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The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

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Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#201

Post by anthonypasq »

elfbargpt wrote: post #199
emptysongglass wrote: post #171

For an exercise in how wrong we can be, here's Steve Yegge two years ago telling us to prepare to speak Mandarin because China is going to reign supreme and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Steve deleted the article but the internet remembers. https://archive.vn/bC1Ns

What, you think he's wrong because China had a bad economic quarter two years after he posted that? You realize China has had unprecedented growth over the past 15 years, with pundits predicting its collapse the entire time. They have 1.4B people, a very good education system, and a huge head of steam. China misses GDP targets by 1% for a single quarter, every news outlet reports on it, and in five years everyone is…

their demographics are catastrophically bad.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#202

Post by chokolad »

sdfghswe wrote: post #113
cjblomqvist wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole existence of EU is to prevent war between countries within the union through making all depend economically on each other. So far it's been quite successful (0 wars so far AFAIK), but of course it's quite early to say. Many of the countries in EU have quite the war history with each other. It's easy to forget that countries like Denmark and Sweden, France and Germany, etc etc used to be bitter enemies with…

Sure. So in your opinion why is it that it worked the countries in Europe, but not for West vs China/Russia?

> So in your opinion why is it that it worked the countries in Europe, but not for West vs China/Russia?

It would've absolutely worked for Russia, if the EU was offering it path to EU membership together with Ukraine instead of forcing Ukraine to choose between tighter economic/political integration between its two neighbors. Time for that was early 2000s, but Europe and USA chose otherwise.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#203

Post by somenameforme »

dotnet00 wrote: post #200
somenameforme wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were centuries of organizations that tried to prevent war by trust and cooperation. Before the UN was the League of Nations, before the LoN was the Concert of Europe and there were undoubtedly countless efforts prior. But they all failed completely abysmally. Do you know the one thing that actually worked? Countries having nuclear weapons. Suddenly there was a strong self-interest in avoiding war, and "real" wa…

I disagree, China, Russia and India for instance are not at risk of being dominated by the US. All 3 individually had and even still have the ability to have a similar status as the EU. Their primary complaint is that they wish they were hegemons, except to them hegemony means being far more of an asshole to those you dominate than the US's terms. Thus their need to try to force the issue rather than naturally ending…

Here's a couple of great links I might recommend. This [1] is about US involvement in regime change including "at least 81 overt and covert known interventions in foreign elections during the period 1946–2000" and "64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change during the Cold War." And here [2] is a list of the countries we've invaded which, depending on how exactly you measure it, starts in the 60+ range.

The world order as you know it today is not even remotely "natural." And this is a fundamental component to try to appreciate the geopolitical relations between countries, as well as how other nations are going to perceive the various threats of the world.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

[2] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/how-many-...

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#204

Post by hakfoo »

nonethewiser wrote: post #91
fnordpiglet wrote: post #54

My fear is decoupling just sets the stage for a global war. We’ve decoupled Russia, Iran, North Korea. With China we have a legitimate fully integrated axis capable of producing independently with legitimate and perceived global grievances, and the means and will to exercise force.

This was the thinking in the 1980s when the US invited China into their global trade network. The thinking was they would move away from communism and Russia and towards an open Democracy. That happened in some small ways but has since been completely undone. Such as the Democracy movements in the 80s that were ultimately crushed in Tiananmen square. Or more recently, market reforms undone by Xi. Basically we are bac…

Is democracy the only acceptable endgame? I worry we're mixing up ends and means. Democracy is a means, and "good government" is the end.

In the last few decades, the overall Chinese population has seen dramatic upticks on all sorts of quality-of-life measurements. It doesn't look like an obvious kleptocracy. The surveys we have, regardless of how much it can be claimed they're cooked, indicate the public is broadly happy with the government. Maybe a single-party system works for them, at least at this point in time. I'd argue if you have multiple diverse functioning government types, that's worth preserving. Ecosystem diversity is valuable, just from a perspective of "when we get the next big crisis, maybe one has better tools available to solve it."

There's nothing wrong with dangling Western style democracy as an option to the Chinese-- "if and when you want to try it, here's a body of experience and we can consult", but treating it as an end-all-be-all for an audience that broadly isn't begging for it is asking for friction.

This, of course, assumes a level of good faith which I suspect is delusional. The real narrative was always less about democracy and human rights and more about property rights. Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record, but the West feels safe enough that they're not going to nationalize their investments, so it all gets swept under the rug, alongside bits of Jamal Khashoggi's corpse.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#205

Post by HDThoreaun »

anthonypasq wrote: post #201
elfbargpt wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, you think he's wrong because China had a bad economic quarter two years after he posted that? You realize China has had unprecedented growth over the past 15 years, with pundits predicting its collapse the entire time. They have 1.4B people, a very good education system, and a huge head of steam. China misses GDP targets by 1% for a single quarter, every news outlet reports on it, and in five years everyone is…

their demographics are catastrophically bad.

Sort of. Honestly though the demographic collapse could be a good thing for them if they play it right as labor becomes less and less important as we automate. Youth unemployment is sky high in China, it's not unreasonable to say they have too many people right now. The biggest issue will be caring for their bloated retired population, but honestly the CCP has a strong enough hold that they might be able to just say "fuck them" and hang em out to dry.

Either way I doubt it will be that much of an economic catastrophe, even if it is a humanitarian one.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#206

Post by FreshStart »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8
Jupe wrote: post #3

> This will take time. Decoupling is not an instantaneous process. China spent two decades becoming the workshop of the world; the rest of the developing world isn’t going to mirror that accomplishment in one or two years. It is all about dependency trees. The US decides to divert imports from China to other countries, which in turn may import from China. This reminds me of my day-to-day work so much; especially w.r.…

> It is all about dependency trees. The US decides to divert imports from China to other countries, which in turn may import from China. This is already happening with more than ~80% of products that are "Made in Vietnam" and at least ~40% of products that are "Made in Korea." Not only do the raw materials come from China, but most of the work is done in China. The product is shipped overland from a Chinese factory t…

How is this suddenly possible against the "physics" of free market forces, that were unable to move when it was about wages, workers rights or the environment? Almost as if it's all made up..

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#207

Post by Lio »

nonethewiser wrote: post #91
fnordpiglet wrote: post #54

My fear is decoupling just sets the stage for a global war. We’ve decoupled Russia, Iran, North Korea. With China we have a legitimate fully integrated axis capable of producing independently with legitimate and perceived global grievances, and the means and will to exercise force.

This was the thinking in the 1980s when the US invited China into their global trade network. The thinking was they would move away from communism and Russia and towards an open Democracy. That happened in some small ways but has since been completely undone. Such as the Democracy movements in the 80s that were ultimately crushed in Tiananmen square. Or more recently, market reforms undone by Xi. Basically we are bac…

> Basically we are back to where we were in the 1980s in many ways.

Except we've allowed ourselves to loose our industrial base.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#208

Post by pphysch »

jcrites wrote: post #151
pphysch wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vietnam and Mexico are not "US allies"

What definition are you using of ally? Normally countries are considered allies when they have formal agreements (treaties) between each other to cooperate for mutual benefit. By this measure, the US and Mexico are definitely allies. Mexico is the USA's second largest trading partner worldwide. Exports of goods and services to Mexico support an estimated 1.1 million jobs (Department of Commerce). Mexico is also the s…

Ally derives from "alliance". US is not part of any alliance with Vietnam nor Mexico.

If you want to redefine ally to mean something closer to "partner", then Vietnam is also a "China ally" because it has a good partnership with China. Mexico could also be called a China ally by this loose definition.

But if you follow Vietnamese IR, you would know they take geopolitical neutrality very seriously, due to drama of 20th century. Both US and China separately invaded Vietnam because they thought it a Soviet proxy. No chance of Vietnam becoming an actual ally of either in the short term.

Similar for Mexico. US-Mexico relationship is extremely complicated right now. Right-wing US calling for invasion of Mexico on "drug war" grounds. Mexico purchasing and nationalizing Texas oil company, etc.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#209

Post by Lio »

hakfoo wrote: post #204
nonethewiser wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the thinking in the 1980s when the US invited China into their global trade network. The thinking was they would move away from communism and Russia and towards an open Democracy. That happened in some small ways but has since been completely undone. Such as the Democracy movements in the 80s that were ultimately crushed in Tiananmen square. Or more recently, market reforms undone by Xi. Basically we are bac…

Is democracy the only acceptable endgame? I worry we're mixing up ends and means. Democracy is a means, and "good government" is the end. In the last few decades, the overall Chinese population has seen dramatic upticks on all sorts of quality-of-life measurements. It doesn't look like an obvious kleptocracy. The surveys we have, regardless of how much it can be claimed they're cooked, indicate the public is broadly…

> Is democracy the only acceptable endgame?

In my opinion, yes.

Any other system of government means that you're being governed without consent and without a means to remove those in power without violence.

In short, any regime without a democratic mandate is an illegitimate dictatorship. No mater how enlightened it claims to be.

Re: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself

#210

Post by sdfghswe »

chokolad wrote: post #202
sdfghswe wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So in your opinion why is it that it worked the countries in Europe, but not for West vs China/Russia?

> So in your opinion why is it that it worked the countries in Europe, but not for West vs China/Russia? It would've absolutely worked for Russia, if the EU was offering it path to EU membership together with Ukraine instead of forcing Ukraine to choose between tighter economic/political integration between its two neighbors. Time for that was early 2000s, but Europe and USA chose otherwise.

Well, Russia isn't entitled to anything. As a European I wouldn't want corrupt countries like Ukraine and Russia accepted in without _deep_ reform.

Ok so why didn't it work for China then? What's your explanation for that?

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