> It would be foolish to sell off a great value like ASML or others that adds incredible value. But one should also not get mad when other countries do it, because they see their industries as valuable things as well.

This reads like a straw man argument. No one gets mad when other countries do it. At most, you see complains of protectionism being unilaterally imposed while benefitting from your competitor's openness. See for example the criticism directed at the likes of China for preventing foreign companies from even investing in their domestic market without a government-minder-as-a-partner scheme, while China throws a tantrum when there is even a hint of suggestion that Chinese companies should be subjected to the same type of treatment when operating abroad. See the case of TikTok, for example.

China has the right to protest, because nowadays the Chinese companies are not "subjected to the same type of treatment".

There is a huge difference between establishing from the beginning clear rules that set limits to foreign investment, like in China, and changing the rules afterwards, after luring foreign investors, and then taking ownership of their assets, like for Tik Tok and Nexperia.

Obviously I agree that USA and the EU have acted very foolishly in the past by exporting technology to China (foolishly for the national interests, while a few have been greatly enriched by this), but at least they followed consistent policies, not like now, when they change the rules of the game whenever they see that they are the losers.

Philips Semiconductors should have never been sold and become non-Dutch, but if they have been so stupid as to do this, they should assume their responsibility and finance the creation of a new European semiconductor device manufacturer, to ensure the independence of hostile entities.

China also protested when tariffs were floated and any kind of non-retroactive protectionism was proposed. Framing this as only being a problem because the "rules were changed afterward" is deceptive (as is implying that China has "clear" rules). In any case, this Dutch government takeover was done on the basis of a law from 1952, so no, the rules were not changed after "luring" investors (who retain ownership and can still sell their shares, they were not expropriated, so they lose no money).

China never claimed it's markets were free to enter by foreigners. US/EU did.

If tit-for-tat is our policy, then we should at least be upfront about it and enshrine it in law, instead of using some ancient law to slap China with: that's arbitrariness.

Reducing/eliminating those mandatory joint ventures were a requirement for China to join WTO. But in practice it delayed these reforms.

Then someone should take the case to the WTO Appellate Body(0), unfortunately Trump and Biden have blocked appointments to it since 2019, so WTO rules cannot be enforced.

(0)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_Body

There are a million ways to cheat trade, the WTO was created to handle small disputes, not large structural imbalances. International Law was highly flawed in that regard owing back to Bretton Woods.

But of course it benefits everyone at the expense of deficit countries, so why change or truly address the literature. Appealing to international law today as such is just appealing to entrenched interests.

But the matter of fact is that in a true free trade regime, imbalances should rebalance back to zero. The fact that the deficit is only growing is more than enough evidence that China is obviously the violators here. And everybody knows this.

Under a multilateral Bancor System which Chinese economists themselves advocated back in 2009, China would have been immediately subjected to massive FX overvaluation to degrade their conpetiveness.

> Under a multilateral Bancor System which Chinese economists themselves advocated back in 2009

I had to look that up and this stood out

> U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner expressed interest in the idea of greater use of SDRs as a reserve. However, he was criticized severely for this in the United Statess, and the dollar lost 5 cents against the euro in exchange markets following his statements. He and President Barack Obama shortly afterwards backtracked Geithner's comments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor#Proposed_revival

I'm beginning to see a pattern of which country is blocking any progress here.

Yeah, the US was wrong there and in Bretton Woods. But unless if this an exercise in nationalist polemics, that doesn't change the fact that China is the prime violator in such a system by virtue of their surplus, not the USA which runs a deficit.

Everyone who screws over the WTO has my sympathy.

Anyway, the Dutch should then make a law that demands WTO status or smth. As this is NOT nicely applying rule of law.

Not the case when taking into account recent history, or old history and politics. Obviously to say china was the country historically getting faraway lands to fall in line by economic means is opposite of reality. Tiktok is also political and so on. And yes they got mad when other countries do it. At least they used to, I think less so recently but I’m not sure since I don’t bother reading the news anymore when it feels like a repeat.

Preamble; I do not support the restrictions China imposed on free market.

I think China is complaining about changing the rules retrospectively when they become successful in a field. But I’m not following how this is any different than French subsidies or limitations on farming products from Ukraine.

If they’re abusing the system, which I presume we all can agree that they do, why don’t we force them to play by the rules, or do we not like losing so we keep changing the rules when somebody else starts to win.

Again, I wouldn’t allow such vital industries from medical equipments to military tech to be outsourced to this level. It was silly to begin with.