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While the evidence in this case seems to be against this statement (Amazon indeed offered worse service than competitors) I think it is otherwise valid. Chinese

by tekkk 8y ago

While the evidence in this case seems to be against this statement (Amazon indeed offered worse service than competitors) I think it is otherwise valid. Chinese are really driven to become the world's superpower number 1 and give no quarter to Western companies trying to establish themselves in China. So the big dilemma is, do we let them? Or more precisely, do we as the outside world let Chinese stifle all the foreign companies in their own market while their own companies operate freely in those foreign countries? It smells really a lot of mercantilism, and the Chinese culture of copy-catting freely doesn't help. It seems like the Western countries in particular have become too soft for Chinese tactics, and are too afraid to act against China. This at least has been my perception.

CriticalCathed 8y ago
Act how? What precisely could be done outside of protectionist policies that seem to be regarded as outmoded, inefficient, and taboo. Are we going to war? Isolationism? React in kind? Simply wait?
- nine_k 8y ago
  Rethink fashions and taboos and check whether these policies have merit? A market works well when it's not distorted.
- OkGoDoIt 8y ago
  It seems the parent is suggesting that we block Chinese companies from operating in the USA, basically tit-for-tat retribution. Based on "...while their own companies operate freely in those foreign countries" This might be applicable for hardware sales, but for service companies (including ecommerce, search, ride hailing, all the big USA tech company niches) it's kind of a moot point. None of the big Chinese companies put any effort into working outside of China. In fact my biggest complaint is they don't do any internationalization at all, so if you don't read Chinese you basically can't use anything. To the extend that services even work outside of China they are mainly only used by Chinese people, see for example WeChat or Taobao or Baidu. So I'm not sure this line of action would have any effect. If the parent instead meant blocking Americans from doing any business with China (as a manufacturer of smartphones, for example), that's likely to have much more downside to American companies and consumers than to China, so we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. But all these points are debatable, see all the back-and-forth about the tariffs/trade war. Some great economic write-ups on all sides.
  - tekkk 8y ago
    Well it's a difficult problem, and tit-for-tat retribution could be the optimal action based on my little knowledge on game theory (https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/). Yet if things would go badly and the global economy go into turmoil, I think it would be notably worse for both. Another problem I've noted is also the Chinese companies buying up Western companies and seemingly operating as Western, but actually being fully owned by the Chinese companies which might be even indirectly owned by the Chinese government. Volvo, Supercell, Nokia phones (HMD Global) comes to my mind. From what I learned Western companies can not similarly buy Chinese companies at least fully, and part-Chinese ownership is almost required for a company to become highly successful in China. So my conclusion is that if foreign companies can't operate freely in China, why should Chinese companies be able to operate with much less restriction in those same countries. Especially if it yields a monetary benefit for the Chinese doing so. Doesn't seem smart. Would love to see some actual research on this.
    - OkGoDoIt 8y ago
      That corporate ownership aspect is actually a good point. I'm not well-versed on the legal complexities of international ownership or the pros and cons of corporate governance in that situation, but it's definitely something worth looking into further. On a related note, I find it frustrating how so much residential property in San Francisco is owned by Chinese investors/real estate moguls. I have no idea what the fallout would be to limiting the ability of international entities to own so much property here, but I imagine it would help with the sky-high rents. It's not a line of reasoning I've ever seen a good write-up on, so I would be curious to understand it better.
- repsilat 8y ago
  Individual actions to enforce norms often costs more than the individual infringements. Arresting, prosecuting and rehabilitating someone who commits property crime could cost many tens of thousands of dollars. It's worth it in the long-run, though, despite game-theoretic oversimplifications, because it reduces crime in the long run. (Almost) everyone agrees that protectionist policies are directly harmful to America's economy. I wonder if people might be more willing to accept them as tools to encourage change in other countries behaviour if they were sold better, though, or sold by someone else.
mahranch 8y ago
> Chinese culture of copy-catting freely doesn't help. The problem with that, is that it's a vicious circle. Innovation is the foundation for future innovations. It builds on itself. It lays the groundwork and foundation for what comes next. By leapfrogging and cheating its way to the top (or near the top) they are sacrificing that crucial infrastructure for future discoveries and innovations. China has to copy & steal IPs because it simply doesn't have the culture to compete. They're one of the least innovative countries on Earth, year after year. And the only way to change that is by allowing its citizens to think creatively, outside the box -- to be able to challenge authority. But China doesn't want that; they want conforming little worker bees who follow the party line.
- 0815test 8y ago
  > China has to copy & steal IPs because it simply doesn't have the culture to compete. They're one of the least innovative countries on Earth, year after year. Funny thing, that's exactly what people used to say about Japan, and then about South Korea. (And the typical work environments in both countries do not exactly encourage creativity or challenging the status quo, either. So I'm not sure what difference that might make.)
- yding 8y ago
  This is just wrong. By many measures, China is one of the most innovative countries on earth. Take scientific citations for example: https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/chinas-citations-catching-up https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/chinas-citations-catch...
  - mellow-lake-day 8y ago
    How much of those are legitimate though? There have been cases of fraud and falsifying information. "Since 2012, the country has retracted more scientific papers because of faked peer reviews than all other countries and territories put together,..." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-fraud-scandals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-...
YjSe2GMQ 8y ago
Well that's exactly what Trump is doing with his trade war [1]. The goals are: 1) removing trade/current-account imbalance (which has improved on its own due to the massive spike in Chinese tourism [2]), 2) allowing more Western companies enter China without forced technology transfer or other "unfair" practices, 3) reducing the rampant intellectual property violations in China. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_trade_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr... [2] https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/14/chinas-current-account-surplus-has-vanished https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/14/c...
rossdavidh 8y ago
Hasn't this been obvious for years? Like, centuries? No major power allows other nations, especially nations which are not close military allies, to dominate its economy. China acts in its own self-interest, as does...every other nation in the history of the planet which is able to. The U.K., the U.S., or any other major economic power, will not allow its economy to be dominated by companies from countries that it does not trust as a close military ally. Both the U.K. and the U.S. only became in favor of free trade once they were the dominant economic power of the world, and prior to that was protectionist. Japan and South Korea protected their economies as they grew, to the extent (given their size) that made sense to. If you're the size of Singapore or the Netherlands, of course, things are different, as you simply cannot do everything, however developed your economy. Also, the U.S. allows someone like the U.K. to have a much bigger presence, because of many cultural and military ties. But the idea that China ever intended to continue to allow western companies to dominate their economy, once they were developed enough to do something about it, is naive. No nation, that can avoid that, allows it.
- pesmhey 8y ago
  Schneider Electric has a fairly large presence in the US...to what I can imagine is a huge benefit to both Europe and the US. Bosch, VW (let’s forget the scandal for a minute)... This goes beyond so much more than this particular article. The ‘western’ world is building a global civilization, and it seems like anyone is invited if you play by the rules. All of the China doves over the last 3 decades probably thought China would open up in that way and join the ‘developed’ world. I mean, fuck, Samsung is a huge compnent of the US economy, isn’t it? No, fuck China, and protectionism in general. They had (still have?) an invitation into the global civilization. It’s based on rules, that you have to follow. Of course there are criminals (hsbc, Libor, etc...) but overall it’s based on rules. This ‘realpolitik’ that has taken over, where ‘yeah of course nations act in their own best interest’ is not the complete picture, because at some point, a nation’s self interest is in cooperation.
  - echaozh 8y ago
    Yeah, you play by rules, as long as it benefits you. Why does US so strongly advocate banning of Huawei devices, in the whole world? You say Huawei may have backdoors, but who don't? And Huawei may be the cleanest as it just "may", while the other competitors have a history of "do". The slogan "America First" doesn't sound so globalistic. And playing by rules is definitely not before America, which is first.

by tekkk 8y ago

CriticalCathed 8y ago

Act how? What precisely could be done outside of protectionist policies that seem to be regarded as outmoded, inefficient, and taboo. Are we going to war? Isolationism? React in kind? Simply wait?

nine_k 8y ago
Rethink fashions and taboos and check whether these policies have merit? A market works well when it's not distorted.
OkGoDoIt 8y ago
It seems the parent is suggesting that we block Chinese companies from operating in the USA, basically tit-for-tat retribution. Based on "...while their own companies operate freely in those foreign countries" This might be applicable for hardware sales, but for service companies (including ecommerce, search, ride hailing, all the big USA tech company niches) it's kind of a moot point. None of the big Chinese companies put any effort into working outside of China. In fact my biggest complaint is they don't do any internationalization at all, so if you don't read Chinese you basically can't use anything. To the extend that services even work outside of China they are mainly only used by Chinese people, see for example WeChat or Taobao or Baidu. So I'm not sure this line of action would have any effect. If the parent instead meant blocking Americans from doing any business with China (as a manufacturer of smartphones, for example), that's likely to have much more downside to American companies and consumers than to China, so we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. But all these points are debatable, see all the back-and-forth about the tariffs/trade war. Some great economic write-ups on all sides.
- tekkk 8y ago
  Well it's a difficult problem, and tit-for-tat retribution could be the optimal action based on my little knowledge on game theory (https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/). Yet if things would go badly and the global economy go into turmoil, I think it would be notably worse for both. Another problem I've noted is also the Chinese companies buying up Western companies and seemingly operating as Western, but actually being fully owned by the Chinese companies which might be even indirectly owned by the Chinese government. Volvo, Supercell, Nokia phones (HMD Global) comes to my mind. From what I learned Western companies can not similarly buy Chinese companies at least fully, and part-Chinese ownership is almost required for a company to become highly successful in China. So my conclusion is that if foreign companies can't operate freely in China, why should Chinese companies be able to operate with much less restriction in those same countries. Especially if it yields a monetary benefit for the Chinese doing so. Doesn't seem smart. Would love to see some actual research on this.
  - OkGoDoIt 8y ago
    That corporate ownership aspect is actually a good point. I'm not well-versed on the legal complexities of international ownership or the pros and cons of corporate governance in that situation, but it's definitely something worth looking into further. On a related note, I find it frustrating how so much residential property in San Francisco is owned by Chinese investors/real estate moguls. I have no idea what the fallout would be to limiting the ability of international entities to own so much property here, but I imagine it would help with the sky-high rents. It's not a line of reasoning I've ever seen a good write-up on, so I would be curious to understand it better.
repsilat 8y ago
Individual actions to enforce norms often costs more than the individual infringements. Arresting, prosecuting and rehabilitating someone who commits property crime could cost many tens of thousands of dollars. It's worth it in the long-run, though, despite game-theoretic oversimplifications, because it reduces crime in the long run. (Almost) everyone agrees that protectionist policies are directly harmful to America's economy. I wonder if people might be more willing to accept them as tools to encourage change in other countries behaviour if they were sold better, though, or sold by someone else.

mahranch 8y ago

> Chinese culture of copy-catting freely doesn't help. The problem with that, is that it's a vicious circle. Innovation is the foundation for future innovations. It builds on itself. It lays the groundwork and foundation for what comes next. By leapfrogging and cheating its way to the top (or near the top) they are sacrificing that crucial infrastructure for future discoveries and innovations. China has to copy & steal IPs because it simply doesn't have the culture to compete. They're one of the least innovative countries on Earth, year after year. And the only way to change that is by allowing its citizens to think creatively, outside the box -- to be able to challenge authority. But China doesn't want that; they want conforming little worker bees who follow the party line.

0815test 8y ago
> China has to copy & steal IPs because it simply doesn't have the culture to compete. They're one of the least innovative countries on Earth, year after year. Funny thing, that's exactly what people used to say about Japan, and then about South Korea. (And the typical work environments in both countries do not exactly encourage creativity or challenging the status quo, either. So I'm not sure what difference that might make.)
yding 8y ago
This is just wrong. By many measures, China is one of the most innovative countries on earth. Take scientific citations for example: https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/chinas-citations-catching-up https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/chinas-citations-catch...
- mellow-lake-day 8y ago
  How much of those are legitimate though? There have been cases of fraud and falsifying information. "Since 2012, the country has retracted more scientific papers because of faked peer reviews than all other countries and territories put together,..." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-fraud-scandals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/world/asia/china-science-...

YjSe2GMQ 8y ago

Well that's exactly what Trump is doing with his trade war [1]. The goals are: 1) removing trade/current-account imbalance (which has improved on its own due to the massive spike in Chinese tourism [2]), 2) allowing more Western companies enter China without forced technology transfer or other "unfair" practices, 3) reducing the rampant intellectual property violations in China. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_trade_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr... [2] https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/14/chinas-current-account-surplus-has-vanished https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/14/c...

rossdavidh 8y ago

Hasn't this been obvious for years? Like, centuries? No major power allows other nations, especially nations which are not close military allies, to dominate its economy. China acts in its own self-interest, as does...every other nation in the history of the planet which is able to. The U.K., the U.S., or any other major economic power, will not allow its economy to be dominated by companies from countries that it does not trust as a close military ally. Both the U.K. and the U.S. only became in favor of free trade once they were the dominant economic power of the world, and prior to that was protectionist. Japan and South Korea protected their economies as they grew, to the extent (given their size) that made sense to. If you're the size of Singapore or the Netherlands, of course, things are different, as you simply cannot do everything, however developed your economy. Also, the U.S. allows someone like the U.K. to have a much bigger presence, because of many cultural and military ties. But the idea that China ever intended to continue to allow western companies to dominate their economy, once they were developed enough to do something about it, is naive. No nation, that can avoid that, allows it.

pesmhey 8y ago
Schneider Electric has a fairly large presence in the US...to what I can imagine is a huge benefit to both Europe and the US. Bosch, VW (let’s forget the scandal for a minute)... This goes beyond so much more than this particular article. The ‘western’ world is building a global civilization, and it seems like anyone is invited if you play by the rules. All of the China doves over the last 3 decades probably thought China would open up in that way and join the ‘developed’ world. I mean, fuck, Samsung is a huge compnent of the US economy, isn’t it? No, fuck China, and protectionism in general. They had (still have?) an invitation into the global civilization. It’s based on rules, that you have to follow. Of course there are criminals (hsbc, Libor, etc...) but overall it’s based on rules. This ‘realpolitik’ that has taken over, where ‘yeah of course nations act in their own best interest’ is not the complete picture, because at some point, a nation’s self interest is in cooperation.
- echaozh 8y ago
  Yeah, you play by rules, as long as it benefits you. Why does US so strongly advocate banning of Huawei devices, in the whole world? You say Huawei may have backdoors, but who don't? And Huawei may be the cleanest as it just "may", while the other competitors have a history of "do". The slogan "America First" doesn't sound so globalistic. And playing by rules is definitely not before America, which is first.