5 ms·
Because we're arrogant. We thought that if we go down the road we went down, they'd naturally settle into their proper place as manufactory for the West withou
by refenestrator 6y ago
Because we're arrogant. We thought that if we go down the road we went down, they'd naturally settle into their proper place as manufactory for the West without wanting a seat at the table.
Now they're a global power and, gasp, they act like one. Nobody could have seen this coming.
- kingkawn 6y agoI don’t think anyone was thinking it through at all. We just needed cheap goods to placate our population and they needed the jobs to placate theirs.
- cyberpunk 6y agoI’d recommend reading the 100 year marathon and watching the latest Curtis if you’re curious to learn more on that. :)
- kelnos 6y agoThe US also believed that giving China an example of "the good way" via access to the US markets would cause them to open up and allow access in kind. Turned out that was a pretty naive belief.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- baybal2 6y agoIt wasn't even a belief in the first place. I read a dozen books on post-Nixon US politics. The amount of allegations from both sides of US politics that the other benefitted in the personal capacity from trade with China is staggering. At least some of them must be genuine. It comes to a very simple explanation that communists have indeed been influencing US politics for decades with very crude means, and that they were successful in that. This is an embarrassing admission US has to do first before any recovery can be started.
- refenestrator 6y agoThe very simple explanation is that the USA is infiltrated by communists?
- baybal2 6y agoIn other words, yes. I avoided stating it this bluntly for it being almost a cartoon trope. But... but one can't believe into any other explanation as any much credible. Do hundreds of US political insiders lobby for China in one voice just for nothing? You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders. American legal system prohibits jailing people for anything but being caught red handed in cases of political corruption. I have no idea what you can do about that without doing political persecution, but on other hand if you leave it be it will keep being exploited like hell.
- chrischen 6y ago> You don't have closet communists, just a lot of very greedy, amoral, and easy to exploit power holders. Lol you’ve just described capitalists.
- krona 6y agoI think acquiring and consuming resources amorally predates capitalism by a few billion years.
- sudosysgen 6y agoIndeed it does, doing it in a system that allows the economic elite to direct the government into geopolitical disaster because they are largely unconcerned with the common good of their nation is really quite unique to capitalism.
- Proziam 6y agoActually, he just described people. Communist regimes have the exact same issues with corruption and greed. Capitalism vs Communism is a useless debate if the will isn't there to hold the corrupt accountable and ensure that the average citizen is empowered (with said power secured both physically and legally.)
- nbardy 6y agoThe US never believed this, the politicians told this story so they could get richer off trade deals and cheap labor. Anyone who was critically thinking saw this coming a long way out.
- mc32 6y agoRoss Perot knew the deal. Bush, Clinton and everyone else mocked him, critically, the media. The fourth estate; yeah, right! They don’t give a lick. They push whatever agenda is on tap. Trade Agreements, Gulf War II, etc.
- sudosysgen 6y agoIt was also a ploy to cement the fragmentation of the Socialist bloc and precipitate the decline of the Soviet Union. No one with half a brain thought anything else would happen. Even if China was a liberal democracy, this would still happen. It was just arrogant and short term thinking.
- chrisjharris 6y agoYou might be right, you might be wrong, but it would be nice if you could acknowledge that any argument about what people were thinking (rather than doing) is a shaky one and hard to state with any certainty. Bad outcomes can arise as easily from ill-conceived idealism as bad intent.
- elipsey 6y agoThis. It's a pernicious temptation to infer motive, or make hostile generalizations about groups we disagree with, but this makes it impossible to cooperate or engage in good faith debate.
- tim333 6y agoThey were also trending towards being a relatively benevolent modern country under Deng Xiaoping when many restrictions were dropped. It's a bit unfortunate that under the present guy they seem to be returning to a Maoist dictatorship and I guess will stay that way for quite a while.