4 ms·

Fwiw, the IP trade case seems absolutely valid. Either China can abide by international laws and actually enforce IP prosecution on strategic domestic companie

by ethbro 9y ago

Fwiw, the IP trade case seems absolutely valid. Either China can abide by international laws and actually enforce IP prosecution on strategic domestic companies, or they don't deserve to play at the free trade table. The "Well, we know the Chinese government is unfairly tilting the domestic economic market in favor of local companies, but if we give them a seat at the table then eventually they'll change" is never going to be realized when they're treated with kid gloves by everyone who wants access to their market. And now that China has a number of internationally competive industries, it seems like as good of a time as any to press harder. For all the bullshit that made it's way into the TPP, it was strategically a good idea. Multilateral tariffs are the only real pressure that an economy as big as China's will feel.

ianai 9y ago
Its never been about hoping they’ll change. It’s been about their size dwarfing the West’s. Maybe NAFTA was meant to create a trading alliance to rival them, but it clearly didn’t work well enough.
- connectclass 9y ago
  and now we can clearly see that there was never going to be a middle class in China. Too much money stolen and given to communist party (and now the dictator).
  - fspeech 9y ago
    "Seventy percent of young adults in China are homeowners, according to a recent HSBC survey. The study, which looked at more than 9,000 people born between 1981 and 1998 in nine countries, found that the home ownership rate of Chinese millennials is nearly double the global average." http://time.com/money/4732889/millennials-home-ownership-china-america/ http://time.com/money/4732889/millennials-home-ownership-chi...
    - akira2501 9y ago
      China has already bailed out several upper tier cities housing markets several times. This is not the measure of economic health people take it for, at least, not in the current regulatory environment of China.
    - connectclass 9y ago
      The average monthly wage for white collar workers is a measly $1000/month “China’s middle class incomes fail to take off in 2017” http://www.clb.org.hk/content/china’s-middle-class-incomes-fail-take-2017 http://www.clb.org.hk/content/china’s-middle-class-incomes-f...
      - fspeech 9y ago
        You claimed that there is no Chinese middle class. Are you saying home ownership is not a sign of middle class? I did not claim China is rich or even well off by US standards. How about: http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/293556/outbound-chinese-tourism-forecast-to-grow-10-in-2018 http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/293556/outbound-chine... "The total number of border crossings made by Chinese nationals in 2018 is projected to grow by 6.3% to 154 million, compared with 145 million expected this year."
        Retric 9y ago
        Home ownership is not a sign of being middle class. "Middle-class income is between 67 percent and 200 percent of the average median income."
    - ethbro 9y ago
      From the same article. > By the end of the decade, there will be more than 30 million more adult men on the dating market than women. [...] “Parents and grandparents will often pool their money together to invest in that child by buying a property in that child’s name.” To say nothing of the Chinese real estate bubble.
connectclass 9y ago
And for all the people that complain 'but the prices will go up', yes they will in the short term. But don't underestimate how quickly it would be for the factories owned by multinationals to move out of China to even cheaper countries like Vietnam or India, or move back to US to cheap states via robot factories. Prices will go back down to equilibrium soon.
- api 9y ago
  Rising prices would be good if (and only if) they caused increased wages or employment. We need a lot of wage inflation to reprice the economy so that real estate, college, etc. are reasonable again. Either that or those things need to fall, but that's usually more painful.
  - connectclass 9y ago
    wage inflation will happen soon enough. there a flood of money flowing back to US (from emerging countries) due to global instability, repatriation tax decrease, tariffs, default risks in emerging countries, and increasing interest rate. alot of money are flowing into the cheaper states in US besides just California and New York. Fed Says U.S. Labor Market Near or Beyond Full Employment U.S. labor market tightening, inflation gaining steam https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/fed-says-u-s-labor-market-near-or-beyond-full-employment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/fed-says-...
    - api 9y ago
      It's a bit scary but if you look at house prices vs median income in most cities you'd need at least 2X-3X inflation to fix the discrepancy. We may well see early 80s inflation soon. Houses and rent will be reasonable again. A loaf of bread will cost $12.
      - connectclass 9y ago
        that's ok, US is aiming to be carb free and protein rich
paulie_a 9y ago
I am less concerned about them enforcing IP and more concerned about the blatant hacking and industrial espionage. Maybe they should stop that first, then we can worry about pirated DVDs
- smallbigfish 9y ago
  > industrial espionage Are the Chinese the only ones doing it or are they better at it?
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    They might be so good they should launch it as a subscription platform...stealing other countries stuff as a service
    - seanp2k2 9y ago
      I get that you’re being fascetious, but there are many Chinese manufacturers who will copy a product for you if you ask nicely (i.e. want a large enough volume to make it worth their time). The other common way this happens is ODMs there simply produce more of an order for a customer and sell it unbranded or under some made-up brand name. This is partially why you see so many products on Amazon with names like WinBuyer, iEnjoyWare, GooBang, Anewish, Globmall, GooDee, APEMAN, etc etc (those are all real examples). Amazon does sometimes step in and eat their lunch with AmazonBasics versions of common products (car top carry bags, camera cases, many home goods, etc). I personally do go for the AmazonBasics brands in these cases, since while they might be from the exact same factories as the GooBuy3000 version, I have higher confidence that I’ll be able to reasonably return it if it’s terrible, and moderate confidence that it’s at least a passable version of whatever it is (e.g. I own an AB umbrella and many batteries, all of which are decent). Amazon also has their own group of “house” brands that they go through some effort to obscure: https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/amazon-has-more-private-label-brands-than-you-think https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/amazon-has-more-private...
      - paulie_a 9y ago
fspeech 9y ago
"Multilateral tariffs are the only real pressure" IT products are already zero tariff per the "Information Technology Agreement" https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/inftec_e/inftec_e.htm https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/inftec_e/inftec_e.htm
- ethbro 9y ago
  * Covered IT products Under the expansion, additional categories will be covered. Here's a chart of current MFN tariffs imposed by countries under the agreement on expansion categories. https://www.wto.org/images/img_tratop/brienitachart4_e.png https://www.wto.org/images/img_tratop/brienitachart4_e.png Note any outliers? Without digging through the legalese, it would seem the US could triple import tariffs on a large swath of IT products and still be on par with what China's charging. I can't imagine the WTO would look too favorably on a case from China if the US simply pegged reciprocal tariffs at an equal rate.
  - fspeech 9y ago
    What does the word MFN stand for? Of course US is entitled to setting tariffs at the level it sees fit.
    - philipkglass 9y ago
      MFN in this context means most favored nation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation
      - fspeech 9y ago
        Sorry if I didn't make clear that the question was rhetoric. Thanks for your effort linking to a good explanation. I hope that answers the question of why it is not legally viable to use tariff to create pressure unless it is through WTO compliant cases.
        9y ago

by ethbro 9y ago

ianai 9y ago

Its never been about hoping they’ll change. It’s been about their size dwarfing the West’s. Maybe NAFTA was meant to create a trading alliance to rival them, but it clearly didn’t work well enough.

connectclass 9y ago
and now we can clearly see that there was never going to be a middle class in China. Too much money stolen and given to communist party (and now the dictator).
- fspeech 9y ago
  "Seventy percent of young adults in China are homeowners, according to a recent HSBC survey. The study, which looked at more than 9,000 people born between 1981 and 1998 in nine countries, found that the home ownership rate of Chinese millennials is nearly double the global average." http://time.com/money/4732889/millennials-home-ownership-china-america/ http://time.com/money/4732889/millennials-home-ownership-chi...
  - akira2501 9y ago
    China has already bailed out several upper tier cities housing markets several times. This is not the measure of economic health people take it for, at least, not in the current regulatory environment of China.
  - connectclass 9y ago
    The average monthly wage for white collar workers is a measly $1000/month “China’s middle class incomes fail to take off in 2017” http://www.clb.org.hk/content/china’s-middle-class-incomes-fail-take-2017 http://www.clb.org.hk/content/china’s-middle-class-incomes-f...
    - fspeech 9y ago
      You claimed that there is no Chinese middle class. Are you saying home ownership is not a sign of middle class? I did not claim China is rich or even well off by US standards. How about: http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/293556/outbound-chinese-tourism-forecast-to-grow-10-in-2018 http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/293556/outbound-chine... "The total number of border crossings made by Chinese nationals in 2018 is projected to grow by 6.3% to 154 million, compared with 145 million expected this year."
      - Retric 9y ago
        Home ownership is not a sign of being middle class. "Middle-class income is between 67 percent and 200 percent of the average median income."
  - ethbro 9y ago
    From the same article. > By the end of the decade, there will be more than 30 million more adult men on the dating market than women. [...] “Parents and grandparents will often pool their money together to invest in that child by buying a property in that child’s name.” To say nothing of the Chinese real estate bubble.

connectclass 9y ago

And for all the people that complain 'but the prices will go up', yes they will in the short term. But don't underestimate how quickly it would be for the factories owned by multinationals to move out of China to even cheaper countries like Vietnam or India, or move back to US to cheap states via robot factories. Prices will go back down to equilibrium soon.

api 9y ago
Rising prices would be good if (and only if) they caused increased wages or employment. We need a lot of wage inflation to reprice the economy so that real estate, college, etc. are reasonable again. Either that or those things need to fall, but that's usually more painful.
- connectclass 9y ago
  wage inflation will happen soon enough. there a flood of money flowing back to US (from emerging countries) due to global instability, repatriation tax decrease, tariffs, default risks in emerging countries, and increasing interest rate. alot of money are flowing into the cheaper states in US besides just California and New York. Fed Says U.S. Labor Market Near or Beyond Full Employment U.S. labor market tightening, inflation gaining steam https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/fed-says-u-s-labor-market-near-or-beyond-full-employment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/fed-says-...
  - api 9y ago
    It's a bit scary but if you look at house prices vs median income in most cities you'd need at least 2X-3X inflation to fix the discrepancy. We may well see early 80s inflation soon. Houses and rent will be reasonable again. A loaf of bread will cost $12.
    - connectclass 9y ago
      that's ok, US is aiming to be carb free and protein rich

paulie_a 9y ago

I am less concerned about them enforcing IP and more concerned about the blatant hacking and industrial espionage. Maybe they should stop that first, then we can worry about pirated DVDs

smallbigfish 9y ago
> industrial espionage Are the Chinese the only ones doing it or are they better at it?
- paulie_a 9y ago
  They might be so good they should launch it as a subscription platform...stealing other countries stuff as a service
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    I get that you’re being fascetious, but there are many Chinese manufacturers who will copy a product for you if you ask nicely (i.e. want a large enough volume to make it worth their time). The other common way this happens is ODMs there simply produce more of an order for a customer and sell it unbranded or under some made-up brand name. This is partially why you see so many products on Amazon with names like WinBuyer, iEnjoyWare, GooBang, Anewish, Globmall, GooDee, APEMAN, etc etc (those are all real examples). Amazon does sometimes step in and eat their lunch with AmazonBasics versions of common products (car top carry bags, camera cases, many home goods, etc). I personally do go for the AmazonBasics brands in these cases, since while they might be from the exact same factories as the GooBuy3000 version, I have higher confidence that I’ll be able to reasonably return it if it’s terrible, and moderate confidence that it’s at least a passable version of whatever it is (e.g. I own an AB umbrella and many batteries, all of which are decent). Amazon also has their own group of “house” brands that they go through some effort to obscure: https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/amazon-has-more-private-label-brands-than-you-think https://www.l2inc.com/daily-insights/amazon-has-more-private...
    - paulie_a 9y ago

fspeech 9y ago

"Multilateral tariffs are the only real pressure" IT products are already zero tariff per the "Information Technology Agreement" https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/inftec_e/inftec_e.htm https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/inftec_e/inftec_e.htm

ethbro 9y ago
* Covered IT products Under the expansion, additional categories will be covered. Here's a chart of current MFN tariffs imposed by countries under the agreement on expansion categories. https://www.wto.org/images/img_tratop/brienitachart4_e.png https://www.wto.org/images/img_tratop/brienitachart4_e.png Note any outliers? Without digging through the legalese, it would seem the US could triple import tariffs on a large swath of IT products and still be on par with what China's charging. I can't imagine the WTO would look too favorably on a case from China if the US simply pegged reciprocal tariffs at an equal rate.
- fspeech 9y ago
  What does the word MFN stand for? Of course US is entitled to setting tariffs at the level it sees fit.
  - philipkglass 9y ago
    MFN in this context means most favored nation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_favoured_nation
    - fspeech 9y ago
      Sorry if I didn't make clear that the question was rhetoric. Thanks for your effort linking to a good explanation. I hope that answers the question of why it is not legally viable to use tariff to create pressure unless it is through WTO compliant cases.
      - 9y ago