4 ms·

Former Google CEO and others call for U.S.-China tech “bifurcation”

47 points by tartoran 6y ago

wangii 6y ago
Interesting. It's probably better for the human-being as a whole: having a backup just in case one is f*cked up. Highly recommend the talk by Johnathon Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk
Melting_Harps 6y ago
If it passes, than the decoupling from China can happen in earnest, not least of which in manufacturing its hard to think it wouldn't mainly go to Vietnam, or India as much of it would still be outsourced. But, it's still a critical step in making sure the CCP understand their are consequences for their actions, specifically with its horrible practices in covering up COVID and lying about its susceptibility with Human to Human transmission and its censoring and dissapearing of it's citizens and its crimes agianst Humanity in Xianjing, and Hong Kong. I'm not sure how likely it is to occur, but the need is definitely there and a total embargo to China should not be off the table. If they did it to Cuba during the first cold war, why shouldn't it do it China now that World is reeling from its inability and outright refusal to participate as a member of the Global Community when it comes to such dire situations?
- fakedang 6y ago
  > If it passes, than the decoupling from China can happen in earnest, not least of which in manufacturing its hard to think it wouldn't mainly go to Vietnam, or India as much of it would still be outsourced. As much as I'd like it to happen, it won't. India has a ridiculous bureaucracy, and South East Asia cannot simply scale to Chinese manufacturing levels. > it's still a critical step in making sure the CCP understand their are consequences for their actions, specifically with its horrible practices in covering up COVID and lying about its susceptibility with Human to Human transmission and its censoring and dissapearing of it's citizens and its crimes agianst Humanity in Xianjing, and Hong Kong. What consequences? Disney launched Mulan right during the HK protests. Everyone's still doing business with China. If you want business to stop with China, you'll have to swallow the bullet and let the stock market fall. Let companies like Disney, Apple and Tesla suffer from a total embargo against China, and sanction countries from doing business with China, else they get sanctioned. Cool, now the US just tanked their stock market, sanctioned everyone on the planet including the EU, LatAm, Middle East, India and SEA, which in turn leads to everyone sanctioning the US back, while China establishes trade relations with them. Suddenly everyone in the Old World is using Sina Weibo and Baidu and Alipay and Wechat Pay. China is too integrated to the world economy now, in some way or the other. Cutting it off is going to be too self damaging for the US. Blame Kissinger, Apple, etc.
Barrin92 6y ago
The more sober take here is probably that Eric Schmidt et al. see an opportunity to promote protectionism and ward off regulation from big American tech firms, a talking point Zuckerberg already used during his last few hearings. It's quite noteworthy also that China went from a country that was allegedly doomed because of its 'backward' form of government is now suddenly perceived as a peer competitor who might even outcompete the US if no steps are taken.
sand_castles 6y ago
"Former Google CEO and others call for U.S.-Eurasian tech “bifurcation”" Eurasia will continue to integrate. The question is does the US want to get off it's high horse and join RoW in creating a multi-polar world.
Faint 6y ago
The more "disentangled" the world is, the less there is incentive to avoid direct confrontation (war). If economies are disentangled, economic area A can grow by taking resources of economic area B by force. If they are entangled, using force just hurts everyone. If the playground is not even, introduce rules to even it out. Do not shut out.
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  While I understand the concept it hasn't always borne fruit for example in the case of ww1. Sure Eastern Europe was less coupled but that wasn't true of western Europe. I think too much emphasis gets placed on the material, it is the basic needs of humans after all. However many peoples material needs are satisfied to a absolute basic level already, after that there is diminishing returns. Take my home of Northern Ireland. In the current state most people have absolute coverage of material needs. Yet there is a fairly large cohort of young that join military groups. In fact one of fundamental problems is a lack of purpose, an immaterial concept with no inherent value. Europe became peaceful during a stage of existential threat of Soviet invasion. In that Western Europe had a purpose.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    This concept failed multiple times. Yugoslavia had a common market and a lot of mixed marriages. Austria-Hungary had a common market whose collapse after 1918 did damage to all the successor countries. The USSR, while being a not-capitalist society, was very much economically integrated. So was Iraq and Lebanon prior to their civil wars.
  - DaedPsyker 6y ago
    I should also say that economic coupling works best with similar countries, similar economies, views etc. I.e. France and Germany. Economics will not however solve issues that go beyond money. Both China and US are ideological, those views won't coalesce through money.
Proven 6y ago
It's not just the US vs China. It's commies vs. everyone else. Problem is governments in Europe and elsewhere are not much better than CCP so it looks like the government of the US is the only one who has something against CCP. They should all fight commies on censorship, but other governments prefer to spend their time racketeering Silicon Valley companies.

47 points by tartoran 6y ago

Interesting. It's probably better for the human-being as a whole: having a backup just in case one is f*cked up. Highly recommend the talk by Johnathon Blow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk

Melting_Harps 6y ago

If it passes, than the decoupling from China can happen in earnest, not least of which in manufacturing its hard to think it wouldn't mainly go to Vietnam, or India as much of it would still be outsourced. But, it's still a critical step in making sure the CCP understand their are consequences for their actions, specifically with its horrible practices in covering up COVID and lying about its susceptibility with Human to Human transmission and its censoring and dissapearing of it's citizens and its crimes agianst Humanity in Xianjing, and Hong Kong. I'm not sure how likely it is to occur, but the need is definitely there and a total embargo to China should not be off the table. If they did it to Cuba during the first cold war, why shouldn't it do it China now that World is reeling from its inability and outright refusal to participate as a member of the Global Community when it comes to such dire situations?

fakedang 6y ago
> If it passes, than the decoupling from China can happen in earnest, not least of which in manufacturing its hard to think it wouldn't mainly go to Vietnam, or India as much of it would still be outsourced. As much as I'd like it to happen, it won't. India has a ridiculous bureaucracy, and South East Asia cannot simply scale to Chinese manufacturing levels. > it's still a critical step in making sure the CCP understand their are consequences for their actions, specifically with its horrible practices in covering up COVID and lying about its susceptibility with Human to Human transmission and its censoring and dissapearing of it's citizens and its crimes agianst Humanity in Xianjing, and Hong Kong. What consequences? Disney launched Mulan right during the HK protests. Everyone's still doing business with China. If you want business to stop with China, you'll have to swallow the bullet and let the stock market fall. Let companies like Disney, Apple and Tesla suffer from a total embargo against China, and sanction countries from doing business with China, else they get sanctioned. Cool, now the US just tanked their stock market, sanctioned everyone on the planet including the EU, LatAm, Middle East, India and SEA, which in turn leads to everyone sanctioning the US back, while China establishes trade relations with them. Suddenly everyone in the Old World is using Sina Weibo and Baidu and Alipay and Wechat Pay. China is too integrated to the world economy now, in some way or the other. Cutting it off is going to be too self damaging for the US. Blame Kissinger, Apple, etc.

Barrin92 6y ago

The more sober take here is probably that Eric Schmidt et al. see an opportunity to promote protectionism and ward off regulation from big American tech firms, a talking point Zuckerberg already used during his last few hearings. It's quite noteworthy also that China went from a country that was allegedly doomed because of its 'backward' form of government is now suddenly perceived as a peer competitor who might even outcompete the US if no steps are taken.

sand_castles 6y ago

"Former Google CEO and others call for U.S.-Eurasian tech “bifurcation”" Eurasia will continue to integrate. The question is does the US want to get off it's high horse and join RoW in creating a multi-polar world.

Faint 6y ago

The more "disentangled" the world is, the less there is incentive to avoid direct confrontation (war). If economies are disentangled, economic area A can grow by taking resources of economic area B by force. If they are entangled, using force just hurts everyone. If the playground is not even, introduce rules to even it out. Do not shut out.

DaedPsyker 6y ago
While I understand the concept it hasn't always borne fruit for example in the case of ww1. Sure Eastern Europe was less coupled but that wasn't true of western Europe. I think too much emphasis gets placed on the material, it is the basic needs of humans after all. However many peoples material needs are satisfied to a absolute basic level already, after that there is diminishing returns. Take my home of Northern Ireland. In the current state most people have absolute coverage of material needs. Yet there is a fairly large cohort of young that join military groups. In fact one of fundamental problems is a lack of purpose, an immaterial concept with no inherent value. Europe became peaceful during a stage of existential threat of Soviet invasion. In that Western Europe had a purpose.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  This concept failed multiple times. Yugoslavia had a common market and a lot of mixed marriages. Austria-Hungary had a common market whose collapse after 1918 did damage to all the successor countries. The USSR, while being a not-capitalist society, was very much economically integrated. So was Iraq and Lebanon prior to their civil wars.
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  I should also say that economic coupling works best with similar countries, similar economies, views etc. I.e. France and Germany. Economics will not however solve issues that go beyond money. Both China and US are ideological, those views won't coalesce through money.

Proven 6y ago

It's not just the US vs China. It's commies vs. everyone else. Problem is governments in Europe and elsewhere are not much better than CCP so it looks like the government of the US is the only one who has something against CCP. They should all fight commies on censorship, but other governments prefer to spend their time racketeering Silicon Valley companies.