3 ms·

Western government sanctions regimes on China and other countries are becoming increasingly farcical and self-destructive and the chips war is just one of sever

Western government sanctions regimes on China and other countries are becoming increasingly farcical and self-destructive and the chips war is just one of several examples - solar and nuclear energy, electrified transportation and innovative agriculture are others. A good discussion of the chips issue is at Inside China Business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CmDZ5s8Ypo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CmDZ5s8Ypo Fundamentally, the USA has no industrial policy, no manufacturing policy, no infrastructure policy, no STEM-centric educational policy, and the over-financialization of the economy has resulted in industrial monopolies that are more concerned with delivering profits to their investors than with maintaining a technological edge over competitors via investments in in-house research and development. The political leadership is elderly and increasingly incompetent, and really seems more dedicated to the retirement interests of the largest political demographic, the boomers, than to any other sector. Thus, rather than focusing on winning technological races on a global scale via a complete restructuring of the economy and a shift in priorities away from investor profits, the strategy appears to involve kneecapping the competition by any means available. This won't end well for the citizens of Western governments.

palmfacehn 2y ago
I agree that the tariffs and trade embargoes are destructive. However I'm not convinced that the central planning policies are optimal either. The US's over-financialization can be viewed as a destructive policy of the central bank. It is also worth noting that China has tariffs, capital controls and a central bank incentivizing misallocations in the real estate sector. In short, it is all bad, all around with some areas of "less bad".
talldayo 2y ago
> This won't end well for the citizens of Western governments. Neither does giving China everything they want, though. I agree that America isn't poised to replace all the things we import from China, but denying them from strategic sectors like compute and chipmaking makes perfect sense. China has to aquiesce to the principles of globalist security if they want to reap the rewards from international partners like ASML and Nvidia. America has no reason to give China the slightest foothold for as long as they seek political isolation from global partners. On the flip side - there is a path for America to re-affirm it's position as a high-tech manufacturing hub China couldn't hope to replicate. It will take a while to get it working, but with enough funding America can import everything China can't have and build their manufacturing sector off that. I don't have high hopes for it, but I don't have high hopes for China catching up on EULV in the short-term either. Sanctions against China make sense from every perspective except short-term profitability.

palmfacehn 2y ago

I agree that the tariffs and trade embargoes are destructive. However I'm not convinced that the central planning policies are optimal either. The US's over-financialization can be viewed as a destructive policy of the central bank. It is also worth noting that China has tariffs, capital controls and a central bank incentivizing misallocations in the real estate sector. In short, it is all bad, all around with some areas of "less bad".

talldayo 2y ago

> This won't end well for the citizens of Western governments. Neither does giving China everything they want, though. I agree that America isn't poised to replace all the things we import from China, but denying them from strategic sectors like compute and chipmaking makes perfect sense. China has to aquiesce to the principles of globalist security if they want to reap the rewards from international partners like ASML and Nvidia. America has no reason to give China the slightest foothold for as long as they seek political isolation from global partners. On the flip side - there is a path for America to re-affirm it's position as a high-tech manufacturing hub China couldn't hope to replicate. It will take a while to get it working, but with enough funding America can import everything China can't have and build their manufacturing sector off that. I don't have high hopes for it, but I don't have high hopes for China catching up on EULV in the short-term either. Sanctions against China make sense from every perspective except short-term profitability.