Because that's worked so well for the last 20 years.

If China would open their economy to US companies in the same way the US was open to China pre-trade-war, then things could work.

As it stands China makes no secret about their desire to displace the US as the world's leading superpower, they've proven time and again they'll exploit any openings we give them toward that end. They don't want win-win scenarios, they want China-win-everyone-else-lose scenarios. It's long past time we stopped negotiating in good faith with bad actors.

That's the gist of China's admission to the WTO: they would have in no way qualified in terms of transparency or free trade, but promises were made that things would change.

They didn't.

If Chinese products are so yellow-star-spangled awesome, then why not let their citizens choose freely between Chinese and foreign products?

Free trade is a two way street.

In the case of smartphones, they do have a choice, and a lot of people still choose iPhones and some even Samsung. Hardware isn’t really an area locked down like internet services are.

But the “stacks” in the play store. There is no google play.

There's no google play because China banned Google. China banned Google because Google refused to remove censor politic contents. That contents mostly from An anti-CCP cult called FaLunGong and some other dissidents which all supported by the US.

What are you even talking about?

There are plenty of choices between domestic and foreign products in China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Jxci7d8UM

On the other hand, good luck getting a Chinese smartphone in the US now. Better pony up your $1K+ for Tim Cook.

> What are you even talking about?

It is well understood that the ability of foreign companies to do business in China is extremely constrained. Considering that the topic is Android, it seems worth noting that basically every Google service is blocked in China by the Great Firewall.

This is a known issue. The smart way to handle it would have been to have agreements with other neighboring countries where they promised to respect IP laws, and agreed to not steal IP the way China does, and also agreed to not block foreign companies the way China does, and if they did face heavy penalties. Once you have those protections, American companies reliant on China could easily transition to those countries instead if this threat did not force China to rectify their ways voluntarily.

In other words, TPP.

Oh please. Plenty of Chinese acquisitions and investments were denied pre-trade war. You also see almost no Chinese brands in the US, but they are everywhere in the rest of the world. You think that's an accident? There was never any open market in the US, that's your first myth. US market access has been a political tool since at least World War II.

What Trump has done is ripping the covers off the whole machinery, not only in domestic politics but also US international relations, down to the naked ugly cores.

Never said the market was completely open, but the US doesn't require foreign companies to partner with a state-run competitor to steal their IP, then increase regulations until they ultimately run the foreign company out of the country. That's been the Chinese playbook for over a decade, even after admission to the WTO.

Also last I checked Foxconn bought quite a bit of property in Wisconsin, even if they strangely haven't done much with it. Could a US company buy (and by buy I mean get one of those multi-decade leases, since the CCC technically owns all the land) property in China?

The US is far from the Captain America ideal, but from a trade perspective we've been a lot more fair with China than they have been with us.