Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US assassinates its own citizens without trial occasionally. Don't judge by the anomalies, judge by the everyday life for regular people.
US police are the 6th leading cause of African American deaths. I watched an HK detainee get tortured in a hospital in horror, then remembered we kill thousands of unarmed people every couple years without any trial (many of whom are innocent) and 50-60% of victims are either mentally or physically disabled in some way. Many of them get tortured in similar ways if they make it to prison. In a different framing, the U…
Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
81–90 of 99 posts
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US assassinates its own citizens without trial occasionally. Don't judge by the anomalies, judge by the everyday life for regular people.
US police are the 6th leading cause of African American deaths. I watched an HK detainee get tortured in a hospital in horror, then remembered we kill thousands of unarmed people every couple years without any trial (many of whom are innocent) and 50-60% of victims are either mentally or physically disabled in some way. Many of them get tortured in similar ways if they make it to prison. In a different framing, the U…
Phrases like "6th leading cause" contain no information.
Is that 5% or 0.01%?
There is no way of knowing, and depends entirely on how deaths are categorized in some unknown underlying classification system.
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All over Vietnam, people are making babies in huge numbers. There is a lot of family pressure to do so. They may only have 100m people now, but every single shack and house has 2-3 babies in it. It will be very interesting to see what happens to all these humans over the next 20 years as this country grows at a rapid pace. This statement isn't really supported by the population data. Vietnam's population is project…
You really believe any numbers coming out of Vietnam? Anything public is supplied by the govt.
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because China exploits their loans to have leverage over the countries they deal with - there won't be any criticism of the Muslim Gulags or the oppression in Hong Kong from any country that has loans to China. What developing country getting a loan from China was ever going to change Chinas domestic policy otherwise? If all of the West who does billions in trade can hardly make a dent I doubt its worth reducing tr…
The problem is that the West has looked away all the time with the shit China was doing, even back at Tiananmen Square decades ago. The West could have made a statement back then and uphold human rights, now I fear it is too late and the only way restoring human rights and democracy is either a mass uprising in China (which is unlikely given that many young Chinese are fed propaganda, and so much of it that even Chin…
It seems entirely vindictive, without a real end goal, merely because the West (not just America or their current exec branch [1] but the west including Canada, EU, Australia, etc) completely failed to change China's political policy by other diplomatic bullying/force so they are extending it into the global economic system designed to help smaller countries and the extreme poor, attempting to box out China and others participation. Which ultimately has no noticeable affect on China, so there are only losers as a result, the small countries in need of capital and trade.
The West completely messed up the TPP via back room deals and other corporate hand outs which destroyed everyone's trust in its intentions. Which killed off their best counter balance due to their own self destructive anti democratic habits - which again started before Trump and was due to die regardless if Trump won.
1. This isn't just about America nor has the West's policy towards China hardly changed due to words of the US executive branch for 2-3yrs vs reality of the last few decades and the massive multi country beaurcracy that runs the world Bank, UN, and others.
Once Trump is gone people will quickly remember that Obama and whoever comes next faced the same impenetrable wall that sovereignty, economic weight, and significant cultural differences that exist including a well perfected anti western propaganda that they reflexively employ to explain away all the bad things that happen, something dictators from ISIS to Venezuela has utilized as excuse #1 forever, which makes any western good will very difficult to exploit. Not to mention the limits of power that one executive branch has to change policy in other countries (which is a good thing) is significantly overstated.
Even a no strings attached trade reform is a difficult ask for the west. If the US added a bunch of human rights stuff they wouldn't even get in the negotiation room. But apparently people think that will magically change with another US election.
There was a long string of failures attempts to force human rights and democracy on other countries. There's far more bad examples for every good South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (which are successes that have as much to do with historical trends, local culture, and domestic economic influence than it was pure diplomatic influence towards a western style gov).
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really believe any numbers coming out of Vietnam? Anything public is supplied by the govt.
In don't understand your incredulity. If anything, any government official would have an incentive to show more people and growth than less.
For example, here is an English translated news website, that is run by the govt. Recently, they ran this story...
https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/education/20190812/in-vietnam-mi...
One choice quote:
"Another Ho Chi Minh City citizen named Hai set a strict weekly timetable for his daughter to study computing, chess, different forms of art and English out of his own belief that children best develop their ability between ages three and six. As a result, the poor girl suffered from physical symptoms of stress and slight autism, prompting his family to consult a psychiatrist for her special treatment."
Apparently, "study computing, chess, different forms of art and English" causes slight autism in children.
I see you're using a throwaway account...
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've never understood how Asian regional free trade agreements and China providing loans to developing countries is really a threat to the west. It’s a threat from the US perspective, in the US national interest. Currently, the US is the top dog internationally, both economically and politically. As China increases its influence especially in the Asia and Africa region via economic investment and, potentially, demo…
What is beneficial to US might not be beneficial to anybody else (meaning >90% of the world). If I take things to the extreme, it would probably be beneficial for US security and economy to have rest of the world as slaves. Not so much for us. Previous US governments seemed to have more moral constraints in this regard compared to current one (with great power comes great responsibility and all that). Interesting tim…
Not to mention how this is a hyper US centric view of things. EU, Canada, Australia, and various other countries have tried pressuring China and it's a huge global bureaucratic system. The tweets coming out of the executive branch of the US doesn't have much effect on the giant multi national diplomatic machines like the World Bank and UN. People love exaggerating his actual power.
Everyone paying attention has known the west does the human rights and democracy dog and pony show every big political event while the reality of actually changing another countries politics and governance is extremely challenging and almost always comes from within or as a result of their wealth being directly tied to acting morally or in the interest of their western partners.
It rarely happens due to diplomatic pressure or boxing them out of trade deals and giving out loans.
I personally don't see how it helps to say one thing while nothing really changes and looking the other way when cameras are off. Honesty would go farther and these countries aren't dumb, they see through it all too. So what difference does it make?
That said, of course being civil and calculated is more valuable than being brash and blundering through diplomacy, but that doesn't mean they have to all be full of shit just to be "nice". You can still be honest and strong and not come off like an asshole while giving the media a perpetual panic attack, because they take every word literally as if they were all well thought out, completely serious, and have multiple hidden dog whistling layers, when it was just some throw away half joking tweet made at 3am because he likes to pump himself and America up. Most people can tell the difference, plenty pretend not to on purpose, but either way it doesn't help the process and gives fuel to the spin masters.
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#87This tariff situation is quickly becoming an amazing opportunity for developing countries. The labor shortages being talked about can only be resolved through higher wages, which means that the people at the bottom will get a cut of the new money. In the end the world will be a lot richer and the money will be in the hands of relatively livable countries like Vietnam. (The Vietnamese government is actually pretty goo…
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which would be the case if the tariffs were China-only, but the current presidential administration is enacting tariffs on many other countries, like Mexico, Brazil, and S Korea. Also, the upcoming Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) meeting in November could be used by China to unify most of APAC against the U.S. The U.S. TPP was a blocking move to prevent the RCEP, which in it's current form covers h…
> ...but the current presidential administration is enacting tariffs on many other countries... I'm quite curious to know possible rationals behind that? To layman like myself, it make absolute no sense, but on some level it got to have a purpose right? even if it's ulterior motive or personal agenda.
It's based in animosity, which is typically economically detrimental: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_discrimination#Animos...
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
In don't understand your incredulity. If anything, any government official would have an incentive to show more people and growth than less.
If you've lived in Vietnam, you'd understand. The govt here does not act with the same logic that you (or I) may have. For example, here is an English translated news website, that is run by the govt. Recently, they ran this story... https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/education/20190812/in-vietnam-mi... One choice quote: "Another Ho Chi Minh City citizen named Hai set a strict weekly timetable for his daughter to study comp…
Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "natural" distribution of manufacturing capacity roughly mirrors the population distribution, and Africa is definitely under-provisioned in this respect. Respect for property rights and political stability is definitely a downside, though. The first industrialists that manage to build out after the last land war or socio-political upheaval are going to get some really nice returns, though.
The underdevelopment of Africa is/was a deliberate decision of the west that China is undoing. Smart investors realize China/India's future economic status depends on being able to offset loss of western demand/trade with direct trade with African markets. This is generally better for the whole planet but not if you have a "zero-sum game" mentality (seems more common in the West than East).