The EU doesn't have any tech giant because, contrary to China, we have received US tech giants with open arms. So our economies bleed money and lose jobs to the likes of Amazon, because hey, "the free market". What do we stand to gain by siding with US companies in this US companies vs. China companies wars?
Perhaps it would be better for us to just imitate China, start being protectionistic and banning foreign tech companies so we can grow our own and prosper. It works. In the US you're pretty much telling us that it works - so well that you are doing the same.
Now that the US has shown it can ban foreign tech companies if it's in their own interest, and all the moralizing talk about the free market has been exposed as the self-serving propaganda it has always been, what reason do be exactly have to keep playing this game where we are the biggest losers?
One of the ideas behind the structure of our republic is that there can be peaceful changes in power between different governments. What I mean to say is that the US is not one person, not even the US government. So, the moralizing talk about the free market has not always been duplicitous as you seem to imply. The protectionist actions you see now are just taken by the current government, who even on its own, doesn’t seem to have harp on the need for a free market very much. This is especially true when you compare it to the last government that was backing the TPP, something that was promptly killed after the regime change.
Otherwise I agree with your conclusion, European countries should chart their own way. Gotta watch those negative interest rates though, might be a little trickier in a closed economy.
- Does the US prevent European people from finding work, moving to, and purchasing property in America?
European and foreign businesses get much higher fines compares to local businesses (e.g. Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Bayer (e.g. just after buying Massato), Toyota, etc...)
On the other hand Europe allows american businesses to access the european market without following the local laws. No user data can be transfered to the USA where protection clearly is not adequate, still they do.
EDIT: You can downvote me, but it's all true:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/business/dealbook/volkswa...
"Criminal fines in the United States from 2001-12 were on average more than seven times the size for overseas entities than for American companies"
You fail to mention that the law requires 51% ownership by a Chinese company and forced IP transfer.
You also fail to mention that there are many industries in which foreign company are completely prohibited.
And the Chinese version of “following the law” includes whatever the party arbitrarily decides you should do. Including things like forcing companies to remove any mention of Taiwan from material completely outside of China.
Yes, regularly, via extensive caps and quotas on visas. That has to be a trick question. As of last year if a European wanted to work in America they had to pony up $6K+ for a 1 in 3 chance in April of landing an H1B for a job that couldn’t start until September.
I'm not European, but here in Canada, I have seen how the US treats its trade partners. Trump forced Canada to renegotiate NAFTA and got many concessions from us. Less than 2 months after his new trade deal came into force, he is imposing a 10% tariff on aluminum imports [1]. Before aluminum, it was softwood lumber. In the middle, there was Bombardier passenger airplanes.
The funny thing is, in order to force Canada to renegotiate NAFTA, the US imposed tariff's on Canadian steel and aluminum under the guise of "national security" [2]. That is why I don't buy any claims on national security excuses for putting tariffs or expelling companies. It's mercantilism, plain and simple. But because it is frowned upon to talk about mercantilism in this day and age, the US administration always covers its mercantilism with a thin veneer of market fairness and national security.
Either that, or Canada is actually a national security threat to the US.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-aluminum-tariff-1.567...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-nationa...
Historically, the US has mostly been a free market to both Europe and Canada, and hasn't enacted protectionist measures overall. The US allows European car companies to sell here despite having domestic production. Nestle, HSBC, Astra-Zeneca, Siemens, SAP, Ericsson...these are all companies that are titans in their respective industries and also have a large mostly dominant US presence.
The level of US protectionism pales in comparison to what China engages in and it's hardly fair to compare the two. Obviously there are well sourced grievances but to compare China's protectionism to US protectionism isn't correct.
To say the US is banning Canadian giants like shopify because they reached critical mass is very wrong and not based on reality. Using it to compare to China's relationship with western countries at best confused two different things.
Airbus is a great example of this, the US repeatedly cockblocks Airbus from making major US military sales, puts tariffs on them, etc.
Which way do you think the trend points?
regardless of the administration's actual motivations[1], banning tiktok/wechat can be plausibly justified as retaliation for what china did. There's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching the free market but also engaging in anti-free market in retaliation against non-reciprocating countries, just as there's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about preaching peace, but engaging in violence in retaliation against non-peaceful countries.
[1] eg. some people speculate that trump wanted tiktok banned because people shared videos on there that embarrassed him
I hope that sentiment is the same amongst other Americans. There is far more overlap between US + EU + Switzerland + UK + Australia + NZ than there are differences.
What I find dangerous is EU closing its doors and dismantling NATO, US collaboration and then fragmenting itself into dust. EU is already having a tough time keeping things together.
During a time of extreme nationalism, we need to be more collaborative.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/06/trump-says-he-signed-order-r...
on concentration camps, experts happen to differ with your opinion
That is an outright fabrication, based on an axe-grinding mischaracterization of this report: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20...
Your spin is a falsehood because:
- the 400,000+ number includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
- the report concedes that most deaths are caused by militants
- it covers years in which America was not even engaged in hostilities (e.g., after leaving OIF and before the Iraqi government asked the U.S. military back to counter Daesh)
Such perceptions are overwhelmingly imaginary and made-up, if the data and evidence are to be trusted, and meanwhile comments like this poison discussion badly. If you have evidence of abuse, let us know at [email protected] so we can look into it. If you don't have evidence, please don't post insinuations of sinister spying and all the rest of it.
Someone posting a comment you disagree with does not count as evidence.
If you want more explanation, there's years' worth at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
and https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...
That's some real cut-your-own-nose-off-to-spite-your-face territory. This is not aligning with the US. This is defending against China's policies that directly harm you and happen to also harm the US. The statement was "treat China exactly the same way China treats [you]". If you want to defend against the US too while you're at it, go ahead, but recognize what you just argued against here.
[1] https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
'The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."'
If all it takes people to be freely intolerant is to convince themselves that the object of their intolerance is intolerant too, intolerance spreads everywhere.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/nazis-r...
Is it paradoxical? There's "no paradox of peace", the idea that "In order to maintain a peaceful society, the society must be violent against the non-peaceful"
>Early Quakers were among the leaders of the anti-slavery movement in the United States. Quakers are also pacifists, responding to wartime calls for service seeking out non-combat roles such driving ambulances or serving in conscientious objector work camps.[0]
[0] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/quakers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Testimony
I think the paradox results from a confusion of static vs. dynamic equilibrium. The consequence of not fighting back when attacked is that you end up dead. But that doesn't mean everyone will fight back - people end up dead all the time, there are plenty of human behaviors that lead to the death of their host and still persist (suicide being the most obvious one). Empathy is pretty deeply rooted in the human psyche, and is adaptive under most peaceful conditions. It's not a stretch to imagine groups for whom it becomes a way of life, at least until they're dead.
The United States did this when it persecuted leftist sympathizing folks back in the 50's. "If we don't kill communism, then communism will kill our society. These filthy socialists and communists preach intolerance with rhetoric against the hardworking American. Tolerating them will only get us killed."
The USSR did this by sending people who questioned party agenda straight to the gulags. "By going against party thinking, these people are pushing for an intolerant society that is stratified with the class structures of old. We need to get rid of them before they ruin our perfect tolerant society."
The same logic is used to try to stamp out Muslims in countries like India right now and other places in the world historically. "If we leave the intolerant Muslims around, they'll bring forth Jihad and enforce Sharia law on everyone. The Koran is very intolerant about how non-Muslims should be treated, we need to force them out because their intolerant views are a threat to tolerance everywhere."
Literally every Christian country post-Martin Luther in the middle ages used that logic to wage wars on other Christian countries. Not just Christian vs. Christian of course. It's why countries in the past fought against each other over religion so much. When intolerance is defined as views that I don't agree with, it becomes kill or be killed world.
One of the best features of the enlightenment thinking is the concept of tolerance. One of the fundamental principles of Western thought. The idea that, we might have fundamentally opposing views, but can we interact without having to resort to a scorched earth policy. It started with Christians tolerating other sects of Christianity, but it’s now encompassed nearly every historical division.
The paradox of tolerance is inherently wrong, because true tolerance requires you to be tolerant to beliefs that you believe are intolerant.
Fascism and Stalinism are two endpoints of Enlightenment thinking. Is it merely utopian to aspire for tolerance when it's clear that it can lead to the depths of brutality and stupidity?
First of all, "the West" is a very vague concept, quite unlike talking about China. Does it include all of Europe? Does it include Moscow then? Does it include parts of Latinamerica? Maybe you mean NATO (but then you should include Turkey too). Or maybe you only mean Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, United States). This isn't just nitpicking: your point might make sense if you mean Five Eyes, but it might not make sense at all if you include, say, Greece , Turkey and Israel.
Second, talking only about "the West" vs China marginalizes the rest of the world. Most of the people in this world live in neither the West nor in China and yet they never seem to matter according to most discussions I see here in Hacker News (I, for one, identify with neither).
This is specially bad when people implicitly say things like "the West values freedom and democracy, whereas China...". If democracy and human rights were something unique for "the West", then you shouldn't be surprised that China doesn't like those concepts (in fact, they oppose liberal value precisely because of this: "this only works in 西方, not here in China").
西方 = the West
China is free to adopt those values anytime. In the meantime, I (and looks like many other Westerns) will be working towards ensuring that non-Enlightenment values don't creep back up into the West (from China, the Islamic world, Russia, etc. - not limited to what I wrote above but also things like corporal punishment, women's rights, separation of church and state, ...) - that would be a regression from our point of view.
It's the majority's treatment of the minority that concerns me.
No dice buddy.
There are some pretty obvious parallels to the current situation. It's very common for pandemics to lead to the collapse of current political organization.
China is accused of what ? actual re-education. Both in reaction to terror attacks.
Keep in mind we are mostly reading the propaganda. Look at actual videos of people going to Xinjiang avail tells different story.
Who am I kidding you are a racist claiming to support muslims , give me a break
Politically the West is Five Eyes with support of NATO. If push came to shove these would be the nations called upon to support a global conflict with China.
Furthermore the hegemonic rule of the United States is a direct substitute to that of China. For every nation that China wants to exclude, overwhelm or subvert in its economic plans, the US will have an enemy or potential enemy of an enemy to ally with. Conversely if the US is separating economic ties with certain countries but building ties with others, it's this coalition that will operate against China as we move to our multi-polar world.
There is a legacy of intellectual culture between Russia, the Mediterranean, and some of the Middle East with Western Europe – mainly due to Aristotle and his influence on the intellectual practice of all of the Abrahamic religions – but a lot of that complexity is screened off by the real military commitments extant between the nations in these geographic regions. Post WWII history is what scoped out the structure of the modern world, so post WWII history is what makes sense to use in our analysis of what the West will be in practice.
As a proxy, English and the Romantic Languages as primary languages within a nation could be a decent heuristic of the what the West is culturally.
If we were to start that ban many of Walmart's non-grocery (and some groceries) shelves would be empty for considerable time.
I'm unsure there even are alternatives that can meet US demand for everything China provides.
I always point out the price difference for the two models of the Purism Librem 5 phone. One model is manufactured traditionally and costs $749. The other model is manufactured in the USA and costs $1999.
Americans talk about bringing manufacturing back to the country, but I'm not sure anyone is ready to pay 2-3x for their goods.
Once assembly lines are automated (even using Chinese parts), there is incentive to achieve local production of those parts.
There is nothing that China has, besides precious metals perhaps, that USA does not.
I would kill to buy an iPhone made 100% in USA. Or even in Germany or France or any EU nation.
As Elon said - "We've forgotten to build stuff. Someone's gotta do it. Might as well be us."
That is no argument to avoid a policy. That is an argument to prepare for the next steps.
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peo...
For phones if there was a profit motive, I think it would take somewhere around 5 years. Repeat for any item for which we want to ensure a domestic manufacturing base.
The US just banned apps that didn’t break any law, for vague “national security” reasons. And due to the global reach of American tech companies it becomes effectively a global ban.
Now every country that’s not the US will need to 1) think twice about doing business in the US and 2) re-examine American control over the products and services their citizens can and cannot receive. Specifically Apple and google in this case.
Most countries and companies are already cautious when doing business in China because of the unpredictable and arbitrary nature of doing business in China. Now the US is headed towards the same direction.
So congratulations, the US is becoming more and more like China. Doesn’t sound like a win to me.
Your comment makes sense and I mostly agree with it, but not on this submission.
I do wish this was part of a broader policy instead of a one-off.
The US doesn’t have any friends any more because it acting like a shit to them all. Meanwhile every day it looks more like a dictatorship with no regard for its populace. Honestly it’s time the rest of the western world moved on. Relationship over.
which "existing western chat and social media" aren't from the US ?
There is far more to this than just social media and chat.
You could use "democratic nations" instead of western world. I agree with you otherwise.
What will a dictatorship do if it had hundreds of billions in trade surplus every year? Well, they are eventually going to spend it on weapons.
even that's problematic. "democratic" ranges from truly democratic (eg. Norway or Canada) to despotic (eg. Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
The US is and will always be a free speech country, and they cannot go to the extent of imposing a firewall like China does. The extent to which they can take action is to require WeChat and TikTok off the app stores of the US. Which would leave Android users the option to install the app directly from an APK file, bypassing the Google store (no rooting required) while Apple users basically have no recourse without jailbreaking.
Ask Elon Musk about the first part, and ask Huawei guy about the latter.
If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, the West would be clamoring for statehood for Puerto Rico like they do for Taiwan.
If there were truly a quid-pro-quo, calls for the 'entire western world' to band against China would make as much sense as calls for 'the entire western world' to band against the United States, who did quite a bit to rig the global economy in its favor after WW2 and Bretton-Woods.
If China treated the Western world the way the Western world treated China, there would be hell to pay. And yet people like you just can't stand that they would act in their own self interest, and become a superpower without asking the permission of the West.
Countries will take whatever advantages are available to them to develop and benefit their people. China never tried to hide what they were doing. All of the world's economists were aware of their economic protectionist policies for the past 50 or so years. Let's call a spade a spade. This 'outrage' about China's policies in the year 2020 is nothing more than a frustration with the West's ruling classes for failing to respond to China's rise at all in the last 50 years. And there is clearly a sense of entitlement as well, as though those of use living in the West deserve to live in the hegemonic country despite not working as hard or valuing progress as much as those in other societies.
The Western world never cared about Chinese people or what was happening in China until it started to threaten their own global dominance. Now all of a sudden you have elite clamoring for civil rights and justice in China, while those same elites profited for decades off of cheap Chinese labor after the Great Leap Forward and Tiananmen Square.
Sure, you should advocate for your country to change its policies if its getting a bad deal from China. But turning this all into a "West v. China" thing is how we got here in the first place.
I guess eventually all other countries would resort to having laws specific to handling Chinese companies and all laws common for companies of all other countries.
In the late 19th century Great Britain fought two Opium Wars to force China to open up its markets to British opium. The British were forcing Indian farmers to grow opium and then taking it to sell to China. They wanted access to Chinese silver, but China had little reason to give it to them. So Britain's answer was to get Chinese people addicted to opium and get the silver through trade of opium for silver.
The Qing dynasty, for obvious reasons, didn't like this idea and forbid the British from importing their opium. So the British fought two wars to force them to accept their imports.
The Economist magazine was established in the mid 19th century as a pro-slavery, pro-imperialist magazine. Their arguments during the lead up to both opium wars sound a lot like yours. I want to make people aware of this, because it's important we understand how that kind of argument sounds to many Chinese people less ignorant of Chinese history than most westerners.
A lot more than you think.
Modern Chinese geopolitics should not, and are not based on the events of two centuries ago. Any pretense of that nature is frankly condescending to the Chinese people.
I hear this all the time from friends here in the US who think we are a horrible country and that we are only a superpower because we did a lot of terrible things to get there (which is true), so we deserve anything bad coming our way, and we should just step aside for China's ascendency because they're just using our colonial-era, upstart (ex: theft of intellectual property) playbook and if that upsets us we're hypocrites - the ultimate sin, apparently.
To which I say: So. What.
We need to be political realists, because China certainly is. Other considerations are simply irrelevant.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-becomes-a-refuge-for-u-s-...
This requires the American company to hand over intellectual property and trade secrets. And then, amazingly, some state funded competitor comes along doing the same thing the American company wants to do.
Would a Chinese company have this same problem entering America??? No.
We need to treat China the exact way they treat us. The entire western world.
It sounds like you don't have a problem.
Also, the use of 'hand over' suggests they are all the way not willing to disclose the intellectual property but were forced to, but isn't there a patent system in China? Why would these companies refuse to disclose some intellectual property and make use the legal system, just as how they did it back home?
This isn't a new thing. It's been going on for decades. Huawei is a stolen corporation that would not exist if not for theft of technology, intellectual property, and trade secrets. It would further not exist if the Chinese market were as open as the American market and Huawei was forced to compete on a level playing field domestically.
These companies are after profit, so they chose to go to China to earn that profit. And for that profit, at some point in time, they must have deemed acceptable to give up something in exchange. Isn't this what trading is all about? Now somebody regrets they shouldn't have made certain choice, so they blame it on the other government? Be an adult.
Most of the companies when those joint ventures were setup were promised or told that their intellectual property was secure. It was then stolen and they were left with regret. Companies which refused to take that risk were compromised by Chinese actors and had their IP taken by force.
For many years the US has had to stop IP theft from China: (example: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-charges-five-chinese-milit...) and this is simply a cumulation of those efforts.
The blame on China is more than fair.
In the US, economic espionage is illegal and has been for some time, with legislation reinforcing that rule (such as the Economic Espionage act of 1996). If I as a private company engage in economic espionage I am liable to get prosecuted and may get time in prison. The same does not apply to companies in China, where economic espionage of a competitor is not only tolerated but encouraged.
The above linked suit was against individuals for economic espionage and not intelligence collection.
Even if you comply with all these regulations, you can still get booted out of the country and have all your assets and IP seized and redistributed, at the whim of their farcical of a judicial system.
We don't have to agree that "kidnapping and imprisonment is good", to conclude that some people need arresting and imprisonment.
China is intentionally playing the rules duplicitously, and so the West is going to have to play hardball.
The opening up to China was based on the belief that we would treat each other as equals.
That has not happened and Xi has made clear that will not happen.
Capitalism is brutally efficient, even in the guise of Communism.
Will the Chinese government turn down an investor who will give them more wealth and power by investing overseas?
Their competition will use it to their advantage.
BTW please stop purchasing anything that originates from China immediately if you want to follow your own words.
A world ruled by corporations headquartered in a single country, with other countries having their politics and economy determined by the interests a single nation has been the rest of the worlds situation for 50+ years. It's somewhat ironic to see Americans suddenly getting concerned about this.
> Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.
The argument that if the Chinese market was fully open then their local companies would have been more quickly devoured by single, US based corporations doesn't do much to convince me that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.
And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans, all of this is so strong arm Chinese companies into surrendering to corporations that happen to be based in the US on favorable terms. This is the US government working as the goons to enforce Facebook, Google and in this case specifically Microsofts global dominance.
If these companies were competing, and winning, on features and innovation, there would be no concern that the company originated from China. The point of that anecdote is that these companies have crap products that are only competitive because there is no competition.
>And don't fool yourself, this had nothing to do with what's 'fair' for America or Americans
I hope this is the beginning of a broader policy on moving US business, interests, and manufacturing out of China. Play fair or don't play at all.
It is perfectly fine for China to protect their own market. But it is not fine for China to protect their own market and also expect open access to other markets.
Try Instagram Reels and Tiktok and see which is the crap product.
Your fallacy is assume that we were previously in a state of "fair play". Viewing the last few decades US global corporate hegemony as "fair play" requires a tremendous ignorance of the methods and impact of US global corporate dominance on most other countries of the world.
And for ~40 years the U.S. at least has considered attacks on its economy as a national security threat - it is extremely likely an embargo leads to an actual war. Making everyone worse off in the short term is a fast track to violence.
Besides, the vast majority of consumers have voted with their wallet.
Western companies have a difficult time operating in China, but Chinese companies have zero problems operating in western countries. It’s completely unfair and if we follow this to conclusion, the future will be one of only Chinese international corporations.
Would WeChat or TikTok even exist if the Chinese market were open to existing western chat and social media software?? Unlikely.
If China wants their companies to be able to access western markets then they must allow western companies to access their markets.
Quite frankly, the entire western world should be banding together to oppose this nonsense from China. We should outright ban any goods or technology that originates in China until China changes its behavior and opens its economy.