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What does this "open up" actually mean? A bunch of American companies have set up shop in China, which was not possible 50 years ago. Now it's common for huge e

What does this "open up" actually mean? A bunch of American companies have set up shop in China, which was not possible 50 years ago. Now it's common for huge entertainment properties like blockbuster movies and the NBA to get a massive share of revenue from China. Video game consoles are now legal. And of course, China is now essential in the production of most American products.

keiferski 6y ago
Open up means become a modern democratic state with respect for human rights, or at the very least, be on the road to one. The opposite has happened and the pundits from the 90s look pretty silly right about now.
- peacefulhat 6y ago
  Any pundit who thinks the ultimate goal of exchanging goods and services with another country is regime change is a lunatic.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    This was the predominant geopolitical theory with regards to China for most of the past ~40 years.
    - rtx 6y ago
      I think they always knew this was not going to happen. But how do sell trading with a communist nation after 50 years of Red scare.
      - secondcoming 6y ago
        There's nothing communist about the CCP any more
        FooBarWidget 6y ago
        Kishore Mahbubani very aptly describes the CCP as the Chinese Civilization Party. That is a much more accurate name.
        Ericson2314 6y ago
        Your average American voter doesn't know what communism is or whether China is or isn't it. The might have some notion of "big bad central state", and China was and remains that. In any event, some rhetoric to grease the wheels politically absolutely was in order.
  - inerte 6y ago
    Forget about pundits, Bill Clinton made this argument: "The American people support this agreement because they know it's good for jobs in America and good for human rights and the development of democracy in China." https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/library/hot_releases/October_10_2000_6.html https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/library/hot... Now, did he really believe that? Was he just selling the American people a bad deal? The end result anyway is that this is precisely the argument that was made, and thousands believed it.
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      And profiting from it.
- ezVoodoo 6y ago
  Was the human right of George Floyd and millions of African Americans respected in the US?
  - stx 6y ago
    Comparing the treatment of black people in the US to the treatment of Uyghurs (ethnic muslim Chinese) is not a realistic comparison at all. Currently Uyghurs in China are forced into prison camps for nothing other then being Uyghurs. They are then forced into labor or in some cases even have their organs harvested. Yes the US did enslave black people but that was stopped long ago and generally Americans agree that was wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/03/05/china-moves-uyghur-muslims-into-forced-labor-factories/#7b56a00244e5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/03/05/china-move... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests...
    - ezVoodoo 6y ago
      Indeed. A comparison of the two is unimaginable. You see, I can show the video in which George Floyd was brutally murdered in daylight yelling his mama. Can you show me such a video of Uyghurs in China. I will answer it for you: no you can't.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - stx 6y ago
        >Can you show me such a video of Uyghurs in China. >I will answer it for you: no you can't. All your doing is proving that China has no freedom of speech. The reason The reason I cant show you such a video is because of Chinese censorship. Such a video would never be allowed to circulate. The fact that a video of George Floyde being murdered can be shared in the US proves that in US we tolerate speech even when it shows the US in bad light. Also the cops who did this to Floyde are being prosecuted. Even something as simple as a picture of Winnie the Pooh is banned in China because people compared Pooh, a children's cartoon to China's leader. Imagine the leader of a country having his feelings hurt by a child's cartoon so bad that he bans the cartoon.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  > democratic state with respect for human rights Iran tried that in the 50s. Latin America tried that in the 70s. Got overthrown by CIA every time. Clearly that's not what it means.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    The irony of these trite whataboutist responses is that China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic. Unfortunately for the Chinese people, the Party is more interested in maintaining personal power than charting a good path for humanity.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      > China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic. Certainly. And the CCP hinders that. But the point of my above comment is to illustrate that it's an open question whether China would be 'allowed' to be open and democratic. I don't believe the West is actually concerned about CCP's human rights violations. They're simply concerned about China's rise as an economic and military power, we would not support the Saudi regime if human rights was a concern. One of the major reasons the CCP got a foothold in China was because there was a sense that for over a century China was subservient to Western powers. The CCP was fine as far as the west was concerned as long as it was primarily a dumb factory for us. But now they have ambitions to go beyond that. I think that's the crux of the animosity towards China today, not human rights violations, as gross as they are. I could imagine China being somewhat of an EU and democratic and as long as they buy enough western products, be left alone. But if they actually wanted a truly independent foreign policy for example, that would not fly. See the Iran Deal for how dependent EU foreign policy is on the U.S. one. P.S. That does not mean the CCP is good. It's not. But pretending that western leaders actually care about its human rights abuses is silly.
      - keiferski 6y ago
        I think this viewpoint is pretty one-dimensional and oversimplifies the complexity of geopolitics. The US is like any other country in that faces a constant struggle between its idealistic values and the realities of the world. To say that “the West doesn’t care about the human rights violations” is absurd, as if you could paint nearly a billion people (Europe plus US) with a single brush. The idea that by supporting one repressive state you forfeit your ability to critique other repressive states is also absurd. The world isn’t that simple. To give you an example: in retrospect, keeping Saddam in power and not invading Iraq is considered a fairly reasonable opinion; i.e. even though we got rid of a dictator, the consequences were arguably worse. The reality is that the West tends to not get involved politically if the state in question is insular enough to not affect other countries. This isn’t because they condone abuses in these countries, but because a long history of failed colonialism and wars has rendered the West extremely hesitant to get involved in any sort of ‘just’ war that isn’t provoked by the state in question (see Iraq and Kuwait for example.) The contemporary populist rise of American hostility to China is also linked directly to offshoring jobs from the Rust Belt, so again, there are clearly groups of people who have issues with China that aren’t merely “crush the rising competitor.” In any case I don’t disagree that the West has sunk democratic movements which were against its interests, but that to say all such attempts will be shut down is overly-simplistic.
karterk 6y ago
a)Allowing US Internet companies to compete fairly instead of using the firewall as an excuse to promote state controlled tech monopolies. b) Having a fair and transparent judiciary to handle cases of intellectual property violations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mlindner 6y ago
Open up would mean an open fiscal policy, namely allow money to leave the country. Companies and especially individuals can't invest and then pull the money back out of the country very easily.
- pinkfoot 6y ago
  Hundreds of countries have exchange control.
stale2002 6y ago
How about this. People are allowed to criticize the government and engage in protests in the same way that protests happen in other western countries.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  Are we also sanctioning Saudi Arabia over this?
  - stale2002 6y ago
    If you want to argue that we should take some actions against SA then I won't disagree. But regardless of if we do that, we still still engage in retaliatory trade actions against china.

keiferski 6y ago

Open up means become a modern democratic state with respect for human rights, or at the very least, be on the road to one. The opposite has happened and the pundits from the 90s look pretty silly right about now.

peacefulhat 6y ago
Any pundit who thinks the ultimate goal of exchanging goods and services with another country is regime change is a lunatic.
- keiferski 6y ago
  This was the predominant geopolitical theory with regards to China for most of the past ~40 years.
  - rtx 6y ago
    I think they always knew this was not going to happen. But how do sell trading with a communist nation after 50 years of Red scare.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      There's nothing communist about the CCP any more
      - FooBarWidget 6y ago
        Kishore Mahbubani very aptly describes the CCP as the Chinese Civilization Party. That is a much more accurate name.
      - Ericson2314 6y ago
        Your average American voter doesn't know what communism is or whether China is or isn't it. The might have some notion of "big bad central state", and China was and remains that. In any event, some rhetoric to grease the wheels politically absolutely was in order.
- inerte 6y ago
  Forget about pundits, Bill Clinton made this argument: "The American people support this agreement because they know it's good for jobs in America and good for human rights and the development of democracy in China." https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/library/hot_releases/October_10_2000_6.html https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/library/hot... Now, did he really believe that? Was he just selling the American people a bad deal? The end result anyway is that this is precisely the argument that was made, and thousands believed it.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    And profiting from it.
ezVoodoo 6y ago
Was the human right of George Floyd and millions of African Americans respected in the US?
- stx 6y ago
  Comparing the treatment of black people in the US to the treatment of Uyghurs (ethnic muslim Chinese) is not a realistic comparison at all. Currently Uyghurs in China are forced into prison camps for nothing other then being Uyghurs. They are then forced into labor or in some cases even have their organs harvested. Yes the US did enslave black people but that was stopped long ago and generally Americans agree that was wrong. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/03/05/china-moves-uyghur-muslims-into-forced-labor-factories/#7b56a00244e5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/03/05/china-move... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests...
  - ezVoodoo 6y ago
    Indeed. A comparison of the two is unimaginable. You see, I can show the video in which George Floyd was brutally murdered in daylight yelling his mama. Can you show me such a video of Uyghurs in China. I will answer it for you: no you can't.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - stx 6y ago
      >Can you show me such a video of Uyghurs in China. >I will answer it for you: no you can't. All your doing is proving that China has no freedom of speech. The reason The reason I cant show you such a video is because of Chinese censorship. Such a video would never be allowed to circulate. The fact that a video of George Floyde being murdered can be shared in the US proves that in US we tolerate speech even when it shows the US in bad light. Also the cops who did this to Floyde are being prosecuted. Even something as simple as a picture of Winnie the Pooh is banned in China because people compared Pooh, a children's cartoon to China's leader. Imagine the leader of a country having his feelings hurt by a child's cartoon so bad that he bans the cartoon.
AsyncAwait 6y ago
> democratic state with respect for human rights Iran tried that in the 50s. Latin America tried that in the 70s. Got overthrown by CIA every time. Clearly that's not what it means.
- keiferski 6y ago
  The irony of these trite whataboutist responses is that China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic. Unfortunately for the Chinese people, the Party is more interested in maintaining personal power than charting a good path for humanity.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    > China would be in such a better position as global leader if it were open or democratic. Certainly. And the CCP hinders that. But the point of my above comment is to illustrate that it's an open question whether China would be 'allowed' to be open and democratic. I don't believe the West is actually concerned about CCP's human rights violations. They're simply concerned about China's rise as an economic and military power, we would not support the Saudi regime if human rights was a concern. One of the major reasons the CCP got a foothold in China was because there was a sense that for over a century China was subservient to Western powers. The CCP was fine as far as the west was concerned as long as it was primarily a dumb factory for us. But now they have ambitions to go beyond that. I think that's the crux of the animosity towards China today, not human rights violations, as gross as they are. I could imagine China being somewhat of an EU and democratic and as long as they buy enough western products, be left alone. But if they actually wanted a truly independent foreign policy for example, that would not fly. See the Iran Deal for how dependent EU foreign policy is on the U.S. one. P.S. That does not mean the CCP is good. It's not. But pretending that western leaders actually care about its human rights abuses is silly.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      I think this viewpoint is pretty one-dimensional and oversimplifies the complexity of geopolitics. The US is like any other country in that faces a constant struggle between its idealistic values and the realities of the world. To say that “the West doesn’t care about the human rights violations” is absurd, as if you could paint nearly a billion people (Europe plus US) with a single brush. The idea that by supporting one repressive state you forfeit your ability to critique other repressive states is also absurd. The world isn’t that simple. To give you an example: in retrospect, keeping Saddam in power and not invading Iraq is considered a fairly reasonable opinion; i.e. even though we got rid of a dictator, the consequences were arguably worse. The reality is that the West tends to not get involved politically if the state in question is insular enough to not affect other countries. This isn’t because they condone abuses in these countries, but because a long history of failed colonialism and wars has rendered the West extremely hesitant to get involved in any sort of ‘just’ war that isn’t provoked by the state in question (see Iraq and Kuwait for example.) The contemporary populist rise of American hostility to China is also linked directly to offshoring jobs from the Rust Belt, so again, there are clearly groups of people who have issues with China that aren’t merely “crush the rising competitor.” In any case I don’t disagree that the West has sunk democratic movements which were against its interests, but that to say all such attempts will be shut down is overly-simplistic.

karterk 6y ago

a)Allowing US Internet companies to compete fairly instead of using the firewall as an excuse to promote state controlled tech monopolies. b) Having a fair and transparent judiciary to handle cases of intellectual property violations.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mlindner 6y ago

Open up would mean an open fiscal policy, namely allow money to leave the country. Companies and especially individuals can't invest and then pull the money back out of the country very easily.

pinkfoot 6y ago
Hundreds of countries have exchange control.

stale2002 6y ago

How about this. People are allowed to criticize the government and engage in protests in the same way that protests happen in other western countries.

AsyncAwait 6y ago
Are we also sanctioning Saudi Arabia over this?
- stale2002 6y ago
  If you want to argue that we should take some actions against SA then I won't disagree. But regardless of if we do that, we still still engage in retaliatory trade actions against china.