Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries. That is a good argument from a purely economic perspective, but the ability of a country to manufacture things on their own is a long-term benefit to the country from a security and sovereignty perspective. It's hard to prevail in a war if a potential enemy is making all your stuff for you. China understands this very well,…
It's hard to prevail in any war in a post-nuclear age. Profiting from a war with China is a total fantasy, it would be the end of both countries, even if we had as little trade with them as with the Soviet Union. The reason we are not manufacturing everything ourselves is that our incumbents refuse to allow anything to replace them, whether that is a more efficient company or a more able manager. They have the sway w…
Another cold war is possible, and someone could prevail eventually.
>The reason we are not manufacturing everything ourselves is that our incumbents refuse to allow anything to replace them, whether that is a more efficient company or a more able manager.
That is not true in general. We have laws specifically to promote competition. I'm not aware of anything like that in China, although I haven't looked. I can tell you that it's common knowledge in China that doing certain kinds of business requires a bribe or connections.
>They have the sway within the US to get what they want, and so things like patents and approval processes (which China does not have to the same degree, because for all of their flaws the government is more powerful there than the established manufacturers), will stop anyone from improving on GM within Michigan.
First, the Chinese government owns or has a stake in many companies there. I think you're even required to have certain CCP officials inside your company if it's big enough. Second, China does have patents and IP laws. They also have pervasive state surveillance, so your ideas can be stolen by the government. I often wonder if WE have that too, but at least total privacy is legal here. Americans can stop the state from spying on them in most cases, at least as far as we know.
>The competition comes from within a country they can't determine the policy of.
I think you're mistaken about this too, because many party members are rich and involved in business. They CAN determine policies. There was a huge crash in the Chinese stock market a couple of years ago as one party faction fought with another one. That was totally anti-competitive, yet it happened, and Western investors got screwed. I heard it was the result of a fight between Hu Jintao (the previous president of China) and Xi Jinping. I think the campaign against Hu was touted as a way to fight corruption. By the way, Mr. Hu has only been seen in public like once since he was dragged out of a national party meeting in 2022.
>Germany is suffering from a similar ailment. They are stagnating because for fifty years successive administrations have equated success with success of their majors.
Germany is currently stagnating because of the toll the Ukraine war is taking on them, along with other commitments they've made such as shutting down all their nuclear power plants. They too have high labor costs and so on, like the rest of the West, but they were doing relatively well until recently.