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Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.
by gaius 9y ago
Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.
- SteveGregory 9y agoWhat kind of response would you like to see from the West?
- Retric 9y agoTit for tat tends to work really well. The west is in a vastly better position to exploit a trade war with China than China is. Thus, China is more likely to back down when pushed. Remember, a little give and take keeps players honest. Without that their is not reason for China not to try and bend the rules as much as possible.
- it_learnses 9y agoYep. We just need to unite major players such as USA, Canada, Japan, India, Australia who are being threatened by Chinese practices and declare a trade war. Sanction the hell out of them to make them realize that their govt can't bully the rest of the world population.
- wavefunction 9y agoMaybe something like the TPP without all the corporatist nonsense included.
- gaius 9y agoNo mapping, no access to our markets for anything mapping related. Fair's fair!
- Eridrus 9y agoAre there enough Chinese companies doing mapping related things for this to be relevant? There are legitimate security reasons to restrict maps, so this seems unlikely to be something easy to mobilise a larger trade war over.
- gaius 9y agoWell, anything with a GPS in. The value of those devices in the West largely derives from there already being map data for them to use.
- Chaebixi 9y ago> Are there enough Chinese companies doing mapping related things for this to be relevant? The sanctions wouldn't have need to be in the exact same area, just ones that would cause equivalent pain.
- jstanley 9y agoStop seeing countries as single coherent actors. The best thing to do is for as many governments as possible to stay out of as many people's affairs as possible. Just because the Chinese government is stopping Alice from mapping Chinese roads doesn't mean your government should stop Bob from buying Chinese maps. Why should your government punish Bob just because the Chinese government punished Alice? Alice and Bob don't even know each other.
- gaius 9y agoLike it or not, countries do exist and are the framework on which commerce is built. Bob will need to shop elsewhere and Alice will need to confront her government over their policies costing her lost sales (if she is Chinese)
- petre 9y agoBlock Chinese companies from doing certain things, require licenses etc.
- mistermann 9y agoLots of people made a ton of money transferring Western manufacturing and technology to China. Most educated Western adults were raised in an environment of well-intended anti-racism propaganda, so are unable to think clearly about any topic that involves race in any way.
- pixelpp 9y agoThis right here... I feel like American is really afraid about even thinking about this issues.
- cmrdporcupine 9y agoFirst sentence basically correct. Second sentence total idiotic racist non-sequitur which does not follow from the first.
- mistermann 9y agoThe second statement is not dependent on the first, although it is related. There is also quite literally nothing racist about it, but you've proven my point quite well (in that you see racism where it doesn't exist, a specific example of the more general point I was making).
- mistermann 9y ago3 downvotes based on feelings.
- mistermann 9y agoAnd one more by my mysterious anonymous follower. Hi friend, hope all is well with you today!
- mistermann 9y agoOh my you are persistent, are you still watching today?
- dvdhnt 9y agoProbably because it’s none of our business? Literally and figuratively.
- gaius 9y agonone of our business? Literally No, it literally is business. China sells products in the West the value of which derives from there being good mapping data of the West. Banning this same data being collected there is an unfair distortion of the market.
- dvdhnt 9y agoLast time I checked, we don't live there. There's no natural right to do business anywhere, well, at least if you are not a citizen of that state - however, even that's not true here thanks to a combination of licenses, regulations, taxes, etc. Like, so many people on HN worship "the market" like it matters beyond our tiny, irrelevant life spans, it's horrific. If I lease my apartment to another person on Airbnb, I am under no obligation to lease my apartment to them or at all. The fact that we take advantage of their exports does not compel them to do the same. So, like, don't buy Chinese products taking advantage of Western mapping data, but do so quietly since, you know, they don't have to do anything economically that they don't want to do.
- cmrdporcupine 9y agoBecause "the west" is not some monolithic entity and some very very powerful and profitable businesses continue to make very large quantities of cash by working with/in China. A trade war with China would lead to a huge increase in the cost of goods, and many business would go belly-up since they are predicated on the very low costs of labour and high rate of exploitation of Chinese workers. If applied aggressively it would lead to a very large recession or depression, and maybe even war.
- twblalock 9y agoWestern governments have decided that they are better off sitting on their hands than starting a trade war. I think there are good reasons to believe that is true.
- gaius 9y agobetter off sitting on their hands than starting a trade war Starting? Begun, the trade war has.
- twblalock 9y agoThis is not a trade war. This is an example of a country pursuing a protectionist policy program. A trade war would result if the west retaliated by creating new tariffs or bans on Chinese products as a response. That would be worse for the west than simply ignoring the protectionism, and that's why the west hasn't done it. If western countries could become better off by screwing China they would certainly do it right away. Frankly the world has never had free trade; it's just had freer trade in recent years than in the past. There are constant disputes in the WTO about tariffs, subsidies, and other protectionist measures implemented by western countries as well as China. Free-trade deals reduce barriers to trade in some areas and increase them in others. This mapping situation is just another routine trade dispute.