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Or it's a very good thing for keeping tensions under control with both countries benefiting drastically from keeping the relationship functional.
by iepathos 4y ago
Or it's a very good thing for keeping tensions under control with both countries benefiting drastically from keeping the relationship functional.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
- themitigating 4y agoThen why didn't that work with russia, they have ruined their economy for a war
- ketzo 4y agoThat is a very complicated question, but in short: Russia’s economy is supported by oil. Oil is pretty much the one thing that they’ve still been consistently able to export. China’s economy is based on exporting lots and lots and lots of manufactured goods. Many of them are essential, but many of them could be banned tomorrow.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y agoThe point being that Russia would be more desperate due to fewer options? Not trying to argue, just curious.
- ketzo 4y agoThe opposite, actually — people NEED Russia’s oil. They don’t have the option to stop buying it without a lot of pain. So Russia’s biggest money-fountain has stayed on despite sanctions. Meanwhile, China exports a lot of things that people don’t need. You can turn those off quicker. Again — huge oversimplifications. But I think reasonably solid mental model.
- tablespoon 4y ago> Meanwhile, China exports a lot of things that people don’t need. You can turn those off quicker. It's not like that's all they export. They export a lot of essential things, and cutting them off would probably far more economically disruptive to their customers than to them. They're store shelves won't be empty, and given their political system they can probably deal with the fallout much more effectively. There are also a lot of alternative producers of oil, while there's no other advanced manufacturing giant on the scale of China that people can shift their orders to. It would make the COVID supply chain difficulties look like a joke.
- jacobolus 4y agoIt’s not a complicated question. It’s a very simple question with a simple answer: one man (Vladimir Putin) wanted to go to war and made the (initial and ongoing) decision despite it being a clearly terrible idea to anyone else watching. How Russia got itself to the point where one person has consolidated all authority, surrounded himself with corrupt sycophants, and cannot accurately gather or integrate information from the rest of the society is the complicated question here. It’s a pretty good demonstration for anyone watching around the world that unchecked power can lead to disastrous decisions. It should inspire us to stand up for democracy and against corruption and consolidation of wealth and power in our own societies. It’s impossible to determine Putin’s personal motivations from outside; the best we can do is speculate. My speculation is that involves some combination of (a) doing what he thinks will best maintain internal political control, (b) satisfying an egoistical urge for historical glory, and (c) a narcissistic belief that others must bow to his personal whims and a raging narcissistic grudge when they do not.
- Maursault 4y ago> It’s impossible to determine Putin’s personal motivations from outside; Entitlement. The closest you came was the descriptor "narcissistic" in (c). Narcissism is supposed to be a rare condition, but it is found everywhere. It is easiest to understand leaders like Putin, Jong-un, Xi, DeSantis and Trump, if framed in psychological terms like narcissism with symptoms of entitlement, grandiosity, attention seeking, arrogance, bullying, lack of empathy, and a fear of criticism.
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- QuarterReptile 4y ago>It’s impossible to determine Putin’s personal motivations from outside; the best we can do is speculate. Russia has no convenient geographic features to protect it from invasion, so it relies on long distances. Those distances are much shorter than they used to be, and Russian doctrine for at least the past decade has been focused on creating confusion and chaos in Eastern Europe. The chaos is here, and they probably misread the international community on what they could get away with. Now that they're in it, though, I think Putin is the biggest obstacle to Russia extricating themselves from the debacle.
- rurp 4y agoRussia has even put their energy exports at risk though. They are already trading at a discount and things could get much worse if the war continues to escalate. If Putin advances to using nukes or mass slaughtering of civilians, things will eventually reach a point where the neutral countries finally cut ties. Russia starting a nuclear war would be bad for China, India and others; there's some point at which they'll cut off Russian trade.
- jonny_eh 4y agoRussia has been mass slaughtering citizens. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/09/22/new-mass-graves-found-in-ukraine-as-putins-atrocities-continue/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/09/22/new-mas...
- okasaki 4y agoYes and they're taking babies out of incubators and leaving them to die.
- jakubadamw 4y agoI understand your snark is simply meant to signal your sympathy towards war crime negationism, but the Gulf War incubator reference does happen to be on topic and not in the way you may have intended. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/europe/gallery/mariupol-hospital-bombed/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/09/europe/gallery/mariupol-h...
- jm4 4y agoIn no particular order: - Russia overestimated their position - Russia believed the war would be over in a few days (which many in the West also believed) - Russia assumed Europe would keep buying their oil (which has happened to an extent) - Russia believes they can "out-suffer" the West and we will crack after a few months - Russia believed the West was too polarized to reach consensus on an effective response In short, Russia had a bad read on the situation and shot themselves in the foot. They thought they were in a position to impose their will without a fight or a significant response from the West. We have seen a little bit of the same attitude from China the past several years - decadent West on the decline, democracy is flawed, etc. - but I have to think they are smart enough to realize they have been underestimating us. At a minimum, I think it pushes back their timeline for when they believed they would become the world's premier power. Hopefully, that buys us all some time to cool off and find diplomatic solutions.
- NicoJuicy 4y agoA democracy is underestimated when the problems are known and shared honestly instead of being hidden by a dictator with a big ego. Both can prosper when things go good, it's when shit hits the fan that you notice the difference.
- 8ytecoder 4y agoA democracy with persuasive leaders is likely to prevail over a dictatorship where no one dares to speak their mind - as in The Emperor’s New Clothes.
- themitigating 4y agoOr a democracy where its leaders lie
- prewett 4y agoI don't think diplomatic solutions are possible when one side says "this land that we don't currently occupy is ours", especially when the people in charge view admitting they were mistaking as a existential personal failure. The best you can hope for is balance-of-power detente.
- kbenson 4y agoI suspect that as you approach being entirely dependent on on supplier it goes from being a nice lever for each side to being a noose for one. China doesn't want to lose Apple's business. Apple can't lose China. Extrapolate across many industries. There's a difference between having a partner and being entirely dependent.
- malfist 4y agoThere's a scifi book series where a stable government is maintained by exclusive monopolies that the other provenience are dependent upon. Any provenience trying to break away will quickly find they are in an economic collapse because they can't supply themselves. Fascinating idea, until the monopolies break everything. I'll see if I can't find it. It's The Interdependency Series by John Scalzi: https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency
- Kye 4y agoThis is essentially the US. For all the talk of secession from different factions depending on political winds, not much would really change aside from everything being a little more difficult. All the trade each state depends on that happens now through the nature of our federal system would happen through treaties, just like the UK post-Brexit.
- tablespoon 4y ago> Or it's a very good thing for keeping tensions under control with both countries benefiting drastically from keeping the relationship functional. IMHO, that's a free market myth made "true" through constant repetition. It breaks down if one or more parties stops prioritizing things like a free marketer. And "keeping tensions under control" could translate to "appease the CCP and give in to its demands." It controls the real (physical) assets, as well as most of the human capital. Its adversaries are democracies, which means they're often far too focused on the people's parochial, short-term whims (e.g. failing to take strategic action because they're afraid of losing votes if those actions make iPhones more expensive). The CCP has also has the benefit of learning from several of Russia's mistakes. They'll probably force their demands more slowly and persistently, so as to not galvanize their opponents.
- jonny_eh 4y agoExactly. It was this theory that allowed the West to trade with Russia regardless of her human rights abuses, but it still didn’t deter a pointlessly costly war.
- DoughnutHole 4y agoThe argument could be made that it worked pretty well for over 20 years. Russia played fairly nice with the west pretty much up until they invaded Crimea. It'd obviously be a mistake to say that economic interconnectivity totally prevents war, but the fact that wars break out doesn't falsify the notion that it might make conflict less common on average. The west's relationship with Russia and China has certainly been less rocky over the past 30 years than its relationship with the Soviet Union ever was.
- jonny_eh 4y ago> The argument could be made that it worked pretty well for over 20 years Uhm, this isn't the first time Russia invaded Ukraine in the past decade. Remember when they invaded and took Crimea? Also, they've been fucking with elections in other countries, like with Brexit and Trump. There was also the Wirecard scandal that they've been associated with. They've done massive amounts of damage internationally.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y agoDefinitely the logic that drove Germany to make it’s entire industrial economy dependent on gas from the east over the last several decades. Not saying there is no merit to the logic, just that it can backfire or malfunction unexpectedly.
- Bloating 4y agoSave the Environment, IMPORT Demand Living Wages, IMPORT
- nostromo 4y agoThis is exactly what Germany thought it was doing when it forged energy deals with Russia.
- lnsru 4y agoNot really. Russia put enormous effort to bribe German politicians. Ex chancellor for example. I don’t think, that China is bribing Apple. They go there voluntarily.
- jonny_eh 4y agoThis was one argument the corrupt politicians used to justify their actions.
- beachy 4y agoEnergy comes out of the ground. Exploiting something that's already there with very little value add. You can't buy energy from just anyone. Building airpods is an industrial process. All value add. You can do it anywhere, one factories are set up, workers trained etc.
- rkagerer 4y ago...anywhere that has the required local supply logistics, low labour cost, etc. If it could truly be done anywhere it would still be happening in the US.
- ziddoap 4y agoI think the point being made is that if Apple/whoever was willing to pay for it, you can setup the supply chain and get the workers wherever you want. It might cost more, sure, but it can be done. However, you can't just extract energy from somewhere that doesn't have it. No matter how much money you want to sink into it. If there's no oil/NG/whatever, that's that. Trillions of dollars wont make it appear there. Trillions of dollars does let you setup a nice supply chain and labor force in the US though.
- 4y ago
- heavyset_go 4y agoThe US needs Apple, China doesn't need Apple. That asymmetry can be exploited.
- sfeqcq 4y agoAre you sure about that? A million people losing their jobs can have an impact. "It is the world's largest technology manufacturer and service provider. While headquartered in Taiwan, the company is the largest private employer in the People's Republic of China and one of the largest employers worldwide." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn And that doesn't count all the companies that make the subassemblies and parts for Foxconn either.
- vaidhy 4y agoYes, but Foxconn is not Apple subsidiary. Apple is just one of their customers. Saying million would lose job because Apple moved out of China seems like hyperbole from the other side.
- scarface74 4y agoApple is by far their largest customer.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoSo, what will people in the rest of the world buy then? There won't be new iphones for years, and foxconn will continue to make phones for other manufacturers, whose sales will go up.
- scarface74 4y agoWhat scenario is there that Apple couldn’t make phones in China and every other manufacturer could?
- 4y ago
- Bombthecat 4y agoGermany thought that works with Russia... Well, now you see how well that worked
- unity1001 4y agoIt worked very well until the US decided that it should drive apart Russia and Germany to remove Germany as a competitor. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/michael-hudson-americas-real-adversaries-are-its-european-and-other-allies.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/michael-hudson-ameri...
- nindalf 4y agoYeah this makes sense. Kinda like how Europe depends on Russia for oil and gas and Russia imports a number of high tech goods from Europe. That’s why conflict between the two is highly unlikely.
- yreg 4y agoThe fact that this time it didn't work out with Russia doesn't negate the game theory.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoIt didn't work out for europe either, considering we'll be pretty fucked this winter. US of course gains a lot... weakening both russia and EU while selling overpriced LPG. On the other hand, US has been afraid of a strong germany-russia cooperation for decades and has done everything possible to stop it,... the us-bombing-nordstream accusations are not something new, since US was opposed to nordstream and threatened against it for years now, way before the russia-ukraine war.
- collegeburner 4y agohas the "mcdonalds diplomacy" thing really worked out? because we've seen countries that were getting better (Iran) fall and countries that should have gotten better (Russia) fail to do so.
- michaelt 4y agoUnder Merkel, Germany got 50% of their natural gas from Russia - with the intention of normalising relations and keeping tensions under control. Then Russia decided they could invade a neighbour they claim isn't a real country - and now Germany is in for a very cold winter, and gas shortages are sending bills skyrocketing all across Europe. If trade was supposed to stop Russia invading its neighbours, it hasn't worked very well.
- lmm 4y agoWell, the theory relies on assuming rationality from the Russian leadership. If a madman wants to invade a neighbour, there are few reliable ways to prevent that.
- unity1001 4y ago"Everyone but the US is evil and crazy"
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago> If a madman wants to invade a neighbour, there are few reliable ways to prevent that. Does being a neighbor matter here? Because if a madmen attacks a country half a planet away, we (the europeans) help them by sending our soldiers to help (syria, libya, afghanistan,...). We also tend to treat separatists differently, depending on where and who they are... Kosovo people want to be independent, let them be independent, and think later how to (re)paint nato as a purely defensive organization, when the nato bombings of yugoslavia are over. People from republika srpska also want to leave bosnia and hercegovina... no no, the country must stay whole, we won't change maps. Catalunya? What? Where? Who? Sorry, I have to go.
- friedman23 4y agoHow could anyone say this seriously after recent events?
- caycep 4y agomaybe it's a balance - you can keep some dependency on china, just not 98%...
- MR4D 4y agoThat train of thought used to be true, but with the EU and Russia, it seems not to be true as much. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. The US can get along without Apple (although 401K's might take a big hit), but China without Apple would be a pretty big issue, even if you only look at it from an employment viewpoint.
- thrown_22 4y agoThat train of thought was used to argue that a big war was impossible in Europe ... in 1913. Politics is not economics and economics is not politics. It takes a very deep ignorance of history to think otherwise.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y agoWe've seen a clear failure of this logic in Ukraine. Russia interpreted the interdependence as a license, not a leash. The most likely source of conflict between the US and the CCP is Taiwan, and this is an issue where reduction to economic incentives utterly fails to describe potential events.
- Dalewyn 4y agoThis rhetoric is the reason why we're in the situation we're in now. China doesn't care for niceties, they will fleece everyone for all they are worth at the first and every opportunity to advance their own agenda which is very clearly not aligned with western interests. Put another way, you know who's funding the Chinese military? We (the west) are. We are funding the very regime who would sooner see us dead than alive. There is no room for the west in their One China vision.
- sbaiddn 4y agoThat was the theory on the eve of WW1, wasnt it?
- jeswin 4y agoAppeasing a dictatorship (both mafia-style as in Russia, and Communist-style as in China/North Korea) isn't a good idea in the long run - especially if they have nuclear weapons. The barbarism we've seen in Ukraine is an example. On the other side of the world, Taiwan is threatened with war every week. Further strengthening China's manufacturing capacity is not in the interest of democracies.
- phs318u 4y agoThat's what the Europeans thought when they signed up to making themselves so energy dependent on the Russians. They thought they were creating a two-way dependency that would moderate excessive behaviour and "keep the relationship functional". That's not how it's worked out.
- buscoquadnary 4y agoThe old "armies will cross borders if goods don't argument." A comforting and hopeful delusion. People made the exact same arguments in the early 1900s, they became convinced after international incident after international incident became solved without bloodshed none would. They argued that because the economies we're so intertwined with Germany being the world's leading producer of electrical appliances that were being used in English homes no one would ever want to fight a war there would be nothing to gain and everything to lose. The British in particular as the financial capital of the world pushed and leaned on this narrative hard, nothing would be more disruptive to their fiance and capital schemes than a large scale conflict. Every country in the world had treaties and agreements to try and avoid anything happening. Then in 1914 a young disgruntled Serbian nationalist that didn't care about the economy or international relations, who cared only about the existential emptiness he had cured with fanatical nationalism assassinated the Archduke of a relatively minor European power that was considered to be on its way out. It turns out in a national scramble for survival the economy is considered a cheap thing, especially when the actual cost is being paid in the blood of tens of thousands of young men each day. So let me ask you this question if you are convinced that it will be too expensive to let these tensions explode, as thousands of feet march to the beat, what would you say is the price of a mile?
- rightbyte 4y agoYou need to know the counterfactual rate of war if there were less trade to evaluate that.
- laxmin 4y agoAssuming both are completely rational and take decisions that are most beneficial to their citizens short and long term welfare. Such an assumption has no rational basis itself.
- jychang 4y agoYou need to read up on philosophy. Mostly Hegel’s Dialectics. These two statements are not contradictory and are both simultaneously true. dialectics (used with a sing. verb) A method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions. The contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction.