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Is it weird then that China is a "foreign adversary" that is otherwise allowed to sell the US the vast, overwhelming majority of consumer goods and participate

by trog 2y ago

Is it weird then that China is a "foreign adversary" that is otherwise allowed to sell the US the vast, overwhelming majority of consumer goods and participate in the economy in many other ways?

inetknght 2y ago
Weird? Arguably. I would argue no. That's normal capitalism. Dangerous? I would definitely argue yes.
- trog 2y ago
  There are different types of danger and I'm not sure which one you're referring to - there's the general economic danger of relying too heavily on one trading partner (if China decides to put export tariff on anything to the US, for example), or literal danger, like national security stuff. I assume you're talking about the latter because that seems to be what is talked about with TikTok. Again, it seems weird to me to decide, after however many decades of globalism and exploiting China's manufacturing prowess for cheap goods, that this is suddenly dangerous but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about it, except stifle TikTok. Diversifying supply chains is a good idea - and the US is doing that already, though it seems to be much more in response to the first definition of "danger" than the second. Because if it was the national security aspect, we'd be seeing it happen with much more alacrity and urgency, and not some hand-wringing about TikTok.
jszymborski 2y ago
There's a current trade war in which the USA is trying to "friend-shore" manufacturing and has imposed massive trade tariffs on China. China is unambiguously a foreign adversary of the USA, as well as many/all Western democracies.
- trog 2y ago
  Just seems weird that this "foreign adversary" is also a critical "trading partner". Why is TikTok being singled out? The discussion about data and privacy seems totally disingenuous. This seems like a free speech issue being hidden being a weird angle. A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states. We already know US companies are impacted by both these issues. They need to be addressed at a lower level and not by cherry picking up the individual examples on grounds that are inconsistent with the rest of the state's behaviour.
  - dpkirchner 2y ago
    > Just seems weird that this "foreign adversary" is also a critical "trading partner". Why is TikTok being singled out? Because it's easy and cheap. It's a way for our representatives to claim they're doing something about the threat that may be posed by the Chinese government, without actually jeopardizing the interests of our industries.
    - trog 2y ago
      Yup. And I'm sure it's a completely unintended side effect that this massively helps US social media companies, who have been struggling to compete! Whoops!
  - jszymborski 2y ago
    You're talking like this TikTok bill is literally the only salvo in this trade war. Just ask the Huawai folks if they think that's the case. > A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states. I have no love for FANNG, but there's a huge difference between a domestic companies invading privacy and possibly being soft targets for foreign adversaries, and a literal foreign adversary surveilling and shaping discourse. So sure, if there is another bill that would curtail privacy invasion by domestic companies, I would be in huge support. But I fail to see how that stops blocking another privacy-invading app, run by a foreign adversary no less, is a bad thing. There is this whataboutism in every comment on HN regarding the US and China that drives me nutty. A US company being bad does not cancel out a Chinese company being bad. A patchwork law is better than no law.

by trog 2y ago

Is it weird then that China is a "foreign adversary" that is otherwise allowed to sell the US the vast, overwhelming majority of consumer goods and participate in the economy in many other ways?

inetknght 2y ago

Weird? Arguably. I would argue no. That's normal capitalism. Dangerous? I would definitely argue yes.

trog 2y ago
There are different types of danger and I'm not sure which one you're referring to - there's the general economic danger of relying too heavily on one trading partner (if China decides to put export tariff on anything to the US, for example), or literal danger, like national security stuff. I assume you're talking about the latter because that seems to be what is talked about with TikTok. Again, it seems weird to me to decide, after however many decades of globalism and exploiting China's manufacturing prowess for cheap goods, that this is suddenly dangerous but then proceed to do absolutely nothing about it, except stifle TikTok. Diversifying supply chains is a good idea - and the US is doing that already, though it seems to be much more in response to the first definition of "danger" than the second. Because if it was the national security aspect, we'd be seeing it happen with much more alacrity and urgency, and not some hand-wringing about TikTok.

jszymborski 2y ago

There's a current trade war in which the USA is trying to "friend-shore" manufacturing and has imposed massive trade tariffs on China. China is unambiguously a foreign adversary of the USA, as well as many/all Western democracies.

trog 2y ago
Just seems weird that this "foreign adversary" is also a critical "trading partner". Why is TikTok being singled out? The discussion about data and privacy seems totally disingenuous. This seems like a free speech issue being hidden being a weird angle. A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states. We already know US companies are impacted by both these issues. They need to be addressed at a lower level and not by cherry picking up the individual examples on grounds that are inconsistent with the rest of the state's behaviour.
- dpkirchner 2y ago
  > Just seems weird that this "foreign adversary" is also a critical "trading partner". Why is TikTok being singled out? Because it's easy and cheap. It's a way for our representatives to claim they're doing something about the threat that may be posed by the Chinese government, without actually jeopardizing the interests of our industries.
  - trog 2y ago
    Yup. And I'm sure it's a completely unintended side effect that this massively helps US social media companies, who have been struggling to compete! Whoops!
- jszymborski 2y ago
  You're talking like this TikTok bill is literally the only salvo in this trade war. Just ask the Huawai folks if they think that's the case. > A quick legal hack to get TikTok off the table does little to address the underlying systemic issues here - broad, uncontrolled data collection, and mass media distribution platforms that can be weaponised by nation states. I have no love for FANNG, but there's a huge difference between a domestic companies invading privacy and possibly being soft targets for foreign adversaries, and a literal foreign adversary surveilling and shaping discourse. So sure, if there is another bill that would curtail privacy invasion by domestic companies, I would be in huge support. But I fail to see how that stops blocking another privacy-invading app, run by a foreign adversary no less, is a bad thing. There is this whataboutism in every comment on HN regarding the US and China that drives me nutty. A US company being bad does not cancel out a Chinese company being bad. A patchwork law is better than no law.