We hoped China would grow into a Korea or Japan, instead we got ourselves a Russia.

So in essence a colony or puppet state? Thankfully China avoided that. And is not controlled by others like Soviet satellites were.

Lol. you are speaking like a parent. Only China was never your child, like Korea and Japan was. You never overpowered or controlled them and forced them into whatever mold you wanted. You were never in control of China.

While you were basking in your arrogance, they overtook you. And now you have to deal with that. People are literally saying how they cannot do their jobs now that their stuff is not coming in from China. Why is that? You thought you were exploiting cheap labour, but meanwhile you were making them smarter with every bit of "menial" work you gave them. Now they can do anything that you can do, and a lot of it they can do better and cheaper. You are more dependent on them then they are on you. But your ego refuses to let you see it.

Here is some comparison from an uneducated nonprofessional...America is a company masquerading as a country. China is a country run like a business. Once you know the difference it will inform you of the way forward...Dankie

It's funny because Trump saw this years ago and the entire point of the tariff is to gain Chinese manufacturing independance.

> America is a company masquerading as a country

wow, didn't expect to see such insight here

They expected China to grow in a way that would lead to the "west" exerting much more control over China than they ended up with today. Basically they wanted more western-style capitalism, reduction of state control, etc...

Now China is very strong, and the west exerts very little influence

China is weak, its current economic engines of real estate and internal consumption has failed. It is currently heavily dependent on export, of which, sanctions and tariffs on China would wreck their economy.

They account for 30% of global manufacturing, have the second largest GDP (largest GDP PPP), and are rapidly developing in the tech sector. Not weak by any means

China would have a hard time economically without being able to sell to the US. But it's been developing markets and economies in Rest of World, especially Africa. And its internal market is huge.

Meanwhile this is a thread about the US tech and retail sectors being unable to survive at all without imports from China.

Turns out offshoring was one of the most self-harmingly stupid decisions in US economic history.

Still - at least it prevented worker unionisation. So that was such a win for corporate America.

"tariffs"

My memory is not very good, but it seems that something similar has happened 4 years ago, do you remember?

Exactly. We knew perfectly well it was coming, for decades, and we knew perfectly well the US would have put up a fight to prevent it. Not a competition, a fight: real and fake accusations, FUD, tariffs, or even actual war.

Now the time has come and we're in the middle of it. At least, I hope this is not just the beginning.