> future number one market

That's highly unlikely given the current state, as US consumer is is about 1/3 of the world's household consumption https://www.selectusa.gov/largest-market, and is growing 3% this quarter. China has alot of debt problems, and will suffer heavily in a trade war. About 45% of Chinese GDP is in 'investment', where probably half is waste (continued state investments into expensive-to-maintain, rarely used rails, bridge, and buildings). Whereas for a developed country like US, it's about 20% investment (70% in consumption).

Population wise, US is augmented by steady immigration and will increase to 400 million in 2040, 500 million in 2100. China hit its peak in birthing in 1970s, and has been experiencing a steady decline since, projected to hit max 1.4 billion people in 2030 and then go to around 1 billion or below in 2100. US average income is still 7 times the Chinese average income.

IMO, China's hit its peak already in 2008 and is in decline, whereas US has recovered from 2008 and is rising

> China has alot of debt problems, and will suffer heavily in a trade war. About 45% of Chinese GDP is in 'investment', where probably half is waste (continued state investments into expensive-to-maintain, rarely used rails, bridge, and buildings). Whereas for a developed country like US, it's about 20% investment (70% in consumption).

This seems like almost the reverse of the conclusion you're trying to support. Investments in development and infrastructure are a good mechanism for long-term economic growth, and it's not clear that a trade war will hurt China worse than it hurts the US.

> Investments in development and infrastructure are a good mechanism for long-term economic growth

That's true up to a point where the infrastructure is facilitating economic movements and transactions. China has already gone past that point to where they are building infrastructure for the sake of building infrastructure, not considering whether those rails and buildings will produce enough income to support maintenance in the next 5-10 years. There is such a thing as diminishing rate of returns (otherwise every economy would just keep building infrastructures forever) Currently, for every yuan Chinese government directly spends, it now only gets 1 yuan of return back, and it is declining.

As for the trade war, I think it is pretty evident who is winning, I won't go too much details into it; you can google every data around the aftermath of the tariffs.

> Investments in development and infrastructure are a good mechanism for long-term economic growth

That of course depends on the infrastructure situation in question. Japan vaporized trillions of dollars on infrastructure and it did absolutely nothing of consequence to boost their growth. Infrastructure wasn't their problem as it turned out, so each follow-on dollar they plowed into additional unnecessary infrastructure spending produced declining rates of return. China is guilty of plenty of that so far.

The US is the least trade dependent major economy. It would benefit from shifting some imports to increased domestic production, such as in the steel and aluminum industries. It's better to pay slightly higher prices if necessary and to produce domestic investment with quality blue collar jobs. That's not a universal of course, there's little benefit to the US trying to manufacture $20 toasters or $3 playing decks of cards or $1 shoe laces by hand.

It's ideal for the US to consume less and produce more. European nations boost savings rates with very high VAT taxes. Tariffs are another means to accomplish the exact same end, except it's even better because it bolsters domestic production at the same time that it reduces consumption by raising the cost of consumption.

So not only is there an extreme lobsided imbalance between the benefit in US / China trade due to the trade deficit there, the US would benefit from fewer goods pouring in from China in all scenarios because of the gains in domestic manufacturing (even if they're modest) + domestic investment, and lowered consumption. Less capital flows overseas, more stays home.

There's always the scenario that comes up of: what if China cuts off something that isn't easily replaced such as smart phone manufacturing, or similar. Other countries can easily pick up the slack, such as Vietnam which is a booming electronics manufacturer (and makes a lot of smart phones now).

On the flip side, China can't operate at all without US tech. They'd have to turn to stealing it. The rest of the world would largely proceed to banish those then-illegal Chinese products accordingly (particularly Europe, Latin America, Japan, AU/NZ, Mexico, Canada, etc).

> future number one market on earth

Is there an example of a western brand that has yet gained significant traction in China? My understanding is that unless you are a Chinese company, your chances of competing in this “number one” market are slim. Businesses obsess at the population numbers but ignore the reality.

The trick isn't whether these brands can access China, it's in what manner. Western brands sell very well in China, who gets the proceeds is the issue.

The big European luxury goods brands are doing a wild business in China. [1][2][3][4]

If you want to make a lot of money on China as a foreigner, you want to be selling a luxury brand product rather than offering a local service (eg fast food chain). That might be an iPhone or a Gucci bag or a Mercedes. Owning certain intellectual property, such as characters, can be equally lucrative (eg Marvel and Mickey Mouse). Nike and Jordan Brand have done a great business in China.

KFC in China for example, isn't controlled by Yum Brands US. It's controlled by Yum China, minority owned by Yum US. McDonald's has a small sliver of its own business in China.

Disney only owns 43% of its big new $5.5b park in Shanghai, the most popular park in China. Wang Jianlin had touted that he'd personally chase Disney from China, and that his parks would dominate instead. Disney really had no choice but to acquiesce and partner up. They'll make a lot of money from it and they had to cede control to do that.

Tesla is building a factory in China for the same reason everyone else has, there is no great alternative. You have to give local Chinese partners their big cut, or else.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/l-oreal-g...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-20/hermes-ex...

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-24/lvmh-shin...

[4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/luxury-ba...

Disney's partner is the Shanghai government, not Wang. And the partnership was many years in the making. Wang only made his boast after the park openned, to draw attention to his own properties.

KFC and McD owned Chinese franchises for decades before spinning them out for financial reasons.

I never said Disney's partner was Wang. I said that Wang said he was going to chase Disney from China with his own parks.

Yum and MCD were forced into partnering locally and giving up total ownership of those businesses.

If you're a German company you can freely set up a US version of your business and own it outright. Nintendo doesn't have to give up eg 70% of its stake in Nintendo of America. That's not the case if you're MCD trying to operate in China.

Could you give your source on MCD being forced to spin out their stores? In US 90% of the stores are owned by franchisees, not MCD https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-us/franchising.html Why should China be different?

You said "Wang Jianlin had touted that he'd personally chase Disney from China, and that his parks would dominate instead. Disney really had no choice but to acquiesce and partner up." I pointed out that the partnership with Shanghai predated Wang's boast by many years. If you didn't mean to imply some kind of causal relationship between the two you may want to clarify.

The entire comment, like so many others, is just pure nonsense. This is not about understanding the reality it's about validating a narrative and so you get completely made up "facts" like Disney being forced to partner up when nothing of the sort has actually happened.

@dang why is the parent not banned for using hn for ideological battles?

The criterion is using HN primarily for ideological battles.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Starbucks, Apple, Tesla, Western car companies, IKEA, LinkedIn, Coach, Coca-Cola, Nike, L'Oreal, Adidas, Microsoft etc, just google this.

https://www.uschina.org/about/member-companies

There are over 5,000 KFC locations in China

Buick, oddly enough.

https://www.google.com/search?q=buick+china+popularity&oq=bu...

Apple

iPhones?

> stand up for human rights

Can we all just get off our high horse? We literally have concentration camps at our borders and have bombed hundreds of civilians. We don't get to claim the moral high ground.

Yes, opposing those things should also be part of standing up for human rights.

Not everyone is from US, miss. Most people from other countries sees a concentration camp for what it is, a concentration camp. Some have parents or relatives that lived (or died) through those camps.

And I wouldn't dare compare US's detention center for illegal immigrants with the camp for millions of people detained without violating any laws. For instance, most countries have detention centers for illegal immigrants.

I understand that not everyone is an American but YC is an American company, hence the hypocrisy of only calling out YC China when the U.S. is also complacent about human right violations, which is the point I was trying to make.

The difference is that YC in America is not afraid or hesitant to call out things that are inherently wrong in the US. They both write and fund companies and non-profits that address those issues. With YC China, the best YC can realistically do is fund and self censor.

It's happened before. Think of all the Fanta those settlers in the Reichskommissariat Moskau are going to drink!