4 ms·

Just huawei? Isn't that the case for china's rise overall? Wasn't the basis of US-China relations the past 50 years a simple transfer of technology/capital for

Just huawei? Isn't that the case for china's rise overall? Wasn't the basis of US-China relations the past 50 years a simple transfer of technology/capital for cheap labor/lax environmental regulations? We looked the other way while china took our technology and money. And they looked away as we exploited cheap labor and lax environmental law. It was a wage, technology, capital and environmental law arbitrage. It terribly skewed the wealth/income inequality in both countries, it destroyed large segments of the US ( rust belt ), it has been an environmental disaster and it's significantly altered the global power balance. But at least the elites got ridiculously wealthy. For 50 years, the wsj and the ny times defended this. Bloomberg defended this since their inception in the early 80s. It's odd to see the entire establishment media shift from supporting it to now suddenly attacking it. Also, you would think independent media would offer differing opinions rather than speaking with the same voice. But it's always complete support or complete rejection as if someone flips a switch on and off. "Theft and dubious ethics" has been the basis of the US-China relationship from the very beginning and it went both ways. This is something everyone and their mother knew from the very beginning. Why did it take 50 years for the wsj and the rest of the media to figure it out. If the wsj is concerned with "theft and dubious ethics", are they planning on an expose' of the US-Saudi relation and US-Israeli relation? Maybe in another 50 years?

andy_ppp 7y ago
Trade has made it possible to have fewer wars, I personally wonder if the fracturing of globalisation by automation technologies will lead to harder borders, a less open world, less trade and more wars. America is always looking for an enemy to win against.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  I think America is less interested in an enemy to win against and simply one to dangle out in front. It's less about winning and more about continually justifying the military industrial complex. It's also probably why the conservative spectrum of political thought is has a sharp split with respect to foreign policy at the moment, with one side leaning towards isolationism and the other towards a more hawkish stance. That's not intended as a knock on conservatism, just a fairly surface-level observation.
ordu 7y ago
Yeah, it strongly reminds me the media of USSR. They switched narratives in a perfect unison with politics like that. Sometimes they even did it ahead of politics preparing ground for changes in politics. I wonder what the mechanics of it might be in a democratic society. It was easy to do in USSR: top-down structure allowed state to rule media by orders. But democracy is more nuanced than that I believe. At least I've never witnessed ahead-of-time switch in narratives of democratic media.
- vneumanarc 7y ago
  It's in all states. It just becomes more noticable in times of stress ( economic, military, societal ). Go read about the mccarthy era, the red scare before that or the yellow peril before that. Or go read about how how china and the chinese were viewed pre-1970 to how the media changed perceptions during the 1970s with deng's visit, etc as they prepared to open trade relations. Read about how chinatowns historically were stereotyped as the worst kind of ghetto with drugs, crime, etc by the media for much of history. During the 1970s, the media turned chinatown from a ghetto to a hip ethnic enclave. The same thing with the natives, blacks, mexicans, japanese, germans, russians, chinese, italians, catholics, irish, jews, etc in the US. There were periods where they were demonized and then some switched got flipped and the media softened or completely reversed their stance. Why and at whose request, who knows. Go look at sino-soviet relations. They are "best buds" and their respective media praised each other. Things go sour and the media pushes anti-sino and anti-russo rhetoric. Same thing with sino-american relations. The interests of the ruling class determine what perceptions the media creates. Remember when Bush looked into putin's eye and saw a good man? The media was praising putin for stabilizing russia and improving living conditions? It was only 15 years ago, but in media terms, it feels like a lifetime ago. How things quickly change.
  - chvid 7y ago
    I think it is the Trump 2020 campaign. Essentially Trump has figured out he can win the 2020 election by going to war with China. So it is anti-China all over; from smearing of political opponents to policy to information campaigning.
  - deleted 7y ago
robert_foss 7y ago
Most financial powers when rising up have stolen technology. This is very much not unique to US-China. Maybe reading up on the history of America brazenly stealing from other countries could provide some contrast here. https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  The British were at it before the US, post-war Japan was at it. The US was built on it. The first few incarnations of US patent law only allowed US citizens to hold a patent - so foreign inventors and corporations could not protect their inventions in the US. It's such a common phase of growth that it is surprising people are surprised at China following along.
  - jsty 7y ago
    I'd say most people were probably more hopeful that the world had moved past that modus operandi for bootstrapping growth. There are many things that might have been considered par for the course decades ago that we think of as beyond the pale today.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    I'm not surprised or even judgemental about it - given a choice between respecting foreign-imposed IP law and the prosperity of your own people, who wouldn't choose the latter? Especially after such wonderful things as the opium wars. What I am surprised by is how long the US ignored the threat of moving production and knowledge to China, under the dogma of free trade.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      When you have a culture where short-term returns trump long-term strategy - never mind political wisdom - it's absolutely predictable that you're going to be blindsided by the realisation that other countries can out-compete with you, and don't just exist to be used and discarded.
nobrains 7y ago
The real question to ponder is who controls that on off flip switch?
- llampx 7y ago
  The same billionaires and billion-dollar corporations that control the media control the politicians.
chvid 7y ago
The US economy has benifited enourmously from its trade with China; that those benifits have not gone to the rust belt is really America's own choice.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Some of the US economy has benefited enormously from its trade with China. It's hard to imagine anything more cynical than the US blaming China for the poverty and job losses caused knowingly by US corporations taking advantage of cheap Chinese labour and resources.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    It's like coal mining. What politician is going to say "Mechanization and the economics of renewables are taking your jobs", as opposed to "Environmental regulations are taking your jobs"? The former is worse in every way, with the exception of being true.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    > It's hard to imagine anything more cynical than the US blaming China for the poverty and job losses caused knowingly by US corporations taking advantage of cheap Chinese labour and resources. Yet that seems to have become the popular narrative in many places.
- swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
  No surprise the rust belt is Trump's campaigning grounds. Americans didn't choose for the great lakes economies to collapse. It was the collective decision of the ownership class.
  - codedokode 7y ago
    But didn't consumers also win from being able to buy cheaper goods manufactured abroad?
    - 7y ago
freeflight 7y ago
> But at least the elites got ridiculously wealthy. Not just the rich, it also lead to the creation of a Chinese middle-class by lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and developing the country as proper economy [0]. A factor that regularly gets underplayed in favor of a narrative where US Americans, still living in the wealthiest country on the planet, blame the Chinese for "missing out". Yes, just because the US is a wealthy country doesn't mean everybody there is rich, but the wealth discrepancy is a home-made problem and not something China forced on the US. In that context, this turn on China just feels extremely weird. If you'd explain to anybody 30 years ago how China would develop, the progress they would make and how they embrace capitalism, most people would probably consider you crazy. Even more so if you then tell them that the US would spite and fight them for it. It's like no matter what they do it's wrong: If they are miserable they need "intervention", if they are doing great they need "containment". [0] https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/china-lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-is-historic-world-bank-117101300027_1.html https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/chin...
- swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
  People are fine with foreign countries with good economies. What isn't fine is an asymmetric trade imbalance caused by one sided protectionism, currency manipulation, espionage, and tariffs that aren't reciprocated.
chongli 7y ago
The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Not so far-fetched now, is it?
kstenerud 7y ago
This is a classic case of common knowledge in game theory, explained here [1] and here [2]. In short, change does not happen until most people believe that everyone else believes a piece of information (the information becomes common knowledge). That US-China relations were in such a state was, until very recently, something that everyone knew, but not something that everyone knew that everyone else knew as well. Until something becomes common knowledge, no action occurs. Once it becomes common knowledge, the change in everyone's behavior is incredibly rapid. We've had similar "watershed" moments in the past, for example the Vietnam war and #metoo, where public opinion changed, seemingly overnight. So yes, it's absolutely believable and predictable that WSJ et al would be singing the same tune. [1] http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/commonknowledge.html http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/commonknowledge.html [2] https://www.epsilontheory.com/harvey-weinstein-common-knowledge-game/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/harvey-weinstein-common-knowle...

andy_ppp 7y ago

Trade has made it possible to have fewer wars, I personally wonder if the fracturing of globalisation by automation technologies will lead to harder borders, a less open world, less trade and more wars. America is always looking for an enemy to win against.

ineedasername 7y ago
I think America is less interested in an enemy to win against and simply one to dangle out in front. It's less about winning and more about continually justifying the military industrial complex. It's also probably why the conservative spectrum of political thought is has a sharp split with respect to foreign policy at the moment, with one side leaning towards isolationism and the other towards a more hawkish stance. That's not intended as a knock on conservatism, just a fairly surface-level observation.

ordu 7y ago

Yeah, it strongly reminds me the media of USSR. They switched narratives in a perfect unison with politics like that. Sometimes they even did it ahead of politics preparing ground for changes in politics. I wonder what the mechanics of it might be in a democratic society. It was easy to do in USSR: top-down structure allowed state to rule media by orders. But democracy is more nuanced than that I believe. At least I've never witnessed ahead-of-time switch in narratives of democratic media.

vneumanarc 7y ago
It's in all states. It just becomes more noticable in times of stress ( economic, military, societal ). Go read about the mccarthy era, the red scare before that or the yellow peril before that. Or go read about how how china and the chinese were viewed pre-1970 to how the media changed perceptions during the 1970s with deng's visit, etc as they prepared to open trade relations. Read about how chinatowns historically were stereotyped as the worst kind of ghetto with drugs, crime, etc by the media for much of history. During the 1970s, the media turned chinatown from a ghetto to a hip ethnic enclave. The same thing with the natives, blacks, mexicans, japanese, germans, russians, chinese, italians, catholics, irish, jews, etc in the US. There were periods where they were demonized and then some switched got flipped and the media softened or completely reversed their stance. Why and at whose request, who knows. Go look at sino-soviet relations. They are "best buds" and their respective media praised each other. Things go sour and the media pushes anti-sino and anti-russo rhetoric. Same thing with sino-american relations. The interests of the ruling class determine what perceptions the media creates. Remember when Bush looked into putin's eye and saw a good man? The media was praising putin for stabilizing russia and improving living conditions? It was only 15 years ago, but in media terms, it feels like a lifetime ago. How things quickly change.
- chvid 7y ago
  I think it is the Trump 2020 campaign. Essentially Trump has figured out he can win the 2020 election by going to war with China. So it is anti-China all over; from smearing of political opponents to policy to information campaigning.
- deleted 7y ago

robert_foss 7y ago

Most financial powers when rising up have stolen technology. This is very much not unique to US-China. Maybe reading up on the history of America brazenly stealing from other countries could provide some contrast here. https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
The British were at it before the US, post-war Japan was at it. The US was built on it. The first few incarnations of US patent law only allowed US citizens to hold a patent - so foreign inventors and corporations could not protect their inventions in the US. It's such a common phase of growth that it is surprising people are surprised at China following along.
- jsty 7y ago
  I'd say most people were probably more hopeful that the world had moved past that modus operandi for bootstrapping growth. There are many things that might have been considered par for the course decades ago that we think of as beyond the pale today.
- deogeo 7y ago
  I'm not surprised or even judgemental about it - given a choice between respecting foreign-imposed IP law and the prosperity of your own people, who wouldn't choose the latter? Especially after such wonderful things as the opium wars. What I am surprised by is how long the US ignored the threat of moving production and knowledge to China, under the dogma of free trade.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    When you have a culture where short-term returns trump long-term strategy - never mind political wisdom - it's absolutely predictable that you're going to be blindsided by the realisation that other countries can out-compete with you, and don't just exist to be used and discarded.

nobrains 7y ago

The real question to ponder is who controls that on off flip switch?

llampx 7y ago
The same billionaires and billion-dollar corporations that control the media control the politicians.

chvid 7y ago

The US economy has benifited enourmously from its trade with China; that those benifits have not gone to the rust belt is really America's own choice.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Some of the US economy has benefited enormously from its trade with China. It's hard to imagine anything more cynical than the US blaming China for the poverty and job losses caused knowingly by US corporations taking advantage of cheap Chinese labour and resources.
- ethbro 7y ago
  It's like coal mining. What politician is going to say "Mechanization and the economics of renewables are taking your jobs", as opposed to "Environmental regulations are taking your jobs"? The former is worse in every way, with the exception of being true.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > It's hard to imagine anything more cynical than the US blaming China for the poverty and job losses caused knowingly by US corporations taking advantage of cheap Chinese labour and resources. Yet that seems to have become the popular narrative in many places.
swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
No surprise the rust belt is Trump's campaigning grounds. Americans didn't choose for the great lakes economies to collapse. It was the collective decision of the ownership class.
- codedokode 7y ago
  But didn't consumers also win from being able to buy cheaper goods manufactured abroad?
  - 7y ago

freeflight 7y ago

> But at least the elites got ridiculously wealthy. Not just the rich, it also lead to the creation of a Chinese middle-class by lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and developing the country as proper economy [0]. A factor that regularly gets underplayed in favor of a narrative where US Americans, still living in the wealthiest country on the planet, blame the Chinese for "missing out". Yes, just because the US is a wealthy country doesn't mean everybody there is rich, but the wealth discrepancy is a home-made problem and not something China forced on the US. In that context, this turn on China just feels extremely weird. If you'd explain to anybody 30 years ago how China would develop, the progress they would make and how they embrace capitalism, most people would probably consider you crazy. Even more so if you then tell them that the US would spite and fight them for it. It's like no matter what they do it's wrong: If they are miserable they need "intervention", if they are doing great they need "containment". [0] https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/china-lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-is-historic-world-bank-117101300027_1.html https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/chin...

swagasaurus-rex 7y ago
People are fine with foreign countries with good economies. What isn't fine is an asymmetric trade imbalance caused by one sided protectionism, currency manipulation, espionage, and tariffs that aren't reciprocated.

chongli 7y ago

The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Not so far-fetched now, is it?

kstenerud 7y ago

This is a classic case of common knowledge in game theory, explained here [1] and here [2]. In short, change does not happen until most people believe that everyone else believes a piece of information (the information becomes common knowledge). That US-China relations were in such a state was, until very recently, something that everyone knew, but not something that everyone knew that everyone else knew as well. Until something becomes common knowledge, no action occurs. Once it becomes common knowledge, the change in everyone's behavior is incredibly rapid. We've had similar "watershed" moments in the past, for example the Vietnam war and #metoo, where public opinion changed, seemingly overnight. So yes, it's absolutely believable and predictable that WSJ et al would be singing the same tune. [1] http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/commonknowledge.html http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/commonknowledge.html [2] https://www.epsilontheory.com/harvey-weinstein-common-knowledge-game/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/harvey-weinstein-common-knowle...