Debunking two myths – “China stole American jobs” and “America built China.”

[beijingwalker]

There was no America before Europeans came, it was a stone age society with human sacrifices and no rule of law.

Amerias is a geographic term, your idea of the earth must be different from others I guess and how about Africa, south east Asia..?

 

[bshifter]

The America nation has historically been more coherent and cohesive than the Chinese nation, which only really came into existence in 1949 and to this day has to deal with insurgencies.

America was before 1965, a primarily European nation - with its cultural elite being of NW European stock - with a sizeable West African minority.

You talk as if America has a long history, the truth is America (ever since the Europeans occupied it) is a very young nation and the Chinese nation goes all the way back to Qin Dynasty but the Chinese civilization is around for 5000 years.

Believe it or not, there is a theory that Chinese discovered America first not Europeans. You should read the book written by Joseph Needham on Chinese inventions.

 

[Dungeness]

There was no America before Europeans came, it was a stone age society with human sacrifices and no rule of law.

You people used to say there was no India until Brits came, there were just "beastly people with beastly religions" in subcontinent.

Very European centric, to say the least.

 

[CrazyZ]

Most manufacturing jobs were on their way out of USA thanks to short term profit oriented corporate leaders. Manufacturing jobs went to many low wage high output countries....the process predated China's rise. USA would shift to a "post industrial" service based economy.....so the plan went. Unfortunately, the bean counters would outsource the high wage service jobs to India.....one can argue this hurt American workers even more.

 

[CrazyZ]

I mean Europeans who built America.

There is a negative correlation between the European proportion of America and its power.

View attachment 751184

FYI....USA was at the height of its power and wealth in the late 90's.

Rich white folk have sold out poor white folk. They shifted all the jobs overseas....making enormous profits for themselves and ruining the white working class in America.

They now push right wing racist theories to poor white folk....telling them brown and yellow folk are to blame for there misery.....pulling the veil over their eyes since the reality is rich white people are responsible for their decline. Trump was the ultimate expression of this rich white folk tactic.

They must do this because they don't want poor white folk to pick up Marxist ideology and hang the rich white folk that have ruined them.

 

[kankan326]

The reality is that US elite sold out their own country and sent all their manufacturing and technical expertise to China, beginning in the Cold War as a way to pry away China from the Soviet sphere.

The only reason is American workers can not compete with Chinese workers in both quality and price.

As for investment by Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan, these countries were also built by America as a bullwark against Communism, S. Korea for example was allowed to engage in highly protectionist policies while receiving US arms aid and FDI.

US was no where to be a science and innovation center before world war 2. The war helped US. But the war dividend can not last forever. The rise of other countries in science is inevitable.

The Chinese have very little innovative might, this is why they are doing the "Thousand Talents" program to attract foreign researchers.

The rise of China and the fall of America gives us one great lesson. Mediocre but highly disciplined nations are always stronger than intelligent but individualistic ones like America.

US is an intelligent country? A country that most STEM researchers are imported from other countries.

 

[JackFell]

FYI....USA was at the height of its power and wealth in the late 90's.

Rich white folk have sold out poor white folk. They shifted all the jobs overseas....making enormous profits for themselves and ruining the white working class in America.

They now push right wing racist theories to poor white folk....telling them brown and yellow folk are to blame for there misery.....pulling the veil over their eyes since the reality is rich white people are responsible for their decline. Trump was the ultimate expression of this rich white folk tactic.

They must do this because they don't want poor white folk to pick up Marxist ideology and hang the rich white folk that have ruined them.

True, this is why I talked about the hostile elite.

But I have found that rich white elite are on the same side as non-white ethnic lobbying groups as both have interests that coincide.

 

[shanlung]

The only reason is American workers can not compete with Chinese workers in both quality and price.
US was no where to be a science and innovation center before world war 2. The war helped US. But the war dividend can not last forever. The rise of other countries in science is inevitable.

US is an intelligent country? A country that most STEM researchers are imported from other countries.

 

[JackFell]

The only reason is American workers can not compete with Chinese workers in both quality and price.
US was no where to be a science and innovation center before world war 2. The war helped US. But the war dividend can not last forever. The rise of other countries in science is inevitable.

US is an intelligent country? A country that most STEM researchers are imported from other countries.

Most of the critical researchers are Europeans, the money worship of the American elite has led to them allowing hostile foreign groups to become deeply embedded in their cutting edge research facilities.

A famous case

Noshir Gowadia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

There are also the numerous Israeli spies to worry about, Israel sold the designs of the IAI Lavi to China which the letter repurposed as the J-10.

 

[hualushui]

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

US was no where to be a science and innovation center before world war 2. The war helped US. But the war dividend can not last forever. The rise of other countries in science is inevitable.

Stop that nonsense. The US being an innovator in technology was well before WW2.

Almost all the things around you that you take for granted today predates WW2 and most of it was invented by Americans.

The rest is just a natural progression. Yes, we now have computers/microchips that makes previous technology even better.

The world has had lighting, electrical appliances, phones, tv, radio, cars, planes, helicopters, trains, elevators, escalators, plastics, synthetics, vaccines, batteries, x-rays, automated assembly lines, etc and tons more stuff used by people worldwide everyday well before the war started. Most of them even before WW1 nevermind WW2 and a lot of that pioneered by Americans.

 

[OIO]

Debunking two myths – “China stole American jobs” and “America built China.”
China succeeded by emulating the proven paths of other Asian Tigers, which relied on investment, manufacturing, and exports to build their nations.

By Chris Kanthan

June 4, 2021

We live in a highly connected and interdependent world, where no country can achieve progress on its own. While developing countries rely on rich countries for technology, the rich countries depend on poorer nations for labor, natural resources, consumers, and bright immigrants. Nationalistic Republicans forget this symbiotic relationship, especially when it comes to China. The two enduring and endlessly repeated myths are that China is uniquely guilty of stealing American jobs and that America built China. Let’s quickly analyze the raw facts.

Loss of Manufacturing Jobs
First, the number of manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all jobs have been decreasing since the 1940s, as the chart below shows.

The inexorable decline in manufacturing was first due to automation from 1945-1975 and then due to additional pressure from outsourcing to developing nations. Thus, manufacturing’s share declined from 38% in the 1940s to 20% in 1980 when U.S. corporations started accelerating offshoring of low-end manufacturing such as those related to textiles, shoes, and toys. By the time China joined the WTO in 2001, U.S. manufacturing of employment had already been further halved to about 12%. Then over the next two decades, it declined by only an additional three percentage points. Even the U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics acknowledges that only one-fourth of jobs lost in the last two decades in the U.S. can be ascribed to China.

So, Why Does China Get all the Blame?
Simple. It’s because there was a vast consolidation of manufacturing in Asia. After China joined the WTO, many multinational corporations moved their factories from places like Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand etc. into China, where labor was relatively much cheaper. It was simply a matter of cost-efficiency. Thus, while Americans used to see names of numerous countries on the imported products before, now they just saw “Made in China” dominate the labels. This made China look like a bigger problem.

As economist Yukon Huang points out, Asia’s share of U.S. imports has remained pretty much the same. The only difference was the shuffling of factories within Asia. I created the chart below with data from U.S. government’s data about U.S. trade with Asia and U.S. total trade. The chart shows how Asia’s share of total U.S. imports has remained pretty much constant over the last two decades.

Therefore, if we had kept importing from ten different Asian countries, nobody would be blaming China, and there won’t be sensational books and videos like Death by China. Or, look at it this way: If the labels on products said, “Made in Asia,” Americans wouldn’t have noticed much difference over the last two decades.

Did America Build China?
Another populist trope is that “We (America) built China!!!” It sounds great and nobody is going to argue if you’re talking to an American audience. The logic is that America’s foreign direct investments (FDI) and outsourcing created all those jobs and made China great again.

Here are three compelling facts that debunk this myth:

• America invested very little of its FDI in China. In fact, less than 2%.
• On the flipside, U.S.A. accounted for only about 10% of all the FDI that flowed into China over the last 30 years.
• FDI is a very small percentage of China’s GDP.

Consider that the U.S. spent about $5.4 TRILLION on FDI in other countries from 1990-2020. Guess how much of that went into China? About $260 billion or less than 5% of the total (source: U.S. Gov report).

Notice that $260 billion over 30 years amounts to less than $10 billion a year. Peanuts, in the big picture. Furthermore, as seen in the table above, China invested $150 billion in the U.S. during the same period. So, the net flow was only $100 billion over 30 years. It’s a drop in the ocean.

Wait! How could that be? What about all the factories for Apple, Walmart, Nike, etc.? Well, here’s what happened: U.S. corporations simply outsourced all of them to other multinational corporations like Foxconn. Thus, the real investors in mainland China were Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore etc.

If you look at China’s total FDI inflows in the last 30 years, it amounts to an impressive $2.3 trillion. Thus, U.S.A.’s share of all Chinese FDI is only about 10%.

Third, while China has been the second largest recipient of FDI – the U.S. has been #1 for a long time – the FDI has averaged to only 3% of GDP over the last two decades. In the recent years, it has decreased to 1% as compared to China’s GDP. (Chart below from World Bank).

Conclusion
China succeeded by emulating the proven paths of other Asian Tigers, which relied on investment, manufacturing, and exports to build their nations. However, this model has limitations and couldn’t have succeeded spectacularly without industrial socialism, as I explained in a previous article.

Finally, China just didn’t take all the money. They have also invested $1.5 trillion in other countries. Thus, the money sloshes around and flows everywhere in this globalized world. It’s not a zero-sum game. Politicians don’t understand math and pundits prefer to ignore math.

Of course, China-bashers complain either way. If China receives investment from other countries, people will point to it as a sign of Chinese inferiority. If China invests in other countries, it is accused of taking over the world. And if China does neither, critics will bemoan how China is isolated from the world.

Debunking two myths – “China stole American jobs” and “America built China.” | NationofChange

www.nationofchange.org

Why are you banned most of the time?

The reality is that US elite sold out their own country and sent all their manufacturing and technical expertise to China, beginning in the Cold War as a way to pry away China from the Soviet sphere.

As for investment by Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan, these countries were also built by America as a bullwark against Communism, S. Korea for example was allowed to engage in highly protectionist policies while receiving US arms aid and FDI.

The Chinese have very little innovative might, this is why they are doing the "Thousand Talents" program to attract foreign researchers.

The rise of China and the fall of America gives us one great lesson. Mediocre but highly disciplined nations are always stronger than intelligent but individualistic ones like America.

'the end of the history' misled the American, they really thought no other people, culture, civilization, political system, ideology will be able to challenge US.

 

[kankan326]

Stop that nonsense. The US being an innovator in technology was well before WW2.

Almost all the things around you that you take for granted today predates WW2 and most of it was invented by Americans.

The rest is just a natural progression. Yes, we now have microchips that makes previous technology even better.

The world has had lighting, electrical appliances, phones, tv, radio, cars, planes, trains, elevators, escalators, plastics, synthetics, vaccines, x-rays, etc and tons more stuff used by people worldwide everyday well before the war started. Most of them even before WW1 nevermind WW2 and a lot of that pioneered by Americans.

No. Before WW2, most breakthroughs in science were made by Europeans. Car, electric light, plane, tv, are not breakthroughs. They were bound to be invented because the science theories had paved ways for them already.

It is widely accepted that there has been no basic physics theory breakthrough for 100 years. Which happens to be US dominating time.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

No. Before WW2, most breakthroughs in science were made by Europeans. Car, electric light, plane, tv, plane are not breakthroughs. They were bound to be invented because the science theories had paved ways for them already.

It is widely accepted that there has been no the basic physics theory breakthrough for 100 years. Which happens to be US dominating time.

Since when is technology restricted to physics theory? Are you saying mankind never moved forward until some guys debated the validity of some theorem?

 

[kankan326]

Since when is technology restricted to physics theory? Are you saying mankind never moved forward until some guys debated the validity of some theorem?

Why ancient people couldn't invent plane or car? Is it because ancient people are not smart? Technologies are subject to basic theories. Technology breakthroughs are important. But not as important as basic theory breakthroughs. US inventions such as computer, atomic bomb, internet are great. But US is standing on shoulders of giants. None of the basic theories of above inventions were originated from US.

I mean if these things were not invented in US, they would definitely be invented in other places. As long as there are enough money and talents. US happened to have the both because of war dividend.