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That's where China was smart I guess. They didn't sign any treaty which forced them into free trade or IP protection, but instead slowly allowed their industrie

That's where China was smart I guess. They didn't sign any treaty which forced them into free trade or IP protection, but instead slowly allowed their industries to build up via IP theft and strong protectionism. Now they have giant companies on par with the West's. Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital with no clear path of escaping the trap of mediocrity. So far, the standard of living in post-Soviet EU countries is still higher than in China, but that's because of the much better starting point and also because it's just hard to provide wealth for over a billion people in a modern, heavily automated economy. However, even with their gargantuan population size, I see China potentially overtaking Poland or Czech Republic in terms of quality of living in the next 50-100 years.

khuey 6y ago
They did sign those treaties (e.g. with WTO membership), they just ignored them.
- oyashirochama 6y ago
  And no one cared, it something that needs to be reckoned with.
- yorwba 6y ago
  They didn't exactly ignore them. A WTO member can either comply with their treaty obligations (e.g. reducing barriers to trade) or have other members apply their own remedies (e.g. punitive tariffs.) If the effect of compliance is worse than the punishment (e.g. underdeveloped industry eliminated by foreign competitors vs. continuing to operate despite high tariffs) they'll not comply. If the punishment is worse (e.g. industry is basically competitive, but tariffs would make products hard to sell in foreign countries) they'll choose compliance. At the bilateral level, there's not much difference to the pre-WTO situation, which might make you wonder whether it's all pointless. The advantage of the WTO is that it provides a shared target for compliance: if a country follows WTO rules, pretty much every other member will be happy with that. Which is a bigger incentive than having to please every trading partner individually.
audunw 6y ago
I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to where other countries were with their demographic. Now they're on the verge of the biggest wave of senior citizens reaching retirement the world has ever seen, with crumbling infrastructure and housing, relatively low GDP/capita and no clear path to manufacturing/export of truly high value goods and services. They're screwed. China really wants to get out of low-value manufacturing, and in some ways they're encouraging pushing that out to south-east asia and africa. But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods. Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security? Who wants to live and work in China now, when you have no real justice for foreign citizens and the CCP can arrest you at a whim? If anything even close to Shenzhen is replicated elsewhere in the world, I think companies and individuals will gladly develop their products elsewhere. Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony? DJI I guess? But that's a bit niche. Poland is growing healthily last I checked. The proof is in immigration numbers in other European countries. It seems to be reversing. In Norway there's a clear downward trend in immigration from Poland.
- yorwba 6y ago
  > See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue to sell previous-generation machines) if their export license had been extended by the Dutch government, but the US applied pressure to make sure that didn't happen. You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
haspok 6y ago
How can you compare China (population ~1.4bn) to any EU country (population average ~10mn - several orders of magnitude less, even in the case of the largest country)? Size is an advantage, not a disadvantage! Pretty much none of the tactics would have worked for a small country that China played successfully. If you are small you can choose to be independent and protectionist - and remain very poor, or join the party, but be pushed into the corner, hoping that with time the playing field will level out somewhat.
- dikaio 6y ago
  Unfortunately for us the US will first need to learn that it’s better to keep US citizens out of prison, being productive in the workforce than locked up.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    Broken window fallacy rules US economic thinking. Just that the broken windows are the lives of the prisoners and their families while the profits go to privatized prisons and their investors.
- peapicker 6y ago
  “several orders of magnitude less” for values of “several” equalling 2.... no need for the extra hyperbole.
thereddaikon 6y ago
Funny you say that because exactly the opposite thing happened to China. They were completely taken advantage of in the 19th century and didn't fully recover from that until a 100 years later when Nixon and Kissinger in one of their "4D chess" moves restarted diplomatic relations as a way to limit the Soviets. From that point on they had a pretty clever long view policy but it would have been surprising if they hadn't. They spent the previous century getting fucked by foreign invaders, if they hadn't learned how to resist it by the 1970's then Chinese culture as we know it would have been doomed to collapse by the 90's. And truth be told they almost did in 1989. If the CCP was a little less organized, if the military was a little less loyal and if the protesters had their shit together a bit more it could have turned into a full popular revolution.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  A popular revolution in 1989 China would have restored Chinese culture. It was the CCP that squashed it.
  - hnaln 6y ago
    > A popular revolution in 1989 China would have restored Chinese culture. It was the CCP that squashed it. It would have plunged China into a civil war again and there would be millions dead. China would be a worse position now by every metric.
taurath 6y ago
Sooner than that I’d even say. Even a China with GDP per capita 1/4 of the US would pass that bar I think. 1/2 the US would make quality of living comparable to the US, given how relatively bad the US is in QoL, if you assume an urbanized priority vs suburban
disabled 6y ago
> Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital with no clear path of escaping the trap of mediocrity. Not true. I hope you are joking. Most countries that joined the EU in the 2000s and 2010s become pretty westernized within 5 years of joining. Have you ever spent significant time in these countries, pre-EU or post-EU? Also, the countries that benefit the most from being EU members are the new members. > So far, the standard of living in post-Soviet EU countries is still higher than in China, but that's because of the much better starting point and also because it's just hard to provide wealth for over a billion people in a modern, heavily automated economy. The standard of living is pretty high in a lot of those countries, and not all of them are post-Soviet. Look at Malta or the ex-Yugoslav countries (Slovenia, Croatia) for example. I do not understand why westerners (particularly Americans) like to talk trash about the EU. I hope the Americans doing this realize where they are going, as in the wrong way, or on the wrong trend line. Of course America can wake up from being on some trend line, but to win the battles they are up against, profound societal changes will need to occur. U.S. life expectancy will soon be on par with Mexico’s and the Czech Republic’s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/02/21/us-life-expectancy-will-soon-be-on-par-with-mexicos-and-croatias/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0... Also, according to that article, American women's life expectancy is soon to mirror Croatia. You know, that war-torn, ex-Yugoslav country that had a nasty war in the 90s and displaced a lot of people. Americans should be embarrassed.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Life in the Czech Republic is fine, as far as I am concerned. No violent places like Chiapas in Mexico. What isn't fine is the worldwide trend toward morbid obesity and metabolic disease. Americans, as usual, are the trend setters, but we are following them. That is what reduces life expectancy and especially life quality in nations that can afford to gorge on 100 pounds of sugar per person and year.
  - disabled 6y ago
    Yeah, I agree. I did not mean for someone from Czechia to take it personally. I am sorry about that and I will do better and be more considerate. I am a dual US| EU (Croatian) citizen, who is culturally American. I live in Croatia. So, I hope you understand where I am coming from, even though I was wrong. I also have type 1 diabetes (autoimmune and insulin dependent) which is a “metabolic disease”. It is more appropriate to say “type 2 diabetes” or “diabetes type 2” or “insulin-resistance”, rather than a metabolic disease. The issue with America is we have a lot of unnecessary death. It is not just obesity and type 2 diabetes, although that is a huge part of it. Our healthcare system is designed to create as much profit as possible, without having to improve the health of the people using it. We have no adequate public health infrastructure because of this huge profit seeking and we suffer because of a lack of regulation. This all causes unnecessary death.

khuey 6y ago

They did sign those treaties (e.g. with WTO membership), they just ignored them.

oyashirochama 6y ago
And no one cared, it something that needs to be reckoned with.
yorwba 6y ago
They didn't exactly ignore them. A WTO member can either comply with their treaty obligations (e.g. reducing barriers to trade) or have other members apply their own remedies (e.g. punitive tariffs.) If the effect of compliance is worse than the punishment (e.g. underdeveloped industry eliminated by foreign competitors vs. continuing to operate despite high tariffs) they'll not comply. If the punishment is worse (e.g. industry is basically competitive, but tariffs would make products hard to sell in foreign countries) they'll choose compliance. At the bilateral level, there's not much difference to the pre-WTO situation, which might make you wonder whether it's all pointless. The advantage of the WTO is that it provides a shared target for compliance: if a country follows WTO rules, pretty much every other member will be happy with that. Which is a bigger incentive than having to please every trading partner individually.

audunw 6y ago

I really think China is making a huge mistake actually. See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to where other countries were with their demographic. Now they're on the verge of the biggest wave of senior citizens reaching retirement the world has ever seen, with crumbling infrastructure and housing, relatively low GDP/capita and no clear path to manufacturing/export of truly high value goods and services. They're screwed. China really wants to get out of low-value manufacturing, and in some ways they're encouraging pushing that out to south-east asia and africa. But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods. Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security? Who wants to live and work in China now, when you have no real justice for foreign citizens and the CCP can arrest you at a whim? If anything even close to Shenzhen is replicated elsewhere in the world, I think companies and individuals will gladly develop their products elsewhere. Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony? DJI I guess? But that's a bit niche. Poland is growing healthily last I checked. The proof is in immigration numbers in other European countries. It seems to be reversing. In Norway there's a clear downward trend in immigration from Poland.

yorwba 6y ago
> See how TSMC (Taiwan) and Samsung are free to buy ASMLs EUV machines, while China is blocked. Part of that is due to their rampant IP theft. Why sell machines to China if they're just going to copy them? ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue to sell previous-generation machines) if their export license had been extended by the Dutch government, but the US applied pressure to make sure that didn't happen. You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

haspok 6y ago

How can you compare China (population ~1.4bn) to any EU country (population average ~10mn - several orders of magnitude less, even in the case of the largest country)? Size is an advantage, not a disadvantage! Pretty much none of the tactics would have worked for a small country that China played successfully. If you are small you can choose to be independent and protectionist - and remain very poor, or join the party, but be pushed into the corner, hoping that with time the playing field will level out somewhat.

dikaio 6y ago
Unfortunately for us the US will first need to learn that it’s better to keep US citizens out of prison, being productive in the workforce than locked up.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Broken window fallacy rules US economic thinking. Just that the broken windows are the lives of the prisoners and their families while the profits go to privatized prisons and their investors.
peapicker 6y ago
“several orders of magnitude less” for values of “several” equalling 2.... no need for the extra hyperbole.

thereddaikon 6y ago

Funny you say that because exactly the opposite thing happened to China. They were completely taken advantage of in the 19th century and didn't fully recover from that until a 100 years later when Nixon and Kissinger in one of their "4D chess" moves restarted diplomatic relations as a way to limit the Soviets. From that point on they had a pretty clever long view policy but it would have been surprising if they hadn't. They spent the previous century getting fucked by foreign invaders, if they hadn't learned how to resist it by the 1970's then Chinese culture as we know it would have been doomed to collapse by the 90's. And truth be told they almost did in 1989. If the CCP was a little less organized, if the military was a little less loyal and if the protesters had their shit together a bit more it could have turned into a full popular revolution.

Robotbeat 6y ago
A popular revolution in 1989 China would have restored Chinese culture. It was the CCP that squashed it.
- hnaln 6y ago
  > A popular revolution in 1989 China would have restored Chinese culture. It was the CCP that squashed it. It would have plunged China into a civil war again and there would be millions dead. China would be a worse position now by every metric.

taurath 6y ago

Sooner than that I’d even say. Even a China with GDP per capita 1/4 of the US would pass that bar I think. 1/2 the US would make quality of living comparable to the US, given how relatively bad the US is in QoL, if you assume an urbanized priority vs suburban

disabled 6y ago

> Whereas everyone who joined the EU in the decade of 2000 (and the Washington Consensus before that in the nineties) is now a pawn of the Western capital with no clear path of escaping the trap of mediocrity. Not true. I hope you are joking. Most countries that joined the EU in the 2000s and 2010s become pretty westernized within 5 years of joining. Have you ever spent significant time in these countries, pre-EU or post-EU? Also, the countries that benefit the most from being EU members are the new members. > So far, the standard of living in post-Soviet EU countries is still higher than in China, but that's because of the much better starting point and also because it's just hard to provide wealth for over a billion people in a modern, heavily automated economy. The standard of living is pretty high in a lot of those countries, and not all of them are post-Soviet. Look at Malta or the ex-Yugoslav countries (Slovenia, Croatia) for example. I do not understand why westerners (particularly Americans) like to talk trash about the EU. I hope the Americans doing this realize where they are going, as in the wrong way, or on the wrong trend line. Of course America can wake up from being on some trend line, but to win the battles they are up against, profound societal changes will need to occur. U.S. life expectancy will soon be on par with Mexico’s and the Czech Republic’s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/02/21/us-life-expectancy-will-soon-be-on-par-with-mexicos-and-croatias/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0... Also, according to that article, American women's life expectancy is soon to mirror Croatia. You know, that war-torn, ex-Yugoslav country that had a nasty war in the 90s and displaced a lot of people. Americans should be embarrassed.

inglor_cz 6y ago
Life in the Czech Republic is fine, as far as I am concerned. No violent places like Chiapas in Mexico. What isn't fine is the worldwide trend toward morbid obesity and metabolic disease. Americans, as usual, are the trend setters, but we are following them. That is what reduces life expectancy and especially life quality in nations that can afford to gorge on 100 pounds of sugar per person and year.
- disabled 6y ago
  Yeah, I agree. I did not mean for someone from Czechia to take it personally. I am sorry about that and I will do better and be more considerate. I am a dual US| EU (Croatian) citizen, who is culturally American. I live in Croatia. So, I hope you understand where I am coming from, even though I was wrong. I also have type 1 diabetes (autoimmune and insulin dependent) which is a “metabolic disease”. It is more appropriate to say “type 2 diabetes” or “diabetes type 2” or “insulin-resistance”, rather than a metabolic disease. The issue with America is we have a lot of unnecessary death. It is not just obesity and type 2 diabetes, although that is a huge part of it. Our healthcare system is designed to create as much profit as possible, without having to improve the health of the people using it. We have no adequate public health infrastructure because of this huge profit seeking and we suffer because of a lack of regulation. This all causes unnecessary death.