"China does not tolerate any competing power structures. The chances of US to fall in line with 300 million people is not that high. This trade war is never going to end until US is reduced to such a level that it can no longer fight and gives up and joins the world order as a subordinate state."
That doesn't seem to make much sense.
The current "world order" is the American authored post World War II international regime. UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, and the Petro-Dollar are all made in USA. China was expected to join this order without ruffling American leadership feathers.
My impression has long been that the Western strategists that decided to raise China from its dysfunctional state and jump start it as an industrial and economic power were gambling that the ruling Communist Party of China would lose its grip on the Chinese once the Chinese masses got a taste of Western quality of life and exposed to Western culture. They also likely hoped that Chinese ruling elite and their children would be willing to trade their political hegemonic grip on the Chinese nation with a seat at the international 1%'s table.
That didn't work out, so now we have an administration that (at least superficially as communicated to us plebes via "twitter") is bent on dismantling the very same global structures that are the foundation of "Pax Americana" cum "American Empire".
And how very naive they were! Instead what we got is a Chinese Elite with a seat at the international 1%'s table, using that power to continue ruling China as they see fit. Who could've seen that coming?
>That didn't work out, so now we have an administration that (at least superficially as communicated to us plebes via "twitter") is bent on dismantling the very same global structures that are the foundation of "Pax Americana" cum "American Empire".
If we have an "Empire", then why don't we get paid like one? The Imperial comparison has some logical foundations in there, but if we really did run a global "Empire" then I'd expect everyone to shell out some cash every once in a while for things like keeping major shipping lanes generally open and safe. Perhaps we have an Empire and don't know it, or don't have the guts to act like one.
I sympathize with the frustration you express and the cognitive disconnect you are experiencing. I live in New York City, "the Empire State", where if the subway lines work it is a good day. It is decidedly 3rd world.
This term "empire" was first tacked on US by the British. I don't recall the name of the wanker in question but there was an English chap ("historian") who did the corporate media circus rounds a bit after 9/11 urging us to look to the British Empire as an example on "how to run an empire". Someone with access to LexisNexis can likely dig up the provenance of that appellation.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/15/the-us-hidden-e...
My own pet theory, based on highly consistent historical precedents, is that the empire of the day is recognizable by their architecture. Now if some aliens were to scope out various cities on this planet, most certainly NY and the rest of US look like yesterday's news. But then look at London, Paris, and major cities in China.
It is a Banker's Empire. [We're the muscle.]
“Banker’s Empire” is apt. I just wish the muscle got paid more for it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: we've had to ask you this several times before, and several times before that with a previous account. Would you please stop doing this so we don't have to ban you? (No, we're not secretly communists or spies, and yes, someone doing this with opposite politics would get moderated the same way.)
Welcome to China :)
The art of finding a good client in China is all about finding what is in his head.
It's all true that people who earn to be party officials, don't make good company execs, as they try to run companies like their party committees.
If the guy is 50+ he is just a lost cause most of the time
That's simply not true. China is a massive market for a huge number of foreign firms. VW has the largest share of the Chinese auto market. Starbucks has thousands of stores in China. Chinese supermarkets are filled with Western brands you'd recognize. I'm not just cherry-picking examples here: you could go sector by sector in the Chinese economy and see massive foreign investment in many of them.
For Tech, the % gap between real and perceived opportunity is far wider than any other country in Asia Pacific.
Note that I worked for NASDAQ listed companies with Sarbanes Oxley compliance requirements. A large % of opportunities outright non-compliant (e.g., wanting a Porsche).
Another frequent client requirement was warranty terms on consulting engagements. That might expire 12-24 months after service completion. So you can’t recognise revenue until then.
And finally a signed SOW and terms carries some legal gravity in countries outside China. Scope creep is a huge problem in China, good luck with change requests or referring them to the SOW.
Total opportunities - non compliant deals - delayed revrec deals (or similar issues) - scope creep = minuscule %.
Also I’d argue that revenue and EBIT are better indicators of actual opportunity than total foreign investment.
In firms like mine, China is a “strategic market” where investments are being made because these conditions may change one day. If your competitor is present when that happens and you are not, then HQ will think you failed.
Tell us more about how Chinese organ harvesting from Falun Gong and undesirable ethnic minorities is fiction.
Why should we not take the CCP's description of their own system of government at face value?
> Why should we not take the CCP's description of their own system of government at face value?
Because it's a government of lies.
They have to keep calling the system "Communist" because that is tradition. That's all.
>An amoral state calling all the important shots
Help me understand how these statements are not contradictory?
b) For some values of X, or for some strategic Chinese goals related to X, the Chinese government has opinions. They may ask the company to do (or refrain from doing) certain things. When this happens, the owner of the company needs to do as they're told, or bad things will happen to them. That's the amoral state calling shots part.
The lines are not the traditional all-of-society-must-fall-into-one-category-or-the-other capitalism vs. communism, but the boundaries are pretty clear.
what is communist?
Is anything communist?
A Kibbutz maybe?
How about on the nation-state scale?
Was China communist under Mao?
Was the Soviet Union communist?
Castro’s Cuba?
Edit: Any Platonic ideal undergoes distortion when manifested in the material world.
I actually think the No True Scotsman Fallacy, is itself, not a very good argument to make.
We should just pay no attention to what any state calls itself. It's irrelevant.