphirplane wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South America is not a US vassals. Some of the tiny countries that were invaded have strong dependency on the US. But Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela I struggle to believe they are. Where ever did you get that idea from

Look at places holding US debt to identify vasal States. The debt is what defends the state. A coup or military takeover and that debt won't get repaid, so there is financial incentives for the US to intervene.

So, China is a U.S. vassal state?

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#33

Post by mistermann »

coldtea wrote: post #14
rgbrenner wrote: post #5

China is highly unlikely to undermine the U.S.-led global system given it has been one of its biggest beneficiaries, Balakrishnan said. They undermine it every day they refuse to allow free trade. The US and others spent a lot of resources building the free trade system of the world... and China wants the benefits of selling into that global market, while reserving their own market for themselves. Every day they are…

> They undermine it every day they refuse to allow free trade. The US and others spent a lot of resources building the free trade system of the world... I.e. the kind of trade that they dictate and call "free", creating banana republics that cut them special deals, toppling governments when they don't like their decisions, using humanitarian and development funding (even from supposedly independent sources, like the…

I think you raise a lot of valid points, the US is hardly innocent on a historic global basis.

That being said, what's your take on China's behavior specifically, do you believe they are acting in a "fair" manner? Do you believe the advantages they enjoy are all justified? (Note: for the sake of this argument only, karmic payback for US historic behavior is not considered a valid justification.)

EDIT: I'm curious why explicitly acknowledging valid points but then asking a clear and specific question (that excludes these points as they are not directly relevant to current trade with China) is being downvoted? Downvotes for disagreement are appropriate according to HN guidelines (or they used to be), but I'm not asserting anything, I am literally asking a serious question.

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#34

Post by vinay427 »

sbhn wrote: post #23
rgbrenner wrote: post #5

China is highly unlikely to undermine the U.S.-led global system given it has been one of its biggest beneficiaries, Balakrishnan said. They undermine it every day they refuse to allow free trade. The US and others spent a lot of resources building the free trade system of the world... and China wants the benefits of selling into that global market, while reserving their own market for themselves. Every day they are…

That sounds like england with brexit. Cake and eat it to

It sounds like what many in the UK thought they could get with Brexit, and not the reality of Brexit.

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#35

Post by ivanhoe »

rgbrenner wrote: post #5

China is highly unlikely to undermine the U.S.-led global system given it has been one of its biggest beneficiaries, Balakrishnan said. They undermine it every day they refuse to allow free trade. The US and others spent a lot of resources building the free trade system of the world... and China wants the benefits of selling into that global market, while reserving their own market for themselves. Every day they are…

Both US and EU have import quotas on all kinds of products from 3rd countries, there's nothing free about it, it's all highly regulated by WTO and trade agreements...

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#36

Post by arethuza »

vinay427 wrote: post #34
sbhn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like england with brexit. Cake and eat it to

It sounds like what many in the UK thought they could get with Brexit, and not the reality of Brexit.

One of the main leaders of the Leave campaign and someone who highly likely to be the next Prime Minister of the UK literally said:

"My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it."

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#37

Post by ngokevin »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #21
product50 wrote: post #10

Isn't the ball in China's court here? I am not sure what is the expectation of US in this. China has a completely closed market while at the same time they are reaping the benefits of selling in markets of other countries with no penalties. How is that fair? Also, they force companies to share their technologies/IP if they are interested in coming into Chinese markets - and then they just steal it to undercut the for…

China has done what every developing country should do (Edit: and what the likes of Japan and Korea did before them) If you open your economy when you are relatively undeveloped and weak then foreign companies will immediately occupy your economy and you can forget about creating national 'champions'. China is not a closed market but they are careful not to fall into that trap.

Yup, they've set it up so money can flow within their own system and their own economy can prosper, rather than money feeding out to Google or Facebook. Quality of life in China has exploded massively, and things like restaurant prices are reaching American prices, which is insane going back ten years.

And they remix the ideas of western tech and often improve upon it. WeChat is orders of magnitude more convenient than what the US has to offer. Everything is centralized and integrated, what Google tries to do, but adopted everywhere. Book anything, pay for anything, tap phone to pay for anything. I don't expect many places to take phone payments. In China, most everywhere can take phone payments.

Their social networks also seem to do great at getting things naturally viral. I posted a random video without any boosting and it got like 1.5K views in a day.

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#38

Post by dis-sys »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #7
thaumasiotes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how does China 'assuming its rightful place' should look in practical terms? > Allowing East Asia to become China's vassal territory? Sure, in much the same way that it was in the past, and in much the same way that all of North and South America are vassals to the United States. It is not realistic for East and even Southeast Asian countries to care more about what the US thinks than what China thinks; I don't…

East Asia is vassal to the US at the moment... I think countries like Singapore, Korea, etc do not want the US, Korea, to leave. They are between a rock and a hard place and want to balance the US and China in order not to become too dependent on one and to benefit from both. Singapore, which is quite "China-friendly" is saying exactly that. What I find interesting is that the West in general, and obviously the US in…

> Singapore, which is quite "China-friendly" is saying exactly that.

No, that is a fundamental misjudge. Singapore can be safely regarded as one of major anti China forces in the region. If you just look back several years, Singapore actually managed to got itself in the anti China side on almost every single recent major events.

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#39

Post by dx034 »

Tepix wrote: post #29
PunchTornado wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is china a closed market? germany sells plenty of cars there...

They force foreign manufacturers to create local businesses with 50% chinese share.

A necessary strategy for any developing nation. If you allow imports with no local manufacturing requirement, other nations have incentives to dump products onto your markets to increase production. Open trade only really works if both sides can see eye to eye. Otherwise the developing nation will be stuck producing cheap products with little to no added value.

Re: Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations

#40

Post by mgoetzke »

Tepix wrote: post #29
PunchTornado wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is china a closed market? germany sells plenty of cars there...

They force foreign manufacturers to create local businesses with 50% chinese share.

until Tesla came :)
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