TikTok’s Chinese owner offers to forego stake to clinch U.S. deal – sources

In what universe? The Chinese global stance has changed drastically over the past 5 years, and they have continued to deteriorate western companies and forced companies to appease their government, or the CCP will ban those companies, steal their IP and clone then. So far not a single soul has stood up to them, for fear of losing out. They've expanded their power in the South China Sea, laying claim to land and passages that aren't theirs at all and never have been. They fund North Korea as a satellite state to antagonize its neighbors, and turn in people that escape back to NK so they can be put in slave camps. The new security law gives them reach beyond their own borders to crack down on people that criticize the CCP. Not to mention they have literal concentration camps where they are harvesting organs, hair, using them as slave labor and stealing their possessions. Ask other Asian countries how they feel about China's slow and steady encroachment of their authoritarian regime that is anti-freedom.

Starbucks entered the Chinese market in 1999, when there were still JV requirements in its sector. Those requirements have been removed, and Starbucks bought out its Chinese JV partner in 2017.

'Fair Trade' does not have to be 'Trade on Equal Terms'.

That is how the relationship started: China was 'very poor' and so the asymmetrical trade rules made sense. Pepsi and Coke and a few others had access to China market, people 'looked the other way' at the IP issues.

But in 2020, China is in a different situation, and the asymmetrical rules are basically 'not fair'.

"The idea of unfair trade is also a bit of a mercantilist trope,"

This is false.

If one nation is allowed to sell into the other, but does not allow the other to sell to it - this is 'unfair trade'. Blatantly.

If one nation uses state subsidies to support fledgling industries, so that they can dump on foreign markets and 'take over the global industry' - this is obviously unfair trade. China did this with Solar Panel market - subsidising their industry to flood America with cheap products, putting everyone out of business etc.. This is not a 'new' idea, these concepts have been well understood for hundreds of years.

"Blaming the demise of US industry on China is absurd "

Nobody is 'blaming' US economic issues on the US. What I'm articulating is that China is effectively 'cheating' (or rather, has an obvious upper hand) and it needs to be rectified.

"As for the whole question of whether or not China is 'playing dirty', or muscling their way through established norms, I think it's obviously not the case - or at least, it's by no means the case that China plays more dirty than anybody else - least of all the US."

This is again false. We can call it 'dirty' or not - but China plays 'extremely protectionalist' first off, second, they have state intervention, which is not suitable for trade.

There are a million and one things that the US cannot do in China, but that China can do in the US. This is blatantly lop-sided. The US should apply the same rules to China as China does to the US.

Second, and more nuanced, is the state intervention. Again, the example:

Imagine if the US forced Huawei to give designs and IP over to Cisco, and the US Pres had direct authority over major banks, ordered JP Morgan to finance Cisco buyers in Brasil, Germany etc. - and for liquidity, ordered the US Federal Reserve to print money for that purpose. It sounds incredibly bizarre, right? Well that's what China does today!

So it's fine for them to play the game they want to play, but the West needs to respond in kind.

This has little to do with 'bringing back coal mines' obviously. But it may have something to do with bringing back manufacturing - in a highly automated way.

"about trade seems two parts grandstanding and one part hypocrisy."

No it's not, generally speaking the US is pretty good on these things, and has fostered a lot of very important international agreements and ideas along these lines as well. Of course, trade really does benefit the US a lot, so it's to a great extent self interest, but still.

The world needs to trade with China on somewhat different terms.

Could retaliation include kicking out Tesla? Sure. Would they? Who knows.