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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

#81

Post by baybal2 »

nailer wrote: post #53

As someone who watches the very unusual moderation of China-critical comments on HN (+3 one moment, -3 a few hours later) I'm wary of a political piece praising China hitting #1 on HN. I also don't see the value of Singapore - which is openly anti democratic ( https://www.huffpost.com/entry/singapore-challenges-democrac... ) providing advice here - as the same concerns about authoritarian corruption that apply to Chi…

I think it is very polarised topic.

I noticed a pattern few month ago: you have a lot of bashing during East coast morning hours, followed by much more conciliatory toned wave of comments few hours after, when East coast wakes up.

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

#82

Post by teknologist »

ngokevin wrote: post #37
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I would just like to say that contactless chip cards are ubiquitous, do not require a battery, are more secure (no reliance on QR codes) and have been around for years in the West.

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

#83

Post by infinity0 »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #77
infinity0 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I'm not about to be censored by people downvoting my comments without explanation. I think the downvoting mechanic on HN is stupid. Of course what I said is an oversimplification. It's meant to directly make you question your deep underlying assumptions, and your own oversimplifications. The government has a lot of power on paper both now and historically. Yet despite this, rebellions have still occurred regular…

Fair enough, FWIW I didn't even downvote you, I also prefer discussion. > It's meant to directly make you question your deep underlying assumptions "Deep underlying" being code for being made up by you on the spot? > The government has a lot of power on paper both now and historically. Yet despite this, rebellions have still occurred regularly The last time 1949? So, not since modern, industrialized totalitarianism t…

> They already are causing Western media to censor themselves even on sites blocked in China.

This isn't on the same scale as "enforce their will on the world", and nowhere near US-levels of "enforce their will". (Not justifying this sort of action however.)

My point is you and the earlier poster are happy to extrapolate small events into big ones in a way that doesn't match the historical record. The officials of the Chinese government are not stupid and can't go too far from public opinion, which is generally more principled that you (and other US-centric "analysers") give them credit for, being too focused on the laws and ignoring many "facts on the ground". (Not implying rule-of-law is a bad thing.)

> being German,

Germany has been under US influence since 1945, so my saying your analysis is US-centric is not too far off the mark. There are differences and also similarities.

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

#84

Post by dalbasal »

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…

I agree on the market access point, to an extent. There an assymetry that can't stand forever, given the size of China's economy today. But, free trade has never really been free. There are tons and tons of caveats, exceptions, special rules and bad faith. So, I think it's misleading to represent china as "closed" and other countries as "open."

On the second point, I disagree.

IP is not some basic, natural law. It's a relatively recent invention, ostensibly invented to promote certain economic incentives. Why is china morally obligated to respect it?

At any given point in time, the biggest effect of an IP system is how it affects the current portfolio of patents & copyrights. That's what tends to dictate the rules. When copyright law is updated, it's the impact on Disney's IP asset portfolio that's considered... not future works that will be created. It's a similar dynamic for patents.

Why should china (or any country) have to subscribe to an IP system under which they don't own as many patents.

Meanwhile, the benefits of a patent system are contraversial, even dubious (imho). Lots of intelligent peoe think they do more harm than good. The billions spent by tech companies on patent lawyers are a case-in-poiny.

I do not think we (globally) are best served by a global IP monolith. This is one area where we can benefit from a diversity of rules.

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

#85

Post by baybal2 »

wallace_f wrote: post #68
thefounder wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure and how is that Huawei ended up being banned without due process? Europeans are not sparred either using the Justice Department or a straight out tariff(i.e steel, cars etc) https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ax5hwm/economic_war...

True. And every US company is by default basically banned from China unless they want to let you in.

I wonder, how they will sing if Xi will get angry for real this time and call for something like blanket ban on exports to US.

If you think of China as a rational player who can be "mindgamed around" take in mind that Xi has goood record of shooting himself in the foot politically, which he has been doing consistently through his reign.

Americans have really have nothing to mentally reference when dealing with this type of person — USA never had real hereditary nobility. You are dealing somebody much more of a medieval lord than a nation leader.

Think if a person who own a giant company as a proprietorship vs. a CEO of public corporation with a lot of vigilant investors.

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

#86

Post by sgift »

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.…

> The US itself rose thanks to its protectionist policies. Britain too -- as did all others major powers when it served them well.

Same with copying from others. Germany was famous for cheap, bad knock-offs of British products in the 19th century. That's the origin of "Made in Germany". And it seems China follows the exact same path. First the knock-offs were bad and people laughed. Then they got comparable in quality for a cheaper price, people started using them and companies grumbled. And then China started to lead in some areas and now the "established" players are in full panic mode and try to block Chinese companies (e.g. Huawei).

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

#87

Post by scrape_it »

nailer wrote: post #53

As someone who watches the very unusual moderation of China-critical comments on HN (+3 one moment, -3 a few hours later) I'm wary of a political piece praising China hitting #1 on HN. I also don't see the value of Singapore - which is openly anti democratic ( https://www.huffpost.com/entry/singapore-challenges-democrac... ) providing advice here - as the same concerns about authoritarian corruption that apply to Chi…

> As someone who watches the very unusual moderation of China-critical comments on HN (+3 one moment, -3 a few hours later) I'm wary of a political piece praising China hitting #1 on HN.

So im not crazy for noticing this...im also highly concerned that HN may not have appropriate vote manipulation filter, and that much of what we read on the front page are increasingly engineered.....

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

#88

Post by majia »

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…

> Confronting China on this today is the US asking China not to undermine the global system that has helped enrich China.

Unfortunately, to the current US administration, confronting China is not a means to change China's behavior for better, but an end itself.

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

#89

Post by njepa »

teknologist wrote: post #82
ngokevin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I would just like to say that contactless chip cards are ubiquitous, do not require a battery, are more secure (no reliance on QR codes) and have been around for years in the West.

It isn't the same thing by any means, and doesn't really offer much over cards other than a slight improvement in convenience. Mobile payments in China are essentially peer-to-peer and universal. The closest equivalent is probably something like MobilePay or Swish, but that isn't as good or as widespread.

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

#90

Post by PavlovsCat »

infinity0 wrote: post #83
PavlovsCat wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, FWIW I didn't even downvote you, I also prefer discussion. > It's meant to directly make you question your deep underlying assumptions "Deep underlying" being code for being made up by you on the spot? > The government has a lot of power on paper both now and historically. Yet despite this, rebellions have still occurred regularly The last time 1949? So, not since modern, industrialized totalitarianism t…

> They already are causing Western media to censor themselves even on sites blocked in China. This isn't on the same scale as "enforce their will on the world", and nowhere near US-levels of "enforce their will". (Not justifying this sort of action however.) My point is you and the earlier poster are happy to extrapolate small events into big ones in a way that doesn't match the historical record. The officials of th…

> The officials of the Chinese government are not stupid and can't go too far from public opinion

Mercedes Benz apologized profusely. If the CCP will have their way, their murders will never have happened. The same is not true for the US, not even remotely. If that was the case, Noam Chomsky and others would have been murdered in the 70s or something. But here he is, one of the most prolific intellectuals. He gets smeared a lot, but there is still a giant difference.

That vimeo video you don't seem to be able to comment on directly is evidence of a very principled public opinion indeed, principled by fear, as a result of torture and murder.

> Germany has been under US influence since 1945, so my saying your analysis is US-centric is not too far off the mark.

More importantly, "saying your analysis is US-centric" means nothing. It's not a concrete criticism of anything I said. Your whole argument seems to be the US is worse, so how am I the US-centric one? All I'm hearing is, you're using one set of tyrants and murderers, US aggression and world influence, to justify another sets of tyrants and murderers, while saying "not justifying it however".

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