The raw materials are no use if the finished goods cannot be sold - ultimately China does not have a large enough internal market and must export manufactured goods somewhere.
China could try retaliate with a trade embargo if its markets to Western nations - largely no great loss to those Western nations but if the West were to emobargo Chinese goods then it would suffer far more, and this is due to the absolutely huge trade imbalance.
Sure there would be some shortages in the West but it could adjust easily enough.
It still stems from the historic Chinese idea of trade which is to export goods without importing.
I beg to differ. Few countries are inclined to piss off the PRC, and even those such as the Philippines that have a problem with Chinese actions in the South China Sea will not be able or willing to take on the PRC in a serious conflict. I think you will see a lot of fence-sitters, depending of course on the cause of the dispute, but the issues so far are nothing that other nations want to get involved with. It is partly a matter of diverging economic interests, but also the fact that China is the trading partner of the future and a war of any kind brings no benefits. And being a loyal ally of the USA does not mean that you get rewarded…
If by any chance Trump decides to use the South China Sea issue as an excuse for a hot war, probably a few allies might offer things like logistics support and use of ports, but nothing beyond that, On the other hand, I think there would be a loud chorus of world leaders telling Trump to calm down and resolve the matter diplomatically, as there is every reason to suppose that a limited shooting war with the PRC would not work out according to the script.
That is exactly the strength of the US, not a weakness. In democracy, bad leaders come into power from time to time, but democracies are resilient and recover from such setbacks. Have you noticed how the people in the opposition have been voicing their opinions from day 1 ?
Compare to China, where Xi has declared himself the Emperor for the foreseeable future and crushed all public discourse. Xi will destroy any, and all potential leaders in China and whenever Xi goes the country will be left in a vacuum. In essence Xi is a dictator. And it’s on the people of China and CCP to put up with this. And the CCP has instilled fear in the citizenry that’s not going to change easily.
Any logical country will support the US where they can see people actively correcting their mistakes.
That is the state of things. We don’t really have a way to convince our traditional allies to take an economic hit when they are otherwise unaffected. We’ll tell everyone about the great danger of letting China go unchecked but they’ll see plenty of time in the future to act if it’s really necessary. And besides that, the most we’ll do ourselves is cut off trade with China and the handful of countries that are fully committed to them.
True enough…if this was only about trade and some nebulous (to most) threat China poses. But it’s a bit more than that, and you can already see the trend. For one thing, many western countries care (or should care) about those human rights thingies. Recently, even Germany (one of the countries that has been most on board with working with China in the EU) has started to become more critical of the CCP over things like Hong Kong and the treatment of the Wiegers/Uyghurs, and pressure seems to be mounting on this. That alone is probably going to be sufficient, even leaving aside other issues wrt trade such as China’s continual violation of things like intellectual property and direct violation of patents…and the host of other things the CCP does that annoys other countries.
I don’t think any country…not even the US or India…will completely cut off all trade with China. Hell, I’m not even sure that’s possible, let alone something that would work. China is too intertwined with the rest of the world, and even in a full on cold war situation between the US and China I doubt the US or China will completely stop trading. But things are shifting and several countries have started to look for alternatives for their companies. This isn’t just the US and our idiot president who is rethinking being so reliant on China, or having so much of our critical manufacturing being done there.
At what point did I say anyone other than North Korea would likely align with China? My position is NOT that countries will choose China over the US, which I don’t expect to happen and explicitly said that I don’t, but that for the most part they will choose not to align with the US. There’s no reason for Europe to make large, open-ended commitments to the US (like they did with NATO against the USSR), and I don’t expect them to. And I especially don’t expect Europe to join any kind of NATO-like alliance committing them to stationing military forces and committing to military action against China in the event of hostilities between China and the US (or especially Taiwan).
Everyone sat around and watched while China annexed Tibet and began their oppression of the Uyghurs. There may be some growing amount of ‘tut tutting’ and even a few ‘tsks’, but stable countries haven’t been taking any risks to do anything about it. That includes us, I’m not so sure we’ll be all that great of an ally to our own cause.
I am not sure what exactly “Camelot” means in this context, and using an idiom that vague and unusual isn’t very helpful here. If it means some kind of perfection, it’s obviously not the case as perfection would be “all diplomatic norms” and I said “a lot of diplomatic norms”. If it means something else, then clearly say whatever it is that you mean, because guessing what a vague metaphor means isn’t one of my hobbies.
That’s certainly been the case, but it seems to me (this is my own opinion of course) that things have been shifting on this lately, and it’s a bit more than ‘tut tutting’ and even some ‘tsks’. Several nations have, for instance, started to rethink their stance on allowing Chinese companies to put in their 5-G networks. That’s a pretty big deal. Then you have a bunch of countries changing their stance on special trade with Hong Kong…again, a big deal. Then you have several countries offering incentives to move manufacturing out of China…again, a big deal. These are tangible things, not just hand wringing or passionate speeches. Perhaps it’s just short term push back, but I think it’s more than that, and I think the pressure to do so is growing as the people become aware that this stuff has been happening…something I don’t think they were really that aware of before, as no one would talk about it for fear of being cut out of Chinese markets. John Oliver just did a show on the Uyghurs in fact. To me, that’s a huge change, as though I love John, he along with many in similar positions seem to tip toe around the CCP and things happening in China, less what happened with the NBA or other companies who pissed off the CCP happen to them.
If that’s the case, choosing to side with the country with an incarceration rate of 737 people per 100,000 over the one with only 118 per 100,000 might give them pause. Maybe they’ll base their decision on which country is firing tear gas at peaceful protestors, or has police attacking reporters and medics when protestors take to the streets… but that doesn’t make the decision any easier. China is certainly not good on human rights, but I think that the era of the US being able to claim to be a bastion of freedom is over and done with now that the US’s violent response to black people saying ‘police should not be allowed to just kill us’ is making headlines.
Well, one would hope they would look at the differences between why both countries are locking up who they are locking up, rather than a contextless stat, but that will certainly be part of their calculation. If countries think the US is violating human rights to the degree China is, then certainly they should take that into consideration.
As to tear gas being fired at peaceful protesters, I’d say you haven’t been keeping up if you think this is more an American issue and isn’t happening in China. Brutality to peaceful protesters and reporters have been happening in China for years now (decades really, though it’s unsurprisingly not something that is talked about endlessly here or elsewhere), though perhaps you aren’t aware of it. This doesn’t excuse the US doing it, of course, but there really is no comparison. I think this, again, has to do with an overly heightened focus on the US, on Trump, on perhaps Democrat verse Republican and a consummate lack of focus on what goes on outside of that narrow view, especially if you can post such a comparison as if it’s meaningful.
Sure there are lots of social injustices going on, in the US but the US has a record of doing good, providing interest free loans to third world countries, accepting immigrants (with all caveats), having an open democracy, allowing open criticism … the list can go on and on.
And I think, this moral superiority is just to confuse the discussion.
The real point is about The CPC bullying everyone. Internal bullying and large scale media blackout. Bullying neighboring and worldwide countries : India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, …
Don’t try to muddy the issue by calling to domestic problems in the US or Europe or anywhere else.
Again, at no point did I say it’s MORE an American issue or that it ISN’T happening in China. You seem to keep operating under the assumption that every country is obligated to pick either a US or Chinese Jersey and stick with that - but I don’t think that’s the case at all. If people care about “those human rights thingies”, then the fact that the US’s record on that front is actually pretty damn awful historically and is now getting a lot more attention instead of being quietly covered up.
It’s been happening in the US for decades, but has ramped up in the last decade or so. There is a lot of comparison, because if you’re going to decide who to support based on human rights abuses, the correct answer at this point is ‘neither’. I would certainly agree that China is worse, but it’s just a matter of degree, not a fundamental difference. Acting like I must not be aware of what goes on in China because I point out how much of that also goes on in the US is a bit annoying.
The US treatment of immigrants is an active and ongoing series of human rights abuses - Canadian courts have ruled that the US routinely violates the rights of asylum seekers and no longer counts as a ‘safe country’ for The Safe Third Country Agreement, which puts us in some really awful company. The allowing ‘open criticism’ claim doesn’t match up with police tear-gassing protestors and assaulting and arresting medics, reporters, and legal observers. Again, I’m not saying that China is some sort of paradise where things are better, just that the US’s record and current image on human rights is actually quite awful.
If you’re wondering about the specific immigration bit:
Are you saying that the US doesn’t and historically hasn’t bullied neighboring and worldwide countries?
Latin America would really love to talk to you about whether China or the US is a bigger bully as a first example, especially Guatemala, Cuba, Guyana, Chile, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, and Brazil.
The entire issue that XT brought up and I was responding to was China’s human rights abuses. It’s not “muddying the waters” to point out that the US has similar abuses, it’s directly discussing the issue addressed.
Trump has certainly messed up the the whole Soviet-West Cold War alliances.
But i still think, liberal democracies ultimately understand that the Peoples Republic of China is Ruled by a one party dictatorship, The Chinese Communist Party.
All Capitalist countries are salivating over 1 billion Chinese consumers, but they have been quite aware of the risks, especially recently.
Let the CCP control the south china sea? Invade Taiwan? Japanese islands? Control natural resources in Africa?
China, has for most of its 4000 year existence, been a great and powerful nation. That aren’t currently that, but they mean to change that. If they need to steal intellectual property, commit genocide in Xinjiang or
suppress democracy in the PRC or Hong Kong, that’s what they will do.
Whether liberal democracies, with or without the leadership of the US, choose to stand up to this is up to them.
The problem is that China does not seem at all interested in having open markets, the fact that it is so interested in stealing intellectual property rights demonstrates that it intends to feed this to its own industry.
If Western companies are hoping for a slice of Chinese consumerism, they will be severely dissappointed - its about time the West understood that China isn’t interested in balanced trade at all, and in that China fails to understand that to be a supplier only is to weaken its chances of being the world trading power - because the major consumers can quite easily embargo Chinese products and China cannot respond likewise.
Well, ‘similar’ is a bit of a deception, IMHO…unless you really do believe that, of course. To say that the US (and Europe as well) has issues is true enough. And saying that the US currently has rioters and that tear gas has been used is also true. But to say that this is similar to even what has been happening in Hong Kong, let alone other places is kind of ridiculous. It’s the scale and type that is just off. To say that the US has race issues is also true. But to say that the US imprisoning black people is ‘similar’ to what’s going on in various parts of China wrt the mass incarceration of ethnic minorities BECAUSE they are ethnic minorities, or that the type or kind of imprisonment is ‘similar’ is, again, ridiculous. I’m sure you are going to come back and say that you didn’t actually say any of this…again…but the problem is you did, at least to me. When you make direct comparisons or use whataboutism tactics then you ARE trying to draw parallels, whether you come right out and say them or not.
The thing is, just because the US…or any other western nation…has problems, doesn’t mean that they are ‘similar’ in type or kind to what is going on in China. It is valid to point out the flaws in the US system. There are plenty of them, and they are endlessly talked about on this board. Rightfully so, as the US is still the top country on the planet. What happens in China is pretty much ignored generally on this board, and when the discussion is about what’s going on in China it there is often an attempt to deflect to the US and use ‘similar’ things going on here to justify what China does. But there is no real comparison, no real similarity, just generally a person overly focused on the US and what’s happening here while not knowing…or caring often enough…what’s going on there.
Similar is a statement of fact, not a ‘bit of deception’. The US is currently using tear gas on peaceful protestors (not just ‘rioters’ like you claim) and directly attacking journalists, medics, and legal observers. If you think it’s not similar to what is happening to protestors in Hong Kong, you should provide some explanation of what the major difference is instead of tossing around unsubstantiated uses of ‘ridiculous’.
Your arbitrary declaration that it’s ‘ridiculous’ to criticize the US for mass imprisonment of ethnic minorities doesn’t make your declaration true. Even though the rate of imprisonment for blacks has fallen, blacks still make up 33% of the prison population despite being 12% of the population, and some states still have black people forced into involuntary servitude as servants for their government officials (though it’s not called slavery, since it’s based off of prison labor).
No, I only point out that you’re arguing with things I didn’t say when you actually act like I said things that I very clearly didn’t say. And fundamentally, if you make the claim that people are going to follow the US into a Cold War with China on the basis of Chinese human rights abuses, it’s not ‘whataboutism’ to point out that the US’s record on human rights in the 21st century is ALSO incredibly awful. This is especially true since the situation doesn’t involve a binary choice of ‘who is better on this count’ (as the US is still better than China on most scores), but instead involves countries deciding whether to commit to the US, China, or neither on the basis of human rights abuses. The idea that people will decide to fight against China in support of human rights by siding with the country with the largest imprisoned population that is currently permanently maiming medical personnel, reporters, and legal observers and snatching people off the street with secret police in unmarked vans for indefinite detention at undisclosed locations is more than a little suspect.
What do you mean by ‘top country on the planet’? We’re number one in COVID cases and deaths, sure, and number one in medical-related bankruptcies, an number one in percent of citizend jailed but I don’t think that’s what you mean. If you’re talking about measures of freedom, wealth equality, social mobility, healthcare outcomes and availability, life expectancy, hours worked, and the like, US is nowhere near ‘top country’ anymore. And let me remind you - you’re the one who brought in the idea that countries would decide to side with the US in a cold war against China on the basis of human rights, I didn’t start this particular topic.
Unfortunately “similar” is all too true. There are a lot of substantial differences, but the situations are much too close, and barely distinguishable to many people. We usually rely on the way we’ve steadily progressed toward greater domestic freedom over time and supported it abroad but we’re heading in a backward direction right now, and we’ve been accelerating in that direction since 2001. We can turn it around, we’ve had periods of regression before, but this is not a good time to claim a comparative moral superiority.