A lot of comments in this thread put an almost moral dimension to this. "China is forcing this by slave labour/subsidies". "No they aren't". "It's still wrong".

A lot of comments in this thread put an almost moral dimension to this. "China is forcing this by slave labour/subsidies". "No they aren't". "It's still wrong". I think for the most part, subsidies and tariffs don't have a moral dimension. They operate at a level above that, where there barely is "cheating", only balance of power and economics. So neither is it evil that China is using subsidies to subvert Western industries, nor that the West responds in kind. Still, it needs to align with the real goal. Fwiw I listened to a podcast on "the rest is history" (episode about Dickens I think) where they tangentially mention that late 19th century USA had no respect for foreign copyright, and IP theft from Europe was rampant. USA did it not because it is evil but because it could. The West found itself in a different equilibrium for a few decades, where cooperating countries had more of a benefit from playing (mostly) by the rules than not. Now China is breaking these rules. I'm concerned about where China, and indeed the West, are going, but not because either their subsidies or Western tariffs are morally wrong.