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When trying to understand China's commercial policies which America is supposedly retaliating against, consider that China has experienced a different mercantil
by wombatmobile 6y ago
When trying to understand China's commercial policies which America is supposedly retaliating against, consider that China has experienced a different mercantile history to America.
America has never been invaded by foreign gunships and forced to allow foreign merchants to import opium to addict its citizens in order to fix their own countries balance of payments problems.
Opium Wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
If America were to experience something like that, how might the experience change America's future commercial policies?
If Pearl Harbour and 9/11 are any guide, America might become less tolerant of foreign businesses operating in its markets.
But then, America is a complicated marketplace.
The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/
- onelovetwo 6y agoSo the argument is china was once invaded by foreign gunships (not american) so they should be allowed to ban american companies (Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Netflix & hundreds more) but allowed to operate any company they want in the U.S?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TheNorthman 6y agoPerhaps OP wasn't making a normative statement but rather speculating on how the past could materially affect the present?
- refurb 6y agoYeah, that seems like a very weak argument. It might be helpful to understand why China does what it does. It doesn't really excuse it though.
- deathgrips 6y agoChina does what it does because it wants as much control as possible over its populace.
- wombatmobile 6y agoThat's a different argument to the one you are inferring. Both arguments could benefit from more context. Boxer Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion Eight-Nation Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_Alliance
- gruez 6y agoAnd what context does those articles add, other than what's already presented?
- wombatmobile 6y agoChina fought a land war against a coalition of invaders who attempted to subvert its economic, political and religious sovereignty. China lost, was forced to cede Hong Kong to the British for 99 years, and paid 668,661,220 taels of silver from 1901 to 1939, equivalent in 2010 to $US 61 billion on a purchasing power parity basis. A large portion of the reparations paid to the United States was diverted to pay for the education of Chinese students in U.S. universities under the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program. To prepare the students chosen for this program an institute was established to teach the English language and to serve as a preparatory school. When the first of these students returned to China they undertook the teaching of subsequent students; from this institute was born Tsinghua University.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoFascinating but doesn't seem relevant to the topic at hand. The China of that history has been displaced by an undemocratic revolutionary regime that conquered the Chinese people.
- wombatmobile 6y agoAre you sure you have your timeline straight, srtjstsj? When were the Chinese people "conquered"? Tsinghua University is a world leader in AI and software technology. Chinese engineers and entrepreneurs are competing in world markets with innovative products and services, not gunships. 100 million American users of TikTok appreciate this. Have you considered the possibility that China is not trying to take over the world, but rather to be a part of it? https://uwaterloo.ca/tsinghua-uwaterloo-joint-research-centre-micro-nano-energy-environmental-technology/news/how-chinas-mit-tsinghua-university-drives-countrys-tech https://uwaterloo.ca/tsinghua-uwaterloo-joint-research-centr...
- api 6y agoThe Opium Wars story is a cautionary tale that should apply equally to China and to the USA. Every country should think twice about excessively powerful foreign mercantile forces, especially digital ones in this era of mechanized propaganda and surveillance. It’s rational for China to limit Apple and Google and for the USA to limit WeChat. This will remain so as long as a basically lawless state exists internationally, which seems to be the case following the collapse of post Cold War globalism in the 20-teens.
- kolanos 6y agoAmericans don't need to try to understand the effects of mercantilism. They were subject to the same draconian economic policies by the British Empire. This is largely what prompted the American Revolution. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies#Economic_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies#Economic_pol...
- softwaredoug 6y agoI think it's more accurate to say the US had a temporary (1 decade) diversion from the norm of "Benign Neglect"[1] which pissed off Americans to the point they sought explicit Independence. China has a much longer cultural history of being "self contained" (and suspicious of outsiders) which was deeply reinforced in the 19th century Opium Wars, etc. 1 - http://community.weber.edu/weberreads/salutary_or_benign_neglect.htm http://community.weber.edu/weberreads/salutary_or_benign_neg...
- quicklime 6y agoYep. A better analogy would be if the US had lost the revolutionary war, and was subjected to a century or more of British mercantilism, which they were only now starting to recover from.
- alextheparrot 6y agoIs the claim that British mercantilism caused all of this? The Qing dynasty had many problems, the British being one. The Taiping rebellion killed millions, Japanese imperialism further weakened the empire, losing their own colonial status over Korea - we can go on as the events cascade. To solely blame British mercantilism is to drive a wholly western narrative for what was not.
- kolanos 6y agoThey were subjected to 170 years of mercantilism prior to the American Revolution. Any American ship that dared trade with any power other than the British Empire was deemed a "pirate" and was fired upon by cannon.
- loceng 6y agoI had an interesting conversation with a Lyft driver, they were clearly from China from the knowledge/insights they shared. It was their belief that China's populations are much more densely populated, the family unit remaining - parents living with their children and their parents - because the previous generations didn't have pensions to rely on; another pressure I imagine is that I don't believe health care and other costs are covered in China?
- gruez 6y agoHow is this related to the opium wars, western imperialism, or the wechat ban?
- loceng 6y agoRelated to economic-commercial situation?
- srtjstjsj 6y agoChina healthcare funding seems pretty similar to US https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_China
- seanmcdirmid 6y agoIt’s a bit different from the states, rather than big deductibles and no caps, you have small deductibles and lowish caps. So if you break a leg, things are very affordable, but you are quickly on your own if you get cancer.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoOf course there are differences, but I think the main takeway is that the variation within each country (and over time -- ACA is new and not necessarily going to stay stable long term) is larger than the difference between the countries. ACA hasn't ended medical bankruptcy.
- neither_color 6y agoI understand the sentimentality of your argument but fail to see the logic. So because China was treated badly by other countries 150 years ago they should ban our apps while we shouldnt ban theirs?
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThat's what they're saying, that China is a victim and gets special treatment while they put Uyghers in concentration camps, have the second largest economy in the world, and surveil every citizen as if they're guilty of treason.
- kqvamxurcagg 6y agoThe Opium Wars happened long before Pearl Harbour, yet America is happy to do business with the Japanese. Actually the Opium Wars is often referenced more by Western commentators than the Chinese, for whom the event is simply history and irrelevant to modern events.
- valuearb 6y agoThe war of 1812 was fought because Great Britain had spent a decade boarding US ships to impress US sailors into their navy, controlling US trade, and funding Native American attacks on US settlers.
- 8note 6y agoYou missed the part where the US wanted Canada
- Jabbles 6y agoI don't think this is a useful argument simply because China and America are so massively different in culture, history, geography, language and demographics that there's no way you can say with any certainty that the opium wars caused any particular change. China has a long history with isolationism or distrust of foreign powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin
- srtjstjsj 6y agoIts nearly tautological that any nation with a "long history" would distrust foreign powers. Foreign powers have a strong tendency to end the history of a nation.
- tatrajim 6y agoHow long is China going to put on the mantle of victimhood over events 160 years in the past?! By that standard surely Korea can complain endlessly about China and Yuan Shikai lording it over their kingdom in the 1880s, and the Czechs can cry over their subjugation for centuries by Austria-Hungary, etc. etc. In 1949 Mao Zedong famously declared "China has stood up." Apparently though he meant, "We're such a weak people that we cry to mommy everytime others demand reciprocity."
- spacephysics 6y agoSame can be said about the victim hood mentality regarding native Americans and slavery here in the states.
- ipsocannibal 6y agoThe difference is that China has been able to redress the power embalance. The decendents of slaves and indigenous Americans have not.
- pnw_hazor 6y agoChina is as bad as it ever was. The people of China have not had any redress. The CCP is doing fine though.
- controversy 6y agoPlease. At this point, both blacks and Indians are able to take various Federal and State monies to be the best they can be. The Indians have relative sovereignty. They could take their federal and casino monies and plow them into an R&D bonanza. Blacks in the US have a golden ticket to pretty much any institution they wish to attend. Both have had trillions of US dollars plowed into their communities over the year via various government spending. At this point they have redress. They have agency. They even have adulthood, much to the chagrin of the Democratic party. Blacks and Indians should be like a wiser Arab nation. They have a pool of funds. Use it to make a better world for their people. Stop keeping people on the plantation/reservation.
- twirlock 6y agoWhat the fuck does this have to do China collecting data through WeChat?
- ipsocannibal 6y agoChina's commercial policies seem designed to ensure that the CCP can deliver on their grand bargain with the Chinese people. Specially, in exchange for political subserviance to the dictates of the party the CCP will make China a economically prosperous nation. So I expect the CCP to hold on to their current exclusionary policies toward non-domestic apps as an more open playing field would endanger the dominance of domestic players.
- bigpumpkin 6y agoChina doesn't justify its trade restrictions based on its experience in the Opium wars. Rather, it justifies it by saying that 1) it's communist and 2) a developing country.
- ckl1810 6y agoNon sequitur from Bloomberg article. China bans Google, Facebook, Twitter. At least U.S. has due process.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoChinese trade policies aren't caused by the Opium War. The trade relations that many Americans consider unbalanced are the result of the US and China being at very different stages of economic development. When China began opening up to foreign investment in the 1980s, China had no capital to invest abroad. It didn't matter if the US market was technically open to Chinese investment - there was no possibility of Chinese investment in the first place. The only question was what conditions would be placed on foreign investment in China. Reciprocity didn't matter, because trade flows were entirely in one direction. China progressively opened up from the 1980s onward. WTO membership brought a huge number of changes, including drastic reductions in tariffs and a lot of privatization, breakup and restructuring of state industries. Just to illustrate my point: people complain that China used to not let foreign auto manufacturers own a majority stake in their Chinese subsidiaries. The unfairness is supposedly that Chinese auto companies can own their American subsidiaries. But there were no Chinese auto companies that could possibly have competed in the American market anyways. The reciprocity argument was entirely theoretical. China now has more competitive electric vehicle companies, and it also has more open foreign investment policies for auto manufacturing. One final point is that foreign companies benefitted massively from the ability to invest in China. The idea that China pulled a fast one and took advantage of the developed world just doesn't align with reality.