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I'm deeply unsettled by the economic relationship between China and the rest of the world, particularly with the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

I'm deeply unsettled by the economic relationship between China and the rest of the world, particularly with the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Since the end of the Cold War, nuclear nations have tried at all costs to avoid arms races and armed conflict. However, war still happens, but on more subtle fronts. China is waging economic warfare in earnest: - Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors, driving up real estate and turning a significant segment of the US population from homeowners to renters. - Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. - Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs - Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds (they hold around 30% of outstanding treasury bonds - over $1.1T) At the same time, China's might is costing its 1.4B citizens dearly: unsafe or abusive working conditions, severe human rights abuses, and an Orwellian surveillance state. I know the choice to do business with China is complex and nuanced. But I suggest prioritizing the moral implications--both to the world and to China's citizens--of a Chinese government with ever-increasing power when considering to what extent one should do business with China.

yuy910616 7y ago
It's kinda strange that these accounts are popping up all over the place to stoke fear on China. What's the agenda here I wonder? Chinese are known to pay folks to post on foreign forums. I'm not sure who is behind these...fascinating stuff
- oneoff-acct 7y ago
  I'm a US citizen working at a tech company. I have a normal HN account with reputation above 2000. These are my own thoughts and opinions. I'm just honestly afraid of being targeted by Chinese hackers for posting sentiments like the above.
  - account73466 7y ago
    It is like to post something negative about LGBT and claim that you fear being attacked by their active members. China and Chinese don't give a XYZT about you. HN is full of anti-Chinese comments and this will only continue as the war with Eastasia is in progress.
    - oneoff-acct 7y ago
      I beg to differ. The worst that those who post anti-LGBT sentiments have to fear is getting flagged, lambasted in the comments, and perhaps an account suspension. But government-funded hackers (Chinese or otherwise) are capable of causing all sorts of havoc to my life. I try not to underestimate the operational threat they pose.
      - account73466 7y ago
        >> The worst that those who post anti-LGBT sentiments have to fear is getting flagged, lambasted in the comments, and perhaps an account suspension. No, it can be reported via social media that you from the company X spread some aggression against LGBT (this is a hypothetical example). People get fired for much less when twitter is in action.
    - mr_overalls 7y ago
      . . . or as long as Chinese leadership continues to engage in human rights abuses, or as long as Chinese companies continue with rampant theft of intellectual property, manufacturing of unsafe/unethical products, etc. Not all criticism is a sign of national- or racially-targeted abuse. No one is above criticism.
      - account73466 7y ago
        Your previous highly downvoted comment was about another war. It seems that you are bombed with hateful information, take a break.
- nyolfen 7y ago
  if china were astroturfing rhetoric on here it would probably be close to the exact opposite of the sentiment expressed by op. the current arrangement is quite favorable for them.
- oconnor663 7y ago
  No people just actually disagree about stuff sometimes.
- dang 7y ago
  This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review them and note the one against insinuating astroturfing/shillage/brigading etc. without evidence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The "agenda", and "who is behind these", are overwhelmingly just internet users pontificating as internet users always pontificate. There's no need to sacrifice Occam for cloak-and-dagger sinistry, and bringing it into the threads nearly always has an extremely degrading effect. Lots more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
collyw 7y ago
China have also lifted loads of people out of poverty in the last few decades. They aren't all evil.
- mnemonicsloth 7y ago
  But some are very evil, and they're the ones calling the shots. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch...
Nokinside 7y ago
> Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. Western countries have moved to products that have higher value added. China is largely industrial society, the developed world is post-industrial society. > Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs China has not been doing this for a long time.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  Indeed, the Renminbi has actually been overvalued for a few years now. China has been selling US Dollars and buying Renminbi in order to prop up the value of their currency. This actually hurts Chinese exporters, all else being equal, but allowing the RMB to fall would encourage capital flight.
u10 7y ago
>Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors, driving up real estate and turning a significant segment of the US population from homeowners to renters. Recent strict capital controls out of China have resulted in a substantial negative shock to housing, especially in places like Vancouver. It's also private investors and not an explicit government policy >Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. It's called comparative advantage and absolute advantage and it's been observed for centuries. >Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs a lot of countries do this, open market operations by the central bank is not a new occurrence. >Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds (they hold around 30% of outstanding treasury bonds - over $1.1T) It's a good investment, and any threat of sell-off is mutually assured destruction -------------------------------------------------------- China is abusive to its own citizens, that's not up for dispute. But what is rather troublesome is the double standard that the west subjects the rest of the world too.
bigpumpkin 7y ago
"Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors" This is false. The Chinese government actually places a number of capital controls to prevent capital outflows from China.
deehouie 7y ago
> Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors, driving up real estate and turning a significant segment of the US population from homeowners to renters. where did you get this idea from? Pls provide evidence and support?
bgee 7y ago
Chinese national here, about to bite the bullet. > Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors Source please. From what I read Wang Jianlin got into serious political trouble for taking foreign currency out of China to buy foreign real estate. > Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades Do you mind elaborating why this is "waging economic warfare"? I'm not an Economist but this sounds like China is merely trying to be competent? > Devaluing the Yuan This might be valid. > opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs Again why is this "waging economic warfare"? Sounds like fair game to me. > Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds One of the reasons on China's purchase of US bonds was to get a relatively low-risk investment for all the USD China gets from trade surplus. From [0]: With trillions of U.S. dollars, China has found the U.S .Treasury securities to offer the safest investment destination for Chinese forex reserves. [0]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040115/reasons-why-china-buys-us-treasury-bonds.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040115/reaso... One side note: worker protection and condition has seen great improvement since China joined WTO but it's still not on par with developed economies (obviously).
- roenxi 7y ago
  I wouldn't give any ground on devaluing the Yuan; that just means that the Chinese are more willing to trade real goods for paper. It is the government giving people's stuff away for free, but to foreigners. The implication is that China will use that to build up internal expertise and atrophy foreign expertise; but that threat can be seen a generation away and given the subsidies the US pours into its own military it is hardly on China if it causes a problem. Most of the West's economic problems are self inflicted and while the idea of China's erratic government eventually building the world's strongest military is terrifying they haven't done that yet. The West wants an unreasonably high standard of living without working for it and China is just nodding, smiling and getting things done.
baybal2 7y ago
I upvote and unflag you just to have an opportunity to disapprove what you said. What you said is very tendentious. > - Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors, driving up real estate and turning a significant segment of the US population from homeowners to renters. Western nations do subsidize the real estate industry a great lot, but China is not a party to be blamed for that. Foreign buyers across all Western nations barely approach 10% even in the most hot markets. Prime benefactors of such subsidies are rich, well connected upper classes from the West who live rentier lifestyles. Coincidentally, those make a big part of the political establishment there. > - Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. Why Western nations didn't follow the suite and did not slash prices on their own? Western business culture chases profitability, Chinese chases volume. Though, it is unfortunately starting to change. The ideological virus of "MBA/lawyer/banker culture" has now reached China too... > - Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs China only managed to keep devalue its Yuan so far only thanks to patently endless supply of US treasury bills at attractive rates, which China's central bank uses to counterweight its own FX trades. If US want Yuan to shoot up to the sky, it only has to stop the crazy government spending. In fact, China has more and more often to keep Yuan from falling too much than from overappreciating in the last few years. China is now having a problem with its own bonds getting too attractive to foreign buyers too as of late. > At the same time, China's might is costing its citizens dearly: unsafe or abusive working conditions, severe human rights abuses, and an Orwellian surveillance state Well, yes... Yet China is one of the best markets around. It's a very bitter candy to swallow.
DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
> Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds It's interesting how you consider financing the US national debt to be "economic warfare." Would you rather China not lend the US money? > At the same time, China's might is costing its 1.4B citizens dearly: unsafe or abusive working conditions, severe human rights abuses, and an Orwellian surveillance state. The point you're missing is the dramatic improvement in living conditions in China over the past 30 years. Working conditions are far better than they were 30 years ago, and the average income is many times higher. Most Chinese people used to live without all sorts of things you take for granted, like showers and telephones in their homes. They used to have to heat their homes with dirty coal stoves. Electricity used to run only a few hours a day. Almost nobody had any money to travel abroad or buy a car. All that has changed in one generation. Recognizing that will help you understand why most Chinese people think so differently about the state of their country than you do. They have lots of complaints, but they also know how much things have changed for the better in so many ways.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  > most Chinese people think so differently about the state of their country than you do Their not being familiar with human rights doesn't mean I suspend them for dissidents. Many Americans were okay with Gitmo, or the Iraq war, but those things were still rightfully criticized, because the perpetrator or the unaffected "being okay" with it doesn't even move the needle. With these things, if someone is okay with them, they don't become okay. It says something about the person or their horizon, never about the things in question.
dang 7y ago
This is the sort of generic flamewar tangent that the site guidelines ask you not to post to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If every Chinese topic turns into the same "China vs. the rest of the world" discussion—or to put it more generally, if every thread gets sucked into whatever generic black hole happens to be nearby—then it becomes impossible to discuss anything specific on HN. Specifics are where the intellectually interesting material lies. Compare the topic of the OP—electronics markets in Shenzhen—to what we see in this subthread: "China is waging economic warfare", "They aren't all evil", "Some are very evil", "HN is full of anti-Chinese comments and this will only continue as the war with Eastasia is in progress", etc. The generic discussions are always the same, and usually turn nasty, perhaps because the mind craves extra action or amusement to compensate for it all being so repetitive. Lots more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Particularly please don't create new accounts to take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents.
- oneoff-acct 7y ago
  My apologies, dang - I'm very sorry. I have a lot of respect for you and I'd sad to have caused offense. I had no idea this was a flamewar topic... guess I haven't read enough of other people's comments on the issue. A lot of what people responded with is new information to me. Is there an index of topics that tend towards flamewars that I could check periodically?
  - dang 7y ago
    No offense at all, and I realize this happens with zero intent. It's a tragedy-of-the-commons thing. No one creates the flamewar, and still a subthread like this ends up gathering mass at the top of the page on a regular basis, clogging out the curious conversation. There's nothing so simple as an index. Perhaps that's for the best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum. One can certainly use HN search to see which topics have this generic quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chin&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
wildduck 7y ago
>I know the choice to do business with China is complex and nuanced. But I suggest prioritizing the moral implications--both to the world and to China's citizens--of a Chinese government with ever-increasing power when considering to what extent one should do business with China. There is a book by Stephen Roach "Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China" that take a good stab of explains this issue.

yuy910616 7y ago

It's kinda strange that these accounts are popping up all over the place to stoke fear on China. What's the agenda here I wonder? Chinese are known to pay folks to post on foreign forums. I'm not sure who is behind these...fascinating stuff

oneoff-acct 7y ago
I'm a US citizen working at a tech company. I have a normal HN account with reputation above 2000. These are my own thoughts and opinions. I'm just honestly afraid of being targeted by Chinese hackers for posting sentiments like the above.
- account73466 7y ago
  It is like to post something negative about LGBT and claim that you fear being attacked by their active members. China and Chinese don't give a XYZT about you. HN is full of anti-Chinese comments and this will only continue as the war with Eastasia is in progress.
  - oneoff-acct 7y ago
    I beg to differ. The worst that those who post anti-LGBT sentiments have to fear is getting flagged, lambasted in the comments, and perhaps an account suspension. But government-funded hackers (Chinese or otherwise) are capable of causing all sorts of havoc to my life. I try not to underestimate the operational threat they pose.
    - account73466 7y ago
      >> The worst that those who post anti-LGBT sentiments have to fear is getting flagged, lambasted in the comments, and perhaps an account suspension. No, it can be reported via social media that you from the company X spread some aggression against LGBT (this is a hypothetical example). People get fired for much less when twitter is in action.
  - mr_overalls 7y ago
    . . . or as long as Chinese leadership continues to engage in human rights abuses, or as long as Chinese companies continue with rampant theft of intellectual property, manufacturing of unsafe/unethical products, etc. Not all criticism is a sign of national- or racially-targeted abuse. No one is above criticism.
    - account73466 7y ago
      Your previous highly downvoted comment was about another war. It seems that you are bombed with hateful information, take a break.
nyolfen 7y ago
if china were astroturfing rhetoric on here it would probably be close to the exact opposite of the sentiment expressed by op. the current arrangement is quite favorable for them.
oconnor663 7y ago
No people just actually disagree about stuff sometimes.
dang 7y ago
This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review them and note the one against insinuating astroturfing/shillage/brigading etc. without evidence. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The "agenda", and "who is behind these", are overwhelmingly just internet users pontificating as internet users always pontificate. There's no need to sacrifice Occam for cloak-and-dagger sinistry, and bringing it into the threads nearly always has an extremely degrading effect. Lots more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

collyw 7y ago

China have also lifted loads of people out of poverty in the last few decades. They aren't all evil.

mnemonicsloth 7y ago
But some are very evil, and they're the ones calling the shots. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch...

Nokinside 7y ago

> Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. Western countries have moved to products that have higher value added. China is largely industrial society, the developed world is post-industrial society. > Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs China has not been doing this for a long time.

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
Indeed, the Renminbi has actually been overvalued for a few years now. China has been selling US Dollars and buying Renminbi in order to prop up the value of their currency. This actually hurts Chinese exporters, all else being equal, but allowing the RMB to fall would encourage capital flight.

u10 7y ago

>Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors, driving up real estate and turning a significant segment of the US population from homeowners to renters. Recent strict capital controls out of China have resulted in a substantial negative shock to housing, especially in places like Vancouver. It's also private investors and not an explicit government policy >Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. It's called comparative advantage and absolute advantage and it's been observed for centuries. >Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs a lot of countries do this, open market operations by the central bank is not a new occurrence. >Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds (they hold around 30% of outstanding treasury bonds - over $1.1T) It's a good investment, and any threat of sell-off is mutually assured destruction -------------------------------------------------------- China is abusive to its own citizens, that's not up for dispute. But what is rather troublesome is the double standard that the west subjects the rest of the world too.

bigpumpkin 7y ago

"Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors" This is false. The Chinese government actually places a number of capital controls to prevent capital outflows from China.

deehouie 7y ago

bgee 7y ago

Chinese national here, about to bite the bullet. > Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors Source please. From what I read Wang Jianlin got into serious political trouble for taking foreign currency out of China to buy foreign real estate. > Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades Do you mind elaborating why this is "waging economic warfare"? I'm not an Economist but this sounds like China is merely trying to be competent? > Devaluing the Yuan This might be valid. > opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs Again why is this "waging economic warfare"? Sounds like fair game to me. > Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds One of the reasons on China's purchase of US bonds was to get a relatively low-risk investment for all the USD China gets from trade surplus. From [0]: With trillions of U.S. dollars, China has found the U.S .Treasury securities to offer the safest investment destination for Chinese forex reserves. [0]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040115/reasons-why-china-buys-us-treasury-bonds.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040115/reaso... One side note: worker protection and condition has seen great improvement since China joined WTO but it's still not on par with developed economies (obviously).

roenxi 7y ago
I wouldn't give any ground on devaluing the Yuan; that just means that the Chinese are more willing to trade real goods for paper. It is the government giving people's stuff away for free, but to foreigners. The implication is that China will use that to build up internal expertise and atrophy foreign expertise; but that threat can be seen a generation away and given the subsidies the US pours into its own military it is hardly on China if it causes a problem. Most of the West's economic problems are self inflicted and while the idea of China's erratic government eventually building the world's strongest military is terrifying they haven't done that yet. The West wants an unreasonably high standard of living without working for it and China is just nodding, smiling and getting things done.

baybal2 7y ago

I upvote and unflag you just to have an opportunity to disapprove what you said. What you said is very tendentious. > - Government subsidizes real estate investments in Western nations by Chinese investors, driving up real estate and turning a significant segment of the US population from homeowners to renters. Western nations do subsidize the real estate industry a great lot, but China is not a party to be blamed for that. Foreign buyers across all Western nations barely approach 10% even in the most hot markets. Prime benefactors of such subsidies are rich, well connected upper classes from the West who live rentier lifestyles. Coincidentally, those make a big part of the political establishment there. > - Severely undercutting manufacturing prices for decades, to the point that Western nations have lost the ability to manufacture many products. Why Western nations didn't follow the suite and did not slash prices on their own? Western business culture chases profitability, Chinese chases volume. Though, it is unfortunately starting to change. The ideological virus of "MBA/lawyer/banker culture" has now reached China too... > - Devaluing the Yuan and opening trade agreements around the world to protect itself from US sanctions and tariffs China only managed to keep devalue its Yuan so far only thanks to patently endless supply of US treasury bills at attractive rates, which China's central bank uses to counterweight its own FX trades. If US want Yuan to shoot up to the sky, it only has to stop the crazy government spending. In fact, China has more and more often to keep Yuan from falling too much than from overappreciating in the last few years. China is now having a problem with its own bonds getting too attractive to foreign buyers too as of late. > At the same time, China's might is costing its citizens dearly: unsafe or abusive working conditions, severe human rights abuses, and an Orwellian surveillance state Well, yes... Yet China is one of the best markets around. It's a very bitter candy to swallow.

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago

> Purchasing billions annually in US treasury bonds It's interesting how you consider financing the US national debt to be "economic warfare." Would you rather China not lend the US money? > At the same time, China's might is costing its 1.4B citizens dearly: unsafe or abusive working conditions, severe human rights abuses, and an Orwellian surveillance state. The point you're missing is the dramatic improvement in living conditions in China over the past 30 years. Working conditions are far better than they were 30 years ago, and the average income is many times higher. Most Chinese people used to live without all sorts of things you take for granted, like showers and telephones in their homes. They used to have to heat their homes with dirty coal stoves. Electricity used to run only a few hours a day. Almost nobody had any money to travel abroad or buy a car. All that has changed in one generation. Recognizing that will help you understand why most Chinese people think so differently about the state of their country than you do. They have lots of complaints, but they also know how much things have changed for the better in so many ways.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
> most Chinese people think so differently about the state of their country than you do Their not being familiar with human rights doesn't mean I suspend them for dissidents. Many Americans were okay with Gitmo, or the Iraq war, but those things were still rightfully criticized, because the perpetrator or the unaffected "being okay" with it doesn't even move the needle. With these things, if someone is okay with them, they don't become okay. It says something about the person or their horizon, never about the things in question.

dang 7y ago

This is the sort of generic flamewar tangent that the site guidelines ask you not to post to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If every Chinese topic turns into the same "China vs. the rest of the world" discussion—or to put it more generally, if every thread gets sucked into whatever generic black hole happens to be nearby—then it becomes impossible to discuss anything specific on HN. Specifics are where the intellectually interesting material lies. Compare the topic of the OP—electronics markets in Shenzhen—to what we see in this subthread: "China is waging economic warfare", "They aren't all evil", "Some are very evil", "HN is full of anti-Chinese comments and this will only continue as the war with Eastasia is in progress", etc. The generic discussions are always the same, and usually turn nasty, perhaps because the mind craves extra action or amusement to compensate for it all being so repetitive. Lots more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Particularly please don't create new accounts to take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents.

oneoff-acct 7y ago
My apologies, dang - I'm very sorry. I have a lot of respect for you and I'd sad to have caused offense. I had no idea this was a flamewar topic... guess I haven't read enough of other people's comments on the issue. A lot of what people responded with is new information to me. Is there an index of topics that tend towards flamewars that I could check periodically?
- dang 7y ago
  No offense at all, and I realize this happens with zero intent. It's a tragedy-of-the-commons thing. No one creates the flamewar, and still a subthread like this ends up gathering mass at the top of the page on a regular basis, clogging out the curious conversation. There's nothing so simple as an index. Perhaps that's for the best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum. One can certainly use HN search to see which topics have this generic quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=chin&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

wildduck 7y ago

>I know the choice to do business with China is complex and nuanced. But I suggest prioritizing the moral implications--both to the world and to China's citizens--of a Chinese government with ever-increasing power when considering to what extent one should do business with China. There is a book by Stephen Roach "Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China" that take a good stab of explains this issue.