To call this article moronic is to give it too much credit. It is simply stupid. The words "expert" and "American Enterprise Institute" are mutually exclusive.
After being humiliated by American, British, French, and German imperialism for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, China wants to be strong and independent and owned by no other country.
On the issue of intellectual property, our country made a hero of Samuel Slater, one of the major IP thieves of all time.
Again, this article is stupid and its major premise is founded on nonsensical theories of eternal American supremacy. The Times wastes space and ink by publishing it.
11
Dangerous rival - Why not serious rival and acting accordingly?
America could try acting smarter than China in order to compete. Dangerous implies that the tired and ultra-expensive military competition game is our only need or option.
More U.S. aircraft carriers and subs and China will not be a threat? Those Chinese exports sucking up US jobs are not arms. Chinese passenger train service is better than ours.
4
Remember that America became a great industrial power during the industrial revolution in part by stealing English inventions and by English inventors and employees moving to America.
7
"But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow"
Now, even pictures are forbidden
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-internet-censor.html
2
Oh Dear,
AEI - please tell your fellow Republican that your Russia-installed President @realdonaldtrujmp and his bestie Putin are the immediate dangers.
China - not so much and certainly not as CLEAR AND PRESENT. (got it?)
Thanks - now go talk to your buddy @GOP Mitch - and try to convince him to do his job.
4
My patience with the NYT editors grows ever thinner. I like to come here and read Krugman and Goldberg and some nice science articles (but what happened to the in depth fine arts coverage?), but you are really pushing it. What I expect to see here is good writing that debunks the kind of poppycock that comes out of right-wing think tanks, not articles by them. Please!
6
Lest you all forget: trump's government and he don't care about this stuff because of the money they acquire from deals with china. crooks be crooks.
2
Brilliant! The byline says it all.
Why any N. American country is doing business with China is beyond belief.
China is a totalitarian nation, that grew on slave labour and murder. A nation whose pretense at legitimacy is an insult to every nation with rule of law, let alone a slur upon internationally acceptable legal standards.
Companies and governments doing business with China are driven by self-emoluments, blind greed and folly of the worst kind, a demonic pursuit that will come back to haunt us.
10
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Somebody has FINALLY said it: disconnect from China because they are a hostile power - period - and have been consciously weakening us while strengthening themselves. . If Great Britain was jockeying for position with us, it would be no big deal because they share our fundamental civilizational values. But this is China, an absolutist civilization with the power to really hurt us. Politically and culturally they are a supersized North Korea. They want to dominate the world - just as did the Nazis. The difference is in strategy: The Chinese operate like a python instead of with Nazi-style Blitzkrieg. That's why they have been able to stay under the radar for most folks. But make no mistake. They are just as dangerous. They stayed quiet for years as they built power but they have gotten more confident the past few years and now bare their teeth. The ideas in this article give me hope for the future of the free world.
8
Meanwhile Trump is busy distancing The US from all our allies. Sowing discord by unilaterally tearing up international treaties. Either deliberately or Putin's useful idiot creating carnage wherever he goes. China only has to sit by, watch and wait.
3
This Op Ed is what passes for thought in conservative intellectual circles--do what you can to damage the one economy that props up the American economy (and protects the American consumer).
According to the identifying NYT squib, Derek Scissors & Daniel Blumenthal are experts on China, at the American Enterprise Institute. The AEI is taken seriously only by other right-wing "think" tanks--and, it goes without saying, the Op Ed managers at the New York Times. Everywhere else, AEI (and its experts) is the punchline to a bad joke.
2
Oh, the American Enterprise Institute. One step removed from the Hoover Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Offering "objective analysis in name only.
The one thing they have in common: Traitor Trump and his lackeys and sycophants are going to save us.
I guess we'll next be hearing from Derek and Daniel on "Fox and Freaks."
3
China under the communist party is a totalitarian state bent on first subjugating the Chinese people and then the people of the rest of world. Doing business with them is suicidal for the U.S. It hearkens back to what Lenin said: "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them."
6
In about 15 years the GDP of China and India will surpass that of the US. A trade war will only accelerate America's decline. America can not go back to the 1950's the rest of the world has caught up with America and may surpass it in innovation and technology.
China has more engineering graduates, a functional government that actually plans for the future and produces goods and services at a lower cost. Can't see how a low skilled worker in the US can compete with their counterpart in other parts of the world.
3
A lot to unpack here, social control, the Chinese have always been involved in social control, it goes way back, the Terracotta Army and Tomb of the 1st Emperor wasn't built by volunteers, nor was the Great Wall, canals, or the 4000 cities and towns which were walled in China. People power.
The fear of China here is obvious, but China has always fought against barbarians and among themselves. Hence walls and walled cities. There is China and then there are the civilized or inner barbarians, and then the outer barbarians. China was always playing one side against the other. So today China may look at North Korea as the civilized barbarians and us as the outer barbarians strange as that may sound. Do they have a reason to believe that, of course they are virtually surrounded by American bases and in South Korea, Japan, even Afghanistan, if one would need a reason to keep troops there. The Navy enforces freedom of navigation through constant exercises.
The US maintains a military force, not configured for defense, but offense, which the Chinese know, bases all over the world, and we have an inclination to intervene where we think we can. China is mobilizing, both militarily and economically, the new Silk Road initiative, investments banks based on the IMF and World Bank, and alliances with other countries in the world, notably Russia. Force will not be the quantifier in this challenge. Being economically viable will.
3
This is moronic analysis, recycled from
1980s when similar arguments were
made against Japan. Underlying these
arguments is the assumption that
Chinese and Japanes( in 80s) are
dumb incapable of inventing anything.
If these two authors had done any research, they would have discovered that the silicon valley is full of Chinese,
Koreans, Taiwanese and Indians who
have hugely contributed to the innovations coming from silicon valley.
Chinese are intelligent, hardworking,
disciplined who will make progress
regardless of American involvement.
History offers example of China being
a dominent economy till 18th century
and India slightly behind. They got
engulfed in political chaos resulting
from the disintegration of monarchical
system. Europeans took advantage
of the chaos and momentary weakness
to dominate them. Now the history
is turning again for these two nations
achieving 18th century preminance.
It is silly to prevent American companies
to be excluded from the huge economy
of China now and India ( when it becomes big). Military angle is even
more troubling with both countries
possessing large nuclear arsenal. Our
leaders are sensible who avoided any
military confrontation with the Soviet
union. They will do the same with China.
3
Does anyone remember, was it the 80's, when the Japanese were going to take over the world. 'They' had bought Rockefeller Center and MGM. I haven't heard this for a while. How is that working out?
3
Exactly.
As much as Democrats complain about Russia, China is infinitely more the menace than Russia could even dream of becoming. China works against our interests on a host of issues- national security, intellectual property theft of American companies, tremendous trade imbalances, espionage, and finance.
China is a menace to its neighbors and exploits countries far and wide via neo-colonialism.
Even the Paris Accord was a give away to China.
Also, why do top spots at American universities, and then good jobs at American companies go to Chinese nationals, displacing Americans in the process? Where is the logic in that?
But the Democrats turn a blind eye to all of this and go down the path to Russia?
4
As China develops from a 'third world' culture to a 'developed world' culture, they will naturally play a different role than what we have seen for most of our lives: a vast sea of inexpensive labor to produce things like lawn chairs at half the price you can buy the same product made in the West. Assuming they avoid real stupidity, e.g. attempted military theft of the South China Sea based on phony premises such as 'nine dash line', this can all go relatively peacefully. They do steal intellectual property as much as they can, much more aggressively than is done in the West. They always have done this, it's an area where their culture is different, so there will have to be some serious negotiation, with agreed enforcement and penalties, on issues like that. But overall, we should encourage their development, a developed society will be more cautious, and probably not accept leaders like the great leader Mao who told the Russians he wouldn't mind loosing a hundred million if necessary in a war with them.
1
Why does every argument regarding China devolve into complete embrace or total enmity? The U.S. can disengage with China without seeking containment. We should stop all interactions that assist in strengthening China, not actively try to undermine it.
1
It is just so unfortunate that we did not recognize this danger from the get go. The initial trade agreement by Leonard Woodcock was a naive start as well as the obvious delight of some of our industry leaders to rush manufacturing to China to escape labor and environmental impediments here. Worse, we as consumers delighted to buy all sorts of cheaper goods without reflecting on the real cost to us losing much of our manufacturing base.
3
Chairman Mao's hundred year marathon is in progress. Any China scholar will verify this. This article is not encouraging the US to stop trading with China. It is cautioning people that China has an agenda that is inconsistent with ours. So does Russia, by the way, but you would not know that from our recent foreign policy.
4
China needs the US market to provide employment for its aspiring population. The US needs to restrict US companies from giving away its technology, as China and others will always demand.
3
Wow! I bet this article kicks the Chinese intelligence troll factories into over-drive.
I've done work for chemical plants that went into China. Intellectual theft if rift. And, don't tell me the Chinese make quality products. I developed a simple design for a chemical process and they weren't bright enough to figure it out. We've seen other technological "marvels" by the Chinese such as steel for power plants that was so bad the plant was abandoned. Then, there are Chinese adventures in South America where any American engineer would not have built a damn but that didn't stop them: a complete failure but that country's peasants are still paying through the nose.
6
@Rocketscientist seems it kicked the Chicago troll factory into overdrive :) By the way who made silk and who stole the tech? etc etc
1
This was prophesied. The inability to buy even a loaf of bread without government approval Remember?
1
@Rodrian Roadeye
Chinese don't eat bread, they eat rice for their carb intake.
1
So China is to be the new target! What really matters to the war machine and its "think tank" minions (e.g. American Enterprise Institute) is that there IS ALWAYS a target in its cross hairs: Russia, terrorists, China. No matter. There is $700 billion (current Pentagon budget) in profits to be made. Today China, tomorrow who knows.
1
China is the enemy of wealthy, white oligarchs, like the authors of this article. For the average American, the extent of their engagement with China is limited to shopping at Walmart. If China's economic power has been built on intellectual property theft, then US power has, for most of the past century, been built on the theft of resources from the developing world.
1
The vilifying of China in this essay is based on absurd assumptions and can only be harmful. This essay is frighteningly wrong. What is necessary is for us to work with the Chinese as we do the Germans or French or British or Japanese, as partners.
36
@Nancy: That would be a lot easier if they'd admit that they are now a developed country and must play by the same rules as other developed countries.
13
@Nancy Look at the source. The Times could have saved valuable column space by just featuring a headline: "The American Enterprise Institute's views on China".
We could have easily filled in the broad strokes: China dangerous, they're stealing our innovations, must pursue hostile relations with China. The details are just recycled cold war propaganda.
10
Maybe we could partner with China. But, I don’t believe we can partner with the Chinese Communist Party.
3
I have been to China multiple times to support companies that buy chemicals from China. I totally was willing to give them a break 20 years ago - who wouldn’t want to potentially help hundreds of millions out of poverty?
China in my opinion has blown it. They have been sending their best and brightest to the West to learn. Those who did learn modern techniques stayed in the West. Those who didn’t went back and continued the disfunction.
One factory I was working with was having problems with too many impurities and low yield. They wanted my help to fix it. Honestly it was a mess. Three steps to the process run by three engineers who didn’t speak to each other. Three data systems. They never even heard of “statistical process control” - a standard tool in quality to improve processes.
This is a specific example but is illustrative of the problems. I’ve seen some issues like this in the US and EU but not to this level of disfunction. And since the engineers can’t solve the problems they do the only logical thing - they lie.
China has had multiple chances. They are fully aware they are the problem.
3
Apropos the subtitle of the article: Easier said than done.
I don't know what you guys think in the AEI but capitalism needs markets to expand into. To trade as much as one can and as advantageous to oneself as possible. If trade is "fair", it is hard to accumulate and to grow. If growth is not there for the capitalists to smell from far away the stock of a company or a country (in our case a sum of the companies in the NYSE and Nasdaq to a first approximation) loses value.
So it is not our choice of what we do with China at this point. We already sold them the Lenin's proverbial rope to the "Communists." Now we can only shake hands and pat backs. And hope for the best.
PS: I sent this comment a couple of hours ago. It hit the censors again. It is annoying how silly this whole censorship thing became. They keep my comments (others have said the same) until much later and they print them five minutes they close the space for new comments. Cheap and cowardly.
1
Throughout recorded history China has been the dominant power in the world (uring the height of the Roman Empire Han China ruled more territory and many more millions of people}, although there have been times when China has been weak and divided. China is now attempting to recover its leadership. Protecting what we think of as our own technological leadership is not enough, since we are no longer leaders because of our thirst for immediate results at the expense of long term research.
3
China is facing a demographic bomb the next 20-30 years due to its brutal and terribly short-sighted one child policy.
China is the very definition of a brutal, evil nation. They are a menace and a bully.
China's power is actually evaporating.
They will be a nation of senior citizens in about 20-30 years, and unlike in America where we have many races, China is closed to immigration and is nearly entirely Han Chinese.
Which means in 20-30 years, China will be an also-ran power like Japan, aging into irrelevance.
China is rounding up hundreds of thousands of Muslims and forcing them into detention camps and slave work. Yet, we see zero outrage from the Muslim world. Why? Fear of offending China.
The real question: as Chinese population ages into irrelevance, how do we contain this evil menace the next 20-30 years before their population implodes?
4
@Brendan
Low fertility rates are good for the planet not bad. If China had not quickly achieved a low birth rate it may have had 3 or even 6 billion people today instead of the still astounding number of 1.5 billion.
The Population Bomb is still with us as we add 80 million a year to a world with 8 billion people.
The one thing China should not be ridiculed for is having a low birth rate, nor should any other country with low birth rates.
If the whole world had low birth rates we might not have so many terrible problems of poverty, disease, migration, and environmental degradation.
Devoting more economic resources to caring for the elderly is a small price pay for living in a cleaner, less crowded world.
1
China is not our friend. At best they are a trading partner, nothing more.
7
Good luck with your program fellas. But wait I thought markets solved all problems.
1
When every situation is viewed through a binary lens, unceasing human conflict is inevitable. Ordinary people who mostly want to care for their friends and family and go along to get by find themselves helpless victims of the Manichean world view of monsters like he who should not be named.
People -- The threat is real ... and growing. The idea that the USA can continue to transfer technology ... in fact, whole industries to China can't continue.
Do people understand that most of our drugs come from China .. Fact: The majority of the raw materials. Do you think China will provide the base for doxycycline when we need it .. has anybody been in the hospital lately ... Heparin. Yep .. China. Do you trust them? I don't ..... and I do business with China.
Go down the list of critical industries that in any conflict we will need and China has the valve -- to shut it off. Count the good (high paying) jobs lost ...and the manufacturing prowess given away ... for what? $1 bottles of aspirin!
But... the NYT is Trump /Trump/ Trump .. Trump will be gone before you know it .. China will not.
5
China offers one of the largest growth markets for American companies. Take step to alienate it and American companies will shrink, they will have less revenue to fund the R&D needed to remain competitive, their stock price will fall, and foreign rivals will rush in to fill the gap. Playing directly into the hands if China and Russia
This is too stupid to publish in the Times. Fight intellectual property as best we can. But everyone knows you win by getting ahead and staying, outrunning the competition not blocking them.
1
Should we be allowing so many Chinese nationals into our country? Letting them indiscriminately purchase real estate, companies and businesses is dubious. As is letting millions of students into our better institutes of higher education. And no this does not 'teach' them about freedom or democracy. Most are willing or must return to China. Be wary of them. As we should have been all along over the past several decades.
They think Americans are all stupid or gullible and they have a valid point.
6
The naivety of comments here is astounding. I guess because readers don't like the American Enterprise Institute or, for that matter, the US. Amazing. China is evil to the core and not redeemable as long as communism has it's stronghold. IT was more than foolish to allow them into the WTO - that is when the trade imbalance exploded. And it wasn't just US factory workers that were impacted. Malaysia, Japan, Europe - all were hurt and continue to be hurt by China. China is destroying their air and waters; pollution is unimaginable. Just go to China; don't spout off based on your progressive idealism. It is nuts to think the US is the bad buy here. BTW China is directly responsible for the decimation of the elephant populations across the planet, not to mention Rhinos. People here flip out when a big game hunter goes to Africa and kills a wild animal, but crickets when a country destroys whole populations because of some bizarre idea they need to rub or eat or carve ivory?!!!
9
The primary reason we should just cut those ties: if (God forbid) we ever go to war with them, it would be impossible to achieve a win against the country that manufactures all the electronics for our weapons systems. Hey Tchump! You want to bring jobs back here and slam Nixon's open door policy? There is literally no better reason!
4
Yes, China is a strategic rival. The US strategy is to maintain itself as the dominant power in a world of impoverished nations. A lot of money was made that way and the American Enterprise Institute hoped it would go on forever. Any country that challenges that dream is what is meant by the expression “revisionist power.” The Chinese strategy is a community of shared future for mankind and win-win relationships with other countries. Guess which strategy is more appealing to the poor countries of the world.
@stonetrouble
Who does not want a "win-win" solution? But it is an illusion in the case of China and its ambitions. Right now China is behaving like the neighborhood payday loan predator. It goes into depressed/underdeveloped neighborhoods and exacts an exorbitant price for its loans. The best way to gain a client state that has natural resources that you need is to get that client into debt and keep them coming back for more debt. Once the sparkle of that new dam or other infrastructure project loses its shine the bill for the project comes due. The people of that debtor nation pays for this for many years to come and will be heavily influenced by China in its foreign and domestic policies.
The long term solution is for China to adopt liberal democracy. It can then achieve it's long held dream or reunifying China and Taiwan. Remember this axiom: Democracies never make war on other democracies. Examine world history since the advent of liberal democracy and you will see this is true.
4
With reference to ‘attempt to alienate allies such as Canada’...MANY of my fellow Canadians and I feel that the US should step in and lend us a hand or take on some responsibility over this Meng debacle. We detained her at the behest of your country so that she could be extradited. Now it would appear, Canadians will feel the full force of China’s wrath ie. three Canadians imprisoned - one they had the audacity to sentence to death!!!!! and the US gets off scot free...Something appear out of kilter here? Or perhaps UNFAIR?
37
@Julia Sutherland, please don't bother Americans with facts. They Don't have time to think beyond the end of their noses.
"...they had the audacity to sentence to death!...", mind you, madam, the China of to day is an independent country, just as Canada is. And who gave Canada the "audacity"to detain ms. Meng? speaking of AUDACITY.
2
@Dan: well, for one our extradition treaty with the United States which REQUIRED us to detain Ms Meng and investigate the credibility of the American charges -- just like pretty much every extradition treaty everywhere. I wasn't aware that observation of the rule of law had become synonymous with audacity -- although come to think of it, it doesn't surprise me that the Chinese government might think so.
4
You don't bother to invest in your own country and your own people and just pocket short-term profits, this is what happens. Don't go blaming others for your own greed and shortsightedness. Fix your own self-created problems first. That's advice to any nation.
4
The US has been the big apple pie for over 100 years. My immigrant ancestors and yours made it so. The rest-of-the-world wants a slice and, eventually, all of it. China's military-industrial complex driven by technology and social growth, on the backs of America's relocated factories, is not like America's military-industrial complex driven by battleships and [anti-]social media.
Just keep looking for cheap goods, no corporate or taxation on the rich, resting on your laurel, and our Capitalist system will eventually crumble under the new Asian form of it.
5
China's strength is from stealing.
China is made up "semi-autonomous" that the World is afraid to challenge because they are afraid to lose business. We all look the other way on the part of Mongolia that they stole after WWII. Tibet, and of course their newest nonsense about the South China Sea. (There are others). Where are the boycotters? I guess the Uyghers don't matter. How about the Uygurs change their nationality to Palestinians. Maybe then the Muslim world will shun China.
What about the raping of resources from Africa and Latin America? Third World countries are reeling under debt while the Chinese take their natural resources.
Why no serious protests about disappearances within China and no insistence om the human rights that we talk about elsewhere??
Why do we allow Chinese restrictions on our business and imports but give them open access to our markets?
And of course we have had no adequate response to the stealing of technology or manufacturing know how.
I am not opposed to China. The Chinese people are amazing and I know this from visiting China, but we need to insure that China plays by the same rules that we do or else we are all at fault.
My policy to confront China would be to weaken it internally and it will fall like a house of cards. Support Third World countries to get China out, encourage protests within, boycott them as we do others, push them to an arms race and punish them for bad behavior.
When confronted with realities they will fall.
4
The " American" Enterprise is a conservative think tank. Why are they published here like objective experts. They have been driving this policy. The truth is that making an enemy of China rather than an economic partner will produce an unstable and very dangerous world. Isolationism always does. Call this think tank what it is-- Conservative's for wealth hegemony for the 1%.
3
It's a complicated world and always has been, but I am befuddled when our leadership describes a given nation (i.e., China, Russia/Soviet Union) as a growing threat to our national security interests but yet allows and even encourages trade with that nation. Throughout the late 1920s and the 1930s, our military conducted war games in which the opposing force was the Japanese military, but we continued to trade with Japan through at least 1940....years after it had invaded China. Through a good portion of the Cold War, American companies had significant trade with the Soviet Union; that, in effect, helped fund Soviet competition with the US in the arms race. Perhaps we do this because someone is going to make money dealing with a rising or declared threat and that someone just as well be US companies. Perhaps we do this hoping that time will modify the threat's behavior. Who knows, but yes, there is certainly a compelling reason to disengage US trade/investment with China, but are we willing to cut-off our nose to spite our face? The world is a complicated threat.
I've lived in China for a year now, in one of the biggest cities, downtown. What is life like here? Yes, there are cameras on the streets. A great number of vehicles still manage to run red lights, despite all this "social control." Within one block of my apartment, there is a Subway, a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, and two Apple stores. Last semester, one of my students, upon getting his driver's license, said he would like to buy a Chevrolet.
China is a huge market for American companies and, by extension, American workers. Most Chinese people - the ones I talk to - just want what anyone has : a decent, prosperous life. They are very tolerant of Americans and many want to learn English.
Mercantilism doesn't really work in the long run. History has proven that. This is just more fear mongering from the right wing, and we've really had enough of that. The world is not a zero sum game.
4
So true! I worked in China & respect all the people in my office. They want the same things Americans want...a good job & a happy family. I don’t agree with the actions of President Xi but you only have to look at history to see why China may not trust the west. Shanghai was divided up by the western countries & still has the outlines of the concessions. Let’s not forget that we have made plenty of mistakes.
1
Good column.
"The Chinese theft of American intellectual property is the greatest transfer of wealth in history,”
-- Keith Alexander, who led the NSA under President Barack Obama.
34
@Mmm
there is huge difference between technology transfer and IP theft. Apple took Samsung to court for patent/copyright infringement/s and won. Can you cite your source where company took Chinese company to court for copyright/patent theft?
BTW technology transfer is permissible under WTO rules.
2
@Mmm:
i mentioned something similar when Bill Clinton gave permission to give China our submarine quiet-propeller technology. Knew it would bite us in the rear sometime later.
No telling how much was taken or stolen during Nixon's "welcome China to our shores" policies.
@Mmm
IP worth depreciates so fast it's made of smoke.
The greatest wealth transfer would be the stock market crashes of 2001 and 2008 (both 50% declines) where Main Street transferred its wealth to Wall Street.
4
China needs to change into some form of liberal democracy in order to avoid needless war.
If you examine modern history to include world war one and two you will find that democracies do not make war on other democracies. Is this just mere coincidence? Or is it more a feature of democracies in general.
4
@El Guapo
Is good old USA still a democracy? How convenient of you to overlook the Korean conflict, Viet-Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
We only waged war on small countries where they can't really respond.
1
Before reading the article I looked up "American Enterprise Institute" first. So no surprise what the writers are trying to promote. With NY Times publishing these opinions it is easy to hear the drumbeat of hawks and the Military-Industrial Complex calling to war with China.
1
This is a problem we largely brought upon ourselves.
When American manufacturers outsource production of goods ranging from clothing to computer technology it seems a bit lame to whine about intellectual property theft.
Instead of penalizing the Chinese, perhaps a better approach is to impose sanctions on domestic manufacturers engaging in these ‘globalization’ practices instituted to inflate shareholder and executive compensation packages.
5
The notion that "knowledge" is "property" has done us more harm than good. Witness the high costs of drugs. Historically, lesser developed cultures have always copied from more developed cultures. We should scrap our patent laws entirely. How would we have reacted if Jonas Salk patented his polio vaccine and charged $100,000 per inoculation; perhaps, gave it out free to fellow Jews? I am not willing to go to war to protect the profits of patent holders.
Patents hold back technological progress. Patent attorneys would have us pay for using fire or a wheel! Apple's patents on the shape of their iPhone buttons mean we can never have the perfect cell phone, and the $100k price tag for a Hepatitis C pill means many of us must die. Every biotech startup holds secret a piece of the puzzle to a cancer cure. We've already given the rich a massive Trump-tax break. They don't pay enough to fund another war!
1
I'm old enough to remember how my fellow citizens went wild about moving their business to China in order to make more money. I also remember the successive Canadian governments selling China many of our Canadian assets in advanced technology. Then, in no time, the Chinese were spying on us and breaking and entering into worlwide computer systems, including the NY Times. From the begining, I was opposed to this business strategy because of China's human rights abuse and unfair labor practices such as child labor or forced labor which were barely denounced by our organized labor unions. Today, I feel we gave the Chinese Communist Party the stick to beat us with by welcoming these intruders posing as friends of our democracy. They must be laughing at us all the way to the bank...
4
Doing business with any country that holds political prisoners is immoral and un-American.
1
As a Canadian, living near to the Canada-American border, I trust China more than I trust America.
The facts are clear that America has been involved in industrial espionage much longer than the Chinese. Time and time again, Canadians have seen American corporations, with assistance from the American government, purchase viable Canadian corporations, transfer their technology to the US, and then simply shut them down.
Americans love a level playing field, but only when it is tilted in their direction.
4
@Jamie Hill Canadians should never forget the story of the Avro Arrow. The Arrow was a supersonic jet fighter and attack aircraft that was being designed by Canadian-based Avro Canada in the 1950s. It would have been Canada’s first supersonic jet fighter. The Arrow was cancelled abruptly by then-Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1959. While there will always be a cloud over why ... can't help but compare the attack against Huawei & ZTE led by USA.
2
@Jamie Hill: I think trusting the Chinese more that the Americans is a little extreme, but what you say about American raiding of Canadian technology by American corporations is absolutely true. So is the tendency for Canadian jobs to flow to cheap labor/no union/right-to-starve-slowly states, which from our perspective is no different than a move to Mexico or other overseas sweatshops. And then there's the 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum because we (apparently) constitute a threat to the US, or the American government's forty year war to shut down the Canadian lumber industry at the behest of their American competitors or -- well one could go on forever. But the point is that Americans had better be aware that there is a heck of a lot of glass in their house before they start throwing stones at anybody.
1
Technology transfer in joint ventures is reducing. Only about 30% of foreign firms in China are involved in joint ventures last year. Whether these ventures are "forced" unpon American firms is debatable.
American firms can reduce "intellectual property theft" by registering their intellectual property with China. Chinese law doesn't protect property not registered in China.
Targetting Chinese firms that are proved to have done stealing is a good idea. This can be handled in a court of law.
Two things:
1. Regarding: "Previous efforts to assert America’s influence against China, such as the discarded Trans-Pacific Partnership, did not push back effectively on Chinese economic aggression."
The authors' dismissal of the TPP misses the fact that it would have created a strong alternative market where US importing companies could have sourced products and exporting companies could have expanded their market, which the authors suggest earlier in the article. The transition away from China would have been less painful. Obama knew this. Trump is still trying to figure out whether a trade deficit with China is bad or not.
2. Regarding: "...... and the requirement that American companies that want to do business in the country hand over their technology. "
I have always been completely stunned that any American company would have agreed to this in the first place. Isn't that giving away their core competitive advantage? Why would they do that?
2
One increasingly plausible explanation as why the trump administration has not tried to build a coalition with our allies to check China's ambitions is that Trump is NOT trying to fix the problem but is an agent of Russia seeking to damage or destroy our postwar alliances.
It is of a piece with almost all his other actions.
2
The time to negotiate better terms for companies doing work in China was decades ago. The push for huge profit gains essentially ensured companies were going to look for the cheapest labor forces around the globe. China was more than willing, but at a steep advantage that was not recognized in the past and also is not now.
At this point, all the companies that have put production lines into China are not going to magically turn around and move them back to the US. China has much more discipline in their system to withstand and retaliate in any type of trade war. Negotiations with China will go slowly and Trump’s frustration will not be able to handle the pressure.
1
Once again, the "stable geniuses" at AEI miss the mark. Americans (and Europeans for that matter) want cheap stuff. One quarter to one-third of China's pollution comes from manufacturing to meet export demands. It's not just low and middle income people driving this demand. Our president's MAGA gear (and his ties) are made in China. Walmart alone is responsible for much of our trade deficit with China.
Until Americans buy stuff made in the USA or EU, and are willing to pay for the additional costs, China's economy is going to continue to be driven by manufacturing.
I vote with my feet. For example, one can call me a "Patagoniac" because I own many clothing items by them. I bought my first Patagonia fleece jacket in 1983, and I still wear it. It's in great shape. Yes, it cost twice as much as a Chinese made jacket, but it's lasted several times longer. Ditto for my work pants that I wear for cutting wood and working outside. My "steel worker" pants cost me $35 in 1978, that was a lot of money then as I was making $2.25 an hour minimum wage as a landscaper to earn money for college. They still wear like new. Patagonia today makes clothing in many countries, but not in China because of their lax labor and environmental laws (or lax enforcement, since they do have some decent laws). There are many other good American companies like Patagonia that we can support. And their products are excellent and long lived.
4
After working in the China market for 25 years, I can say the authoritarian governing style chafes against the average citizen's innate moral and ethical yearnings; the hope for a more open and just China lies with the changes as new generations replace the insecurities of the old order with optimistic, enlightened leadership. Change will come, inexorably.
1
Neocons in the American Enterprise Institute advocate cutting taxes for the rich and slashing social safety network for the needy. Heavily subsidized American agribusiness is dumping food products south of the border, causing small family farms there to fail. Coupling with the neocons' destruction of unions and weakening of government oversight is what drives undocumented workers coming here. Neocons talk about upholding Human Rights, but have no empathy towards the poor and migrant workers as if these people were not human. Nor would they care the cost of living for average Americans will drop significantly without trade. U.S. wars used to be financed by tax dollars which the rich paid a share. Now it is financed by borrowing from the rich with lucrative interest; not to mention the profits made from supplying weapons. Meanwhile, soldiers fighting wars are dis-proportionally staffed by minorities and the poor. No wonder neocons love to start wars. I would take whatever they say with a grain of salt.
4
We need a complete boycott and trade embargo against China now! China is a one party police state that still has 1 million people in Gulags, many thousands who mildly criticized that government in 'dark detention' sites, a major military power that continually via government run media tells its people to expect a war with the United States, and yet our greedy and stupid leaders have for decades given this monster 8 million US manufacturing jobs and trillions in trade dollars and stolen intellectual property. But South Africa that was no economic or military threat to us was totally boycotted for systemic racism and rights violations no worse than what the Han Chinese heap on many of their minorities and their Han majority as well! China must be isolated now, and shunned and punished economically by all civilized nations until it becomes a rights respecting democracy.
2
I am more or less in agreement with this article, based on China's policy under the leadership of Xi Jinping. I am a liberal on domestic policies, but a realist on foreign affairs. It was about time that we rejected China's policy of requiring domestic partners and technology transfers to do business there.
We should be alarmed at China making inroads in Africa and South America. Our desire for new markets has almost blinded us to the fact that we are dealing with an Orwellian Communist dystopian society now making militarist noises like Japan in the 1930s. We are unwittingly fueling our adversaries. China has been much more successful than Russia in subtly injecting itself in emerging countires and undermining democracy through economic policy.
3
As a boomer, I clearly remember both dinner table and more expansive pundit/political discussion of the the Soviet "threat" As it related to economic strategic advantage, the universal refrain was that the Soviet system and its 5 year plans would simply implode in competition with the US "free market' economy Ironically, today's China bashers--and most notably those that are otherwise most firmly rooted in cold war "free market capitalist" principles--are totally unwilling to suggest that the US rely upon our firms' market strengths to compete with China Apparently, we can't compete without government directed world wide embargos of Chinese steel, Huawei routers, etc Why isn't this seen as capitulation to the conclusion that the Chinese model (single party/state run public/private mix) is inherently stronger than ours?
1
My interest in China began with a Chinese history course my freshman year. Mao was still in power. I've followed China's ever since. Like many I was pleased to see China come out from isolation and then, under Deng Xiaoping, to begin a path of political and economic reform. Unfortunately reform was never completed. Following the Tiananmen tragedy, reform minded leaders were ousted. Later, reform-minded leaders like former Premier Zhu Rongji were tolerated because their competence was needed, but ultimately their power was curtailed. Some sighed relief when a more authoritarian seeming Bo Xilai (now in prison) lost the recent power struggle to Xi Jinping, but relief was short-lived. Xi has since set himself on a course for lifetime rule; time will tell if he is successful. For now, he has put reform in reverse. This is tragic for the Chinese people. It is a tragedy also because China seeks to export it authoritarian "model," and as so much could have been gained by the merging of prodigious Chinese talent into the global science and technology community. As long as Xi and or leaders like him rule, I regrettably must concur with the overall analysis and recommendations of this article. Yes China needs stability, but equating stability with totalitarian control is wrong. China could and should be on a long-term path that will lay the groundwork for a more open society. The closed/controlled society envisioned by Xi will stifle innovation and growth.
3
Is the world stage reserved only for the USA? We need to learn how to effectively compete in a global economy without the constant belief in growth at any cost; particularly, when the growth is at the expense of others. This globe cannot sustain the levels of population now, and exponential consumption of finite resources. We should be moving toward a sustainable based economy not one that relies on ever expanded production. That production is less and less dependent on human workers and will provide less employment in the future. We have the capability to provide for the basic needs of all people. We must put greater effort into providing employment in a services based economy that stresses individual craftsmanship, creativity and self-fulfillment. And, we need to do it without killing one another.
2
"in cooperation with our allies" is the key component of what this article suggests is the way to mitigate China's push to become the world's superpower at the expense of democracy. Trump, in his constant denigration of traditional US allies and alliances, only helps China to achieve its goal.
1
There is a reasonable set of pragmatic recommendations in this article, but they follow the more dramatic statement about 'cutting' economic ties. Interesting to see so many reader comments focus on the sentiment of that statement alone.
"the United States government should impose sanctions on the Chinese beneficiaries of intellectual property theft and coercion..."
Exactly. This is the only way forward. Also, stem the unchecked flow of know-how to China. The moment an expat achieves something that China wants, the give them an offer they can;t refuse.
3
This editorial from the AEI (Amnesiatic Enterprise Institute) summarizes China's policies as belligerent, but the only notable belligerence is the AEI's recommendation that the Trump administration engage in heightened unilateral economic warfare against China. History well documents the likely outcome of their short-sighted policies, including reduced inefficiencies and increased prices in our own economy as businesses will be forced to buy products in a no longer world wide free market. Furthermore, China is no longer easily pushed around. China holds a large amount of our public debt and could retaliated with monetary policies that would harm many in the US. Moreover, as we become more belligerent on trade, China, which has its own far-right, belligerent, nationalistic cliques, could increase military tension in key Southeast Asian trading lanes which could harm our and our allies trade with Asiatic partners, thus isolating America even more than Trump and his fellow somnambulist travelers at the AEI have already accomplished.
2
mmm... substitute "USA" for "China" and I believe you will get how the world sees us. How many coups, dictatorships, and economical strong arming have we do.
And is Russia or friend?
Perhaps the authors should move thought and ideas (if they have any) as to how the US can become more productive and a world leader vs trying to prevent any country, or block, from advancing.
In the end, the real fear of these guys - they may be wrong.
1
The thought that comes to me out of this article: if China is the adversary and the United States is going to need to co-operation of its' allies against the Chinese, then might it not be a good idea to start treating those allies -- well, at least not as adversaries. Given Donald Trump's cozying up to tyrants, his outspoken contempt for the rule of law (particularly international law) and his generally dismissive and sometimes aggressive attitude to America's traditional allies, none of those allies are inclined to do the United States any favors at the moment -- even if it might be in their best interests to do so.
What do you expect coming from a "non-partisan" conservative funded group?
(that's not what Xi said)
4
It is always interesting when neo-cons get tough with China re theft of intellectual property and merging of Chinese trade and defense policy. The only problem is when Pres. Trump then loudly proposes reducing sanctions against China as with Huwaei and imposing sanctions on Japan and Europe in direct contradiction to this article. In short, Pres. Trump is the intentional partner of China.
Good God! Does everything always have to be a confrontation, a threat? Doesn't China and every other country (Iran for example) have the right to seek prosperity in the world like we do? Does it always have to be seen a threat to our empire? Do we always have to act like an empire? The economic ties between our countries can very well be said to be the thing that ensures peace between us, since there are always those who want to beat the drums of confrontation, like these authors. It is in fact, in my opinion, the ties they have with us that doom the Party in the long run, without massive loss of life. (What is going on here? Is the NYT taking up the mantle of the American Standard?)
3
Very well written piece!
Trump administration should be given credit for correctly identifying China as a "revisionist power" that try to destroy existing world order established by the US led democratic countries after WWII.
Without a doubt, China has been treating America as its greatest enemy but also knows that China can not defeat America easily. So they took long-term strategic approach. China today is communist outside, but horrifiyingly racist and nationalistic inside. just look at how China is treating its own ethnic minorities. It is torturing Uyghurs, and detaining up to several million of them in violation of its own constitution, criminal and autonomous regional law and without a regard international laws, treaties....
Free World led by America must confront this vicious power and should contain its wild emperial ambitions. China is only afraid of America in today's world. It pushes all other countries like a bully, and it seems they are beginning to accustomed to China's thuggish treatment; Free World must unite and break the alliance of "China and feudal Muslim countries" and lead them to civilization, the rule of law, free market and open society;
America must hold high its principles such as human rights, democracy, and universal values;
America must and should tell China to shut down those internment camps with Chinese style where millions of innocent Uyghurs are suffering at this moment in this cold weather....my heart aches whenever I think of them
2
@UyghurAt least China treats its Wahabbi terrorists better than we do. We assassinated US citizen Anwar al Awlaki and, separately, his teenage son and eight year old daughter–all without trial–for preaching (not practicing) terrorism.
1
@Uyghur
how do you detain several million?
why perpetuate propaganda without comprehending what's being fed to you?
One reader said it right that if the Chinese is half as bad in stealing intellectual properties as they are accused of that made their economy strong, all the American companies would have left China long ago. By repeating lies without any proof won't make them true, but then again we all know that "innocent until proven guilty" is a human right not deserved by people other than the white (just ask any Japanese American). The real reason China developed its strong economy, deliberately ignored by the authors, is the hard work of the hundreds of millions of Chinese workers who have given up their family lives, worked long hours under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, while polluting their own environment, air and water. (Unfortunately, this is possible thanks to a totalitarian political system which deprives its citizens' choices.) After having saved thousands of dollars by buying cheap Chinese products at Walmart by individuals and reaping hundreds of millions of dollars of profit by corporates, we are now asking "hey, how about our jobs?". You Chinese stole them, and your practice is predatory! We are cheated! The world is never fair. Sigh!
3
Don’t forget that our universities are training the people who go home to help China succeed. I understand that universities need the full tuition that those students provide. Proof that Marx was right that “Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction.”
4
What the authors miss is that the players in our capitalist society, manufacturers
, tech companies, financial institutions, realty and resort developers, are willing to overlook and even accept China’s repressive behavior ( and willing to share technology) to get a foothold in an economy powered by the growing economic strength of 1.2 billion people.
Even Trump in his infinite stupidity understands that there is plenty of money to be made inside China. His ill considered tariffs are intended to inflict short term but intense pain which will make him look tough while precipitating a deal to expand the US -China business alliance.
CHina is well aware of American corporate greed, and will negotiate with that card in hand.
1
I couldn't finish the article after the reference to China's actions against "our" Canadian ally. And what kind of ally to Canada is the U.S.? America (through its President) have labeled Canada a security risk and arbitrarily imposed grossly unfair and arbitrary steel and aluminum tariffs on our country at great cost to our economy and individual Canadian workers. Why? Because your President believes it helps maintain support among his political base. Decency and loyalty towards a neighbour and friend mean nothing to the U.S. Your President has openly mocked and criticized our Prime Minister (because he said Canada would not be bullied) and advised the world media that he doesn't like our Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland (she was a formidable negotiator during the NAFTA talks). Canadians have witnessed over the past two years just how little American's value their relationship with Canada. At the age of 64 I have lost my life-long respect and affection for a country that has now so casually tossed it's northern neighbour under the bus without a second thought. I also can no longer respect a country that elects and supports a morally bankrupt and corrupt President. The U.S. has no shame and is clearly no longer interested in honouring the values of a fact-based, truth driven democratic and compassionate country. I pity the U.S. and the decent Americans who oppose its current neanderthal government. Canada mourns the loss of a once loyal friend. Time to move on.
1
An eye for an eye makes the world blind, and if this advice were heeded (I hope it won't be) would make the world immeasurably poorer and more dangerous.
20
@Molly O'Neal
You have accurately described what the Chinese state is trying to do. I just would add, supplanting the U.S. as the world's superpower. President Trump has chosen help with North Korea and trade renegotiation as starting points. But we have done some of what you have suggested by baring others from supplying certain companies and expelling others.
But it's a delicate hand - one reaching for help with NK while using a hammer to carve out a favorable trade deal. I hear they respect Trump for his toughness.
1
Maybe it's time for a little peek at the relationship between Trump's choice for transportation secretary, Mitch McConnell's control of the Senate, and all the odd little coincidences surrounding that governance.
So China "is attempting to reorder international politics to suit its interests?" How is that different from the United States?
2
China is a collection of human beings, just as the rest of the world is.
WE THE PEOPLE want cooperation to benefit 99.9% of human beings in the world - not destructive competition.
4
Rather than demonize China—an ally during WWII—the American Enterprise Institute should examine the model of nations that have dramatically increased their per capita GDP in recent decades: Norway, Finland, Ireland, Australia, among others.
Worth noting is that these nations—as is the case with those countries with the highest per capita GDP—tend to have relatively small, historically homogeneous populations.
An even more apropos analysis might compare specific state per capita GDPs with that of these model nations.
2
Any country that does not support and follow some basic form of democracy should not be considered as a "close ally" or a friend. And it's not just China, but equally applicable to Putin' Russia and MBS's Saudi Arab and some more. It was and still is more of a national security issue, as well as economic one.
China's rise came due to its successful use of western companies and western Governments influenced by those companies. It enabled those companies to increase its profit margin to an unprecedented level. But that huge profit by those companies, in fact, made income and social inequality not only in the western world but also in most other countries, worse- far worse. Globalization seem to have done more harm than good for almost each and every country in the world. Few apparent benefits of globalization, like poverty alleviation in developing world, mainly came from technological advancement that increased the ability of private companies to extract more (mostly non-renewable) resources. But that made those countries deplete its resources for future generations and future development at a much faster rate. Now every $4 profit, $3 goes to the top 1-10% (depending on the country) of the richest people. Only that left $1 is used for public good.
1
There are two issues at stake here. The first is trade, the second is the impact of a powerful China on the world.
Trade is the easier issue to solve.
The EU, for one, concludes free trade agreements with many countries (recently Canada, Japan) but protects its market against dumping and low quality, low wage products with clever second line trade barriers. These include a mandatory EU-wide two year warranty on all products with a stricter certification (CE label), more rights for consumers in services (airline cancellations, online purchase change of mind, ...) etc. The EU has an overall trade surplus with the rest of the world, Germany even has a trade surplus with China.
The impact of China on the world stage is a harder one. We don't know the consequences yet of the power grab by Xi Jinping, but history has taught us that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
China can still be engaged, and while they have their own agenda which is not always honorable (IP and technology theft, lob sided trade relationships, aggressive procurement of rare minerals, ...) their leadership is ready to do their part on important issues like climate change and the technological advancement of the human race.
We can either use trade (or lack thereof) to try to thwart and damage China, or to engage them and ensure a mutually beneficial relationship. I strongly believe in the second and think we should join the EU in forcing China to open its markets fairly and to cease its foul play.
2
Since the Second World War, a period of 75 years, the US has dominated the world's economy and politics.
The rise of China is changing that.
America is a democracy in which democratic institutions are beginning to fail. China is an autocracy which has adapted capitalism to its communist theology, but is still a one-party state. Several of its recent presidents have been engineers, who call upon experts to chart the best future for China.
It is instructive to compare China with India. China now has the second tallest building in the world, the Shanghai Tower. It has the largest high speed rail network in the world. It has put a rover on the far side of the moon.
India has no such accomplishments. Why?
Part of it may be that in 1979 Deng Xiaoping introduced a one-child policy to get population growth under control. India did not. Thus China was able to raise living standards for a more slowly growing population.
To some extent, China was following American thinkers in its one-child policy. The book Limits to Growth had appeared in 1972 giving mathematical models of various futures for the earth depending to some extent on how population growth was addressed.
Now population growth is destroying democracy in the US. Population of the US has grown by 86 million since the Immigration and Reform Act of 1986.
This has caused stagnation of income among America's former middle class. Indirectly it has contributed to the rise of Trump and the government shutdown.
1
Once again the elephant in the room, North Korea, is ignored. Once again we acquiesce in the fiction that China, trade relations, are separate from the threatening hammer of North Korean nuclear advances.
China enables North Korea, protects it, allows it to come out from hiding when it’s necessary to...nudge...a trade position. Forget intellectual property, supply lines, China as a market for our products. It must relinquish it’s slight of hand use of this outlier threat. Goodness knows, China has enough nukes of it’s own - why the subterfuge- if North Korea should launch an attack, we, and the world will know who pulled the strings.
I almost feel sorry for North Korea. If they truly want reunification- China will never allow it. If they want to be a world player, China will continue to control that, too. Use them. The surprise would be a North Korea that rejects China, joins the South, and the U.S. with a separate trade deal. Self respect is often found in the most unlikely places.
So-called experts at the American Enterprise Institute have an established track record of getting their foreign policy advice wrong, but of never having to be accountable for their disastrous mis-judgements. Turning to a confrontational mode with China will not serve anyone's interest and will only serve to further destabilize an already shaky international system. US leaders and think tank fantasists should get over the idea that we live in a unipolar world where the US can dictate to others, especially big countries like China and Russia, the shape of economic and political relations. We need to strengthen international relations and negotiations through established international institutions, rather than the eye for an eye approach that is likely to result from following the truculent approach advocated by the amateurs at the American Enterprise Institute.
2
The article addresses China's transgressions in regards to I.P. theft and human rights abuses but not China's unfair trade practices of subsidizing its "private" companies. Companies in the West are challenged to compete on a level playing field with Chinese companies backed and supported financially by their government. How is that fair trade?
4
In the abstract, I like the idea of "untying" America's economy from China. That being said, it's fascinating to see this idea espoused by the free-market cultists of AEI, with no real explanation of how this would be accomplished. The only concrete suggestions involve sanctioning Chinese businesses that traffic in stolen intellectual property, and restricting trade that would benefit the Chinese military or enable internal repression.
Either that impacts only a little bit of US-China trade (because, really, how is making cheap toys, shoes, toasters and other US consumer goods building up the Chinese military), or it impacts nearly ALL trade, because intellectual property theft is so rampant, and increasing China's wealth seems to prop up the regime as is rather than move the country toward democracy.
If it's the former, not much is going to change. If it's the latter, how would we implement the solution non-coercively? We could ban all future investment in China, but what about the assets that already exist? I'm not seeing a way to accomplish this without a lot of taxation and regulation. Not usually AEI's stock in trade.
More generally, it is probably possible to design a largely de-globalized US economy on a clean sheet of paper that would give us reasonably full employment at a reasonably good standard of living. But there isn't a way to get there in the messy real world where people and assets aren't pieces we can move around in a game board at will.
Having worked in the semiconductor industry, I remember the days when people thought China was not capable of manufacturing high end chips (an arrogant assumption) or being at a seminar on international business and hearing a a young manager think that China was not capable of being innovative like we in the US (where do they get such ideas?). I read about China stealing intellectual property - but no one says much about the fact that TODAY China is developing it own intellectual property. Nor in the criticism do I see much about the fact that US companies to grow, need new markets which is one reason we have international trade. Today we live in a world where we are being challenged - we need leaders who have the vision to understand how we can compete and prosper. Trade may actually be the answer - for instance,
high end products require companies to establish design capabilities near the customer. Trade also promotes peace . We either are able to establish a separate universe from China (and this requires close collaboration with our allies ) or we establish a mutually profitable arrangement with China. To think the US can survive on its own is folly
114
@Victoria
"Mutually" is the key word here, I think. What is lacking is reciprocity from China.
3
@Victoria
"Trade also promotes peace . "
This is not how the China sees it. It channeled its trade profits into a police surveillance state, a state bully that threatens Taiwan, pushes around its neighbors and shuts its eyes to systematic extinction of species. In this case, trade has encouraged the PRCs worst instincts.
4
@Victoria Yesterday it was Japan and Taiwan, then Korea, flooding our economy with at first cheap goods; than quality, cheap goods. Now it is China. Tomorrow, Vietnam. Is there a pattern here?
2
Everyone I know would prefer not to buy goods made in China. Rather, most Americans want to buy goods made in the US, or Europe or the UK. It's poverty that makes Americans buy Chinese-made products. We will never disentangle ourselves from China without the return of the American middle class. This requires a return to union labor, free healthcare and taxing the rich. I wonder what the American Enterprise Institute scholars have to say about that?
184
@Anne
Your comment has cut to the chase--and to the bone. "We will never disentangle ourselves from China without the return of the American middle class," you wrote.
But first, those in power in our government must admit that the middle class is in great trouble--although it may already be too late to do any good. I am old enough to remember the middle class, and I mourn its demise.
Your comment that "It's poverty that makes Americans buy Chinese-made products," is also true. But it was not so long ago that the middle class could afford American-made products.
Your comment mentioned three elements that might help recreate our nation's middle class, and I agree with those, also: union labor, free healthcare, and taxing the rich.
It will also help when the Democratic party is back in the White House and in control of the Senate. Next to Washington and Lincoln, I revere Franklin Delano Roosevelt, perhaps the last president who truly cared about the common, everyday American. Our country was built on the backs of just such ordinary citizens, and it may be that we will have to rebuild it from the ground up.
20
@Anne What you say is very reasonable and just but its not at all what the plutocrats and oligarchs want ... and it's they who are tied into big corporations and biggest banks.
Military and allied spending have their boots on our necks.
The military industrial make the rich ever richer.
Additionally, do an online search of the number of USA military bases and other buildings around the world. The cost of them is enormous and we pay for all that and all the military spending otherwise.
Therefore, there has been a dwindling American middle class for 50+ years.
9
It may be poverty - but it’s also exzessive consumerism that makes the poor buy unnecessary trinkets and poorly designed products they do not need. Buy fewer but well made clothes or appliances at higher price and treat them well would be a good start to rebuild the middle class
8
First, this is very dangerous unsupported by the facts rhetoric. (Constant repetition does not make something true nor does the commonality of these accusations make them anymore palatable.) If things were half as bad for businesses operating in or exporting to China as the China-haters claim businesses would simply not be doing business there. That is the reality. But I do appreciate the irony of the "American Enterprise Institute" concluding that American business is inecapable of making sound decisions and that government must come in to dictate what should be happening in the market place.
Second, in a geopolitical competition context US hawks love to chatter about "human rights" (in other countries) but they don't seem to comprehend - or choose to studiously ignore - that wars and military interventions which kill, injure, dispossess and maim tens of thousands to millions (See Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, several other current African spots) are the greatest threat to human rights around world and for the last 30 years or more the US has been the greatest and most destructive warmonger and global conflict promoter.
War and military interventions are the most important and impactful"human rights" issues on the planet (again see Yemen a war the US could end tomorrow) but these are the last topics the US foreign policy establishment wants to discuss.
125
Unfortunately, those who believe that human rights violations in the US are comparable to those in totalitarian states only can believe that because they have not lived in both societies. Read The Hundred Year Marathon by Pillsbury and decide if this article has no good points@Belasco
5
@Dr B
I'm not talking about just human rights violations "in the US." I'm talking about the human rights of everyone on the planet regardless of passport and war and military interventions are the greatest threat to those peoples human rights which include at their apex not being killed, maimed, injured, dispossessed or made a refugee. Wars and military interventions produce those most serious human rights abuses in fearsome volume. Again the latest example is Yemen. The US is the largest proponent and driver of military conflict on the planet. Given the impact of these endless forever wars and military interventions on our fellow human beings human rights any logical analysis puts the US far in the lead as the greatest threat and abuser of human rights on the planet - not just Americans.
10
@Belasco The fact is there is tons of evidence of neo-mercantilism on the part of the PRC. And for some time - like almost two decades now after the country joined the WTO. And it continues to this day - see Made in China plan dated from 2015 (a year before the presidential elections).
Business fads do happened. Like, you have to have a China strategy in the 2000s. And, the lure of an export platform taking advantage of costs (the main driver for transfering significant capacity to China in the 2000s), or the lure of a large market can attract business in spite of the trade violations or market conditions set by the government (market access is used as a tool).
2
Excuse me. Isn’t “military-economic fusion” sort of like “military-industrial complex”? How does this differ from the many American companies that have contracts for both civilian and military business. I completely understand that China does not play by American rules but those rules of the international post-World War II order were largely set up for our benefit, not theirs. China’s success is at the cost of social justice and advancement. It will ultimately succeed or fail on its own merits. We will succeed or fail on our own.
110
@Rob Merrill There's a big distinction. The military-industrial complex in the US has to content with a check on its power - the equally powerful Fortune 500 companies that only make money in times of peace. Capitalism, while far from a perfect system, generally prefers peace because people spend more freely during peacetime. War, however, leads to fear and fear leads to caution and closed wallets. So while the defense industry is powerful in the U.S., its power is checked by the markets. In China, without a free market, the military has much freer reign.
8
@J Finn But still, we perfected the "civil-military fusion" China is copying. They're copying it because it works (though it's as bad as Republican Pres; Eisenhower warned).
1
@Rob Merrill... one difference is the Chinese government will steal foreign tech and give it to their own companies then bolstering their military advantage. Also, they see their economy as part of their military strategy so they see no problem with stealing intellectual property if it helps their economy.
2
Sounds to me like China is doing the same things that the US has been criticized for doing forever, only they're doing it better. Oh, the irony!
1
If we don't already, we will soon know how the UK felt in WW1 as it looked across the channel and the Bay and saw a newly unified Germany growing larger and wealthier, slowly building up a Kaiser's navy to compete with his cousin the King. This is the fate we chose for ourselves - the monster we made to destroy ourselves - out of our corporate greed and political blindness. And there will be no US to aid us, with loans or men or material, as the UK had.
It was never set in stone. We financed our own irrelevance, sold it off at auction, for cheap goods, a quick buck, and the arrogant hope that if we traded with someone that they would change and become more like us... instead of us becoming more like them.
36
@JB, I have worked in major
American corporations with large
international operations. The decisions are based on return on
investment basis with absolutely
no consideration that the country
X or Y will become like us. This
is a funny rationale someone
in think tank, who never worked
in business decision making process, asserted. This is false.
2
Yeah But where else can American companies access slave labor?
1
In the shutdown. Federal workers.
1
This approach will result in disaster for the US and it just won't work. The economics and basis may be entirely accurate, but the impact of the advocated actions will only result in China digging in, creating more difficulties for US and Global companies, along with ordinary people in China and elsewhere.
TPP was not a panacea. It was a very very good first step. Removing the US from that agreement was short-sighted and motivated by nothing other than animus.
Bringing some manufacturing back to the US is possible and reasonable. Finding other places to obtain goods is also possible and reasonable. What is far more important is to address the overproduction that results in lower per item prices but much higher global and environmental costs.
Stopping the forced transfer of IP was one of the pillars of TPP. IP theft is a huge problem. It is also a problem that we are so interdependent with China. Colleges are now taking out insurance policies to protect them from losses if Chinese student enrollment drops. That's a different problem but it highlights how interdependent we are.
30 years ago, China was making progress. They welcomed all sorts of development help from everyone and stole IP prolifically.
15 years ago, China had made progress. They became more selective about the help they wanted. They enshrined IP theft in corporate agreements.
Today, China is a global power. They have acquired or can acquire what they want.
The US has abdicated. We shouldn't have.
3
The basic economic issue is how Fordism operates on an international—post-Fordist—scale.
Ford’s assembly line provided his workers with enough income to consume the products they produced. In each successive postwar period—WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cold War—this domestic model became increasingly internationalized, as American corporations went abroad to reduce the cost of labor and goods and to maximize profit.
Today, American and international corporations send blueprints for goods that are realized in China with raw materials from America and the rest of the world. As China has prospered, it has itself become one of the world’s largest consumer markets for goods and services ranging from soybeans and Apple iPhones to international realtors. Notice the number of high-end retailers that offer the AliPay option.
No worries—yet. China’s per capita GDP (as purchasing power parity) is approximately 3.5 times less than America’s. Nominal per capita GDP remains significantly lower. The denominator (population) is too large. In other words, most Chinese still do not live nearly as well as their American counterparts.
The administration’s doxa, to return the nation to a Fordist—and isolationist—political economy rather than negotiate the latest phase of modernist internationalization is merely to reincarnate the specter of the Yellow Peril.
Are we surprised? These are, after all, writers funded by the American Enterprise Institute.
3
Contemplation and a pipe of mellow cannabis, provides a moment to muse on the turbid ebb and flow of humanity through time. All of it seems to be guided by the delicate, spiraling stands of DNA that endlessly dictate form and behavior, endlessly duplicating, replicating, guiding all interactions of life.
America, much like Rome, became policeman to the world and as the wealth flowed in, the vast majority of the rich became extravagant, self-indulgent, and irresponsible in their duty to the people. Chaos followed in due time.
China is in ascendancy and will follow the same path as America. After all, both and all such empire is guided by the delicate, spiraling stands of DNA that endlessly dictate form and behavior, that infinitely duplicate and direct behavior, replicating and guiding the general interactions of human life in a predictable manner.
What about today? What about right now? The need for dramatic change is on the winds blowing across the land. What exists has failed. Perhaps what is coming can get the train back on the tracks.
One thing seems certain, the government, the wealthy, must learn once again to support the source of their wealth and stability; the family. Only then can the valuable lessons of ethics, morality, honor and respect for the law be passed along through time to create a strong, intelligent citizenry.
AEI is a dangerous conservative organization which seeks to promote Democratic Capitalism. They have promoted this at home here in the US too. The huge income inequality gap we now endure is what they have worked to promote and institute. I believe there may be some truth in these words they write but given their track record of Neoliberal policies I am skeptical of everything they say. They may be right but I don't trust them to correctly identify solutions that benefit all Americans. It isn't in their DNA. They are cheerleaders for the 1%.
5
Every time I want to buy something, I look at the label and all I see is "made in China."
I've heard arguments and counter arguments for all kinds of strategies to contain, live with, or deal with China, but I still can't buy a flashlight, an electric razor, a washing machine or a computer made anywhere else.
That in itself is enough to convince me that something needs to be done.
Can anyone tell me what percent of any manufactured product is labor? Calculate the difference in labor costs per hours, multiply it by the number of hours, and subtract the costs of shipping. Presto! You have a number. Let's call it the Made in America premium.
Then there's the wholesale vs. the retail price. Consider a bicycle for example. Let's say it costs $100 wholesale and $200 retail. If the Made in America premium or the tariff is 20%, the cost of the bicycle only goes up $20, or 10%. There is no tariff or labor premium between the port of entry and the retailer.
Here in America we ordered our companies to quit polluting and pay living wages; instead they moved to China. To reverse this, we need to make informed decisions, and to do that, we need numbers. I haven't seen any.
3
An important addition to my much earlier letter:
All of our students need to take chemistry if they are to have any chance of getting into professions such as medicine. I know for a fact that all Chinese high school students take this subject.
Sorry! It was early when I wrote the main letter, and my brain wasn't working well it seems.
China and the Chinese people have a long, long history. They also have long memories. From 1000 B.C. China has regarded itself as "Middle Kingdom." The rest of the world was populated by barbarians and was of little interest.
The 19th and early 20th centuries have been painful to China and her people. Trade with the West brought drug addiction from opium imports by Westerners to pay for Chinese silks, porcelain, jade, and other goods. Following two Opium Wars, Western military powers imposed "unequal" treaties on the Chinese and ceded Chinese territory in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and elsewhere. President Lincoln appointed Anson Burlingame as the United States Minister to China to develop friendly relations with China. The 1868 Burlingame-Seward Treaty granted free immigration and travel and equal protection to Americans and Chinese in each other's countires and as well as free trade. This treaty was renounced by Rutherford B. Hayes because of racist US opposition to Chinese immigration to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Geary and Magnuson Acts severely limited Chinese immigration to the US.
About 10 to 16 million Chinese died during the Japanese occupation in WWII. China and the United States were allies then.
By 1949 China was in ruins. Following the failed Great Leap Forward, China adopted policies to improve its people's lives.
Now, its people out of poverty, illiteracy gone, lifespan equal to the West, China is not our enemy.
Climate Change is.
7
Climate change isn’t our only enemy.
1
China is a rising star while the USA fades. Better to emulate, rather than "contain" China!
Let's follow China's example by developing our physical infrastructure of highways, railways, and metros. Let's develop our social infrastructure by educating our children in the basics of language, science, math, social studies, and physical development. Let's remove the obstacles to higher education for the best and brightest young people.
Let's break up monopolistic strangleholds and encourage entrepreneurial enterprise. Let's reduce the legal and commercial obstruction from overly-generous privileges of patents and copyrights.
Let's elect smart, decisive men and women, rather than quarrelsome, dithering, and corrupt political hacks who put party loyalty above national interests.
Let's make America greater (MAG) by following the path that lifted a billion people in China from poverty and despair to prosperity and respect.
9
@AynRant
Chinese build cities that fall apart and make millions things that fall apart. They steal most of what they have in tech and send their children to US universities for a reason; Theirs suck!
They enslave their own people into either serfdom or factory serfdom and then the owners of these places flee to the West with their criminal loot. I hardly think that a country that has face recognition on every street and deducts points from their total point system which makes it so people can never own or rent a place to live or apply for a passport, good job or university for their children. They have mock trials and kill people or imprison them for life with the fake results and have placed 1,000,000 people from the Muslim religion into reeducation camps to brain wash them and the are invading the ocean around which numerous countries depend upon for life with military installations and ruining the pristine natural environment at the same time. They are also the worst tourists on the planet and in fact I had one walk right through me just the other day in the Latin country where I reside. I do not think very much of their country or society is anything to emulate here in the West or why would they be leaving as soon as they get the cash to do so?
@AynRant
Do you know anything about China? I think not. The SOE are strangeling private enterprise, taking on massive debt. You should learn that China is the Enron of the world. A mass debt scam.
This is a no brainer. Relatively few powers have financed their own destruction out of pure greed, but the USA seems to be on the way to achieving that remarkable success.
From that point of view, the only thing wrong with Trump's trade policy on China is that it isn't a permanent embargo on all goods produced by China, or by Chinese firms anywhere in the world.
3
It's complicated. When it comes to climate change, economic and military bullying (e.g. Iran), etc. the US is the greater danger.
Moreover, our current raw capitalism, the kind that prioritizes profits over environment and citizens, is the greatest threat to our Planet.
By enabling Saudi Arabia (weapons sales, oil) in the process, both Europe and America have indirectly caused a tremendous amount of damage to other parts of the world too. The Saudi petro dollars have funded an evolution of Sunni Islam worldwide into a regressive Wahhabi interpretation which imposed a backward culture of misogyny, an intolerance towards Shia and a difficult integration of its believers in other cultures.
I think China is open to adopt the successful post-WWII model of open trade as the best guarantee of World peace. Contrary to a military buildup, it has proven to work over and over, even today (e.g. Russia - EU energy trade dependency). Instead of cutting our ties, the better approach is to force China to open its markets fully to our companies, without any dubious clauses to acquire technology or IP, or force joint ventures. Economic sanctions could be a means, it should never be an end.
3
It's difficult to understand why the Times is featuring an Op-Ed from the American Enterprise Institute. This nefarious organization supported "Regime Change" in Iraq under Bush, defended big tobacco in the 80s and is currently working to cast doubt on climate change (using similar tactics), argued against minimum wage increases and net neutrality.
Don't these right wing ideas, including advocating hostile stances to China and Russia, get enough airing on Fox News?
Does this Op-Ed, along with the Times recent denunciations of Trump's announced intention to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan, represent a pattern - is the establishment wing of the Democratic Party declaring itself to be the party of war?
Who suffers from cordial relations between the superpowers, besides military contractors?
Imagine, along with the new Justice Democrats, all the good that could be done with the $700 billion we spend annually on the military.
7
@Ed Watters I think you were absolutely right about most of what you wrote. However, you may wish to do a tad bit more research into what the PRC actually thinks of us in the West. In the nineties, I read a report from their top military generals who said they did not to use nuclear devices to defeat us but biological and chemical weapons so they could repopulate our countries in a shorter timeline than it would take after a nuclear war. This was published on line and owing to all the knowledge you illustrated with most of your letter, I would have thought you would have caught that information as well.
1
Given the current occupant of the Oval Office, is there any hope of a coherent and bipartisan commitment to the protection of “American” interests? America is a part of Western Civilization, the focus of this Administration is solely the protection and satisfaction of the mosy solipsistic President in this nation’s history. China has a civilization vision, Trump has only his own.
2
China is a "“revisionist” power attempting to reorder international politics to suit its interests." This can easily be the view of just about every country on the planet regarding the behavior of United States since WWII. Our self-serving view of ourselves as somehow being the "good guys" who are above reproach and who can justify our own abhorrent behavior while criticizing the rest of the world for similarly self-serving actions is the height of hypocrisy. China appears to have watched the US closely and has now taken several chapters from our play book. Unfortunately for us while their system has obvious flaws it has one major advantage over the US: it can actually make things happen for itself, while our system is buried in petty political wrangling unable to get a consensus on even the most general national direction, and at best only able to take three steps forward and four steps back with each election. The Chinese have a huge advantage over us... their leaders can actually make things happen for their country and their citizens while we are paralyzed by our politicians' childish bickering unable to even agree on what our most urgent problems are, let alone solve them.
3
@Gary
"Revisionist" is in quotes because the original issuers of that statement probably intended to use "revanchist".
"The Chinese have a huge advantage over us... their leaders can actually make things happen for their country..."
Yes, like build concentration camps and populate them almost immediately with one million people guilty of being Uyghurs (do they deny it?).
This may be a long road. I sense no support whatsoever with confronting China, nor even an glimmer of understanding among our people. China is very powerful. It proceeds on a path that is anathema to the history of American values of liberty and freedom. The best hope is that we are philosophically correct and that in the longer run, our system of values will triumph. For China to dominate a large area of the far east in an uncertain relationship to Japan, India, and Australia is a given.
But I think that China is on the road to a train wreck. This is a country that has often gone astray in a big way. It confronts economic problems in excess of anything gone before. When the market gets too high, it crashes. We need patience and we need to challenge where we can.
The Munich-in-the-Making is Taiwan.
It’s depressing to see the amount of space the Opinion pages have recently given to extremists, like the American Enterprise Institute or Erdogan - to name just a few. Why is the paper doing that? I do not see an equal amount of pieces by those closer to the values of NYT readers.
3
Why are we talking only about defense, rather than offense? It is true that competitors can gain some advantage by trying to hobble their opponent, and I agree that we need to fight back against China's efforts to do that to us. But I see China winning primarily because they have bold, long term plans for how to out-compete us. That is how competitions usually are won, not by dirty tricks but by doing a better job than their competitor. Yet where are the calls for the US to excel in the new leading industries like AI, alternative energy and biotec, as opposed to coal and steel? China will win because they understand how the world is changing, while the US just looks backward.
4
@dj sims -- We have already lost on alternative energy; most if not all solar panels are made in China. We allowed that to happen without a glimmer of understanding that by doing so we have given up true energy independence, even if we kick the oil habit.
Fundamentally, we can't make stuff as cheaply as China can, and we are unwilling to pay more to make stuff domestically. We have spent the last two decades trying to convince ourselves that we don't have to worry about not making stuff any more because we can base our economy on "knowledge" industries. The trouble is, knowledge is extremely easy for China to steal or to imitate.
If only the US were joined with our other Pacific trading partners to counter Chinese influence in the region...
It could be called the Pan Pacific Trade group, or PPT...
7
The Chinese Gibbon who writes his sardonic Decline and Fall of the American Empire will chortle over how sheer American greed gave China the economic power to easily pass America in the fast lane in the early 21stC. Not long ago, Walmart alone was responsible for fully 2% of American GDP. That meant that almost all that 2% a year of our whole GDP was going straight to China! Ditto Target, Apple, and all the rest of America's corporations which shipped trillions of US dollars to China in order to make huge profits from low Chinese wages. America is entirely responsible for building up the Chinese Frankenstein monster which is now projected to surpass our economy by 2020, and be twice as big in 2030. American greed and arrogantly heedless short-term thinking have handed over our hegemonic dominance of the world to our "dangerous rival." Our trip down our yellow brick road to global second-class status has been a joy ride for our rich, and investors in profits from China in general. Too bad the road has led to a cliff for American "greatness." Too late to whine about it all now. We did this to ourselves. Period. "What? Me worry?"
8
Decoupling from China could prove as difficult a task for the US as Frankenstein found it was to escape from the monster he created.
3
This is a deeply unserious article. It ignores the Chinese military threat while deriding the most serious initiatIve to bolster Asian economic power to resist China -- Obama's TPP treaty. Those two failures make the authors unfit guides.
3
China
Or to be honest Emperor Xi, and his Chinese Communist Party of stooges, who are not China —I know I know, obvious yet ignored after those long decades of the ‘people we love state we hate’ Comintern agitprop —nor even the Han, who are in their purest form in Taiwan look it up—I know I know
Has declared war on the US if any one bothers to pay attention. Yes. Better a break up now than
Later. Sorry Silicon Valley. Not that you will lose since google and Facebook out the Chinese market before America which is kinda funny given the lonnnngggg centuries old history of the sale to China and be rich rich rich fairy tale of greed capitalism that just somehow never worked out
Yet I cannot make allies with anyone from the AEI which has its own track record.
Couldn't agree more. These proposed steps should have been taken years, if not decades, ago. Of course, the US has been a military-civil fusion (Eisenhower's Farewell Address warned us not to become one). It has always been a Hobbesian world. Time for our leaders to recognize that fact. Trump and his cohort of clowns are not the solution.
4
AEI has been very aggressive in promoting neoliberal economics and hyper-globalization for the past 25 years, which together enabled the absolutely stunning rise of China, and the corresponding decline of America.
It takes a lot of nerve for two guys from AEI to now start moving towards a direct confrontation, simply because China played them like a violin. For decades.
They were simply one more group of useful idiots for China, that willingly betrayed the American middle class. And they did it in plain sight. Loudly and proudly.
China would have been stupid to have done anything other than what it did: let American elites sell out America to China for basically a cup of coffee.
These people have been wrong. About everything. For decades.
And now not only America but virtually the entire developed world is in turmoil as a result.
And the drums of war can be heard growing louder off in the distance.
Why on earth would anybody care what they think about how to deal with China?
4
@TB I completely agree with you about this group AEI however, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
1
another way of isolating the United States from the world.
3
Human survival on this planet has now become a battle between two systems of thought and governance; one the American now under President Trump and the Republican Party based on Western Neo-Liberalism and the other the Chinese under Premier Xi Jinping based on a restating of Marxist Socialism. The implications for the future of human civilization are profound. In competition with the American are 1.388 billion Chinese citizens as well as those in Asian nations outside of China. As this battle of ideas is unfolding, globally American power economic and militarily and by extension its “Western” value system is diminishing. One reason is that the American Neo-Liberal system of belief gives full rein to the dark neurotic psychotic side of the human impulse. That impulse is in a sense driven by narcissism. A serious drawback is that it is ethically problematic. At the other end of the spectrum is the Chinese form of thought which on the surface would appear to counteract the American human weaknesses.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
1
Your illustration fails to include a large part of the Chinese imperialists' territory, the South China Sea, which they claim based on some long ago dynasty's occasional explorations of the area.
Googled "American Enterprise Institute donors" and this link came up as the first one: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Enterprise_Institute
Interesting read, and it looks like these people would profit handsomely if a conflict between the U.S. and China broke out.
The message is a repeat of what we know (all of China's infractions), and the messenger is untrustworthy (AEI, a right wing think tank that has only one goal regardless of what it espouses - i.e., the continuation of lynching by other means while protecting the rights of the lynchers).
The proposed solutions too - are nonsense, inadequate, and ultimately dysfunctional. They will barely wound the bear.
Solutions exist, but the American spine is now a limp noodle.
First off, can Americans live without Walmart (and I mean that as a metaphor for cheap goods)? $200 tablet computers? Let's try building them here, or source them to friendly countries. We ought to, but can we?
Second, China's weakness is banking and finance (crony capitalism). We can mess with their banks; we can ban them from the global marketplace. Would bring them to heel at once.
Third, our cyber punks could mess up their grids, lock up their systems until they cry 'my mother's brother.' We can. Will we? We can blockade Malacca. We can occupy S. China sea islands. We can sink one of their naval vessels to make a point. Will we? Options exist, the will doesn't.
Everything we seem to know how to do well globally seems to require either a destroyed Europe that wants to live in peace (after 1945), or a hopelessly weak and corrupt Soviet Union. An adversary that is wily, rich in resources, and will do anything - is a new one for us. We need to learn fast, and embrace pain. Can we?
1
This is the trade partner you want so badly. Every corporation that has done business in China is lured in with cheap labor then the Americans must hand over all technology and data and control to a Chinese “partner”. And right before Christmas Chinese always demand a sudden hand over of cash to release manufactured goods. Greedy American investors know the score but are like those Americans who sold repeating rifles to Sitting Bull before Little Big Horn. Money is all that matters. Henry Paulson are you reading this? China just killed its first Nobel Peace Prize winner. Just like Germany in 1935. What do you think China does with its ill-gotten gains? Send thank-you notes to Americans? Or build islands, aircraft carriers, blockade the South Asia Sea, use loans to set up military bases around the world? Wake up people.
4
I was born in China and I feel one important thing not mentioned in this article is to improve our own competitiveness. Unfortunately this is not emphasized in media because of many reasons. But if we want our high tech products to work and our Education system to produce positive contribution to the society, we need to use merit as our major criteria in many aspects of our society.
5
No one can stay at number 1 forever. That is history lesson no 1.
A rival by definition means that they too want to be no 1.
So let the rivalry begin and may this rivalry benefits the rest of the world as each country courts nations.
2
Another hogwash opinion from a Washington anti-globalist thinktank. There are more to China's success in lifting themselves from poverty other than "cheating and stealing". Mostly, they are able to move up the food chain by investing in infrastures, education, better healthcare, etc. And yes, they work hard too!
Now that they are about to overtake America as the biggest market and are ahead in many areas of science and technology, why not copy them and invest heavly in our own children's education and future instead of more tax cuts.
Sadly, that's not in the mind of a xenophobic and fear mongering Trump. He is obsessed with walls!
7
Trashing the TPP was yet another foolish GOP foreign policy bungle, although not as bad as tearing up the Iran nuclear deal. The United States needs to work closely with its like-minded allies. This may result in not-perfect deals, but those deals certainly are better than unsustainable go-it-alone policies, which have devolved into whim-driven fits and starts under his president.
5
Say what? Canada is now an ally again? Wow, that is quite the 180 from the national security threat their steel industry is/was, at least they were 18 months or so ago. And now they’re an ally again. Amazing, right?
3
“The United States should make major adjustments to its economic relationship with China.“ That’s what the TPP was about, yet the equally myopic Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were all against it, either because of ignorance and spite (Trump) or ignorance and ideology (Sanders) or political cowardice (Clinton). In retrospect, the leading candidates were like the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. The Scarecrow needed a brain, the Tin Woodman needed a Heart, and the Lion needed courage. Hillary was the Lion, Trump was a combination of the scarecrow and the Tin Wooodman (I.e. in need of both a brain and a heart), and Bernie was a character from another show—the Tasmanian Devil who makes the Clintons and other cowardly politicians of the world run for their lives.
2
Since the GOP sold their souls to Russia to get power, why shouldn’t the Dems sell out to the Chinese to take power back? Plus, Chinese food is better than Russian food.
1
The authors suggest we work with out allies. That would be Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Israel. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone.
5
@Jeffrey Waingrow
Sad,, but true. Our only allies are the new 'axis of evil.'
The good guys are our former allies, the EU and the nations that are bound together by Obama's TPP to resist China...
Let me count the ways that pulling away from China is not possible in this country:
1. The level of greed displayed by corporate leaders everyday as they execute schemes to defraud the American people, bypass rules, regulations and laws, to enrich themselves. Corporate leaders that consider any fines that may result from their behaviors to be the cost of doing business that should be paid for by customers and/or taxpayers.
2. A Congress filled with white-collar criminals who, by acting or failing to act, pursue power and money at the expense of the people that elected them.
3. Courts that proclaim corporate personhood and anonymous political contributions —dark money— to be free speech protected by the Constitution.
And on and on.
The unfortunate truth appears to be that Lindsey Graham, and other self-proclaimed defenders of our Nation's interests, unabashedly protect a President, who, by all appearances, is nothing more than a huckster/criminal and may very well be our Nation's first traitor-in-chief.
It has been 53 years since I joined the military at 17 to serve my Country and pursue my vision of the American dream and over that time I have witnessed the corruption of American values and the slow destruction of the democratic principles set out by our Nation's Founders.
Some days I wish I had remained young and dumb.
5
”Some industries will have problems finding new suppliers or buyers,“ you write. Softball that juuuuust a little more please.
1
The Trump administration is going to demonstrate international leadership in an effort to limit Chinese economic growth? That’s the premise of this article? Well, somebody should have clued in Donald before he signed that executive order withdrawing the US from TPP. And Trump’s declaration that our closest allies and largest trading partners were security risks then imposed unilateral steel and aluminum tariffs on those same allies have certainly secured their cooperation in trade alliances. If The Times is going to make it a habit of publishing such drivel you’re going to need a humor section.
And frankly, having lived and worked (technology delivery no less), in China for many years this article is 20 years too late, woefully inaccurate and misleading (western public sector companies don’t have defense contracts?).
Our country would benefit from emulating Chinese infrastructure implementation and working with our allies than any of the proposals put forth in this article.
2
@DWS"And frankly, having lived and worked (technology delivery no less), in China for many years" I guess you will be on the wrong side when the war comes.
If the Chinese can see which way the wind is blowing in the states, they'll simply wait-out Trump. The growing crisis of confidence in the US, over Trump, will come to a crescendo eventually.
DT will declare a raging success over China no matter what. Just like Nafta, N Korea, the Wall, Putin, Hillary, Comey, Stormy. You name it.
Q. How can you tell he's lying?
A. His mouth is moving.
2
China is as dangerous as US makes it to be, or need it to be. There is a time for people to look at themselves and stop blaming others.
5
Rarely do I totally agree with an Op-Ed article in the New York Times. This one is 100% correct. You never, ever deal with a Communist government as with a democracy, no matter how powerful it is.
2
Agreed.
However, RUSSIA is a far more dangerous rival, because Vlad Putin has his guy inside the White House.
2
The Chinese and global warming are our true national (and international) emergencies that need to be radically and urgently addressed. But greed and short-term thinking will surely stymie any chance of abating utter ruin from a Chinese-overlorded sweltering smog-ridden "life".
3
This is different from the Steve King thing: it's not about Mexico.
1
The Chinese relationship to the truth and basic ethics is non-existent. They are pathological liars, have no regard for human rights, animal welfare, the environment or even the remotest sense of fair play. Forget trade deals, they should be sanctioned heavily and isolated from the international community until they learn to act like decent human beings.
2
Being sharply adversarial while being simplistically abstract just doesn’t cut it...
“...Some industries will have problems finding new suppliers or buyers, and there are entrenched constituencies that support doing business with China. They argue that any pullback could threaten economic growth...
Are you talking about soybeans or sophisticated SoC’s???
In both cases, we’ve let things get to the point where others can produce equivalent volumes at lower costs...
“...The cost of reducing Chinese imports is harder to assess, but there are multiple countries that can substitute for China-based production, none of them strategic rivals and trade predators...
Running shoes or rare earths???
Put a pin in DC and draw a circle with a 2500 mile radius...
Probably encompasses about 500M people (am spitballing this on Google Maps)
Draw the same size circle around Hanoi (or Hong Kong, metaphorically) – probably more than 4B people within...
Several times as many people – and several times as hungry...
We’ve made a joke out of our century-old power grid technology – trying to pump power in and out of it like it was a next-century Internet for energy...
The Chinese are well along in implementing a nation-scale HVDC grid – one that appears to be looking to a future with nuclear power, as well as hydro, for baseload supply...
Most fundamentally, they seem to simply be copying what Warren Buffett did for decades...
Any US patents on Warren ran out, a while back...
1
The Chinese get their technology the old fashioned way, they steal it.
3
Such Op-Eds belong in right-wing, Neocon-Zionist publications, not in the NYT.
What do the authors expect the Chinese to do after relentless global military and commercial belligerence by the U.S.A.? The military belligerence needs no further clarification. The commercial belligerence extends to brazen blackmail even against its own allies: Just recently the U.S. threatened to blacklist any German companies participating in the Nord Steam 2 gas pipeline, insisting that Europe should secure its energy needs from the U.S..
Europe should treat America like a 'dangerous rival' and wean itself off U.S. Dollar dependency, so that it is no longer a vassal wholly subservient to U.S. political whims that change like the weather in April.
China is pursuing its own interests and focussing on commercial hegemony, symbolised by the $ 8 trillion Belt and Road project. The U.S. has spent $ 13 trillion on useless wars that have merely created more enemies across the globe.
If you are looking for partners, change your behaviour, focus on construction (at home and abroad) and stop bombing anything that moves.
4
Sooo... AEI, what’s the GOP States’ plan to stop funding universities with Chinese students’ parents’ out-of-state tuition and start self-funding their own universities? I must have missed it.
Oh right.
Who needs an educated population..they don’t vote right.
This op-ed placement must be the start of something big.
I feel a neo-con warmongering con coming on and that is not going to be good for the planet.
While I'm definitely not a big fan of the current Chinese dictatorship, I would like to point out that the authors of this article are employed with the American Enterprise Institute which is a far-right neoconservative organization. It always pays to look at the source of op-eds in the media.
2
Masters of passive aggression abroad and suppression at home- takeover of South China Sea with coast guard and fishing vessels, Africa with port, land, and infrastructure/ sovereign debt "loans", supplier of weapons and munitions in Middle-east to US adversaries, Third Opium War by supplying unlimited, unregulated fentanyl to drug cartels in US (deaths far exceed 35,000 Korean War fatalities so far). They are assembling world-wide strategic (dual-use) ports and bases:Panama Canal!, Suez Canal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Greece. Yet world financial markets and western corporations keep writing a blank check for market access that seldom materializes. Russian ops made U.S. call off "pivot to Asia" which would have helped; cancellation of TPP trade pact needs to be re-examined in light of Trump-Russia nexus.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/02/why-is-china-buying-up-europes-ports/
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/china-buying-ports-influence-across-europe-26210
1
Bankruptcy. You forgot about bankruptcy. China's greatest threat to the U.S. Declaring that we're bankrupt. Silly? Today, sure. Tomorrow? Probably. Eventually? Certainly!
This opinion piece is ridiculous. Out of some absurd loyalty to the utter fiction of "free" market economics, the authors refuse to use the time-tested, most obvious, most direct, most effective, and most efficient technique of trade policy -- tariffs. Instead they propose an absurdly expensive, intensely bureaucratic, and wildly inefficient expansion of the intelligence services.
@reserveporto Tariffs are good for no one. Econ 101
I’m not going to argue about the past, because what is most wrong about this article is its solution for the future. Chinese strength today is not because they’re stealing it all from us. It’s because they are a formidable technological and geopolitical adversary.
If we want to compete with China we had better concentrate on getting our own house in order. Demonizing foreigners, including the ones underpinning high-tech, starving education, and denying climate change are all to the point. MAGA is a nostalgic trip down memory lane that seems to forget about the future.
I personally don’t believe that starting a trade war is a good way to get better behavior from China, but you don’t have to agree with me to see that the continued rabble rousing about China is bad. It just blinds us to what it will take to succeed.
4
Tariffs and other economic sanctions have a significant impact on China's ability to fund their military expansion. That is a tremendous positive for the US and the world. It's also one of the reasons President Trump is not concerned about leaving sanctions in place until he gets the trade deal he wants from China. As the article states, the impact to the US of reducing trade with China (even up to 50%) has a minimal impact on our economy while having a significant impact on the Chinese economy.
2
@Jedimaster If the US President were more popular with our allies, we would be able to enlist them in this effort. As it stands, we can't ask Europe to help force China to reduce intellectual theft. Why? Because the President is so unpopular that no European leader can afford to follow him. Without Europe, it will be much harder to persuade the Chinese to reduce intellectual theft.
2
The so-called trade dispute is for many not about trade at all. It is about ending trade. Specifically, to cut off the US economy from the Chinese economy, so that we could have a war.
10
@Mark Thomason Too little, too late.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
1
@Mark Thomason
Absolutely Mark. This is the latest buildup in the slow-motion car wreck that is escalating US-China tensions in the worst case scenario - which seems to be unfolding -our inherent nativism, selfishness, xenophobia and very human stupidity are going to render us helpless to prevent. Problem with this joke is nuclear missiles are the punch line.
3
@Dad
And the cost to China? MAD is still a thing.
When I was doing business in China, 20 years ago, joint ventures were the thing. Our Hong Kong-based attorney shared with us that in China the saying was "you join, we venture."
2
Nixon opened that door to short sighted American business's that saw only profit. China was happy to oblige, steal our ideas, enforce partnerships with those who set up shop in China, and eventually have us so committed that they can make the rules. Nixon's rose colored glasses will be a painful unwind for the US. Yes, fortunes have been made, but China has clearly signaled that the party is over due to the slow American awakening. China's new terms will harsh, they are not out to make friends.
We taught them well how to do it.
2
China has always taken the long view: Total World Domination. Center of the world is in the name.
@Lee Mac
"China has always taken the long view: Total World Domination"
Five thousand years is a lot of waiting. Alexander the Great achieved most of that in seven years.
1
To me, this pathos-charged opinion piece, just shows once again how self-acclaimed liberal democracy preachers and practionners shaping the "agora" of ideas could morph, all too easily and perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, into dogmatic doxa merchants.
China was and is no saint. Numerous tragedies and mistakes she has committed and will likely continue to commit. To fair-minded observes though, many of these same tragedies and mistakes can arguably be rightly perceived as reactive moves by China to outside events, pressures, forces and momentums.
Indeed, the so-called China's "aggression" , economic, political or otherwise, if provable at all, could perhaps be profitably read as China's response, willed or unwilled, to Uncle Sam's "smart" covert or overt "aggressions" against her, on the fronts of trade, politics, security and otherwise. These include, arguably, the pivot to Asia policy and the concomitant TPP and other grand strategies.
That Uncle Sam should ultimately opt to contain a rising China by decoupling, as championed by the authors, should probably prove no comfort to the rest of the world, still less India, another aspiring, rising non-Western great power.
At the end of the day, Uncle Sam might prove himself his own most dangerous rival.
26
@Dubitamus China killed approx. 10,000 students in Tienamen Square - the US should bolster the rest of the world by entering into trade alliances like the TPP, which Trump killed and 12 nations subsequently formed without us.
7
@Dutch
While the number of the victims is certainly disputable, it is hardly disputable that the Tiananmen Square tragedy proves a national trauma that keeps haunting us here in China today.
Many have argued for an official, frank acknowledgement and mourning of this tragic event, but the jury is still out on if and when this will occur.
At any rate, future remembrance will probably include a mention of the fact the local commander disobeying the momentous, divisive order has been humanely and mightily protected. And perhaps also of the anecdote that young soldiers ordered to prosecute the tragedy cried...
We Chinese are not angels. Nor are we Satans.
Amen.
3
@Dubitamus
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
6
The genie is out the bottle. Trying to contain China now is going to be next to impossible. We actively participated in the nourishment of its “state capitalism” model without any countervailing checks (for democratic progress) and balances (in human rights) over the past three decades. Tiananmen Square in 1989 could have been a tipping point but we failed to act.
China now has a president for life – the wheel has come full circle in its political cycle, the only difference being that under Chairman Mao Tse Tung, China was a poor country without economic power or military might. Under President Xi, China is on the verge of becoming a superpower.
Unlike the Soviet Union, which was trying to propagate communism as an economic and political model in second and third world nations, China is trying to dominate third world nations through its economic might. So, trying to “to blunt Beijing’s belligerence” through intervention in global markets will come at a significant cost that western business world will be unwilling to pay.
40
I do not disagree. But what could the West have done differently in ‘89 after Tianamen? The way the Wallstreet boys marched into Post-Soviet Russia eventually gave us the right wing oligarchy of Putin. Different approach, same result.
6
@Jack Nargundkar
I blame Nixon's Detente.
1
@Jack Nargundkar So, we just capitulate? Great leadership skills there buddy.
After reading through the comments, I suppose I simply do not understand this matter. I find in China a welcome American friend and perceive no "danger" in our years of trade with China, but readers generally think otherwise as do the writers of this essay.
My experience with Chinese acquaintances and friends has been wonderful and beneficial, but I suppose my experience and knowledge of China and America as fine friends is an illusion. I do not understand.
16
@Nancy Don't mistake the views of the Chinese and American peoples (as much as they each can be viewed as a monolith) as being aligned with the views of their corresponding governments/leaders/rulers.
I think overall it is better to make friends than enemies, and even frenemies is better than costly wars (of any sort). I think in the very long term, democracy (whether representative or otherwise) is the only form of government that makes sense.
I have fairly unique views about IP but I will point out that the US did the same things (being a hypocrite about which IP to protect and which to "steal") during its rise to power.
The threat from China is its anti-democratic form of government. The US is also seeing a similar kind of threat. There will always be those who prefer the quick solutions of authoritarianism to the slow workings of representative government but only so long as the authority doesn't go against them and theirs, which it can, any time.
7
@RamS
A fine helpful comment for which I am grateful, and I surely consider the people of the 2 countries to be natural friends.
1
@Nancy The issue is not the many wonderful people like your friends, the issue is a communist authoritarian government that has been problematic for some time but has taken a sharp turn for the worse under current leadership. There had been legitimate reason for hope to productively engage China, but that hope has been dashed and as current leader Xi Jinping is arranging for lifetime rule we can no longer hold out hope.
7
"We need to untie the American economy from China." Easier said than done. The world's two largest economies are inextricably tied to each other, as are all others despite Trump's trade wars and other attempts at isolationism. Globalism is here to stay and any attempts to set back the clock are as futile as King Canute's attempts to hold back the tide.
1
The authors make many salient points, as do many readers in their comments. But I disagree with one important premise: that reducing trade with China will result in a reduced level of IP theft.
Why should this be so? If US companies and government have knowledge, methods, and other valuable secrets, the Chinese will want them and will steal them, whether or not we trade with them. In fact, it is possible that by not trading with China, and reducing their means of obtaining IP fro US companies without hacking, covert IP theft will increase, not decrease.
IP theft, and hacking in general, poses an existential threat to the US and it’s economy. It is time to take this problem seriously. Besides measures to confront rogue countries, we must make serious efforts of defense. Let’s start by making a new cabinet-level department on cyber security with an independent budget. Let’s have the Government announce that it will stop purchasing commercial operating systems unless they are rebuilt in a way that walls off the file structures from the outside internet. Let’s make it possible, nay easy, for consumers to sue companies for damages when their data are stolen. These measures, and many more that our brilliant cadre of computer scientists can devise, will begin to protect us.
13
@Gary Swergold -- You are right about IP theft. However, that is the excuse, not the reason, for the path urged by these "experts."
They want to overcome China, and control the region right up to its shoreline, while changing China's internal politics too.
I needn't like China's politics or ideas any better to see why they object to this approach.
3
@Gary Swergold: Everyone I know who's making oodles of money now is doing so in cyber security. It's a work in progress, and if money is any indication, it is being taken very seriously.
@Gary Swergold, USA itself in19th
century stole many technologies
from England. Many American
industrialists used to visit England
to observe their manufacturing
operations and copy them upon
return. It is very difficult to fund
large research operations to invent
products when the country is
poor. Now China is rich, they are
pouring money into research and
development of new technologies.
This is what making America anxious. They know deep down
that China will be competitive in
the new advanced technologies,i.e,
AI, robotics, quantum computing,
aerospace and bio tech just to
mention a few.
1
Amen! (Where have you guys been?)
The US should purchase from American farmers all unsold soybeans from this years' crop and convert it to bio-diesel. Next year, the US should encourage/pay the farmers to plant only enough soybeans for national consumption and that of our allies; give the fields a rest, its good for the environment.
The West's economic relationship with China should revert to that which existed when President Reagan was in office. When China's government renounces Communism and embraces free elections and individual freedoms, the West can negotiate a new relationship with the resulting country(ies) in China.
1
Everything mentioned by Mr. Scissors and Mr. Blumenthal is correct!
Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that they watered down the threat that China possess to their neighbors and to the world. With this said, I am of the belief that none of their proposals will be implemented due to the fractured/polarized political situation in our country.
First, any action proposed and/or taken will be too little too late!
Second, we don't have any leaders from either side who are qualified to deal with this growing threat!
Third, it is only a matter of time before China rams one of our Navy's ships or damages one of our military's aircraft and our countries weakness will be become apparent to the world!
Fourth, China's takeover of Taiwan will be sudden and complete. Despite promises and laws, our country won't be in a position to do anything. I wouldn't be surprised that as this happens, North Korea would act up as a diversion!
Fifth, our country just doesn't have the stomach for this situation. In fact, all one has to do is read all of the negative comments on the NYT and other websites to see that the support is lacking and that a lot of people will be taken by surprise as these crises develop. We lost the fight!
Sixth, despite assurances/beliefs, our country doesn't have the military/equipment to deal with flare-ups anymore. We wasted resources on useless F-35's, Ford Class Super Carriers and Littoral Combat Ships that just don't work and never will work as advertised!
2
Chinese inventors filed twice as many patent applications as their US colleagues in 2017. China is in the lead in crucial sectors, such as AI. Time to steal back?
The UN declaration of human rights consists of 30 articles. Considering all of these articles makes it impossible for any country to throw human rights in the face of others, without considerable hypocrisy.
From outside it seems that a clever way for US to counteract China would be to end all wars and start an own Belt and Road initiative.
1
We keep hearing about rampant theft of US technology by China. Yet, it's not theft, it's voluntary. Businesses are voluntarily making deals with China that require them to hand over technology. This editorial claims that other countries could replace China as a supplier. If this is true, why are companies making deals with China that require them to hand over technology when they can make the same deal elsewhere and not hand over technology? Seems to me that this think tank isn't thinking so clearly. Indeed, this editorial borders on irrational. China is both an economic competitor of the United States and an economic partner. They will eventually have the largest economy on this planet. These realities shouldn't spawn such hysterical rants. We need clear-headed thinking when it comes to China. That process begins with telling the truth and not repeating Trumpian nonsense. China it's not stealing American technology. On top of that, I've not seen or heard of one example of said theft. Rather, we continue to get this rhetorical chatter.
4
To fully comprehend the enormity of American craven cowardice and greed regarding its relationship with China, one needs to watch the end of the film "Angel Heart." When Robert De Niro's devil explains to the anti-hero "Herald Angel" that he has eaten up his soul already and that his arrival in Tophet is imminent. But no. MIllions of Americans will candy crush their way into a similar tropical abode blissfully unaware of the true nature of our relationship with the dragon called China. A dragon that Napoleon himself 2 centuries past warned the French would make the rest of the world sorry once it awakened.
1
China has quietly gone about buying up what we and other countries willingly sell to them and investing in infrastructure in third world countries that will ultimately be unable to pay and will have Chinese landlords for a long time to come. China has been quietly colonizing the world while our great leader shuts down the government and wastes money on wars and alls.
Here is where China has been influential:
Laos, hydroelectric, likely destroying the lives and habitat of many of the people along the Mekong River.
Hongcouver, my hometown. They bought it cheap, drove up the real estate prices and now actual Canadians cannot afford to live there. Last year in Hong Kong, every single person I met had a Canadian passport. Every, single one! I can no longer afford to live in my country, thanks Canada.
Australia....Canada 20 years ago. Watch out, when you start seeing one bedroom condominiums in Perth starting at a million. They also own the largest dairy.
New Zealand - 1.5 Billion in real estate. They also hanker for the forests.
Malaysia - it's been fully colonized and the horse has left the barn.
Sri Lanka - Chinese built port, now leased to them.
Kenya - Nairobi to Mombasa train line that Kenya will never to be able to pay for. Chinese labor brought in to build.
USA- they own our debt and a lot of real estate. There is also a thriving birth tourism industry.
Jamaica - All grocery stores, owned by Chinese interests.
Cambodia - Fully owned.
... and on...scared yet?
2
@thewriterstuff All those countries that you mentioned should nationalize Chinese property at the same exact moment. Any Chinese residents that cannot prove how they made their money legally need to have their Canadian, Australian, US, European NZ and any other countries taken back and they themselves deported.
Everything mentioned by Mr. Scissors and Mr. Blumenthal is correct. Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that they watered down the threat that China posses to their neighbors and to the world. With this said, I am of the belief that none of their proposals will be implemented due to the fractured/polarized political situation in our country.
First, any action proposed and/or taken will be too little too late!
Second, we don't have any leaders from either side who are qualified to deal with this growing threat!
Third, it is only a matter of time before China rams one of our Navy's ships or damages one of our military's aircraft and our countries weakness will be become apparent to the world!
Fourth, China's takeover of Taiwan will be sudden and complete. Despite promises and laws, our country won't be in a position to do anything. I wouldn't be surprised that as this happens, North Korea would act up as a diversion!
Fifth, our country just doesn't have the stomach for this situation. In fact, all one has to do is read all of the negative comments on the NYT and other websites to see that the support is lacking and that a lot of people will be taken by surprise as these crises develop!
Sixth, despite assurances/beliefs, our country doesn't have the military/equipment to deal with flareups anymore. We wasted resources on useless F-35's, Ford Class Super Carriers and Littoral Combat Ships that just don't work and never will work as advertised!
We lost the fight!
Everything mentioned by Mr. Scissors and Mr. Blumenthal is correct. Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that they watered down the threat that China possess to their neighbors and to the world. With this said, I am of the belief that none of their proposals will be implemented due to the fractured/polarized political situation in our country.
First, any action proposed and/or taken will be too little too late!
Second, we don't have any leaders from either side who are qualified to deal with this growing threat!
Third, it is only a matter of time before China rams one of our Navy's ships or damages one of our military's aircraft and our countries weakness will be become apparent to the world!
Fourth, China's takeover of Taiwan will be sudden and complete. Despite promises and laws, our country won't be in a position to do anything. I wouldn't be surprised that as this happens, North Korea would act up as a diversion!
Fifth, our country just doesn't have the stomach for this situation. In fact, all one has to do is read all of the negative comments on the NYT and other websites to see that the support is lacking and that a lot of people will be taken by surprise as these crises develop. We lost the fight!
Sixth, despite assurances/beliefs, our country doesn't have the military/equipment to deal with flare-ups anymore. We wasted resources on useless F-35's, Ford Class Super Carriers and Littoral Combat Ships that just don't work and never will work as advertised!
This is rich coming from AEI which did do much to encourage and legitimize the "free market" philosophy that raises "shareholder value" above all else. What do you think moved the tooling factories, dies and lathes,over to China?
With the current course both countries are now on, there will be a miscalculation, and then there will be War.
1
Till today, few Americans are brave enough to rethink their own political system, which is dysfunctional as demonstrated in the government shutdown. When the Americans are taught to hold strong belief in democracy and even play along with the efforts to demonize China, they lost the chance to take a hard look at China and the merit of its plitical system, which is highly efficient and good at long planning. The absolute majority of Chinese people support their government and their country. They are known for their tiger moms - emphasis on education and working hard. Why shouldn't their country, the largest in population and the longest unterrupted civilization, be the most powerful one? Why can't the rise of China be accepted by some Ameircans? Because the Chiense are colored people? They are not part of WASP? They are not Christains? Trump talks about fair compeititon, where is fair cimpetition? The US is cracking down Huawei globally withouth any single piece of evidence! What we are seeing is the total moral collapse of the world's only superpower.
2
President Obama focused on Asia with the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement which Individual-1 immediately trashed.
Decades ago U.S. corporations willingly entered the Chinese market with full knowledge that China is a state-controlled country which would steal their IP. U.S. corporations were earning so much money (while minimizing their U.S. taxes and moving jobs to China) that they didn't care if their IP was stolen. Now U.S. corporations, while paying even less in U.S. taxes, are whining about stolen IP and have their hands-out for corporate welfare demanding the U.S. government help them.
I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars paying for U.S. corporate welfare when these corporations cut jobs, destroy our environment and pay little to no taxes.
In addition, where are the deplorables going to buy their cheap, plastic products if Wal-mart can't stock its shelves?
2
Guess what? Trump already sold out his country. Guess what else? So did the GOP. It is now irrelevant whether China is a "rival."
1
I happened to be a nuclear weapons officer in the US Navy but only saw mock ups and never the real thing. I basically knew how to order them and because I had a safe in my room, was one of the keepers of the firing code.
Years later when I read in the NYT about Wen Ho Lee and how he stole the secrets of how to MIRV a trans continental missile and how in China he was treated royally by their leaders. The CIA did their job and reported this to their home office but the FBI apparently did not see any issue here. Here at one fell swoop the Chinese now could put several hydrogen bombs on their missiles and hold the world at bay with no cost to them.
Yes the trade talks are important but FAIR Trade and not free trade. Having experience with Asians and their bent on stealing all manner of technology from the West, I once attended an international packaging in Chicago - Pack Expo - and the leader of Pentapack and I walked down an aisle of 30+ virtually identical Chinese booths and he pointed our which country developed each of these technologies. We will not sell to the US Govt. simply due to the requirement that complete blue prints be included for each bid.
Yes, every time someone applies for a US Patent, the best and brightest design engineers in Japan and China file a carefully designed competing patent within 24 hours of the US Patent request. For several years the Chinese have been trying to replicate our packaging system and have yet to make it work.
So Canada is a US ally! Trump sure has a funny way of treating an ally.
1
Comments from Americans, Australians... all seem to focus on the U.S. vs China issues.
Wake-up!
Look at what China has done to Ecuador’s economy, to Venezuela, to multiple countries in Central America & a dozen in Africa in just 10-12 years.
China took advantage of plummeting oil prices and the worldwide economic catastrophe (where the IMF, World Bank... all failed to renegotiate debt obligations), and have locked-in billions in loans at outrageous interest rates — which will never be repaid.
This isn’t about the U.S., or Trump. It wasn’t Obama’s fault, but he was in office as the balance of power shifted ((forever)).
China has already won; that war is over. Foolish to talk about how to win an already lost war. That's childish alt-reality denial.
Strategically all the US can do is to position for second place. We can do well in second-place, it's not bad. There are many second-place countries in Europe where life is not so bad.
We lost because we did not keep up. We were outplayed, outwitted, and outlasted. Did not have a chance really.
Consider that the Chinese kid studies or is in school for 74 hours a week. Then they work the old 9-9-6, 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week: a 72 hour/week. We'd not even want to try. Plus Asians are smarter than we are.
China's hard-working population is more than four-times that of the US. Visualize a map of the US, then four more surrounding that first map. Only a fool would not give up.
The emotional idea of intellectual property theft is always marched around - our big comparative advantage. No it's not. IP is obsolete after six months and China innovates ten times faster than Silicon Valley. The real technology transfer was paid as university tuition. Did you think they would not use it?
But we're mired in democracy and they are not. Their command economy is run by engineers, ours is not. Plug in AI and they will take off exponentially.
Their large base of domestic consumers is a sustainable competitive advantage we cannot overcome.
The US is a dead country walking, we must negotiate surrender terms and just get it over with.
1
Those who think that Russia is our greatest geopolitical rivals are either ideologues or fools. China is our only peer rival; she will do whatever is necessary to rise; and her rise will not be peaceful. John Mearsheimer puts it best: this is the tragedy of great power politics.
Not even once did the authors of this article mention the effect that computerized robotics have played in taking away American jobs. What planet have they been on while robotics have displaced the American worker?
From now on I shall skip articles postured by the American Enterprise Institute as just more propaganda to make Trump's buddies richer.
1
@Texexnv Technologies such as robotics are a legitimate reason for job loss but that is not the subject of this article. There is nothing in this article about making anybody richer. Decoupling from China, as the authors point out, will have costs in the short run.
As a person from China I feel proud that my mother country has become increasingly stronger to make countries like America feel threatened.
This is what happens when profit is placed above national interest. We can only blame our unchecked and immoral form of capitalism.
America thinks in terms of short term profits-what is the next quarter going to be like, how did we do today in sales, etc.,In China the thinking is what will the next decade be like, how will our sales be 25 years from now. The thinking is totally different.
We are short, very short term thinkers, they are long term thinkers. The last time we were long term thinkers is when Eisenhower had the nations roads built across America. We cannot bite our nose to spite our face. This current opinion article offers no real long term solutions. The argument as to how the Chinese treat their citizens pales in comparison as to how we give excessive prison sentences to black people as against white-let alone how many more blacks are in prison then white-let alone the racist remarks from our "Leader". Should we cut our relations with the Saudis after its King ordered the death of one of our residents. Yes dealing with China is a very big issue. Our current government is not equipped to handle the issue. We can't even keep our government open for business. So, until we better understand how we will lead our economy into the future-we will never be able to deal with China. China is not the problem-we are.
3
This article shows why China never should be allowed into the WTO. Those protesters in Seattle nearly 20 years ago were absolutely right. China is a thuggish totalitarian enterprise that abuses its own people so it thinks it can do that to the rest of the world with impunity. The Bush and Obama administrations looked the other way for sixteen years. Time to decouple from China and encourage our allies to do the same. China is not about to change since their military is calling the shots.
So do they think they can get Trump to understand he needs allies to confront China and their propensity for intellectual property theft? Mr. I can alone solve this or that problem and all things are simple just trust me I have a plan but I wont tell you? Come now the rest of the world is appalled and laughing at our reality television president and just waiting for his time in office to end. Trump is like the handy man whose toll chest contains nothing but a hammer and a screwdriver.
1
Like it or not, Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States of America, is the only US President since Nixon opened the postwar door to China to stand up to China. I suggest that people read The Hundred-year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America As the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury, a former US diplomate/spy and current advisor to President Donald J. Trump on China, to understand how the US provided China with much dual-use technology and other materials to bring it up to 20th century standards in hope that it would be an ally of sorts against the USSR. Boy, did China play the USA for the fool! Yes, China is a dangerous rival and the USA should treat it like one, but it is a dangerous rival of the USA's own making. Thank God, Donald J. Trump is pushing back. I support the President. I support Trump. America First! MAGA! Thank you.
2
This article is spot on.
In addition to what the authors say, we need to let go the idea that engagement with the West will "change China." Anyone with a nodding acquaintance of Chinese history, knows that China has always been suspicious of foreign influence. China's policy of intellectual property theft is brilliant for China, or at least the Chinese Communist Party, because it has allowed China to take what they wanted from the West without relaxing its vice grip on political power. Its adoption of the Internet -- while comprehensively censoring content the Party dislikes -- is a perfect illustration. No way would the Internet be allowed to open China to foreign ideas. But it does make Chinese commerce efficient.
The American policy of "engagement" and "win-win solutions was shown to be naive and foolish from its inception under the GHW Bush and Clinton Administrations. China started the game of grabbing American IP when the then financially troubled McDonnell Douglas Corp., was allowed to transfer aircraft technology - aircraft technology! - to China in the early '90s. From that point forward China's policy was set, and no one can blame them. NB, at the time, China was trying to build airliners from steel, they were that backward, but thanks to our stupidity, not for long.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/247991-china-where-foreign-owned-companies-go-to-die
1
They definitely are playing a long game We aren't. We're trying to go backwards.
1
The authors work for a Koch Brothers funded think tank. If I'm going to read about what the Kochs think about China, I'd prefer the Kochs to write for themselves.
1
@Jonathan Having read and highly recommend "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer I am familiar with and deeply troubled by Koch brother funding. AEI funding is diverse and there are many independent and quality scholars there. Though I don't always agree with what comes out of the AEI it is silly and incorrect to taint them as Koch brother dupes.
Marxism the Chinese way. XI said this. There is no room for compromise over the long run. He has drawn HIS line in the sand. It is time to understand that. To him economic coexistence with the U.S. is not on his long term calendar. Do not let USA corporate interest (I want my money first) have a big influence regarding these matters. It is up to the U.S. government to combat Chinas path to economic domination.
1
This is what greed and short-sightedness has wrought - surely by the very same ‘free enterprise’ people that the American Enterprise Institute supported. The Chinese simply played upon this greed, tantalizing corporations with visions of billions of new consumers, just as they played Western powers off against each other in the past to stave off invasion. Establishing modern factories in China and willingly surrendering technological secrets for a share of the market (not to mention the accompanying job transfers) were the dumbest moves from an American perspective. Consumers, increasingly squeezed financially, then participated by purchasing the lowest-priced items, further eroding what’s still Made in USA.
Now the horse has left the barn. We’ve lost our factories, and much of the competitive edge we had due to technological innovation and business management superiority.
Always good to see another war mongering editorial in the NY Times.
Really, it does seem that the NY Times wishes the USA to be at war with the entire world at once.
Is there no country that is not a dire threat to the USA in these days of hungry military contractors lobbying for war?
China has grown for four decades without invading even one country that did not threaten them, unlike the USA.
I would say: China should be worried about the US. Who knows when the US might, very unwisely, decide to invade their shores.
2
As much as we'd like China to be a good trading partner and pursuer of benign foreign policies, it will just not happen with Xi the dictator in charge, who censors any criticism and puts thousands in prison camps. Let's not let wishful thinking overtake the reality before our eyes.
Oh just hand over to the Chinese all of our technology, military secrets and other intellectual property and call it a day.
They're going to steal it anyhow. Or perhaps already have.
We've sold out our nation for endless cheap Walmart trinkets and plastic baubles.
So who is not our enemy? Anyone who has interests different from ourselves? For a little no time America had an edge on most of the world wrt China, even after the communists took over.
We did not support the Opium War! Our marine liaison officers walked the Long March! Our Cabrini Order nuns until 1956 ran an orphanage, school, clinic in eastern China. And when it was finally closed, an honor guard escorted Mother Agape on the train to Hong Kong. Matteo Ricci, S.J. had both great respect for China and China respected him and his contributions.
Even during the Korean Conflict, we were not a major enemy like Europe was.
Similarly on the great Russian famine of the early 1920s future President Herbert Hoover organized vast relief and saved millions of life. That was never forgotten by the Russians nor the Chinese. Rep. Thomas E Martin of Iowa organized the Lend Lease program not just for England but also for Russia. Today we forget what all of our leaders said “Russia defeated the Germany.” We were greatly appreciated by Russia for that.
Meanwhile our Army Air Force flew the China hump. Martin circumnavigated by C47 the world at least once (30 days) as he, the unofficial, but real chair, studied the needs of our allies from England to Russia to India and Australia and much in between.
We, India, China, Europe, Russia, Central and Southern America, Africa, and the Middle East all share much in common and not a little in conflict.
Let’s build upon the common and . . .
1
Derek ‘Scissors?’ Slashing swords, knives, and now Scissors AEI never mends, builds, or heals but just stabs and cuts.
1
In addition to the US government's paralysis in protecting America's interests, another main danger is in corporate America's insatiable greed and ignorance. Nobody had forced those companies to open shop in China and also give away their intellectual property!
Remember the days of unipolarity in the 1990’s when omnipotent internationalists told us China would peacefully rise as democratic values took over the world?
Well, Francis Fukuyama’s assumptions in The End Of History have proven themselves to be just as erroneous as when they were published.
The world didn’t change - Machiavellianism still reigned throughout world affairs. Misguided US foreign policy makers thought the global community would bend to their will and they were wrong.
When I saw the authors come from the Randian abyss of the AEI, I got ready for a load of hooey.
I was right. We will not untie ourselves from Chinese manufacturing until Shane and Amber no longer shop for the cheapest trash can at Wal Mart. Good luck!
The auhors’ Ideas would lead us unilaterally into a shooting war, one America, so weak on cyber defense, might lose.
So many countries to confront and so little time! What will the Pentagon do? What, are we taking on China this week? Darn, just when they had us panting for war with Russia! Now the trade war will become a shooting war. . . . . Surely our cup runneth over--with the poisonous brew of suicidal, imperialist militarism. . . . What is chilling about articles like this, is that they no longer much bother with the old malarkey, about the need to fight godless international communist & defend our free enterprise system, etc., since the foreign foes are manifestly as capitalist as we. Now the justification for the future mass slaughter is simply naked greed and commercial rivalries, i.e., "economic aggression." Why are we letting them turn humankind back a century to another World War? America has no reason to fight with China.
1
The companies that chose to manufacture their products in China are forced -- in China -- to play by Chinese rules. Why does that surprise anyone? The Chinese object to our navy patrolling the South China Sea. How would we react to a Chinese navy patrolling the Gulf of Mexico or the sea lanes between Honolulu and San Francisco? Let's get real!
2
This is absurd. The world's two largest economic powers should be working diligently and intelligently to create ties, not break them. Throwing our toys out of the pram because were no longer first will result in us being third, and then fourth, as the rest of the world gets on with it.
27
@Tansu Otunbayeva: We tried that, starting with Nixon. They're eating our lunch. Time to try something else.
1
@Tansu Otunbayeva
Bravo! President Obama's support for the The Trans Pacific partnership was a good idea if we wanted to participate in trade in Asia. But there were complexities that were hard to communicate. Too bad. Republicans weren't interested in letting Obama accomplish anything; the Affordable Care Act incensed them.
Americans too easily think we are entitled to more than we need while the rest of the world falls apart. The world is easily big enough for both China and the U.S. to flourish. WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER. Crazy, adolescent male aggression here at home is what we should worry about.
China has my best wishes as they try to meet the needs of a population that America has no comprehension of.
3
@Tansu Otunbayeva
it is not about the future...besides , it's Superbowl time. who do you like?
Ironic, isn't it, that the same self-proclaimed experts who encouraged American businesses to move operations to China are now railing against China? On the theory that bank robbers make the best security experts, I'll sit back and watch these experts stuff the genie back in the lamp.
6
@Max duPont -- They thought they would end up owning China, and shape its government to be "liberal" like ours as Chinese demanded our political ideas.
Instead, the economic ties prevent real confrontation, and would make war impossible.
They now seek to make war with China economically possible. It is their fall back position, from economic and social media conquest.
There are real issues to sort out. It isn't that the competition is manufactured from thin air.
However, we need to see clearly where these "experts" are taking this. It isn't to win peaceful competition. It is to dominate, at the cost of more killing if that is what it takes.
Rather than figuring out how to compete (we are the "Best" at competition, right, let us figure out how to make China and enemy - it has always worked before.
3
@Marc
Wake up.
Publically held US registered corporations cannot compete with state-subsidized companies that are using stolen intellectual property.
The Chinese Communists are pirates. They just wear suits instead of pirate costumes.
This cow is out of the barn. China is the USA's major trading partner because it's the second largest economy in the which also makes it a natural rival. It was ever thus. We need an intelligent approach to dealing with this problem but we have Trump.
3
@John -- Just before WW1, Germany and Britain were each others' major trading partners. Some wrote that would make war between them impossible, either from economic disruption or sheer cost. Those authors were widely read and believed at the time.
@Mark Thomason
Well there are always some with half baked ideas. The "Some" were not widely believed at the time or or why else did Britain engage in a naval race with Germany...which they won... and establish alliances with its traditional enemies France and Russia? The possibility of war between them was generally considered quite possible indeed probable. This tired old simile often gets trotted out but it's not particularly accurate and it ignores the current existence of thousands of nuclear weapons.
@John -- Actually Britain had paused that naval race, to the extent that Germany essentially caught up. Then there was the panic of "we want 8 and we won't wait" from which time Britain surged ahead with its new "superdreadnoughts" of the 13.5" gun classes.
British opinion was quite volatile during the ten years before WW1.
My point is that intense economic ties are often misunderstood as making war impractical or unlikely, when it remains practical and likely.
Today, some of those seeking to reduce trade are doing so to make such fighting more practical. They need not bother, we could do it anyway. But their motive is to enable confrontation, not to fix our trade relationship.
[The United States economy and its national security have been harmed by China’s rampant theft of intellectual property and the requirement that American companies that want to do business in the country hand over their technology. These actions threaten America’s comparative advantage in innovation and its military edge.]
It's not that simple.
A US patent has only jurisdiction in the US. Sell the same product overseas and unless patent protection has been sought in that country, the US patent itself offers no protection. To gain international protection requires separate efforts entirely.
And as far as America's "comparative advantage in innovation" consider patents applied for in these country:
The State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s
Republic of China (SIPO) received 1.3 million patent
applications in 2016 – more than the combined total
for the United States Patent and Trademark Office
( 605,571), the Japan Patent Office (318,381), the Korean Intellectual Property Office ( 208,830) and the European Patent Office (159,358).
Overall, Asia accounted for 65% of patent applications, North America 21% and Europe 11%.
All this suggests that America's innovation prowess is far less than usually presented.
3
I agree with the article, and believe that we are also funding an army we will have to one day face if we aren't careful.
3
This article is the latest news from the military/industrial complex. American businesses made out like bandits when they moved production to low-wage China. But China also benefitted, and they are on the move with the Belt & Road initiative.
The globe is mapped out showing in-ground wealth--oil, gas, minerals, etc. Countries compete over it. China acts as a government. We seem to put our faith in a coalition of the willing monopolists in Wall St., London and HongKong. China is moving as a unit--we are herding cats.
In the European Union (who are our biggest trading partner) there is a great tug-of-war between nationalists and those who see the benefit of holding together. Wealthy business men want to break it up (with its humanitarian regulations) so they can move in with their low-wage jobs and environmental devastation. Hopefully the E.U. sees the writing on the wall and stands their ground. Then they will be able to make their own decisions regarding China.
Also Russia and the U.S.
3
The writers make some excellent points. Unfortunately under our current regime, you can look at all the key issues such as this one, figure out the smart plays, and then rest assured that that's not what we're doing.
2
This one is very clever. And the source. Its almost as if the writers don't want us to look behind the curtain. So we don't find these three words mentioned at all: South China Sea.
Some 100 years ago, Alfred Thayer Mahan brought to light the importance of seas - navigation, control and freedom for trade and to project power. Our unwillingness (Obama years) and today our inability (Trump years), on this issue leads to this logical conclusion - we are no longer a Superpower. Before we challenge China in the arcane issues of trade and intellectual property, we must sort the issue of South China Sea. There are no gray areas in the SCSea debate. And our policy for 100 plus years has been crystal clear. To understand this, go back to 1700s. When Britain took control of Arabian Sea, raiding any and all non British trade ships, economies of India, Aden to Basra to Beirut collapsed. Today, China has similarly posited itself and stakes are much higher.
Creating this situation today in South China Sea, by this act alone, China has lost all goodwill. Yet, the writers chose to make no mention, focusing instead on little or not so big things.
Sort out the South China Sea, all else will fall in place.
5
@ParagAdalja -- Notice the name, "South China Sea." It is China's coastline. It is just like to them what our own Caribbean coastline is to us.
Remember how we reacted to the Cuban Missile Crisis? China feels much the same way, for many of the same reasons.
Remember how we've invaded so many of the Caribbean islands and coasts? China has not done that, or at least not yet.
In the next 20 years the U.S. and China will find themselves engaged in in a full spectrum war. The result being that if the Chinese are not soundly defeated and the communist government overthrown then within five years there will be a second war which the U.S. will lose. This loss will remove the U.S. from its preeminent place in the world, a shell of its former glory, think of the present day UK or France.
1
@RicoinAFG -- I hope your are wrong, because if we go that way, the US is going to lose.
That is the "land war in Asia" we should not fight. It is against a nation four times our population and a per capita product rapidly getting too close to our own. It is as near as a nation could be without getting closer going the other way around the globe.
Full spectrum war is not the path to success for the US.
You guys are dancing around the real issue that has, is and will continue to prevent any sensible policies to thwart China’s unfair trade practices. The real issue is that our corporate run government will never permit any legislation that is harmful to the bottom line.
4
@Lou Candell -- Yes. Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs game some talks about the TPP that are available on YouTube, and make this point more fully.
They explain in detail that the TPP was not a trade agreement designed to fix trade. It was a limited agreement that would benefit a narrow class of privileged US interests.
Those are the same interests now running this confrontation, for their own narrow benefits.
Yes, we really do have some trade problems. But no, that is not what these interests are trying to fix. They are just out for their own bottom line.
And, how much American debt do they own? Too bad the TPP was vilified and given up. It is true they’ve been doing shady and illegal things but we’re not dealing with the old China. The new China won’t let itself be pushed into a corner by the US.
The powers that be fear internal disruption more than external disruption. They will do whatever it takes to avoid that.
1
@Don -- The TPP would have made that worse, while further enriching those who now benefit from doing that China trade.
China, as the authors contend, is a problem. Having lived there for almost 3 years, I observed that, while they have made dramatic advances, much of what they do is built on theft and illusion. In many respects, what they have created is no more than a house of cards - visit any city and you will see countless unoccupied office and apartment buildings - ghost towns as soon as they are built. Self-reflection and self-criticism are under-developed traits throughout most of the culture - key ingredients to advancement in any successful modern society. Their obsession with saving face will be their downfall as well as the rampant lack of empathy. Yes, they are a less individualistic society than much of the west but their emphasis on community is more about outward impressions and honor and not about caring for the other. And now with the mix of capitalism, greed and materialism only makes this worse. Their animal welfare system is atrocious - they still allow the ritual torture of dogs. And those courageous Chinese individuals who stand up for human/animal rights do so at great risk - need I say more?
6
@MV -- The overbuilt infrastructure is not error. It is a design that is different from our practice.
Remember the movie Field of Dreams, "build it and they will come?" That supply push to enable expansion into ready-built infrastructure is their plan.
They may overdo it, but overshooting the mark is not that serious, because it will eventually be needed, and in the meantime it has stimulated what it seeks.
Only a partial command economy can do this. There are weaknesses inherent in all forms of command economy. However, there are also strengths. We saw those when the US mobilized for WW2, and we see them again as China leaps out of its poverty.
Long term, such a command driven economy will find the weaknesses growing more burdensome and the advantages less advantageous. They are not there yet. They have too much poverty yet to develop, the whole of their inland territory; so far they've only done their coastline.
@Mark Thomason
Yep, I get the mentality of "build it and they will come" - yet it's not working. I witnessed a huge shopping center go unoccupied for 3 years - on the surface beautiful, yet poorly built and now decaying.
@MV -- I have done construction litigation here in the US about shopping malls that were poorly built, and located where land was cheap instead of potential traffic strong. They sat empty while lawyers fought. There are some like that near my town now.
Developers do that, in every system. The micro picture is not the same as the macro picture.
China's growth rate is the macro picture, and today it has sunk to only about four times more than ours, from having been ten times or more.
Of course that is a real change and could signal a problem developing, but it is far from failure in full progress.
Agree.
Also, China's World Trade Organization status as a "developing nation", which provides it real economic advantages in trade - should be revoked.
4
@JL1951 -- China's coastline is no longer "developing." That is a region bigger than the whole of the US. However, China still has an interior that is developing, that has barely begun to develop. When it does, China's economy would tower over the US, as does its population total today.
Do we really want them to develop?
Could we stop them if we really wanted to stop them?
@JL1951
I get it. Just think this is one way to level the playing field.
It’s time we woke up to this reality, that China is a dangerous Enemy, & by all means lets cut all ties with them especially, economic ties. I say this as a person who is dependent upon Chinese products. The authors of this column are correct that Chinese products can be replaced by other countries, who can compete with China & are not threats to our interests.However,Tariffs are not the way.We must continue to purchase off shore if only to keep inflation & costs down.
2
No other country wil join the United States in such a quest. It's naive to think that any third country would view the US and China as anything other that two sides fo the same coin when it comes to trade and the quest for economic hegemony.
6
are americans willing to pay $3.99 for a screwdriver? to not buy from harbor freight, but rather an american owned product. to spend the money it would cost to produce it in this country.
the damage has been done...people are hooked on cheap - and china!
2
What the article suggests is sourcing from other cheap labor countries. For example, Vietnam.
@cossak
No they aren't. I am always looking for products not made in China and am willing to pay more, because generally cheap Chinese is lousy in quality. But one can't find anything else. Wish someone would try to provide it - especially in the area of clothing.
@cossak -- Exactly. Sear's Craftsmen tools were much superior. They are today bankrupt anyway.
20 years too late, China should have never been allowed into the WTO. Biggest strategic mistake ever, bigger than Iraq War 2. Current problem is many American companies are entrenched in China, so dis-tangling the economies will definitely send US stocks into a free fall. But it must be done, US security and future prosperity is too vulnerable right now.
7
China and India manufacture about 80% of the pharmaceutical drugs consumed in America. The last American antibiotic manufacturer closed in 1992. The supply chain integrity within these countries is very questionable. This dependency upon China leaves America vulnerable.
Isn't it in the national security interests of this country for the federal government to create strong incentives for pharmaceutical companies to move their operations back to American soil?
11
@Ralph -- The other 20% is largely made in Israel. It is huge in our generic drug supply.
Why? Extreme tax advantages. It isn't because of cost advantages in Israel's labor force.
We might expect to see the same things in the China and India supply chains. Somebody here is making a lot of money by offshoring production, and it is done in substantial part by financial manipulation of tax obligations.
A reader named "True Norwegian" (from California) is on to something - education. He believes that hordes of Chinese students are learning too much in our schools and then either taking jobs in Silicon Valley that (presumably) should go to real Americans, or going back to China and revealing our secrets to Xi Jinping. This will almost never happen because, except for a small number of elite high schools and universities, very few of our students are allowed to take important subjects such as calculus, physics, or Chinese language. These subjects are thought to be too difficult for most of our American students. but ALL Chinese high schoolers take them.
If we want to compete with China and other rapidly developing countries we need to acknowledge that most of our children are not getting a high-level education and do something to change this serious problem. Pretending that we're still number one in the world in education won't cut it. We need to start making sure that ALL of our children get top-notch educations.
13
Please explain what we do about the fact that China holds approximately 1.3 trillion of our US National Debt and owns significant other non-cash US assets. The opportunities for damaging US economy seem substantial.
6
@Concerned MD The debt China holds could simply be bought up by the Fed. Immediate China threat is to US companies with operations and/or exports to China. Long-term threat is the US falling behind in numerous high-tech sectors, specially A.I., energy, robotics, and weapons.
2
The only thing that can be done: raise taxes or cut services and pay down the debt. The US borrow the money and the US has to pay it back. The US spends about a $370 billion a year on interest on it's debt. Make some tough decisions and short term sacrifices and the debt can at least be reduced. For every 10% of the national debt paid off that's $37bn a year that stops going to interest payments and can be put towards clearing the debt. It's not the whole solution but it's a start. The more work done on the debt and the sooner it's done will make the repayment process easier and cheaper.
The US economy would be much stronger if 80% of the population were RE—employed in new manufacturing supply chains in the US, earning higher wages, the bosses earning lower wages to fund the transition.
Henry Ford understood that only a well-paid working class could afford to buy capital goods (and today that includes education, one of the most expensive capital goods of all, but one with a higher rate of return). How did the American managerial elite forget this and lose its way.
Bring the supply chains home.
11
Put simply, China is not a friend of the US or the West. It is not even a friendly rival. It is an adversary; it seeks not just to strengthen itself, but to weaken the West by obtaining its best assets (its know-how and technology) by hook or by crook and by undermining democracy where expedient for the benefit of the one-party state.
Incidentally, China's leaders must be astounded at their luck that the Western media--and the American media especially--are so thoroughly obsessed with Russia, which by almost every measure is a weakling compared to China.
11
This article is spot on. It is only wishful thinking and our own economic ambition that drive a positive relationship with China. History teaches us the danger of an autocratic economic hegemon which turns into a military hegemon.
5
China’s cyber espionage and P.L.A. Unit 61398 housed In a 12 story building on Datong Road in Shanghai. It’s not a 4H club meeting place. They are prolific, productive pilferers who purloin secrets of others.
Xi Dada’s Celestial hegemony includes a combined industrial trade secrets and patent espionage program. Belt and Road initiative allows placement of a string of espionage pearls. They are a necklace from sea to shining sea.
A facet of this initiative is the absence of FCPA or RICO type niceties. They lubricate, polish, pry and poach using any levers necessary to extract the prize.
Forget 9 dashed lines, it’s 16 and more circumnavigating the globe.
3
Hmm. Finding other trading partners sounds very much like the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement. AEI has consistently called out that withdrawal from the agreement to be a mistake. This opinion piece does not mention the agreement and I can only guess that a more subtle approach is being adopted. How about proposing the Trump Pacific Trade Agreement. Substance and acronym stay the same and it would certainly get support from the administration. Much like changing NAFTA to MCA except even better because it would have that Trump brand synonymous with success.
1
"Previous efforts to assert America’s influence against China, such as the discarded Trans-Pacific Partnership, did not push back effectively on Chinese economic aggression. Working with allies to directly address China’s malfeasance would."
But... "working with allies" is exactly why we needed the TPP--not as a complete solution, but as a logical first-step towards curbing Chinas aggression. Instead, we abandoned current and potential allies... for what? Because Trump and his supporters were too lazy to learn what TPP actually was.
5
Having carefully considered this essay and having read the comments, my experience and knowledge tell me that China and America have been and are friends and should continue to be so and continue to learn from each other. I deeply value my experience with Chinese students as my experience with German or Swedish or South African students.
4
The United States has so much to learn from China, where no one worries about going bankrupt by being unable to pay medical bills and where people are not allowed to bear arms in public.
4
@Robert Dole The US has so much to learn from China? Seriously? Perhaps you refer to loyalty to the party as a requirement. Immediate punishment for free speech critical of the party or it's leaders. A heavily censored internet and denial of access to any sites or searches that might reveal unflattering results about the party. A million or more citizens in 're-education' camps simply because of their religion. Tienanmen Square and the massacre of tens of hundreds for demanding more civil liberties. I could go on, but I doubt you would be convinced in any case.
8
@Robert Dole public health care no longer exists for the great majority of china. go to any village and see...
Should I believe that 1.4 billion people on the other side of the planet are my enemies? Or my "strategic competitors"? Yet, that weird idea is easy to believe if we ignore the distinction between the American government and the American people. As Americans, the people in other countries are not our enemies. The faster and bigger their economies become, the better, nor only for the poor in China and other developing countries, but for us since the products they sell us at low prices make our own lives easier.
How ridiculous would I sound if I suggested that we need to constrain Detroit from getting the technology to make the most advanced non-polluting cars since it's in a different state?
For the rulers, the equation is different. The bigger their national economy, the bigger their military, the more they can play world politics. Then, they sell us on the notion that their enemies or strategic competitors are ours. It used to be the Soviets for some time, then Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., etc. Last year it was No. Korea, but now they are our friends. Now, it's China or Iran.
The rulers have already exterminated millions of innocent people around the world. My advice for young people is not to get suckered into this "enemies" business. As for me, I am way too old for this stuff.
21
If this policy stems from the enmity against China, this will leave the world into turmoil. (After all China would be the biggest economy with matching sophistication in two or three decades whether they steal intellectual properties or not.) It must come from the sympathy with Chinese people. There are quite a few reasons we can be sympathetic to them in general and minorities living in remote regions in special and we could start with righteously demanding China as a responsible member of the United Nations of keeping international norms on human rights and democracy. But I suppose Trump is not an ideal president to start such an initiative.
6
Unprecedented for me to agree with anything from the American Enterprise Institute. So surprise, yes!
8
The authors' core theme that China is a strategic competitor to the US seems accurate, given the agrressiveness of Chinese growth and the opposing systems of governance in both nations.
However, it would be imprudent to assume the pushback from cutting or reducing economic ties to China would be as minimal as the authors seem to suggest. The issue is not merely exports to China, which are a sizable chunk of US exports. It is rather the fact China has become entrenched and essential in the world's global supplies, and so you cannot seriously evade Chinese capital without losing access to many markets. This is beyond the fact that China owns a sizable chunk of US bonds and investments, which China might have to sell if its economy suffers.
This is not to say that the US should not take any action against China, but rather a call to fully acknowledge the costs of doing so, which are at least substantial.
8
Having teared up walking down Hyperion to King junior high in the sixties and now breathing sweet NYC air as a retired vet, civil servant and fortune five hundred worker I am really happy to let S. Korean and Chinese lungs pay the price of globalization. Let their middle classes thrive and hopefully greener lifestyles will come to us all.
Has their ever been a trading relationship that didn't involve intellectual and information transfer. If private entities feel no shame in hiding their income from IP overseas why should we use American power to protect their IP. Is AI controlled by nonaligned multinational corporations less threatening to Americans than Wechat? Putin is by far our biggest security concern.
4
The American Enterprise Institute is urging the US to interfere in free trade and markets and even drag other “allies” into the same cockamamie scheme. It admits the information requirements are enormous but, hey, let’s just wave that part away.
It’s a very strange time to be a conservative.
7
These are some good ideas. Everyday people can do their part by making purchases of things that aren't made in China (yes it is almost possible). Especially from American companies that move there to produce junk at rip-off prices.
4
"China is our only major trade partner that is also a strategic rival"
Excellent one-sentence summary of the difficulty.
What is required for institutions in a free country to put their money where their mouths are?
(China is an unfree country; its instuitions speak and act from government dictate.)
10
Good old American greed is turning the world over to China. As long as that trade enrichens American corporations and investors, we will not take measures to protect our economy and international stability. Unlike China, short term profits always take priority over long term planning and strategy in this country. Additionally, there is little effective pushback against the one percent because the 99% have been fractured into competing grievance groups, all clamoring for attention, united only in their contempt for straight white males. How can a country so weak that it elected Donald Trump ever prevail against the patience and discipline of the Chinese?
13
The TPP was supposed to limit China's take over of the marketplace and equalize trade for Asian countries and the US. The US left that agreement and the other nations signed the agreement (CPTPP). Those nations may see economic gains of about $140 billion over the next 10 years. They still have to resolve many differences. It's a lot of effort to equalize trade barriers and provide support for smaller economies. RCEP is led by China and the goal is to get rid of tariff boundaries and promote global competition. Smaller economies and populations may be competed out of the market and may ultimately be at an economic disadvantage.
Globalization is proceeding apace and if the US determines not to participate then we may be at an economic disadvantage. Economic agreements are part of the strategy to maintain peaceful relations and provide for fair economic gains for all signing.
I'm not an economist, don't know how all of this stuff works but the expectation is that the World economy will grow and if you want to participate in the growth you have to participate in trade: reduce the barriers to trade in services and goods, control production and consumption. China is going for control of the global economy. The behemoth's rolling. The US supported the beneficial, equitable sharing of the global economic growth. This, I think, is a good outcome. Going head-to-head in a trade battle with China is going to hurt. We need to cultivate allies and have a long-range plan, a strategy.
2
What did people expect from handing over America to multinational corporations even prior to the Reagan Restoration?
11
The U.S. 1 percenters’ connections with China have made them extremely wealthy. Don’t expect any disconnect now.
16
How can the US simply start punishing China for industrial espionage, which has been a way of life throughout the world for the last century?
And why are we upset - we gave them core computer technology starting wit Nixon, followed by presidents and Congresses of both parties - in return for helping the big hardware companies.
It was once illegal to even go to visit China with a small computer. Now American companies have IC fabs there, producing top-of-the-line chips, put into just about every motherboard - made in China.
US businesses which did not want to pay decent wages to unionized makers of basic hand tools to large construction machinery were allowed to move - to China.
We could have required IBM and Intel to keep out - they and their customers didn’t.
We could have stopped “white goods” - home appliance makers to negotiate with their unions, because neither those jobs, nor the consumer electronics industry was leaving town - politicians saw more money in corporate donations than labor.
Like ignoring centuries of global warming, we cannot just make the Industrial China we built go away.
We have to insure next-generation products are built here, and begin demanding US companies but ld factories here, or in allied nations.
Oh, we are going to need to allow a higher immigration rate and raise taxes top-down for supporting pre-K-12, secondary and post secondary education again. And the companies will cry over either cutting profits or paying higher prices. Sorry.
15
It's time to stop educating millions of Chinese nationals in the US (and Canada), who then go onto employment under OPT and H1 visas, denying US citizens and permanent residents these same opportunities. Chinese managers in Silicon Valley sure do their best to hire other Chinese. Chinese companies abound in Silicon Valley with few restrictions. Alibaba, Huawei, etc. all poach the Chinese who were educated in the US and worked at American companies. But these same American companies are complicit in opening these flood gates so they could get their hands on complacent labor.
7
@True Norwegian
Educating foreign citizens in American universities creates leaders whose views were shaped by experiencing America firsthand.
The US has a surplus capacity for higher education. Our citizens are joined, not replaced, by students who are foreign nationals.
2
@True Norwegian My wife is one of those Chinese educated an America; an MD in China, she got a PhD at the University of California and together we have (an American) baby. When she talks to her
Chinese friends who are mothers here, after they're done laughing at Donald Trump, the conversation usually shifts to one or another topic related to the American educational and intellectual systems, which are deeply envied in the PRC. However, that regard is diminishing, and more and more of her friends are turning their attention to Canadian education. When people like Trump and "True Norwegian" and the AEI talk this way, we are ceding the ability to reach people like my wife's friends. They're not going to stop looking for a great education for their kids. They're only going to stop looking for a great American education for them.
2
@True Norwegian
You've got it completely wrong. There are few things the Communist Party of China fears more than a brain drain of their best and brightest to the West, especially America.
If anything the US should be doubling down on welcoming China's most skilled STEM experts. It would be America's gain -- and China's loss.
2
These adversarial approaches seem to ignore the reality that the two economies are signifantly, indeed deeply, interwined. Since 2017, we have treated China as much more of an economic adversary than as a semi-trusted ally. Although Trump claims to be a master negotiator, he is in fact, more of master manipulator and confrontationalist. None of this is helpful. In fact, I am hearing the faint pounding of distant drumbeats. Are we regressing to a pre-Nixon era of cold war with China? If so, both economies will suffer.
5
I mostly agree. I worry that as China rises, it will use it’s growing geopolitical power to push authoritarian, repressive, and pro-China ideas around the world. Today, it’s intellectual theft, repressing political speech, and bullying small countries. Tomorrow, it might be toppling weak democracies and replacing them with authoritarian regimes friendly to China.
Liberal democracies (US, EU, Japan, India, etc.) need to unite and work to counter this threat. Penalizing companies engaged in IP theft, applying sanctions for human rights abuses, and a united diplomatic front against Chinese bullying are a good start. But democracies should also try to limit trade/investment involving China, so as to limit Chinese leverage and influence. The end goal of these policies should be to force China to liberalize, or contain them if they don’t.
9
@Mike ..." it will use it’s growing geopolitical power to push authoritarian, repressive, and {pro-US} ideas around the world". which is EXACTLY what the us has done for a century...support repressive regimes that were pro-business and
on 'our 'side
The next great global superpower, as we are folding and decaying, will either be Russia or China. That's our choice. It won't be us. I choose China. I'd rather our country be a vassal to China than to Russia.
Or the three countries to agree to work together in a cooperative manner to rule the world. We would advocate for Canada and the European Union. China can share South America and Africa with Russia. The threesome would together rule the Middle East.
So that's it. We have to share. We are weak and have degenerated to a level where we cannot do it alone.
A troika will rule. Or we can be a vassal state.
That's our choice. Our military budget could be halved. You know we have lost all wars since 1945. So we will have to accept a new paradigm. As the youth once said, "Get real!".
3
This article gives smart analysis and advice.
Unfortunately, Trump only cares about those actions that his political base understands and likes. This really limits the wisdom of Trump's responses.
Too bad, because American needs more wily and clever leadership than we are getting. Trump has much more information than his voters do. Maybe Trump's voter base and the commenter on Fox News should stop giving their opinions and just be quiet and let Trump lead on his own.
3
Is the U.S. administration not aware about this all these years?
If yes why no action is taken so far knowing that China can become a super military power than the U.S. even if the problem of Intellectual property rights is ignored.It not only harms the U.S. but the world at large as Beijing follows one man rule and there is no one to question the leader,whether it is Xi or anyone else.
5
China is a rising power. The U.S.A. was able to steal foreign innovations and industrial techniques during its rise in the last century. Rising industrial giants are similar. China's growth rate is so large that it will shortly be the larger economy. China has a very substantial AI presence. It is also a substantial U.S. bondholder. Russia in contrast cannot grow consistently and has a GDP about the size of Spain. We are hysterical about Russia and hardly notice the Chinese. When China surpasses the U.S, as it appears it will do in 10 years maybe we will recognize that the Chinese are the dominant world power.
Unless something totally unforseen happens China will be the dominant world power. There is little we can do about it given the 13bn dedicated extremely hardworking competent people with a government which runs circles around the U.S. when development is involved.
6
I think the author forgets how much of our currency and debt the Chinese government holds. While being a patsy is not a working plan, pretending to be able to "tell China how it's going to be" is an equally misguided and potentially ruinous position.
If the Chinese government no longer saw value in keeping us as their number one trading partner because we made it clear we no longer desired to fill that role, they might decide to start unloading some of the $1.24 trillion of U.S. debt they hold to offset the value of their renminbi in order to keep the export flows with the U.S. possible. If they chose that course and began to offload U.S. treasuries, they would hurt but we would be crippled.
An unraveling of the dollar, followed by the suggestion that our lack of fiscal responsibility and continued trade bullying was a threat to global markets, finished with a coup de grace suggestion that the world move to a different reserve currency (which would be an easier sell to our friends in Europe, if we continue to prove to be inconstant military allies and trade bullies) would finish any talk of American exceptionalism. We'd be the new Greece.
It would take us a long time to rebuild the manufacturing infrastructure that we allowed to languish in the last 40 years. Also, if China did succeed in convincing the world to drop the dollar as a reserve currency, we couldn't print money or borrow at nearly the level we do now, making any economic recovery extremely painful.
6
@Edward. Maybe you just outlined the exact strategy of the Chinese Communist Party over the past 20 years. Sounds about right. Massive drives over that time to infiltrate almost every country across the globe: economic, collegiate, scientific, military, diplomatic- all passive aggressive moves- whatever works most efficiently for the Chinese Communist Party's ultimate objective of world domination of everything above and the suppression of criticism worldwide and wherever it comes from.
4
The lesson from the post-WW2 world is that economic entanglement and co-dependence prevents war. Xi is a dangerous despot and the Chinese business culture carries capitalist ruthlessness to a new level, but it is preferable to manage this relationship rather than provoke confrontation. Achieving that goal requires statecraft and cooperation with our true allies. Unfortunately, that won’t be possible until 2020 at the earliest.
6
The post-WWII world is an anomaly. The world economic power situation was monopolar--not bipolar as is commonly believed. It no longer is.
Commercial rivalries and jealousies have led to war in the past. Note that, prior to the present situation, the previous peak in economic globalization came in 1913-14.
Well it's nice to see that somebody finally woke up about China.
And you can add to this the fact that there are SIX TIMES as many Chinese as there are Americans. They can lose a billion people in a global catastrophe, and still have 3 times our population.
And it's China who steals all of our brilliant inventions and intellectual property, not the Russians. The Chinese are very good at it.
16
@Registered Independent The Chinese definitely benefit greatly from the modern technologies and ideas from the West, including the US. But its wrong to say the Chnese stole your inventions and intellectual property. If there's a case like that, you can always to go the WTO, where the US often wins. Whinning is not proper compitition. For one thing, there're more Chinese people who speak english than Americans. How many Americans bother to study a foreign language like Chinese?
1
China has historically suffered great humiliation at the hands of the United States, England and other Western nations. China's population is much larger than that of the US and its people have an excellent work ethic and respect for education. It is only natural that China will seek to rival or surpass the US as a global economic and military power. The sensible thing for us is to reach an accommodation with China. Think back to WWI. The Kaiser was a grandson of Queen Victoria and held honorary rank in the British navy. The Kaiser built too many warships to suit England. Sure, the Kaiser's willingness to challenge British naval supremacy was only one cause of WWI, but what a colossal waste that war was.
5
Trump is right on two things: 1. China. 2. An illegal immigrant is indeed illegal not just "undocumented".
But to China. The mistake was years ago when economists told us we all benefit from free trade. The problem with this was
1. China doesnt do free trade. The neocon and dem alike ideology ignored this inconvenient truth for the sake of cheap stuff.
2. It is not only about trade it is about geopolitical supremacy. And economists, in their silo, handed that, totalitarian at that, to China on a plate.
15
We’ve been told and lead to believe that international trade even with foes built alliances and reduced the risk of war. Shared interest would lead to peace
2
Its not that difficult but requires forensic work to stop intellectual theft made into consumer product. I hasten to say I am only referring to products sold in the U.S., the western world and whererver we have major political clout. In essence, "stop Chinese made products" from entering your shores at customers border points, either in the ports or airports. This will force Chinese companies into compliance.
As to other ways of forcing handover of non consumer IP (I can't imagine what it could be, just do not. Go to other countries to manufacture your product, don't be lazy. Ignore the Chinese market and shut off their western markets.
They have to play by international commercial rules.
2
Boy Trump is a Russian spy. We have a war on the horizon. With the election of Trump craziness reigns supreme. And its not all Trump. The NYTs and the Dems have gone wacko entering into a renewal of McCarthyism with Russia and these writers want the belligerence level raised with China. Bolton wants a war with Iran as soon as possible. One can only hope that the world will survive another year.
4
I like the idea of stopping trade with China. We need a true global trade pact between all democratic countries that respect intellectual property rights and human rights.
9
I lived in China as an expat and studied at Peking University, am fluent in Mandarin, and have a advanced degree all focusing on China trade and politics. I spent the better of a decade doing business and trade between the U.S. and China.
Past administrations were way too soft on China, pressured by big business to make headway’s for the gold rush of China consumerism of US made goods.
Never really happened, and when it did China just used our gifts against us.
The harder stance we can take on China to curb their deceitful practices the better. I agree completely with the premise that China should be treated as a country solely that wishes to do harm on us at any cost for its benefit. They are not a strategic partner, let’s call it what it is, they are an enemy.
68
@Clay Every country, in their own ways, want to do everything to look out for their own interests. China is not the enemy, the opportunitists and profiteers are, they're the ones who basically signed over the intellectual properties when they're given the options between monsterous profit and integrity, they cashed in. You can't take the short-cut and expect to give nothing in return. And, i'm sorry... did you say "GIFT"? Well, some would say the Chinese market and the juicy capitals are a gift, but those people are naive, like you. It's trade and business, not fraternizing and goodwill-giving.
8
@Clay
I live in China as a local mortal and studied near Peking University, am fluent in Mandarin plus native dialect, and have degrees focusing on all things but China. I have spent the better of the past two decades, albeit only in a negligible minor role, facilitating business and trade between the US and China.
Nevertheless, as much as I remain mystified by my own country China and myself--my own mortality included-- I am at a loss at the premises of the authors. I am equally confused by your sweeping "China is an enemy " observations.
Possibly time for me to pursue an advanced degree all focusing on China trade and politics to achieve an equally enlightened Hobbesian turn?
7
I agree that American big business eager for the vast market in China bent over backwards to let China take trade secrets and when China stole them pressured the US government to do nothing.
So when the cheap goods from China stop coming in who is hurt the most? The answer is seen in Dollar stores at the end of pay periods when Trump supporters cannot afford even Walmart.
There are no easy answers to this conundrum. The well to do both Democratic and Republican can afford to pay more for clothing and appliances but who is going to supply those to the rest of America where labor is no longer protected by unions and the minimum wage is so low?
All of those policies were promoted by the American Enterprise. Institute.
If this happens the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party may rule America.
11
@Edward Blau
i love a happy ending and this comment has one for me
This article's mindset that sees everything as a military competition is callous at best and malicious at worst. Unfortunately, many American elites share this mindset because they have never experienced poverty and therefore don't care about it. Thus, they are willing to keep poor countries poor, such as by restricting their access to trade and technologies with potential military application even though those technologies are 99% civilian. They are willing to, in the language of this article, destroy Chinese companies that might "serve as de facto suppliers for the Chinese Army," even as most large US companies are suppliers for the US military (and the few US companies that refuse military projects are criticized, boycotted, and threatened with regulation).
I think we should be happy that China has moved a billion people from extreme poverty to middle-income status. From a utilitarian perspective, it is arguably the greatest humanitarian achievement in history. I hope China, and other developing countries, continue to catch up with the West, even if it means their relative military power will increase. Great power war is virtually impossible anyway; wars happen because countries want to conquer land or other valuable resources from their neighbors, but the most valuable resources today are things like finance, data, and knowledge, which can't be conquered. If we think keeping billions in poverty is an acceptable price for our hegemony, then we don't deserve that hegemony.
28
How much of the movement out of poverty was from American taxpayers dollars?
8
@Wayne Directly, very little. It is the US business that made the move to China, and the exchange has worked out well for the US for the most part, perhaps even better. On a per capita basis, the Chinese economy isn't even close (~$9000 vs. ~$60000).
The vast majority of humans don't understand complex systems and the few people who could and do know they are very far from understanding everything.
I largely agree with Aoy's position. I wish China had continued liberalising its society along with its economy, instead of allowing someone like Xi to come to power but that is the problem with a dictatorship.
3
None. The only US taxpayer money going to China is interest on government bonds that Chinese people bought. That’s hardly profitable for China given how low interest rates are. Meanwhile, China has received almost no foreign aid, while billions of US foreign aid haven’t made a difference in places like Egypt and Afghanistan.
China’s growth is due almost entirely to domestic free-market reforms. There was a rural village in China in 1978 where people were starving so they agreed to divide up communal property into private property and let every family keep what they produced instead of handing it over to the commune. The next year, they produced five times more food than the year before, just from that one change. The new Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping learned from this and rapidly privatized many other parts of the Chinese economy, and soon all of China was producing five times more than before.
Most Americans would rightly attribute our own economic success to how we have private property, free markets, physical security, etc. So when other countries get those things, we should expect them to become successful too.
1
Cut me a break. Why would anyone believe anything by the American Enterprise Institute? The big boys for tax cuts. Low priced, good quality good from China vis Walmart are the only things keeping the American Middle Class worker in the game!
If we were smart we’d let them bring in all the legal drugs they could produce. Watch that bring down drug costs.
8
@Kevin Bitz You don't need anything made in China. There's a reason that they don't sell cars here, because they make junk.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
The insticits displayed here regarding what the Chinese are doing in terms of theft of intellectual property and overt link between their civilian and military infrastructure is spot on. However, the solutions offered here are not clearly feasible. Even if they are somehow able to be executed, they are not guaranteed to curb the pinpointed list of rogue economic actions that the authors have charged against the state.
How feasible is it to have a rapid detachment of US corporate activities in mainland China? That is tantamount to what the authors are suggesting, a decoupling, a de-intertwining of overlapping US-China economic activieis. The ability of the current administration to sucessfully engage with US coporations is at best questionable, at worst laughable.
Moreover, the disregard of what TPP could have achieved in pressuring China to adopt higher standards of economic operations is questionable. TPP was designed to pressure China to reform and adopt international norms. Given the abandoment of TPP by the current administration, we have not be able to see what could have been achieved. Now that it has re-incarnated as CPTPP, we shall see.
Nevertheless, this cannot be a one on one game. In the current globalized world, every product is made from multiple countries. There must be a multilateral component to this more strategic engagment. Given the preference of the current administration towards bilateral trade agreemeents, this is also unfortunately unfeasible.
6
@Anym. Being terrorized for useless trinkets is not a good deal. We don't negotiate with terrorists but kow tow to China? Big mistake.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
"...experts on China at the American Enterprise Institute."
That line spoken aloud is more a laugh line from Saturday Night Live than the offered bona fides of the authors. Regardless, it's also an oxymoron, which doesn't instill much confidence in their "expert" analysis.
I'm sure the authors are qualified in some way other than being the designated hitters when a right wing business "think tank" plays China. Otherwise the two authors are mere operatives of the AEI propaganda ministry, which means their "expertise" is based on AEI talking points and media kits that extol AEI's '50's worldview of men, markets and money. Their slogan can be 'Macho 'Merica will crush China before it's not puny anymore."
"Beijing's military build-up" is exaggerated and driven by military contractors that profit from conflict. Like the US, China's army faces the demographic reality of population decline with fewer young recruits. Because of past population policies, China's soldier shortage is critical and compounded by competition with China's commercial sector. Their response has been to move to a digital Army with technology -- automated weapons, robots, cyber war, etc. -- that requires a smaller force.
China also faces another dilemma: Its massive standing army has reached retirement, with massive waves of retirees growing for years to come. China will be strained paying the pensions of so many retirees.
The only danger is treating China like one.
33
@Yuri Asian I read an article a while back saying that the Chinese military had to cancel wargames because the soldiers got too stressed out and needed breaks for karaoke and entertainers.
The idea of a Chinese military threat is laughable. Chinese people are actually far less militaristic than Americans. Instead, they are mostly motivated by wanting to make money. In America, the most admired and trusted institution is the military. In China, it is Alibaba. I have never met a single Chinese person who wanted to join the military, and when traveling in China, I did not see the kind of patriotic and "support the troops"-type bumper stickers that are ubiquitous in America. China hasn't been in any war since 1980, and hasn't started a war of expansion since the 1700s. There is no chance that they start a war against America.
9
@Aoy
Agree totally. China is paranoid about foreign invasion and they've decided the best defense is offensive -- a show of force to keep enemies at bay. Peripheral territory is paramount to China's security and they become a coiled cobra when neighboring countries are emboldened and don't fear China. Everything China does has to do with never being bullied or humiliated again.
1
Ever hear of the Choisin Reservoir?
Too many Americans picture China as just a bigger America. It is not. It is a nation with its own history and culture, which must be taken into account.
Today China retried and convicted a Canadian of drug smuggling and sentenced him to death. (He had already been sentenced to a lighter punishment before the 'retrial'.) They also have two other Canadians in prison on charges that are unclear. The diplomatic community believes these arrests are because of the Canadians' arrest of the Huawei executive, who is the daughter of a powerful Chinese businessman.
Personally, I would not want to do business with a country that has no rule of law and kidnaps citizens of other countries out of spite. Nor would I want to do business with a country that put over a million people in 're-education' camps, kidnapped its citizens off the streets - both inside China and out - because they were critical of the regime in their art or writing, or censored its children on the internet for singing the national anthem 'inappropriately'.
The Chinese government is moving to the old totalitarian style that we once saw in the middle of last century under Stalin in Russia, at the same time that the US is boosting the Chinese economy. Yes, rival economies come and go, but rival outlooks on the world, once established, come to dominate the mind, body and soul. This is truly a case where repatriating industry and business, or, at least being more circumspect, would be a good idea.
16
@youcanneverdomerely1thing I agree, except that they have always been totalitarian. Mao is not what I would consider to be a rational leader.
@youcanneverdomerely1thing
"Too many Americans picture China as just a bigger America. "
Exactly who are you? And where do you really live, because you clearly don't live anywhere in California or the entire Pacific Coast of the Americas, to observe and experience the take over by the wealthy Chinese, from the mainland.
We in California are abundantly aware of China, what China really is, and what they CAN do, and will do if given the opportunity.
China is NO AMERICA whatsoever. There has been an all out effort to quash dissent against the Chinese and China by Americans, as being racist. The Chinese in my opinion have infiltrated the government, at the local level.
Did you know that the Chinese routinely sell a Partnership with cities such as San Jose - which does not have any land or housing to spare?
It's the Chinese who don't get it. We can see their levels of pollution, their killing of infant girls (still practiced) and their gulags against anyone with religous interests.
Fact. Mao allowed or promoted the starvation of more than 5 million and perhaps as many as 75 million Chinese during the period 1959 through 1961, directly after their military take over of Tibet.
@youcanneverdomerely1thing - I'd hate to be a citizen of Russia or China. You are basically just a knock on the door from a jail cell, with no recourse. Of course, they learned that lesson in Saudi Arabia, that being a billionaire won't keep you out of jail. Scary world.
No wonder everyone wants out. If you are Chinese and are lucky enough to get out and stay out.
But, but, what about all that great cheap stuff we get from Walmart and Target? You mean somebody pays for those low, low prices?
5
Easier said than done.
I don't know what you guys think in the AEI but capitalism needs markets to expand into. To trade as much as one can and as advantageous to oneself as possible. If trade is "fair", it is hard to accumulate and to grow. If growth is not there for the capitalists to smell from far away the stock of a company or a country (in our case a sum of the companies in the NYSE and Nasdaq to a first approximation) loses value.
So it is not our choice of what we do with China at this point. We already sold them the Lenin's proverbial rope to the "Communists." Now we can only shake hands and pat backs. And hope for the best.
2
God protect us from the American Enterprise Institute and its gang of troglodytes. The country that has been most destructive to international law and order since the start of the 21st century has been the US - nothing China, Russia or any other state has done comes even slightly close to the catastrophic action of the Iraq War. Under Bush, the US made it clear that it was an irresponsible great power that could not be trusted with its privileged place in the international system; under Trump, that reality has become impossible to miss. The Trump administration has lied, cheated and broken ever law and every promise that the US has made on international trade. It is systematically attacking its allies and weaponizing its economy to bully the entire planet. It is, easily, right now, the biggest threat to the international economy and international peace and prosperity in the world. China is problematic in many ways, but it is a far stronger adherent to international law than the US. In the end, the US has proven itself to be completely untrustworthy; it needs to be balanced and its power needs to be offset. China is in the only position to do this and it should be encouraged to act as that counterbalance. The surest way to make China an enemy is to treat it as such. The surest way for the US to alienate the rest of the world is to continue acting as it has been acting.
27
@Shaun Narine
The US media neither objectively reports on China, nor on the US.
Your statements that, "China is ... a far stronger adherent to international law than the US" and "should be encouraged to counterbalance," are exactly correct.
6
@Shaun Narine Please provide some examples of how it adheres to international law more than the US?
6
@Shaun Narine
I wish that Canadians would just but out of American journalism.
The Chinese murdered millions of Tibetans. Those they did not kill they tortured. Those that could not flee on foot from Tibet, stayed to experience their tyranny.
The Chinese are guilty of murdering and allowing to die more than 5 million but as many as 75 million of their own people.
The US which has often a surplus of grains offered food when they learned of the famine in China. China refused our assistance. But they also lied.
We were stunned when the statisticians did their population counts of the Chinese when visiting with Richard Nixon.
But then you don't read Scientific American, and you probably weren't alive to know of the study and that the study was published in peer reviewed scientific journals.
It is helpful to comprehend that the experts such as Mr. Blumenthal have real data, real science, and real facts, not insinuations or guess work to make their assessments.
1
This is an article of opinions with little fact to back it up. It ignored the real benefits of trades have brought to regular Americans who can afford a decent life because of Chinese goods. It ignored that facts that Americans can breath clean air and blue skies because Chinese took over those industries that would pollute the environment such as steel, Dyeing in textiles paper production etc...
8
@yifanwang The sky's were blue before we started large scale trade with China. The reason those industries cause such bad pollution in the Middle Kingdom is due to no environmental enforcement. Since China entered the WTO the US balance of trade has cratered and wages have stagnated here. The only thing we've gained by trade with China is a giant current account deficit everything else we already had, including a decent life. China needs the US the US doesn't need China, never has.
6
It seems that someone wants a war and they really expect its coming.
8
I worked for years in China on extended assignments and the Chinese are good, no, great partners and tough business competitors. The only threat they represent is the one capitalists blindly ignored when they moved all our 'low profit' manufacturing in a mad fast buck rush to China; the Chinese are communist and they're never letting those manufacturing plants leave.
Game over.
But kudos to all the geniuses at the American Enterprise Institute for their boneheaded stripping of American manufacturing capability for a fast buck. That's what we should call it these days, the Fast Buck Institute, not the American Enterprise Institute, the Fast Buck Institute.
Now, given the mess they've conspired to create, tell me why should we listen to the expert geniuses at the Fast Buck Institute?
58
@veteran I feel like I am reading all the time about how the Chinese Rust Belt is struggling and how many Chinese manufacturing jobs are leaving to lower-wage countries like Bangladesh, Ethiopia, etc. Last time I was in China, I saw some former factories that had been turned into lofts and arts districts, just like you see in parts of the US. Deindustrialization is happening everywhere. The difference is that Chinese people seem more accepting of it.
7
@veteran
Jersey Shore, you don't live too far from where the real ransacking of America - the US began, and that is Wall Street. The brokerage houses have experts, who have the same data that the intelligence agencies have, and they predicted as far back as the 1960s, but more heavily in the early 1970s that China's lowest cost labor, in the world would drive all US manufacturing out of our country and into theirs.
So, you can think imaginatively, that the Vietnam war was a Red Herring, and a very human costly stall tactic for our Capitalistic plans to make more money by doing business with China. Opening up China to the world was all about raising stock prices by decreasing labor costs, all the way back to Richard Nixon's time.
2
@RR Right-- where Trump stole billions thru his Bancrupt hotel ! So true.
There is not much doubt that China will be our number one concern in the areas of economic/trade policy, foreign policy, and military/defense policy for probably the rest of this century. And this article raises many legitimate points.
It is a shame that at this juncture our country has a President who only knows what Fox, Limbaugh, Coulter, and co. tell him. He says our trade relations with China are a problem, which is true. But he knows nothing about how to deal with those issues and he has abandoned allies who could help if we worked with them to present a united front.
If The Con Don reaches a deal with China, will it be a good deal? Many people suspect that the Chinese might lay on the flattery, tell The Donald how great he is and pull a fast one. Like the deal he made with North Korea. Apparently the way to deal with The Con Don is to lay on the flattery real thick and tell him repeatedly how great he is.
3
Perhaps -- although I doubt it -- the Trump administration might come to the realization that if it wants the co-operation of its' allies in these matters, it might be wise to treat them as allies. America's clear -- albeit not perfect -- command of the moral high ground was critical in winning the Cold War and maintaining stability through the post-Soviet era. Trump has in a mere two years pretty much frittered away that advantage. When you treat people as adversaries rather than partners, they tend to return the favour.
Here in Canada the irony of this in light of the recent trade bullying directed against us is particularly galling. We are told that Canada constitutes a security threat to the United States which justifies a 25% tariff on our steel and aluminum exports. But at the same time, in honoring our extradition treaty with your nation, we find ourselves asked to do America's economic dirty work while our citizens pay the price. Then, adding insult to injury, I see commentators on this forum justify the bullying by accusing Canada of being a free rider in the Western Alliance -- blissfully unaware of the 5 years over two world wars when Canada spent its' blood and treasure fighting tyranny while the United States felt it sufficient to make encouraging noises from the sidelines.
So what is it folks? Does America see Canada as a friend? An adversary? An afterthought? Or just another "useful idiot"? We'd like you to clear that up, please.
10
@curious Trump did not win the popular vote. Our elections were gamed by Putin. Don't blame the American people for Trump.
1
@curious Trump will be gone soon enough, the nonsense will go with him.
1
This is a math and statistics equation. China will eventually exceed the US in economic and therefore diplomatic power - both hard and soft. A rhetorical question: where does American imperialism (usually called ‘exceptionalism’) end and white supremacy begin? Why does “the national interest” involve bending the entire planet to some imperial will? China will implode from its own weight just like the US at some point anyway.
6
Time for some overdue strategic brain-storming? What is our 50 year plan for Asia? For China? When will US forces leave the Korean peninsula? China is fortifying a chain of new islands. US freedom-of-the-seas access in the South China Sea might not be the right thing to do. China is dying for a war-at-sea with USN's incredible 7th Fleet. What is our plan for Taiwan? Can we trade US leaving Korea for Chinese acceptance of Taiwan status quo? (Or whatever they want to call it.) Pulling back? YEP. Flex some. Are 19th and 20th Century answers for many issues still right?
@Mackenzie Clark
"China is fortifying a chain of new islands." China has annexed Islands which belong to the Phillipines. They are new islands.
The Chinese wish to be our friends, friends in the complete uplifting sense of the term. Friends have self-interests and disagreements but they are worked through over and again and the friends grow together. This article is written with a disdain for China and that is self-defeating for the rest of us and even dangerous in the fostering of antagonism.
We have much to offer China and they have much to offer us. I see that in the Chinese students I so deeply care for.
I find this essay terribly harmful for those who would take it seriously.
10
@Nancy
Smell the coffee.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
@Nancy Sure - i have had Chinese students. They are wonderful - it is their government that is the concern
@Nancy
Nancy, the Chinese students at UC San Diego have equated the Dalia Lama, a Buddhist Teacher and a Monk,
with Adolf Hilter. I don't want them in my country.
As a real Buddhist, I find the Chinese to be ultra dangerous. They don't have a morality that includes understanding of others rights. Many of those without a consciousness about spirituality, that get into the US are code and law breakers. This excludes many such as the Asian doctors - practicing "Chinese" medicine.
China already leads America in innovation and new electronics. The President of Mexico has already announced welcoming China to help fix Central America. For countries like Canada we don't know whether China or the USA is more to be feared.
America is choosing its path and a military industrial complex is a military industrial complex.
Maybe democracy and power don't mix.
3
Still relieved Anbang was unsuccessful in buying Starwood. That hotel chain would have been run and monitored by Communist China, and the acquisition would have had major consequences for American business and government travelers.
3
The very idea that the US can compete with China is preposterous. It's 4x bigger than us, 10x older and 30x smarter.
Its economy is 50% bigger and growing 3x faster. It has the smartest, most trusted government on earth (because they've kept every promise they've made for 60 years) and 95% of ordinary Chinese support its policies.
It's ahead of us in science and technology and the gap widens every year.
As Singapore's Lee Kwan observed, "The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world".
30
@godfree
Ordinary Chinese don't even trust their government to provide their children with untainted vaccines. The CCP is so corrupt that Xi made rooting out the "tigers" one of his chief policy aims.
Obviously the Chinese government has pushed the country forward tremendously in recent years - no one is debating that - but hyperbolizing the CCP as a group of Randian supermen does the discourse no favors. Fact is, they are a government like any other, with factional and local politicking like any other.
They are also most certainly not ahead of the USA in science and technology yet, or you wouldn't hear all that news about forced tech transfers, but I do expect they will surpass us in the future.
10
@BCT This is a country to be feared not only bc the pace it's moving, but bc it's not above playing underhanded, and the government has much less regulation on things like intellectual property, which means it has more weapons of choice.
3
@godfree
And they have murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and villified any person who has openly dissented against China.
And they are not "ahead". They are thieves of technology and they are spies.
1
Though I assume that the authors of this polemic have read Graham Allison's book regarding Thucydides's Trap, they appear to be resistant to the logic of trying to avoid war by not overreacting out of fearing the rise of a rival nation. Are they thinking the US is destined to forever be the sole, uncontested hegemonic power? Yes, adjusting to changing geopolitical realities will be difficult economically, politically, and even psychologically perhaps, but we cannot expect others to eternally defer to the US.
10
A wishy-washy article, more wishy than any concrete proposals. Also, the authors should note that no Chinese put a gun to the head of any US multinational, the US companies went there because of low labor cost and a government willing to provide the required infrastructure. The authors sound like Trump in attributing the miracle of Chinese lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty into middle class as due to their IP theft and not due to their uncomplaining work (admittedly with coercion by a communist government) for low wages.
So, why would the Chinese not take advantage when it is offered? To be nice to the US, a country which would not give citizenship to the Chinese for decades?
Is it possible that the Chinese are forging ahead because they don't have as many think tanks and talking heads on cable TV?
The authors would like an easy way out without across -the-board tariffs, without any pain to the US consumer. Nada. Better if the think tankers and Trump would come out and say. "things are going to cost more, you have to scrimp some and not consume so much and get the trade imbalance down." Believe me, when the trade imbalance goes to (near) zero, you wouldn't need to worry so much about the Chinese. Also note that the trade deficit we have with Germany is ~$800 per German, with Japan is ~$550 per Japanese, higher than the trade deficit per Chinese of $270.
10
While our politicians and China experts barking at China, our scientists were talking to Chinese scientists on their recent moon landing success and had discussion on borrowing their "bridging" satellite for future moon exploration. This news was reported today from the HK Phoenix news. Confrontation and war will never bring success. Only understanding and cooperation will bring progress to both countries.
16
@Usok Yes, but you don't bargain from a position of weakness but strength. You must stand for something first. Bullies respect strength and take advantage of weakness.
Conservatives are always looking for a new enemy to pump up the military/industrial complex and spread fear. Someone should tell the boys at AEI that every major US financial institution has investments in Chinese state owned enterprises, including their banks. Even the Chinese Development Bank has 27% of its stock held by Beechwood, a US investment firm. Lets work with China to create a green tech future, and get over the 1950s anti-statism.
14
@Jerry Harris You are very naive.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
Now that we’ve learned that Mitch McConnell’s wife is on the board of the very DeutscheBank that disbursed funds to Trump from Russian oligarchs thru it’s Cypriot branch, we see that China is interconnected in the field of play.
( she’s the daughter and heiress of a top Chinese businessman)
How could they resist. We are leaning heavily and present a tempting opportunity to give just that one little push, and down we go.
10
Really? Finally!
This article is like 20 years too late.
Where was the AEI in the 90s when we were protesting on college campuses to stop further economic involvement in “red” China without requiring improvements in their human rights record.
No one listened then.
Doubt companies or people will listen.
16
@J.D. This race to the bottom started with Nixon. Think about that. Nixon is the worst mistake America ever made until Trump came along.
@J.D.
48 years too late.
Wow, I feel like this article could have been written in 1907, with a "expert" writing for a London newspaper that the UK needs to start cutting off economic ties and downgrade diplomatic relations since the German Empire had finished construction of a rival battleship. What Mr Scissors and Mr Blumenthal suggest would to be to increase tensions between the 2 strongest, nuclear-armed countries on Earth. Why should we re-enter a new Cold War? Because we are afraid of losing some IP? Is that worth risking nuclear annihilation? Has China taken any military action that actually threatened the United States' homeland? (other than assert sovereignty over the South China Sea -- which is their sphere of influence, similar to Ukraine and Russia). It was by sheer luck that no accidental warhead was fired in the last Cold War; I hope we never get that close again.
9
@Local Labrat
Germany's massive naval building program did in fact pose an existential threat to 1900s Britain, and was the height of folly on the part of Tirpitz and the Kaiser.
As for the SCS, Ukraine isn't a major artery for a huge percentage of world trade and comprised largely of international waters, so the comparison is not the best. I'm in agreement with you on Ukraine, frankly.
@Local Labrat Hello, McFly, anybody home?
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
China Is a Dangerous Rival, and America Should Treat It Like One
Enough with the endless talks and handshakes. We need to untie the American economy from China.
[ This is self-interested nonsense, pernicious advice from the wildly conservative interests of the wealthy at American Enterprise. The need for ordinary Americans is to partner in growth with China, and that is what the Chinese will welcome. ]
12
@Nancy Wake up.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
"China is our only major trade partner that is also a strategic rival, and we should treat it differently from friendly countries with whom we have disputes. If Washington wants the global free market to work, it must intervene to blunt Beijing’s belligerence."
Our only option against China’s belligerence is to confront her both economically and strategically and on a global scale --- combining NATO, EU, NAFTA, TPP, ASEAN, Indonesia, India and Japan. Despite Russia’s revanchist adventurism now, her long-term interests may converge eventually with ours.
Though the Chinese State is modeled on the Soviet Pattern, she has no ideological appeal or ambitions abroad. Her foreign policy is based on pre-World War – 2 Japanese militarism and mercantilism. These make China a lesser enemy than the Soviet Union. There is also a small possibility that if her hegemonic dreams are dispelled, she might become more benign.
1
I foresaw this situation over 20 years ago when China was being admitted to the WTO. I saw the allowance of forced technology transfer and the willful blindness in high places to the damage to our country caused by the transfer of our industrial base to China - and so did our big investors and corporate executives who charged ahead with these transfers, for personal profit, with total disregard for the consequences to our economy and national security. The modern Chinese economy was created by the greed of our financial elite and their enablers in government (hi Bill Clinton), media and academia, and now we have to deal with the result. I wonder what Bill Clinton has to say about this.
10
Agree - they have hooked us on consumption of cheaper products (sometimes made with prison labor) and lend us money - combination of a loan shark and drug dealer.
3
China is a rival, but it does not have to be a adversary. This country needs to get our governmental house in order. We have let the most stupid and corrupted person we could find to lead 1/3 of our government. Most of our other representatives are busy groveling for donations no matter where they come from. They then obediently take orders from those same persons. There will be no push back against China until we push back against stupid government.
5
@Mark No doubt - Trump is weakening this country faster than any adversary could have dreamed. He will be booted and we will be ready to get things back under control
The flaw in this argument is the notion that free markets can solve the problems of politics. The author accuses China of engaging in “economic aggression”, but stands mute when it comes to America’s economic aggression. Witness the near collapse of Mexico’s tortilla market, after the United States flooded the Mexican market with cheap industrial tortillas. The author’s only concern is to maintain American power by casting China as an unfair player in the game of global trade. While America spends its capitol in the service of endless wars in the Muslim world, China grows its economy and spreads its economic power through out the developing world. China hasn’t fired a shot through armed conflict in over thirty years. China isn’t a threat, America is a threat to itself. Keep fighting endless wars, America, while China becomes the world’s largest economy.
17
So the entire logic that forged the peace and prosperity of the post-WWII world; integrating the economies of Germany and Europe and the world so that we would never go to war again is suddenly wrong - because we no longer capture the bulk of the economic benefits?
10
That was a very different situation. China is an authoritarian regime with over a billion people, that will almost certainly become the dominant superpower within this century. West Germany and company were relatively small nations that quickly liberalized.
Although I agree economic integration helps prevent wars, it actually helps spread the negative influences of countries such as China.
The problem with the plan espoused by these two Chinese "experts" is that they seemingly don't understand the strongest economic ties that the U.S. has with China. I'm afraid this doesn't surprise me. It's truly shocking how little of China is known in the U.S.
While the U.S. exports approximately $127 billion of goods to China, American companies in China sold $221 billion of goods in the Chinese marketplace in 2015. GM and Qualcomm both count China as their largest market. China is a major market for Apple, Nike, Starbucks, Ford, Boeing, Micron, Corning, 3M etc.
Should America exit this market, nobody will stop Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe et al. from taking the place of the Americans and the stock market will have nowhere to hide. Just look at what a poor sales quarter for Apple in China did to its stock.
10
@REBERY I have spent time in China - Love the people, but they and the government are very nationalist.
Although they are a major market, they will take our market expertise, close it and block our companies from growing there. Same will happen for other Chinese companies - they have enough internal cutthroat competition that they will not let out companies run free. Other Western companies, regardless of nation will be played the same way
5
@Dutch They will become THE major market, not just a major market. If the U.S. decides to exit that market, it is the U.S. that will be dooming itself. China is almost certain to become the world's largest market by a very wide margin.
I've lived in China and I agree with you that life isn't 'fair' for foreign companies there, but it is gradually getting better. Without China, GM would likely not exist. There is still opportunity to be found. Perhaps a more sensible strategy than the one proposed by these authors is to work with partners to ensure that the market is opened further to foreign companies.
To exit China would be extremely foolhardy.
3
@REBERY Please, educate yourself.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
The other day I used an iron. It was made in the USA. A lot of things were made here, not farmed out to China. These days, finding something made in the USA is exceedingly rare. We basically have handed over our economy to China.
China, let's not play around with words, will be the next world power. There is nothing we can do now. We have enabled them. Even in Africa we watched while China secured precious resources. Going to Africa now and trying to put in infrastructure -- that's a little too late.
It's not just the US who has most everything made in China. Lots of European countries do as well. Do this at your peril. Receive cheap, inferior goods at the risk of strangling domestic producers. You'll end up like Africa having to give up their raw resources for a few railroads, highways, buildings, and dams. What happened to our pride "Made in America"?
8
@Don Juan
"inferior goods"? What are you referring to? My chinese-built iPhone, chinese-built iMac, chinese-built road bike seem pretty high-quality to me.
"enabled them"? Chinese is winning because they are producing high quality products with a labor force that demands a fraction of the price. That is how economics work.
6
@Jim
that gets only, not demands, a fraction of the price.
@Don Juan.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
The authors are right that it's time for the US to finally wake up and see China for what It is, a US adversary.
For far too long, people profiting from doing business in China have dictated US policies towards China and China has taken advantage of that. It took Mr Trump to finally confront China.
If Tim Cook and other CEO's had Mr.trump ears like they did former US presidents, there wouldn't be a trade war.
Is China such a dangerous adversary ? I don't think so. The reason is simple. Most successful Chinese people have their money saved in Western countries.
Huawei CFO released on bail in Canada, is leaving in her million $ house.
When a country elite saves its money outside of the country or send their children to live outside of their own country, that is a testament that they don't trust their own country.
How many talented people around the world would like to migrate to China? very few, if not none. The US has a competitive advantage over China, that no amount of money could buy.
The best way to counter China is for the US to push for more Democracy around the world. Most countries closely link to China are lead by dictators whether in Africa or Asia.
The day China will surpass the US is the day when people would choose China over the US to invest their savings or send their children to live and study. With the direction China has taken under Xi is taking, that day is far, far away.
11
@Chaks
"The day China will surpass the US is the day when people would choose China over the US to invest their savings or send their children to live and study. With the direction China has taken under Xi is taking, that day is far, far away."
Kudos. Those two sentences will define the future of this whole argument. Just look at the changes that are taking place in Hong Kong right now. The tariff issue is only a distraction. The real change will come when capitalism meets human rights. But as we watch Netflix and Google try to grapple with this, I'm afraid the almighty buck may prevail for the time being.
@Chaks
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
@Chaks Too bad Trump killed the TPP, that would have countered Chinese domination. Very, very shortsighted. Even Clinton gave into populism and wanted to kill it. Most people who supported this move had no understanding of the effort involved or why this partnership was created - to contain China - voters get the politicians they deserve
1
We tried with China, but it’s just not working.
This is school yard politics 101.
China, an opposing gang, is aggressive towards the US. It senses the US is weakened under Trump. It wants to test the US but does not strike directly at the US. Instead it strikes against a weaker US aligned gang member: Canada.
The unspoken question to the US is, “So what are you going to do about it?”
3
After World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall, America fought a cold war and actual wars in Korea and Vietnam. Both of those Asian countries had support from China. After fighting Communism with the fear mongering of "being a threat to our way of life", America has been more responsible then any nation for making a Communist Party dictatorship the second largest economy on the planet. How can that be? What happened? The answer is simple and elegant. Communism that was Marxist scared wealthy elites. The lure of egalitarianism was strong, even if the reality was not. Che Guevara posters were common on college campuses in the 60's and 70's. China's opening up with its abundant cheap labor was too much. China after Mao was nothing to fear for elites, and if the Chinese were playing a long game, who cared. Short term profits trumped all. Now it has all come home to roost. Costs to rectify it will be felt, as all things economic are, unequally.
3
@elfarol1 no doubt - a focus on near term earnings, pr news cycle manipulation and the "maximization of shareholder profits" (thanks Milton Friedman) has shortened the vision of many corporate executives to a form of quarterly myopia - they can't see the long term effects of technology transfer and the loss of industrial skills because they think business in international activity, while the Chinese view it as a strictly nationalist initiative
Long overdue. And yet there are still incorrigible free trade economists that publish
Why a Trade War With China Isn’t ‘Easy to Win’ (Slightly Wonkish) (Krugman May 22)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/why-a-trade-war-with-china-isnt-easy-to-win-slightly-wonkish.html
Because having promoted free trade as a win for all without any, that is any, understanding of its distribute effects on US workers, these economists are still not willing to acknowledge that free trade to those in the West exposed to it has been a disaster. Free trade, to those exposed to it, moves wages to the global average, up in China , down in the US.
And yet, these economists still refuse to acknowledge it, and its political fallout, from Brexit, to Trump, to the Yellow Vest movement in France that is shaking the French government (run by a free trade enthusiast)
i
When will the free trade enthusiast finally learn ?
They promote a race to the bottom. US companies bent on finding ever cheaper labour are now putting out feelers via their South Korean operations to North Korea.
It is just too tempting: Educated, hard working, labour, willing to work for a fraction of S.Korean wages with zero labour rights
Indeed, they might get shot should they go on strike
And no, I am not making this up
17
@Woof We should have free trade, but with allies, Not China
I'm beginning to agree with the sentiment in this article. Perhaps it is fantastical thinking, but the number of secret circuits being inserted into communications devices etc. is starting to rattle me. Any enemy of the United States should, at a minimum, be obliged to bribe a line manager or circuit designer in Mexico or Indonesia in order to compromise our secure systems. If we brought more production home, the opportunity would open up to our very own citizens.
6
We once thought "opening China" meant turning the worlds most populous country into an economic playground for Multinational corporations.
But the Chinese had other ideas. China has a long memory of being the object of Western imperialism. They remember the opium wars, the Boxer rebellion, the Japanese occupation and plunder. They also remember MacArthur's threat to lay China waste with nuclear bombs.
As a result China has been a shrewd bargainer. Western investment had to be a two way street with real benefits to China. American companies weren't used to this.
We were expecting to make our typical take it or leave it offers, have them backed up by economic hit men and the CIA and walk away with cash and natural resources at bargain basement prices. China would have none of that.
So now that China functions as an equal and not a dependent, developing country, we've suddenly discovered their human rights abuse. We see the CPC as authoritarian and President Xi as a threat to American interests.
While these criticisms of China are accurate, they were all equally accurate when we were making money on and on China and simply turned a blind eye.
Now that we can no longer treat China as our vessel state we suddenly sing the song human rights.
Scissors and Blumenthal are simply painting the hypocrital picture that their corporate masters have ordered up. China is no friend but neither is she a foe. But she is a competitor. Isn't that what capitalism is all about?
29
@drspock
Nice story but it fails to match reality in a few important points. We have never turned a blind eye to human rights abuse a suffering in China. We were preoccupied with the suffering that the Japanese were inflicting and embargoed Japan resulting in the attack by Japan. We have consistently complained about it under the communist and consistently told not just to mind our business but that there is no such thing as human rights.
The second important fiction is that China functions as an equal. It is precisely China’s insistence on unequal rules that is the point of contention. We were, perhaps foolishly, willing to tolerate that when the gap was vast. The economic power is much more equal now and so should be the rules.
6
@drspock
The CCP absolutely sees First World democracy and free institutions as a foe and one of the greatest dangers to their continued legitimacy. There is a reason they are so ardent on the question of Taiwan.
How can you speak of China's long memory of humiliation by Western powers and yet deny that they see those same powers as enemies to be supplanted?
The CCP would love nothing more to see China at the center of the world once more. Do not delude yourself.
1
Immigrants by plane, Chinese students and workers wend their way into American society, mostly legalized citizens after acquiring skills and education. Predatory business practices, ambition without moral grounding; these can be the companions of brute ambition and hunger for wealth, here. Earlier immigrants had this spectrum. What confuses this Chinese wave, aside from language and cultural barriers, is a new and implacable hostile and antisocial political will, shown by its government. Death and imprisonment, starvation and reeducation concentration camps.
Any past history of defense against Japanese fascism, and the long, sad predatory or exploitative trade policy with the West, cannot excuse a ruthless era of death dealing control by a singleminded dictator. We must withdraw entirely from China.
1
Even if one still labors under the delusion that the internet can ever be secure, one still has to reckon with the more materially obvious: most chips made for most gadgets, ranging from your cell phone to your pacemaker to the electric grid to our newest military equipment are made in China. And the Chinese leadership, as with that of any other country, would be derelict in its national self-serving, self-defined duty if it did not embed clandestine code in those chips, thus allowing those gadgets to be shut down or controlled.
Don't blame the Chinese or American governments for doing what governments always do when they can. Rather, look in the mirror and consider whether your own increasing use of and advocacy for increased internet-connected gadgetry has enabled this, both in terms of financial incentives for corporations and grass roots pressure on politicians.
When the lights go out in your home or an F-35 gets remotely hijacked don't be too surprised. And keep in mind that the primary effect of the drones and self-driving cars everyone is all gaga about will be to create massive unemployment for suicide bombers and assassins. But, hey, that's a small price to pay for seeing on (anti)social media what your friends ate for dinner.
6
Concerns about the Chinese theft of technology are rather late in the game. Why might that be? As the farmer says, “the horse is already out of the barn.” Why weren’t these concern about technology theft, reverse engineering and forcing Western companies to “share” their systems a concern loudly expressed by the “experts” previously in the last 25 years? Anyone who has worked for American or European company’s in the PRC in the last 25 years clearly knows the trade offs that were engaged in for cheap labor and potential market share. Look at the history of joint ventures with China to identify the patriotic capitalists among us.
7
Yes , china was the most favored nation in the past . As an immigrant I thought other nations should get that chance or it should be shared than bestow it all on one , like the most favored child. So America created China to this status !Now lamenting about it, when we matured to understand the folly seems to be too late to turn back the clock . Chinese have copied our technology, intelligence, cultural aspects , fashion , design , Architecture, anything and everything including conquering the space.So doing nothing may not be the path to follow, but with strategic thinking to counteract and encouraging innovation ,technology and education may be the path to go.
1
We continue to willfully misunderstand how world trade works. Yes, it produces growth and win-win scenarios. But, even when everyone is winning, some win a lot more than others, which strengthens their country's geopolitical position vis-a-vis others and guarantees future winning. There can be no even playing field in such a game; rather the big winners (i.e. winning "developed countries") act like a kind of cartel (an empire) and keep up the bare minimum of rules that benefit them and disadvantage other countries. China realized, wisely, that it could not join this cartel on favorable terms. So it simply pretended to join but didn't. It has dispensed with the cartel's lies about fairness for all competing companies in world trade - the lies that hide our invisible empire. On the one hand this move has revealed the empire (of the West) that underlies world trade. On the other hand, there is a danger that a fragile world peace, built on imagined "win-win" interactions, is now unraveling. China thinks that it is going to build global stability instead on the strength of a global trading network of elite Chinese. This might just work - it is an old model of empire that one can see in Southeast Asia. But it is not a happy outcome for non-Chinese. We (the U.S.) also need to be thinking in terms of empire. Yes, we have one, and no, it is not working out for everyone. Why not just acknowledge that, and try to offer the have-not countries a better deal?
1
You make some valid points however you do understand the last administration pivoted towards Asia. They constructed the TPP which would have ACTUALLY created some leverage unlike anything we’ve seen from the current administration. Odds are the ‘trade war’ will end with little gained for US.
7
@Ian Judson Exactly! How short people's memories are, but since it was an Obama-era solution, in our Trumpian upside down world, its not mentioned. Now we lost the opportunity to have power in numbers.
I suggest the US prohibit any state-owned enterprise, whether Chinese or some other state, from purchasing any company, mineral assets or substantial real estate in the US. We would never let a foreign government directly do those things so why on earth are we permitting them to do so indirectly?
12
The IMF predicts that China’s GDP will surpass ours by 2030, making it the most powerful economy in the world. China seems to be a defensive nation, by comparison with the US and its long history of military adventures, often disastrous. China is a dynamic, expanding society, lead by smart young technocrats, part of a vision that began in the late 1980s. China invests heavily overseas, building huge infrastructure projects and acquiring the rights to valuable minerals and resources. Its centralized communist government can turn things around on a dime, when they need to. Imagine a giant being so nimble. It will behoove the US to build good relations with the Chinese; the 21st century will almost certainly belong to them.
16
@Gerald if China were on some sort of path toward democratization, the scenario you describe would be a positive one. But because China has no plans to allow democratic freedoms, it would be a scary world. It would be a world in which the leading economy does not allow freedom of speech and the people have no say in governance. What if these things exist nowhere? Why then would it be a good idea for the leading country to be a nationalist authoritarian regime?
4
Hmmm. China locks up a million Muslims, captures Canadians to hold as ransom, makes predatory loans, annexed islands belonging to other nations, steals corporate and government data files, are the World’s largest polluter, do we need more reasons to take notice, stand up, and slow down their developing hegemony?
@Jac Zac
It’s nothing something we can control. I didn’t say it was ideal, but we should face the reality and be smart. No-one knows now what kinds of pressures will build up inside Chinese society as their population becomes more affluent, Westernized, and demanding. We know the communist party’s worst fear is loss of control. So yes, there are dangers. I recognize it is a lot to ask of the US to have a coherent foreign policy towards China, or anyone for that matter, but to try and thwart the inevitable and set the stage for real future conflict would be thoroughly misguided. China forgets nothing.
"China is our only major trading partner that is also a strategic rival", and yes Beijing is belligerent and I would add ruthless. So many nations have looked aside to a large degree as they've mistreated prisoners, both from foreign countries and their own people.
They are outraged if they are criticized. For some reason I've always thought that the Chinese valued honor. It's not wise to be idealistic during these times it seems.
6
Amen. Since joining the WTO almost two decades ago, China has not reformed, but has gamed the system. Why help create a large consumer market at the expense of our own manufacturing base if the US has no access to it?
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@Conservative Democrat
The USA issues the world's fiat currency (the dollar). It is, therefore, the financial superpower.
A financial superpower "spooks" its domestic manufacturing because it's role in the world economy is to print money, not produce things.
For the USA, it is easier to just print dollars to buy what it needs: since the dollar is the world currency, it knows everybody will have to sustain it.
The only exception to the rule is the industrial-military complex, which still largely manufactures at home. But this comes at a high cost for the USA: the Pentagon operates under a socialist system, so the country has a shadow that haunts it every day, every night.
The USA will never give up the dollar standard for a few manufacturing jobs, that's impossible. That's why many experts who advocate for divesting in China propose not to bring manufacturing back to the USA, but to outsource the jobs to smaller, geopolitically weaker, SE Asian nations (Malaysia being the crown jewel).
@Conservative Democrat And at the terrible expense of our middle class.
@Conservative Democrat
The US has plenty of access to China's consumer market. US companies sell hundreds of billions of dollars in goods to Chinese consumers every year. GM sells more cars in China than in the US.
In some industries, US companies have better access to the Chinese consumer market than Chinese companies have to the US consumer market. For example, Apple sells lots of phones in China, but Huawei phones are effectively banned in the US. Most people in China could probably name dozens of American consumer companies because American consumer products are for sale everywhere in China. How many Chinese consumer companies could the average American name?
5
Huh. Funny you should mention it. I've been saying something similar to my fellow Canadians - and really, everyone else in the world - about untying our economies from America, ever since the day you nominated Donald Trump for president. So far, that's proven to be extremely good advice. Indeed, I'd argue that it's better advice than untying our economies from China.
16
@Everyman Trump lost the popular vote. He only won because Putin hacked the election.
1
It is a peculiarly common conservative meme to conflate economic competition and military threat. Yes, China has and will continue to compete economically with U.S. corporations and the handful of elites that hold the bulk of their capital assets. Portraying China as a military threat is merely an attempt to provide U.S. corporations with the same federal support that China corporations receive, a strange request from the Friedman gang.
In contrast with U.S. legacy of militarism, China is a kitten.
15
@john Except their admirals keep threatening to destroy our Navy. That's not the language you expect from an 'ally.'
Wake up, before it's too late.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
Wrong.
It’s but a few decades old this go around.
Think NK; Taiwan; S. China Sea buildup. One Belt One Road. Beware the Asian Tiger.
It is consolidating power.
Watch what it does, not says. - Sun Tzu
Given the dependence of the US consumer and economy on goods made in China, and the US government on Chinese purchases of treasury bonds, it's unlikely that this will come to pass anytime soon. China has the potential to be a much worse problem that it already is, and disengaging economically or diplomatically will mean an even greater loss of influence over its military hegemony and human rights abuses. Make no mistake, the government there is little better than that of North Korea, and poses a much bigger existential threat than people want to admit, but neither country is going away anytime soon, and will have to be dealt with on its own terms, not our preferred terms.
5
If we actually treated them as a partner with friendship then we could work together better than treating them as an enemy. They are our biggest source for our many rats that fill our stores. The country made it to the moon but it s still mired in second world corruption. They are not a threat to our security. We need the stop searching for threats and start searching for peaceful solutions.
11
@Electroman72
That's been the modus operandi of the world community since the Tiananmen Square massacre of many years ago. In this case ignoring bad behavior and encouraging good doesn't seem effective.
2
@Electroman72 So much naivete, so little time.
Admiral Lou gave a wide-ranging speech on the state of Sino-US relations. The high-profile, hawkish military commentator reportedly declared the current trade spat was “definitely not simply friction over economics and trade,” but was instead a “prime strategic issue.
His speech, delivered on December 20 to the 2018 Military Industry List summit, declared that China’s new and highly capable anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles were more than capable of hitting US carriers, despite them being at the centre of a ‘bubble’ of defensive escorts.
“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.
He said the loss of one super carrier would cost the US the lives of 5000 service men and women. Sinking two would double that toll.
“We’ll see how frightened America is.”
Giving China unconditional most favored nation status (2000) and then allowing it to enter the World Trade Organization (2001) were, despite malarkey from pundits like Friedman (and sometimes Kristoff) of the NYT, two of the biggest trade blunders the US has made.
The PRC is a state run command economy. Its 1.3 billion people are not free. What is manufactured and how much and often by whom is dictated by the party. To whom it is sold and at what prices are also frequently dictated. Sometimes they do a good job; sometimes, not. But the idea that through stronger economic ties we would somehow transform the country into a multi-party republic was always nonsense.
It's nice that the authors admit that these trade matters should be addressed by coordinated actions with our allies. The current administration has done everything possible on a trade basis (and in many other ways) to alienate those allies. The crony capitalists infesting and financing this administration are supporting these policies, destroying much hope of gaining full cooperation from our allies.
As for shifting supply chains elsewhere, one purpose of TPP (which went forward without us) was to make such a shift somewhat feasible. We might also want to reflect on the amount of foreign aid (or at least infrastructure projects) that China is handing out around the world, while we have devoted our national treasure to war. China now has considerable support in the WTO.
Our policy; too bad; so sad.
30
@M. Johnson Prior to the outbreak of WWI Britain and Germany were one another's largest trading partners.
Smith, along with many other economists, saw trade as a replacement to war among nation states. Sometimes you get trade rendering war obsolete (costs too much, enmeshed economies, too many beneficiaries, the old non-zero sum game) while others saw trade as a way of shifting warfare into a more productive plane.
The first I am less convinced by. Trade might provide some incentive to avoid wars, but it does not wipe it out. Indeed, trade can lead to gunboat diplomacy and war. When you have nations competing economically, each with their armies, especially two superpowers, it is very easy to see how trade disputes could lead to an outbreak of war.
4
@David
I'll still take the countervailing power offered by a multilateral TPP over the blatantly adversarial relationship proposed by the authors of this op-ed
But isn’t China where all our manufacturing jobs are now? Whose fault is that? Isn’t China where Walmart gets its cheap merchandise? Whose fault is that?
29
@Zejee: Whose fault is it? Well nobody's, really. You shouldn't be looking to China, or India or Thailand for those "lost" manufacturing jobs. The culprit is much nearer to home -- your local robotics developer. Why should GM employ people, when modern robotics means that they can produce a car with one-fifth the human labor they needed forty years ago? But the news isn't all bad -- it won't be too long before those same robots are swiping Chinese jobs as well. Not that that will do any good for American workers.
In the 21st century, once the initial capital investment has been made, no human being anywhere can compete with a robot over the long term. Nobody. That isn't going to change. It is the refusal to acknowledge that simple fact which drives the entire MAGA fantasy. However, in planning for the future, we'd do better to look to the real causes of middle class economic angst rather than the imaginary ones -- even if it isn't nearly as emotionally satisfying.
2
@Zejee It is a criminal President's fault: Nixon.
We should have left China when Nixon resigned. There's plenty of countries we can work with. We don't need China for anything. Period.
Dangerous? Whom did China bomb lately? Or embargoed? Or sanctioned? Or imposed trade tariffs on out of the blue? No country is more dangerous than USA. Decoupling one's economy from US is the best thing any nation could do now. And they need to do it fast.
82
@David
You think so? Ask the Taiwanese those questions.
The US will emerge from this black hole of an administration, but China’s president is president for life.
7
@David
If you think the CCP doesn't use their economic muscle to punish behavior it doesn't like, you're either completely in the tank for the CCP or completely misinformed.
Witness the economic pain they inflicted on South Korea in response to the THAAD deployment, or the banana ban on the Philippines in response to the SCS islands dispute. How about the de facto ban on Norwegian fish imports in retaliation for the Nobel Prize award to Liu Xiaobo?
I imagine most citizens of the countries surrounding China would find the idea of China as a benevolent hermit superpower utterly hysterical.
China is historically one of the world's largest imperial powers, has fought many wars to subjugate neighbors, and even now threatens a peaceful democracy, Taiwan, with military annihilation on a regular basis. These are no idle threats.
No superpower in world history has refrained from throwing its weight around in many violent and deplorable ways. China's past history as a major power indicates we should expect no different from it in the future.
11
David asks what country China has bombed lately. Just watch the collection of their debts in Africa, and South Pacific surrounding countries, and South America, as well. When those debts are due, countries will owe all they make to China, slavery and plunder will be extracted, under the gun. This Chinese dictatorship kills its own, its citizens live under the stress of unregulated and corrupt civil servants, and they may be sent away for uttering a peep in opposition. Who needs bombs?
9
We need to honor our commitment to Taiwan, a true democracy, regardless of the financial impact of China's inevitable retaliation.
China believes our loyalty to capitalism is much stronger than our loyalty to democracy. We need to prove them wrong.
118
@Mac. It would be nice to prove them wrong, but nothing we see from the Senate says that McConnell values democracy more than money. And none of the silent Republican Senators indicate that they do either.
3
@Mac
I was surprised to see that the illustration accompanying this column includes Taiwan as if it were actually part of China.
9
Like the UK did in Hong Kong, we will have to hand it over. Why not? Would you want China in Cuba?
I agree with most of the authors opinions. But, am I missing something here? The real leverage that the Chinese has over the US is that they buy most of our national debt. So, we continue to pump money into their economy through debt service. And what happens if, as a "nuclear" option, they quit buying, or want to cash out?
11
@Mark
The Chinese don't gain leverage by buying our bonds. They need somewhere to move US dollars. It's mutual need for both countries. They could conceivably use the dollars elsewhere, but they value the US stability. And the bonds, purchased at extremely low interest rates, aren't profitable for them via our debt service because of how low interest rates were compared to inflation.
And last I saw China owned 7% of the US debt. Japan was close to that. Majority of debt is owned by the US, and the debt owed to ourselves is an asset to the country.
7
They’ll have nowhere to invest their massive foreign reserves. One hand washes the other. Both hands are tied to the others and thank God for it. Realpolitik. Economic MAD.
@Mark The debt is denominated in US dollars. You print a bucket ton of dollars and settle their demand for payment. Or as money is now electronic somebody punches a few buttons. Now the US dollar may plunge in value and the spillover effects of the global reserve currency basically printing itself out of default will be huge, along with China suddenly finding the value of their assets has plunged.
The vendor finance over the last 25 years that China has undertaken has long since reached the point where both sides hold loaded guns at the other's head.
15
Explain that to “our” multinationals who think that US markets are stagnant and the only way to keep stock prices rising is to somehow magically get huge market share in a country that steals proprietary technology and keeps its market share for itself.
65
Remember how much of our technology we stole from England to build our nation!
This article is two years too soon.
This grossly incompetent ‘administration’ would never be able to come near implementing this type of strategy. An even bigger barrier than the split among the allies would be the the utter unwillingness of US business to forego the enormous profits they derive from their Chinese business.
But please keep some of these ideas in your back pocket for the next President. The main goal should be to stop the free, unlicensed technology transfer.
This is do-able if real leaders can show the country the short and long term benefits, and certain businesses, such as Apple, then become willing to accept the costs of such a policy.
16
How come the Trump Administration is not "revisionist," too? After all, we seem to be challenging the rules, as well.
6
Ceasing trade has never been a good way forward in international politics. Trade is what keeps big powers at peace and thriving.
15
@Jacob Ostergaard I agree that the current scenario where China is invested in world trade and stability (up to a point) is far more preferable than, say, a North-Korea like country on steriods (which is what China might have been if Nixon hadn't opened it up). That being said; however, I now think the time has come to show the Chinese that they do not get to practice predatory trade policies on a kow-towing world without consequences. A reduction, or at least slowing, of trade between China and the west does not seem like such a bad thing at the moment: the Chinese are invested enough in the economy that they are not going to take the North Korea route.
5
The Chinese are at an economic disadvantage in a trade war, but they have big political advantages too-- they can conduct a trade war over years and decades in a covert manner, with rapid responses, tactical flexibility, and veiled policies that let them violate agreements, handshake or otherwise, for years before arousing serious ire, at which point they simply make cosmetic adjustments. Their ability to operate on longer timescales lets them wait out skeptical governments until either those governments decide they want a "reset", or another government comes in and wants a fresh start.
The authors are broadly right on the approach needed-- disengagement and containment hits the Chinese harder than us. But I think we also need to promote trade predators in general and China in particular to a recognized issue by having a new governmental department-- the department of Trade Security-- which is to long-term trade strategy what the Fed is to interest rates-- a department which is politically independent, watches trade predators like a hawk, responds rapidly and severely to predatory governments (particularly strategic rivals), and yet at the same time is run by long-term technocrats who remain in office for years and decades-- to match the Chinese.
8
@Alexander
They also don't have to worry about how the people vote or what they think, which enables them to take the long view.
4
@expat
The CCP cares intensely about what people think, because if they lose the "mandate of Heaven", they don't go into opposition for a few years like a political party in a democracy - their entire house of cards comes crashing down.
Almost everything the CCP does revolves around maintaining a firm grip on public opinion. The stakes for them are far higher than for our own domestic parties.
1
They also have to watch their 1.4 billion for treasonous acts against their despotic rule. Do not underestimate the staying power of freedom comrade!
Historically China only became hostile to the US when provoked (the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 19th century, and the Korean War in the 1950s when the US Army reached the Chinese border). And the authors (so-called "China experts") propose provoking China again with essentially a permanent embargo. Have they really considered the consequences of turning the world's largest country into America's permanent enemy?
51
@Nomad
"Have they really considered the consequences of turning the world's largest country into America's permanent enemy?"
Sounds like the question that the writers of this op-ed never asked themselves--and they should have.
However, right now, there are a few Canadians who are, in effect, being held hostage in China in apparent response to a Chinese executive being held in Canada because of a violation of rule of law.
The key is not to pick unnecessary fights, but not be intimidated, either. Advocate the mutual advantage of rule of law wherever possible. China's fatal flaw will be Xi's declaring himself emperor for life. The lifeblood of China is the ambition and energy of an educated and growing middle class. Will those people spend their lives kowtowing to an aging ruler and his toadies who will eventually have to resort to the tactics of suppression and slaughter of Mao to maintain power? Not likely. Been there. Done that.
For the “American Enterprise Institute” human rights come last… property comes first, second, and third. The current totalitarian regime in China is to be disliked and distrusted but it is much less belligerent than the US. Count the number of countries China has bombed, invaded, or warred upon since 1949 and compare it to the US. China has perhaps one military base outside it, the US nearly 900. It the AEI were a bit less of a cheerleader for US wars of aggression, its employees might have more cred.
164
@stevelaudig
Was the war in which we freed China from Japanese colonization one of those wars of aggression? It was that war that left us with military bases all over. In 1949 China was a newly formed nation out of 100 years of chaos and desolation. It didn’t have the bombers with which to bomb. It was yet to face the self inflicted horrors of the Great Famine and the cultural revolution in spasms of unprecedented self-directed violence.
Even so it was able to solidify the grip of a solidly central government for the first time in generations,successfully invade Tibet, defeat the United States Army out in an epic defeat in Korea, help install the horrid criminal Pol Pot, and briefly invade Vietnam.
Since deciding to industrialize with some components of a capitalist model organized to serve a communist dictatorship, it has pushed Britain out of Hong Kong, effectively seized the South China Sea thumbing its nose at international law and norms, and bullied the entire world into calling an island where it exercises no sovereignty it’s territory, and proceeded with its plan to reconstitute the old communist re-education concentration camp in the Western regions without regard to human rights.
As our founding political philosophers noted, without property rights there are no human rights. A nation grounded in a lack of respect for private property rights inevitably displays no respect for any individual rights, as China and the Soviet history well demonstrate.
32
@stevelaudig The Chinese have a national culture of victimization it is true, but they have not been actual victims for a long time, and they've been doing plenty of victimization themselves over the past few decades. If China has been involved in less foreign war than the US in the post-WW2 period it is because it only uses force in its own self-interests-- the Cambodians experienced a Chinese-backed horror unlike anything the US has ever participated in, the Vietnamese after stamping out the atrocity that was the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge tasted Chinese aggression in the form of a punitive war and will tell you about it, the Tibetans... well, they can't tell you about it, and let's not ask the Uighurs until they get out of re-education / de-islamification camp. Meanwhile, the Chinese have claimed the sea almost up to their neighbors beaches and are busy claiming, militarizing, and provoking inside of a sphere that has been nothing but a font of prosperity for them.
So please, let's not get all pie-eyed about the comparative righteousness of the Chinese vis-a-vis the US.
27
Your knowledge of recent Chinese history is impressive, but I'd like to point out some unfortunate assertions you made.
1, re private property rights as a precondition to human rights. This seems self-serving to me. For a time, the conflation of these concepts was largely possible only for rich white males; now that such rights are universal, they've become a rhetorical weapon: e.g. why can't these upstarts respect my horde? (Including such intellectual properties that I forcibly acquired from my employees as a condition of employment.)
2, China did not push Britain out of Hong Kong; it refused to renew a 99 years lease for the New Territories (thereby recovering HK, which was militarily extracted from it after it failed to respect British private property, opium, in a drug interdiction effort.)
3, China's current maritime aims appear no more hostile than those of the US early last century (annexation of Hawaii, an insurgency war in the Philippines,) prior to WW2.
I have no love for the authoritarian actions and often overbearing and paternalistic styles of the Chinese government, but to criticize them for being a faceless communist dictatorship devoid of respect for private property and bent on territorial expansion, while tacitly excusing our own past predatory trade practices and military incursions as on-the-whole benign, constitutes the height of hypocrisy at best, and ideologically-driven strategic myopia at worst.
9
I've been saying this for the last forty years--that interaction with China should be approached with rigorous critical analysis instead of wishful thinking. After normalization of relations with the PRC, it seemed that the journalists who were first granted access and wrote their glowing reports had checked their critical thinking at customs. This is not to say that everything with China has been negative--far from it. It's just that as a general rule the U.S. government and businesses should have been much more careful, tougher and smarter in their dealings with and in China.
20
Unfortunately China and the U.S are joined at the hip economically. It's been that way for decades, and there is little that can be done. Tariffs so far hurt only the farmer and small business owners, and the consumer.
To get an idea of the scale of the problem, the authors should enter any Walmart store or any other big box and pick up any item and read the label.
Joined at hip!
43
If the West wanted to slow
China from becoming an economic power all they had to do was not educate and train their students and our companies would not have agreed to the stipulation of technology transfer. Eventually China would become economic power but it would have been delayed by decades. The cat is out of the bag.
If China was a democracy it would have been the largest economy long ago.
59
@on . The US educated and trained Chinese students, then kept all the smartest ones. Lots of excellent Chinese restaurants in Silicon Valley.
2
@Don
Not the largest, but maybe as big as India's.
3
@Don If China were a Democracy, it would be like India.
3
The authors are generally correct but they make a huge omission; no solution can be accomplished without a united front between the US, EU, Japan and other allies. None of the pushback they recommend can succeed if the U.S. goes it alone - as Trump likes to do. If US companies are denied the Chinese market, their European and Japanese competitors will swiftly move in to replace our companies. The US economy will be the only loser. I see no hope that Trump will come to this realization.
139
@JayCasey
I think the authors did cover that point:
While the United States must act unilaterally if necessary, the cooperation of allies such as Japan, Germany and Britain would make these steps more effective.
@JayCasey
Trump isn't trying to "solve" anything in any recognizable presidential policy making way.
His instructions from his handler Vladimir are to disrupt or destroy our alliances.
The sooner we all recognize that and stop trying to makes sense of his "policy" the better.
The grim situation described by the authors should have been addressed by both the previous Democratic administration and its Republican predecessor. But neither the Obama or the Bush II administration did so and now the problem is being addressed by the Trump administration in the only manner by which the Trump administration addresses any issue: imperfectly.
Intellectual property rights have been discussed during the current negotiations. Perhaps the best course at this point would be a joint resolution in both houses of Congress supporting a tougher line towards China.
36
@Quiet Waiting Which also means keeping the big corporations in line.
@Rosie The problem is a creation of the Trump administration which is a group of total nincompoops.
Even if one still labors under the delusion that the internet can ever be secure, one still has to reckon with the more materially obvious: most chips made for most gadgets, ranging from your cell phone to your pacemaker to the electric grid to our newest military equipment are made in China. And the Chinese leadership, as with that of any other country, would be derelict in its national self-serving duty if it did not embed clandestine code in those chips allowing those gadgets to be shut down or controlled.
Don't blame the Chinese or American governments for doing what governments always do when they can. Rather, look in the mirror and consider whether your own increasing use of and advocacy for increased internet-connected gadgetry has enabled this, both in terms of financial incentives for corporations and grass roots pressure on politicians.
When the lights go out in your home or an F-35 gets remotely hijacked don't be too surprised. And keep in mind that the primary effect of the drones and self-driving cars everyone is all gaga about will be to create massive unemployment for suicide bombers and assassins. But, hey, that's a small price to pay for seeing on (anti)social media what your friends ate for dinner.
27
@Steve Fankuchen
The leading microprocessor and memory chip manufacturing countries are South Korea, the United States, Taiwan and Japan.
1
@Steve Fankuchen
Chips for gadgets, yes. But the cutting edge chips, for military and space use, are still the province of the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Britain, and Taiwan.
All chips, however, are dependent on rare earths that China has a strangle hold on.
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@Steve Fankuchen
That’s a little over the top but I agree with your general point.
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Authors are residents of American Enterprise Institute, right wing. First, take with a Grain of Salt. Several.
Of course China is a rival state and why not. America's wpr;d hegemony can not last. China intends a zone of influence as we do; South China Sea for example. Problem is it is deeply authoritarian not democratic and long term it is contrary to many but not all of our interests.
Will we/they start another Cold War and waste endless cash for 70 years? If so, it has been the death of all empires and will be ours too.
How can we deal with it strategically yet peacefully because unlike the USSR it cannot be contained given its economic strength.
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@AG
The USSR had a lot of power and some significant engineering achievements. It could not keep up with a growing America, and I would expect a similar cold war with a similar ending.
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@Alan
China grows at 8%/year unlike the USSR. This is the USSR on steroids. Recall our massive debt in the 80's when Reagan decided to spend them into oblivion. Yes it finally imploded, and not necessarily due to RR, but China has a different system. Consider its One Belt One Road program. Can America have healthcare, etc. while spending its wealth on this and thrive? Read Roman history Alan about empire overreach. . I like to think you're right but facts on the ground are far different.
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@Alan That thinking may feel warm and fuzzy, but China has far more population than the Soviet Union ever did, far more wealth, and at least some demonstrated skill at creating wealth. Xi seems to be regressing a bit, but in general the Chinese have shown far more flexibility than the Soviet Union ever did. I do not agree with @AG that we cannot take measures to protect ourselves from China-- particularly by following a lot of the policies recommended in this article-- but it's going to be harder than it was with the Soviet Union and the outcome is not certain.
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I lived in China for 2 years as an expat for a huge US Technology company. Here is the Chinese way of doing business: "give us your technology, and go away."
I could not agree more, and all Americans, regardless of political stripe, needs to prepare for the coming war with China (cold and hot war).
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@MoneyRules
But what happened to that technology?
It was priority funneled into a well-funded government department staffed with thousands of PhD experts. They took it apart, took pictures, made notes, classified every atom, and then stuffed it all into a massive database where it eventually shuttled down a series of tubes and fell out the other end into its highest and best use.
Along the way it was compared to what they have in current use and if lights flashed everything was instantly upgraded. The result is not just the latest and greatest everything but also the cheapest.
Once that front-end American technology is examined, reprocessed, and improved it gets shipped back to the United States as product we pay for.
So they do steal our technology, but at least they give it back.
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@MoneyRules . And the "huge US Technology company" in China isn probably making money hand over fist in China. If it wasn't profitable, they'd go away too.
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As deeply uncomfortable as it is to realize, and perhaps even risky and definitely unfortunate to have to say, based on my personal experience too, I know you are correct in your assessment.
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This notion assumes a long-range view and a long-term commitment to the national interests of this country yet to be demonstrated by the current administration. The current POTUS is more interested in plying Xi Jinping with flattery, and cultivating favor that might lead to personal profit than to any strategy that would benefit our economy. His businesses and those of his daughter that are located in China remove any possibility of his acting as an honest broker for the U.S. vis a vis China.
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