11 ms·

Xi Jinping's colleagues rejected an 'unequal' trade deal

63 points by 1PlayerOne 7y ago

dmix 7y ago
> These cries came not only from the party's conservative left but also from the rank and file -- from the core of workers and management at state-owned companies, from industries that rely on subsidies for survival and from the bureaucratic institutions that protect them. The proposed deal threatened their interests. That might not sound good to these particular special interests but this sounds good for China as a whole.
chvid 7y ago
This is largely the same story as can be read here: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3010456/what-killed-us-china-trade-talks-tale-two-texts https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3010456/wh... I find it amazing that this deal appearantly was close to coming through.
- m0zg 7y ago
  Why is it so "amazing"? They're between a rock and a hard place. Their economy is guaranteed to collapse if the US keeps erecting trade barriers. The US is much less dependent on them than they are on the US. It will hurt here (with a nice side-effect of import diversification), but it will be totally unbearable over there. They know this perfectly well. The US has a tremendous leverage in this negotiation. China's main sticking point is they want to remove this leverage and make the deal unenforceable. Yeah, that might have worked with Obama (who was, IMO, too eager to please), but the current administration knows better than to sign something like that.
  - chvid 7y ago
    The article really explains it well. It is USA, a foreign power, dictating detailed law in China; that digs deep.
    - dionian 7y ago
      The US is right to try to seek some reasonable guarantees that the terms of the deal will be adhered to
    - m0zg 7y ago
      Um, yeah, trade deals tend to "dictate law" in other countries. TPP would have done a lot of that. What's so bad about not forcing industrial espionage on US companies if they want to operate in China? No one is forcing China at gunpoint to take the deal. If they have another market they can sell to, they should consider doing that.
      - chvid 7y ago
        "No one is forcing them at gunpoint to take the deal." The Trump administration did choose the "nuclear option" just one day later. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/trump-s-huawei-threat-is-the-nuclear-option-to-halt-china-s-rise?srnd=technology-vp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/trump-s-h... I think the above bloomberg article explains just how extreme an action it is; and also sprinkle it with comments from american politicians which seem to reveal that this is about more than "reasonable guarantees".
        m0zg 7y ago
        Try rooting for the US for a change. I can guarantee you nobody is rooting for the US on the other end of this negotiation. It is criminally naive to believe that a country will give up $500B in trade imbalance without kicking up some dust and engaging in hardball negotiation tactics to mitigate the damage. I also happen to think that Trump is 100% right in barring Huawei from dominating the US telecom for the same reason why you wouldn't want e.g. Russia to build US voting systems.
        Tomte 7y ago
        "$500B in trade imbalance" You make it sound like it's a bad thing. Trade imbalance simply is, there is no moral value statement involved. For consumers a trade deficit is actually pretty sweet. You can also see it this way: America gets 500B worth of goods from China, in exchange for currency it can simply print.
  - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
    You obviously haven't read the article of this thread and do not know about the so-called Unequal Treaties China was subjected to in the 19th and early 20th century...
    - kolanos 7y ago
      Because the U.S. doesn't have a similar history with the British Empire?
      - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        No... That isn't even remotely similar. That's also completely irrelevant here. Are people really that clueless about history? Or is it just bad faith?
        kolanos 7y ago
        Please point out the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking [0] that are materially worse than terms the U.S. colonies were subject to [1]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States#Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United...
        NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        See my previous questions. This is sad to see such behaviour on HN...
        kolanos 7y ago
        Please familiarize yourself on colonial mercantilism [0] and then get back to me on how "irrelevant" U.S. history is... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States#Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United...
  - moorhosj 7y ago
    ==They know this perfectly well. The US has a tremendous leverage in this negotiation.== You are leaving out how Donald Trump wants to be re-elected in 18 months and Xi has no such pressures. ==China's main sticking point is they want to remove this leverage and make the deal unenforceable. Yeah, that might have worked with Obama (who was, IMO, too eager to please), but the current administration knows better than to sign something like that.== Like that "deal" we signed with North Korea? I think you are giving the administration a little too much credit as they have engaged the same types of tactics with our allies (Canada, Mexico and the EU) who are not in the same position as China.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      Which "deal" have we "signed" with North Korea? As far as I'm aware that negotiation is very far from over, although positive movement is evident (for which South Korean government gives credit directly to Trump: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-trump/south-korea-president-says-trump-deserves-nobel-peace-prize-idUSKBN1I10OD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-tru...). There haven't been any nuclear weapons tests either. Do you think the Koreas can be reunited in a year after being separate for 50? Nobody has ever gotten anywhere near as far as Trump in all of this. Give credit where credit is due.
      - moorhosj 7y ago
        ==Which "deal" have we "signed" with North Korea? As far as I'm aware that negotiation is very far from over,== We haven't signed a deal, that was something Trump promised at the second summit, but never delivered. Meanwhile, after the first summit on June 13, 2018, Trump said, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” [1] Was that ever true? ==although positive movement is evident== Just last week, "North Korea fires two rounds of missiles, 2nd launch in a week, South Korea says" [2]. ==Give credit where credit is due.== What has North Korea signed or taken concrete actions on? [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-trumps-premature-victory-celebration-became-kims-triumph-2019-02-25 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-trumps-premature-victo... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-fires-unidentified-projectile-south-korean-military-official-says-n1003626 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-fires-unident...
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Less than 3.5% of China's GDP is trade with USA. China can stop trade with USA nearly completely, and not even notice it really Few years ago, the biggest US export to China was plastic and paper (garbage) Now, it changed to agriculture products, airplanes and cars (German American cars...)
    - m0zg 7y ago
      I think it's more like 4.5%, something like 530 billion on the GDP of 12 trillion. And no, they can't stop exporting to the US. The entirety of their economy depends on continued growth, and if, unwisely, they chose to stop exports to the US, China would be deeply fucked for the next decade or more. >> Few years ago, the biggest US export to China was plastic and paper (garbage) From https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peo...: "The top import categories (2-digit HS) in 2018 were: electrical machinery ($152 billion), machinery ($117 billion), furniture and bedding ($35 billion), toys and sports equipment ($27 billion), and plastics ($19 billion)"
paganel 7y ago
I could never understand why export subsidies are bad for the importing countries, I mean, we have the Chinese taxpayer directly putting their money in the pockets of their foreign clients (this point about subsidizing exports was made by Jean-Baptiste Say two centuries ago). And while the Chinese are kind enough to help us pay for their products with their own money we can focus instead on other stuff which we’re really great at building/providing as a service.
- marcell 7y ago
  It hurts domestic industry in the other country. The negative effects are concentrated while the benefit is diffuse. Example: China subsidizes solar panels to the point where all US solar panel companies go bankrupt. The US solar panel industry is badly hurt, even if the rest of us get 40% cheaper solar panels.
  - mcny 7y ago
    > It hurts domestic industry in the other country. The negative effects are concentrated while the benefit is diffuse. > Example: China subsidizes solar panels to the point where all US solar panel companies go bankrupt. The US solar panel industry is badly hurt, even if the rest of us get 40% cheaper solar panels. What is the end game in this example for China? Do they expect to subsidize now and raise prices to exorbitant levels once there is no competition? That can't possibly last for a long time. If prices go high enough, surely the industries in the US will spring back up. The pain is temporary at worst. I think what it shows is a fatal flaw in democracy. I think I read somewhere that if there is an issue that at least about five percent of the population care deeply enough (I don't know the numbers but for example the fanatical religious people in the middle east or pro-birth or pro-gun people in the US) to be single-issue voters, they will have an outsize effect on policy even though their position is bad for a majority of people.
    - NicoJuicy 7y ago
      Because everything is gradual. Solar first, then electric batteries, ... Soon, the tech is out of our hands and we have no option/big competitors left anymore. They already have a head start with a 1 billion market without any of our competitors
neonate 7y ago
http://archive.is/KagEm http://archive.is/KagEm
Leary 7y ago
Sounds like entrenched interests in SOEs forced Xi and Liu's hands. It's not necessarily about IP protection, but state subsidies then.
- kolanos 7y ago
  Agree. Wonder which (if any) subsidies the U.S. is willing to drop in return.
steve76 7y ago
Great. You stop selling tons of concentrated elephant tranquilizer to kids. I will look the other way when you dub Iron Man 5 to promote global terrorism. There's nothing idealistic about this. Politics is cattle butchery. A smart man once said that there are no red states or blue states. It's just the United States. There are no white Americans or black Americans. There are just Americans. If you look at just American, the rest of the world treated us horribly. Australia, once a penal colony, sure. America was the death camp, complete with child age cannibalism. But we just didn't die, did we? So we got a never ending series of wars launched by the old world to take us out. All for the outrageous crime of basic human rights. The only reason it ended is we did the impossible to end WWII. The rest of the world pushed the Soviets into Japan, trying to start it up again. In response we gave you two warnings, 100 years ago, to leave us alone. To not come here thinking you will rule the world. Easily we could have took the data, built an exposed nuclear core, dumped in somewhere strategic and we're the only ones left. Enjoy your surrender as we give you everything we ask. And kiss the ground, lucky and praise America that we haven't melted you for the awful ignorant crimes you committed.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
The part I find most interesting is about the strength of Xi's grip on China. Either Xi has rejected this (at least for the moment), and has directed his puppets to "reject" it (to give the appearance of them stopping him from doing something he was reluctantly willing to do)... Or Xi is not as firmly in total control of China as various events had led me to believe. His thought is enshrined in the constitution. He's breaking precedent by remaining in charge for life, not just for ten years. But he can't approve a trade deal if others don't like it? Is this "you can be dictator as much as you please, but mess up the economy and you're gone"? I also find it telling that "you can't keep taking our IP just because we're doing business" is termed "unequal". Interesting idea of "equality" there...
- Leary 7y ago
  Most important decisions require the approval of the 7 men Standing Committee of the Politburo[1], of which Xi is only one member. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_Standing_Committee_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_Standing_Committee_o...
  - thebooktocome 7y ago
    Xi has enormous amounts of soft power with which to influence the Standing Committee.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  You will then be horrified to learn that US intelligence has a written mandate to obtain foreign technology that the US lacks and make it available to US industry. A well-kept little dirty secret.
  - chibg10 7y ago
    Source?
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Classic what-about-ism. And I deeply resent you putting words in my mouth (or at least attitudes in my brain). It's a dishonest, cheap rhetorical trick. And apparently you can't see the difference between the government trying to take it by spying, and the government forcing you to give it away by contract as a condition of doing business. Hint: One you can take countermeasures against; one you can't. And, like others, I would like to see your source.
mishafre 7y ago
China manipulates world currencies, does not enforce or respect copyright and trademark law and finds other ways to bend international laws around IP. This is holding them to account and in so far as that is concerned, this seems in the long-term interests of America since China just rips the tech and localizes/monetizes while restricting access to their domestic markets from the foreign players that developed the tech in the first place.
mncharity 7y ago
Let me try to write something that may permit and generate fruitful discussion. Do you think the repeated US copyright-term extensions, widely attributed to Disney, have been good public policy? Patent IP (Industrial Policy;) has lots of knobs and dials (duration, obviousness, scope, FRAND, etc) - do you think their current settings, nailed down by US pharma, are well adjusted to support innovation in other industries, like say tech? Do you think California's severe limits on non-compete employment agreements are bad for innovation? No? Neither do some other countries. For example, TPP was spun as a free-trade treaty. But it was also sometimes described as bag of multiple treaties. One, free-trade. But also "IP" (copyright and patents). And ISDS. Let's leave the mess of ISDS aside. When the US dropped TPP, it was continued by other countries as CPTTP, keeping the free trade parts, and dropping IP and ISDS. After a time, the US came back with USMCA, forcing their inclusion. Canada was forced to agree to change its laws, to extend its copyright term. Something the US had long tried to force, and Canada had long resisted. The canadian press described it as arm twisting, and coercion. Here are US trade negotiators, acting, at root, on behalf of Disney. Why pay for regulatory capture piecemeal, country by country, when the US provides one-stop shopping for world-wide regulatory capture? If Russia, with declining oil revenue and growing trade imbalance, but having nukes and bioweapons, forced the United States to permit the mass importation of Russian-provided narcotics, dwarfing the current opioid epidemic, would you be pissed? Yes, the Chinese still are. But this isn't some vague "trigger" similarity. US trade negotiators, on behalf of the subcultures in which they're embedded, and the interests which determine their positions, are trying to coerce them. As with Canada and others. Maybe China will fold too. Or maybe not. Canada did push back on ISDS. Call it a conflict of two cultures of corruption. In one, large incumbents do regulatory capture, and use it as moat, to avoid a threateningly competitive and innovative market. In the other, everyone pays off the government, and there's lots of other ugliness, but... there's a ferment. Current US press coverage of China repeated reminds me old regime Europe writing about the US in 1800's. The US economy and governance and society were really corrupt and messy. And they changed the world. And the world is perhaps fortunate, maybe, that the dismal stagnation of Europe was unable to stifle that. [Fyi, I'll likely not follow up on comments - sorry, I lose days that way. And this isn't the kind of topic HN does well. But there seemed some significant bits absent from the discussion, at least as of when I started writing this. So I toss it out there, FWIW.]
tibbydudeza 7y ago
I think people forgot about China's experience at the hand of the West in the past i.e Opium Wars and how it affects their moves today.
- steve76 7y ago
  You really think drugs weren't in Asia until the British sailed there? How don't you know the Chinese, with multiple genocides, imperialism and slavery, didn't ban it to start a drug withdrawal riot? Some final thoughts before I eliminate the distractions and grind away at work and hopefully stay off this site for good: 1. Firstly, thanks to those who fought in Iraq, a lot of friends who came home blown apart, only to see people who didn't fight, like me, and who are far worst at their jobs ,experience great success. They could have stayed put and become millionaires in local plumbing contracting, electrical work, engineering, management, law, IT, anything. Now they see people who mess up at their jobs with what they have, while our best are starting from scratch proving themselves by running a cash register at Lowes at some horrible hour. Wealth is a trap, a way to dump much grave matter on the naive and uncultured. Find happiness! Lowes at night is fun. All of that, only to have a Soviet traitor say they are imperialists there for choice and oil. A lot of friends got messed up and stayed there a lot longer because they did it right, because they weren't imperialists. And they are betrayed by a sniveling coward who thinks he is a movie star. Union members, socialists, hell, even communists, you can do better. 2. Once again, I wish I could stay off this site for good. Aren't hacks suppose to be reversible? 3. I'm ashamed of my "rage auto pilot", for advocating that the USA chernobyl the world at the end of WWII for the many crimes they did to America, perpetual war, complete rejection of human rights, cynicism to every advancement we make. It's wrong to be gleeful at the epitome of human immorality. They really are pushing it. Putin's laser gets cheers from America? WTF. The same guy who shot down an air liner, gets an opportunity to irradiate everyone. How do we know Chernobyl was an accident, and wasn't a rogue attack by brainwashed feral Marxists? Once again, world, you are really really really lucky we didn't melt you considering all you did to us. Sick, small weak people do junk like that. We don't. We end it, and go back to our nice simple lives. 4. I'm horrified that my thoughts are 100 years old, and are filed away coldly in rooms, many of our allies. If the USA ever becomes a narco state, descending into toxic barbarity and gluttony, we get wiped out by our friends. Monarchs we found peace with, entrepreneurs we trained, religious leaders we respect, and we would have no one to blame but ourselves. 5. What's lost on the idea that war is hell, is that there's a little bit of heaven in hell. Sure, it's unimaginable pain. So's an ER. War's different in that it has that mystic, mesmerizing sliver in it. It will always be there, creeping in, boiling under the surface even if we have immortality. 6. War being disruptive is a massive understatement. It uplifts creation and irreversible changes what it means to be human. The next war will be one where we don't kill. We will keep you alive, holding the zealous corrupt, the self defeating cynics and ironists, the nihilists, the Marxists to what they fear most: their lies turn true, and they will be held account for all their horrible horrible inhuman crimes. We may very well turn into perpetual monsters before the next one ends. Horrifying. 7. Want to eliminate the death penalty? Stop murdering people. Want to get government out of your womb? Don't get pregnant. Want access to every drug you can shove down your throat? Don't kill your friends and family and burn down everything in sight. My world's lens is ideal. I cannot use it to build paradise because the fog of contention and conflict. How can we ever accurately measure great distances in the sky among the smoke of great cities? I'm done talking like a maniacal fool. I'll speak with the market.

63 points by 1PlayerOne 7y ago

dmix 7y ago

> These cries came not only from the party's conservative left but also from the rank and file -- from the core of workers and management at state-owned companies, from industries that rely on subsidies for survival and from the bureaucratic institutions that protect them. The proposed deal threatened their interests. That might not sound good to these particular special interests but this sounds good for China as a whole.

chvid 7y ago

This is largely the same story as can be read here: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3010456/what-killed-us-china-trade-talks-tale-two-texts https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3010456/wh... I find it amazing that this deal appearantly was close to coming through.

m0zg 7y ago
Why is it so "amazing"? They're between a rock and a hard place. Their economy is guaranteed to collapse if the US keeps erecting trade barriers. The US is much less dependent on them than they are on the US. It will hurt here (with a nice side-effect of import diversification), but it will be totally unbearable over there. They know this perfectly well. The US has a tremendous leverage in this negotiation. China's main sticking point is they want to remove this leverage and make the deal unenforceable. Yeah, that might have worked with Obama (who was, IMO, too eager to please), but the current administration knows better than to sign something like that.
- chvid 7y ago
  The article really explains it well. It is USA, a foreign power, dictating detailed law in China; that digs deep.
  - dionian 7y ago
    The US is right to try to seek some reasonable guarantees that the terms of the deal will be adhered to
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Um, yeah, trade deals tend to "dictate law" in other countries. TPP would have done a lot of that. What's so bad about not forcing industrial espionage on US companies if they want to operate in China? No one is forcing China at gunpoint to take the deal. If they have another market they can sell to, they should consider doing that.
    - chvid 7y ago
      "No one is forcing them at gunpoint to take the deal." The Trump administration did choose the "nuclear option" just one day later. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/trump-s-huawei-threat-is-the-nuclear-option-to-halt-china-s-rise?srnd=technology-vp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/trump-s-h... I think the above bloomberg article explains just how extreme an action it is; and also sprinkle it with comments from american politicians which seem to reveal that this is about more than "reasonable guarantees".
      - m0zg 7y ago
        Try rooting for the US for a change. I can guarantee you nobody is rooting for the US on the other end of this negotiation. It is criminally naive to believe that a country will give up $500B in trade imbalance without kicking up some dust and engaging in hardball negotiation tactics to mitigate the damage. I also happen to think that Trump is 100% right in barring Huawei from dominating the US telecom for the same reason why you wouldn't want e.g. Russia to build US voting systems.
        Tomte 7y ago
        "$500B in trade imbalance" You make it sound like it's a bad thing. Trade imbalance simply is, there is no moral value statement involved. For consumers a trade deficit is actually pretty sweet. You can also see it this way: America gets 500B worth of goods from China, in exchange for currency it can simply print.
- NotPaidToPost 7y ago
  You obviously haven't read the article of this thread and do not know about the so-called Unequal Treaties China was subjected to in the 19th and early 20th century...
  - kolanos 7y ago
    Because the U.S. doesn't have a similar history with the British Empire?
    - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
      No... That isn't even remotely similar. That's also completely irrelevant here. Are people really that clueless about history? Or is it just bad faith?
      - kolanos 7y ago
        Please point out the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking [0] that are materially worse than terms the U.S. colonies were subject to [1]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States#Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United...
        NotPaidToPost 7y ago
        See my previous questions. This is sad to see such behaviour on HN...
        kolanos 7y ago
        Please familiarize yourself on colonial mercantilism [0] and then get back to me on how "irrelevant" U.S. history is... [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States#Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United...
- moorhosj 7y ago
  ==They know this perfectly well. The US has a tremendous leverage in this negotiation.== You are leaving out how Donald Trump wants to be re-elected in 18 months and Xi has no such pressures. ==China's main sticking point is they want to remove this leverage and make the deal unenforceable. Yeah, that might have worked with Obama (who was, IMO, too eager to please), but the current administration knows better than to sign something like that.== Like that "deal" we signed with North Korea? I think you are giving the administration a little too much credit as they have engaged the same types of tactics with our allies (Canada, Mexico and the EU) who are not in the same position as China.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Which "deal" have we "signed" with North Korea? As far as I'm aware that negotiation is very far from over, although positive movement is evident (for which South Korean government gives credit directly to Trump: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-trump/south-korea-president-says-trump-deserves-nobel-peace-prize-idUSKBN1I10OD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-tru...). There haven't been any nuclear weapons tests either. Do you think the Koreas can be reunited in a year after being separate for 50? Nobody has ever gotten anywhere near as far as Trump in all of this. Give credit where credit is due.
    - moorhosj 7y ago
      ==Which "deal" have we "signed" with North Korea? As far as I'm aware that negotiation is very far from over,== We haven't signed a deal, that was something Trump promised at the second summit, but never delivered. Meanwhile, after the first summit on June 13, 2018, Trump said, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” [1] Was that ever true? ==although positive movement is evident== Just last week, "North Korea fires two rounds of missiles, 2nd launch in a week, South Korea says" [2]. ==Give credit where credit is due.== What has North Korea signed or taken concrete actions on? [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-trumps-premature-victory-celebration-became-kims-triumph-2019-02-25 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-trumps-premature-victo... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-fires-unidentified-projectile-south-korean-military-official-says-n1003626 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-fires-unident...
- baybal2 7y ago
  Less than 3.5% of China's GDP is trade with USA. China can stop trade with USA nearly completely, and not even notice it really Few years ago, the biggest US export to China was plastic and paper (garbage) Now, it changed to agriculture products, airplanes and cars (German American cars...)
  - m0zg 7y ago
    I think it's more like 4.5%, something like 530 billion on the GDP of 12 trillion. And no, they can't stop exporting to the US. The entirety of their economy depends on continued growth, and if, unwisely, they chose to stop exports to the US, China would be deeply fucked for the next decade or more. >> Few years ago, the biggest US export to China was plastic and paper (garbage) From https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peo...: "The top import categories (2-digit HS) in 2018 were: electrical machinery ($152 billion), machinery ($117 billion), furniture and bedding ($35 billion), toys and sports equipment ($27 billion), and plastics ($19 billion)"

paganel 7y ago

I could never understand why export subsidies are bad for the importing countries, I mean, we have the Chinese taxpayer directly putting their money in the pockets of their foreign clients (this point about subsidizing exports was made by Jean-Baptiste Say two centuries ago). And while the Chinese are kind enough to help us pay for their products with their own money we can focus instead on other stuff which we’re really great at building/providing as a service.

marcell 7y ago
It hurts domestic industry in the other country. The negative effects are concentrated while the benefit is diffuse. Example: China subsidizes solar panels to the point where all US solar panel companies go bankrupt. The US solar panel industry is badly hurt, even if the rest of us get 40% cheaper solar panels.
- mcny 7y ago
  > It hurts domestic industry in the other country. The negative effects are concentrated while the benefit is diffuse. > Example: China subsidizes solar panels to the point where all US solar panel companies go bankrupt. The US solar panel industry is badly hurt, even if the rest of us get 40% cheaper solar panels. What is the end game in this example for China? Do they expect to subsidize now and raise prices to exorbitant levels once there is no competition? That can't possibly last for a long time. If prices go high enough, surely the industries in the US will spring back up. The pain is temporary at worst. I think what it shows is a fatal flaw in democracy. I think I read somewhere that if there is an issue that at least about five percent of the population care deeply enough (I don't know the numbers but for example the fanatical religious people in the middle east or pro-birth or pro-gun people in the US) to be single-issue voters, they will have an outsize effect on policy even though their position is bad for a majority of people.
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    Because everything is gradual. Solar first, then electric batteries, ... Soon, the tech is out of our hands and we have no option/big competitors left anymore. They already have a head start with a 1 billion market without any of our competitors

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.is/KagEm http://archive.is/KagEm

Leary 7y ago

Sounds like entrenched interests in SOEs forced Xi and Liu's hands. It's not necessarily about IP protection, but state subsidies then.

kolanos 7y ago
Agree. Wonder which (if any) subsidies the U.S. is willing to drop in return.

steve76 7y ago

Great. You stop selling tons of concentrated elephant tranquilizer to kids. I will look the other way when you dub Iron Man 5 to promote global terrorism. There's nothing idealistic about this. Politics is cattle butchery. A smart man once said that there are no red states or blue states. It's just the United States. There are no white Americans or black Americans. There are just Americans. If you look at just American, the rest of the world treated us horribly. Australia, once a penal colony, sure. America was the death camp, complete with child age cannibalism. But we just didn't die, did we? So we got a never ending series of wars launched by the old world to take us out. All for the outrageous crime of basic human rights. The only reason it ended is we did the impossible to end WWII. The rest of the world pushed the Soviets into Japan, trying to start it up again. In response we gave you two warnings, 100 years ago, to leave us alone. To not come here thinking you will rule the world. Easily we could have took the data, built an exposed nuclear core, dumped in somewhere strategic and we're the only ones left. Enjoy your surrender as we give you everything we ask. And kiss the ground, lucky and praise America that we haven't melted you for the awful ignorant crimes you committed.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

The part I find most interesting is about the strength of Xi's grip on China. Either Xi has rejected this (at least for the moment), and has directed his puppets to "reject" it (to give the appearance of them stopping him from doing something he was reluctantly willing to do)... Or Xi is not as firmly in total control of China as various events had led me to believe. His thought is enshrined in the constitution. He's breaking precedent by remaining in charge for life, not just for ten years. But he can't approve a trade deal if others don't like it? Is this "you can be dictator as much as you please, but mess up the economy and you're gone"? I also find it telling that "you can't keep taking our IP just because we're doing business" is termed "unequal". Interesting idea of "equality" there...

Leary 7y ago
Most important decisions require the approval of the 7 men Standing Committee of the Politburo[1], of which Xi is only one member. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_Standing_Committee_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_Standing_Committee_o...
- thebooktocome 7y ago
  Xi has enormous amounts of soft power with which to influence the Standing Committee.
pinkfoot 7y ago
You will then be horrified to learn that US intelligence has a written mandate to obtain foreign technology that the US lacks and make it available to US industry. A well-kept little dirty secret.
- chibg10 7y ago
  Source?
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Classic what-about-ism. And I deeply resent you putting words in my mouth (or at least attitudes in my brain). It's a dishonest, cheap rhetorical trick. And apparently you can't see the difference between the government trying to take it by spying, and the government forcing you to give it away by contract as a condition of doing business. Hint: One you can take countermeasures against; one you can't. And, like others, I would like to see your source.

mishafre 7y ago

China manipulates world currencies, does not enforce or respect copyright and trademark law and finds other ways to bend international laws around IP. This is holding them to account and in so far as that is concerned, this seems in the long-term interests of America since China just rips the tech and localizes/monetizes while restricting access to their domestic markets from the foreign players that developed the tech in the first place.

mncharity 7y ago

Let me try to write something that may permit and generate fruitful discussion. Do you think the repeated US copyright-term extensions, widely attributed to Disney, have been good public policy? Patent IP (Industrial Policy;) has lots of knobs and dials (duration, obviousness, scope, FRAND, etc) - do you think their current settings, nailed down by US pharma, are well adjusted to support innovation in other industries, like say tech? Do you think California's severe limits on non-compete employment agreements are bad for innovation? No? Neither do some other countries. For example, TPP was spun as a free-trade treaty. But it was also sometimes described as bag of multiple treaties. One, free-trade. But also "IP" (copyright and patents). And ISDS. Let's leave the mess of ISDS aside. When the US dropped TPP, it was continued by other countries as CPTTP, keeping the free trade parts, and dropping IP and ISDS. After a time, the US came back with USMCA, forcing their inclusion. Canada was forced to agree to change its laws, to extend its copyright term. Something the US had long tried to force, and Canada had long resisted. The canadian press described it as arm twisting, and coercion. Here are US trade negotiators, acting, at root, on behalf of Disney. Why pay for regulatory capture piecemeal, country by country, when the US provides one-stop shopping for world-wide regulatory capture? If Russia, with declining oil revenue and growing trade imbalance, but having nukes and bioweapons, forced the United States to permit the mass importation of Russian-provided narcotics, dwarfing the current opioid epidemic, would you be pissed? Yes, the Chinese still are. But this isn't some vague "trigger" similarity. US trade negotiators, on behalf of the subcultures in which they're embedded, and the interests which determine their positions, are trying to coerce them. As with Canada and others. Maybe China will fold too. Or maybe not. Canada did push back on ISDS. Call it a conflict of two cultures of corruption. In one, large incumbents do regulatory capture, and use it as moat, to avoid a threateningly competitive and innovative market. In the other, everyone pays off the government, and there's lots of other ugliness, but... there's a ferment. Current US press coverage of China repeated reminds me old regime Europe writing about the US in 1800's. The US economy and governance and society were really corrupt and messy. And they changed the world. And the world is perhaps fortunate, maybe, that the dismal stagnation of Europe was unable to stifle that. [Fyi, I'll likely not follow up on comments - sorry, I lose days that way. And this isn't the kind of topic HN does well. But there seemed some significant bits absent from the discussion, at least as of when I started writing this. So I toss it out there, FWIW.]

tibbydudeza 7y ago

I think people forgot about China's experience at the hand of the West in the past i.e Opium Wars and how it affects their moves today.

steve76 7y ago
You really think drugs weren't in Asia until the British sailed there? How don't you know the Chinese, with multiple genocides, imperialism and slavery, didn't ban it to start a drug withdrawal riot? Some final thoughts before I eliminate the distractions and grind away at work and hopefully stay off this site for good: 1. Firstly, thanks to those who fought in Iraq, a lot of friends who came home blown apart, only to see people who didn't fight, like me, and who are far worst at their jobs ,experience great success. They could have stayed put and become millionaires in local plumbing contracting, electrical work, engineering, management, law, IT, anything. Now they see people who mess up at their jobs with what they have, while our best are starting from scratch proving themselves by running a cash register at Lowes at some horrible hour. Wealth is a trap, a way to dump much grave matter on the naive and uncultured. Find happiness! Lowes at night is fun. All of that, only to have a Soviet traitor say they are imperialists there for choice and oil. A lot of friends got messed up and stayed there a lot longer because they did it right, because they weren't imperialists. And they are betrayed by a sniveling coward who thinks he is a movie star. Union members, socialists, hell, even communists, you can do better. 2. Once again, I wish I could stay off this site for good. Aren't hacks suppose to be reversible? 3. I'm ashamed of my "rage auto pilot", for advocating that the USA chernobyl the world at the end of WWII for the many crimes they did to America, perpetual war, complete rejection of human rights, cynicism to every advancement we make. It's wrong to be gleeful at the epitome of human immorality. They really are pushing it. Putin's laser gets cheers from America? WTF. The same guy who shot down an air liner, gets an opportunity to irradiate everyone. How do we know Chernobyl was an accident, and wasn't a rogue attack by brainwashed feral Marxists? Once again, world, you are really really really lucky we didn't melt you considering all you did to us. Sick, small weak people do junk like that. We don't. We end it, and go back to our nice simple lives. 4. I'm horrified that my thoughts are 100 years old, and are filed away coldly in rooms, many of our allies. If the USA ever becomes a narco state, descending into toxic barbarity and gluttony, we get wiped out by our friends. Monarchs we found peace with, entrepreneurs we trained, religious leaders we respect, and we would have no one to blame but ourselves. 5. What's lost on the idea that war is hell, is that there's a little bit of heaven in hell. Sure, it's unimaginable pain. So's an ER. War's different in that it has that mystic, mesmerizing sliver in it. It will always be there, creeping in, boiling under the surface even if we have immortality. 6. War being disruptive is a massive understatement. It uplifts creation and irreversible changes what it means to be human. The next war will be one where we don't kill. We will keep you alive, holding the zealous corrupt, the self defeating cynics and ironists, the nihilists, the Marxists to what they fear most: their lies turn true, and they will be held account for all their horrible horrible inhuman crimes. We may very well turn into perpetual monsters before the next one ends. Horrifying. 7. Want to eliminate the death penalty? Stop murdering people. Want to get government out of your womb? Don't get pregnant. Want access to every drug you can shove down your throat? Don't kill your friends and family and burn down everything in sight. My world's lens is ideal. I cannot use it to build paradise because the fog of contention and conflict. How can we ever accurately measure great distances in the sky among the smoke of great cities? I'm done talking like a maniacal fool. I'll speak with the market.