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Trade war — my simple explanation

Paul2

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China is an economic superpower and a number one industrial producer.

Western nations also claim great industrial output on paper, but in reality, the West has close to no light industry, nor capability to build it.

Just like 2 centuries ago, the West got addicted to cheap, high quality, sought after Chinese products. A near entirety of current Western material well-being and wealth of its elites has been built upon trade with China.

What is happening now is that those elites have good knowledge of history (and I'd say better than that of current Chinese leadership,) and they know very well what was about to happen to Britain if it didn't commit to Opium wars.

Britain was a mighty power, and life for its rich was never as good. But only after few decades of this extreme decadence British elites found that the moment the stream of Chinese goods was to cease, would be the moment their millions of pounds would turn into pillow filling.

Sooner, or later the same scenario is bound to happen in between US and China, but unlike of Britain from 200 years ago, US is nowhere near as confident in commuting to confrontation, nor winning it.

America has no opium to force us to buy, but instead they want us to pay for their worthless "intellectual property," "financial securities," and "virtual goods" (oh my god, just what a name) — all products of legal constructs, and politically created fiat.

I do not address this cautious note to the West. It is our statesmen who should remember that what brought the Manchurian empire of Qing down was not an anti-Manchurian rebellion, but an anti-Western one.
 
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they want us to pay for their worthless "intellectual property,"
In the modern age, these 'legal constructs' or intellectual properties have a lot of value. USA AND USSR invested billions of dollars into research and development on not only defence equipment, but many other fields and they want to protect it. However USA would not ever think twice about giving her intellectual property to Europe, but will guard it ferociously when it comes to China because China has risen to be a global power and challenges the influence of USA around the world.
By the way, if you say that the intellectual property is ''worthless", then why does China so actively carries out cyber attacks to get a whiff of their intellectual property?.
 
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By the way, if you say that the intellectual property is ''worthless", then why does China so actively carries out cyber attacks to get a whiff of their intellectual property?.
It's not me who writes the doctrine for our reconnaissance corps (much more like reconnaissance armies really.)

I myself doubt that any positive net value comes out of that activity. There is nothing Chinese industry can't do because it doesn't know of some "secret sauce," implying so is beyond pretentious for the West.

If it doesn't, it's much more likely because it doesn't want to do it.

Chinese industry definitely knows when, how and what to do, and its enormous commercial success is the best proof.

In this light, I'd say having men in black in your office, disrupting you commercial activities, and telling that you just have to make this super awesome secret widget they just got from some random American company, without having any idea of commercial soundness of such "guidance" can't be a worse misdirection and distraction.

The above is also my biggest issue with all kinds of economic "guidance" companies get from people who haven't earned a dime in their lives from running a business.
 
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US was the number one thief stealing technologies from others before and early after WW2, that's also a big part of CIA's job, they believe if a secret can be stolen, it's not a secret.

USA is still stealing technology up to today.

What is the usefulness of spying big companies world-wide if not for it?
 
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US was the number one thief stealing technologies from others before and early after WW2, that's also a big part of CIA's job, they believe if a secret can be stolen, it's not a secret.

Please name all these techs we supposedly stole after WW2...since we were the "#1 thief"...yes German engineers came over here with Jet Engine knowledge...so now name some others...if you can't you should be quiet.
 
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Please name all these techs we supposedly stole after WW2...since we were the "#1 thief"...yes German engineers came over here with Jet Engine knowledge...so now name some others or be quiet...
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02...re-stealing-us-technology-america-has-history

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/a...en-it-was-developing-nobel-economics-laureate

https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/

Anything before great are the student once
 
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A near entirety of current Western material well-being and wealth of its elites has been built upon trade with China.

Western nations also claim great industrial output on paper, but in reality, the West has close to no light industry, nor capability to build it.

Would you stop talking nonsense. The new modernization you see around you in China to make it a developed country happened well over 100 years ago in the West and China/Asia played almost zero part in it.

The problem is you think industrialization is something NEW..it isn't. Light industries have been around for a LONG LONG LONG time. Light industries like clothing/shoes/appliances/furniture were made in the West for a long time before being outsourced to Asia. The only exception is consumer electronics that relied on integrated circuits. This happened in the 1960's and was offshored to Japan. So yes our light industries are today not as large as they were in the past...but it isn't because we never had any.


 
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Light industries like clothing/shoes/appliances/furniture were made in the West for a long time before being outsourced to Asia.
Yes, you had it, long long time ago... And then came the eighties and MBAs.

China did not destroy American light industry, your ultrareactionary Yale, and Wharton educated upper classes did.

And cost of labour had little to do with it. What killed American manufacturing: tidal shift towards "intellectual property" in economy, technological backwardness, "professional" management, avalanche of LBOs, stock market, banks, regulatory capture, lawyers playing businessmen, unions going overboard, and an overall disdain from people running local and federal government, and social elites in general.

Remember, the term "prole" in its current meaning came from your side of the pacific.
 
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Yes, you had it, long long time ago... And then came the eighties and MBAs.

China did not destroy American light industry, your ultrareactionary Yale, and Wharton educated upper classes did.

And cost of labour had little to do with it. What killed American manufacturing: tidal shift towards "intellectual property" in economy, technological backwardness, "professional" management, avalanche of LBOs, stock market, banks, regulatory capture, lawyers playing businessmen, unions going overboard, and an overall disdain from people running local and federal government, and social elites in general.

Remember, the term "prole" in its current meaning came from your side of the pacific.

No, it was land/air/water pollution laws being passed in the US (and eventually in Europe) in the early 1970's that pushed consumer manufacturing to Asia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Environmental_Policy_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#Clean_Air_Act_of_1970

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Drinking_Water_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Substances_Control_Act_of_1976

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Act_(United_States)

This single TV commercial changed manufacturing in the US forever.

Also Earth Day (or no-pollution-in-my-backyard-day...but-in-asia-it-is-ok-day)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day#Earth_Day_1970

Screen Shot 2019-09-25 at 3.49.30 PM.jpg

Nixon in 1972 offloading problems to China
 
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No, it was land/air/water pollution laws being passed in the US (and eventually in Europe) in the early 1970's that pushed consumer manufacturing to Asia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Environmental_Policy_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#Clean_Air_Act_of_1970

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Drinking_Water_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Substances_Control_Act_of_1976

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Act_(United_States)

This single TV commercial changed manufacturing in the US forever.

Also Earth Day (or no-pollution-in-my-backyard-day...but-in-asia-it-is-ok-day)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day#Earth_Day_1970

View attachment 581135
Nixon in 1972 offloading problems to China
How would it push manufacturing to Asia, when "undeveloped" Asian countries already had labour protection laws stronger than that of US (thanks to red scare,) and were ratifiers of Montreal protocol and its predecessors before US did?

Malaysia and Japan did sue trichloroethylene leakers heavily in eighties and nineties, unlike the US, where lobbyists kept it in use till late nineties.

For as long as you don't concern yourself with most exotic chemical products, and electronics, it's hard to fathom how would light industry see its being subject to environmental protection acts.
 
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Please name all these techs we supposedly stole after WW2...since we were the "#1 thief"...yes German engineers came over here with Jet Engine knowledge...so now name some others...if you can't you should be quiet.

The fact China has to steal everything under the sun from US companies in all industries really says where China is relative to the US. The FBI has over 1,000 open cases against Chinese IP theft. The US is the leader in breakthrough discoveries. China is a fast follower that relies on stolen US science and technological know how to achieve parity. It’s why you see a US company, Google, achieve a breakthrough with quantum supremacy, and not a Chinese one. Look at this quote:

If it were simply an economic competition, Rood said, America rather likes competition. "And so I wouldn't fear that at all," he added.

The U.S. innovation model would beat China's innovation model 10 times out of 10 times, Rood told the panel. "I really have tremendous confidence in it, he said, "and the best proof I can give you that China's leaders recognize that is that they are determined to steal from it."

The Chinese know they can't win a head-to-head competition, the undersecretary said; they know they can’t compete with that kind of entrepreneurship and innovation, so the state has to exercise that level of control.

https://www.defense.gov/explore/sto...long-term-threat-to-us-dod-policy-chief-says/

That really says it all!
 
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