Anachro
Posts: 2506
Joined: 11/23/2015 From: The Coastal Elite Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rustysi I get things like that and I know the west wanted a weak and dependent China. As usual its not the case, but at some point we need to learn from the past and not end up in the same situations that result in large catastrophes. Lots of Chinese producers are still very dependent on western technology and will remain so for awhile. This is part of the reason behind China's push to become a tech leader, especially in strategic industries like semiconductors. It's also why lots of Western countries and Japan have export restrictions on such technologies. In the present trade war, China is in a much weaker position vis a vis the US primarily due to the large disparity in trade flows and the greater leverage its gives the USA via tariffs. The Chinese market is already beginning to seriously feel the effects. quote:
ORIGINAL: Bulllwinkle58 Building warships is a poor use of funds that could go to infrastructure instead, those benefits to spread through the civilian economy. China has vast needs for primary infrastructure, especially in rural areas. They don't need to sink billions into CVs to juice their GDP. Logic and economics are not the only things that dictate national decisions. Indeed, throughout history there are many events and developments that have taken place due to other, sometimes illogical factors. Nationalism, humiliation, prestige, etc. Many made the argument prior to World War I that a great war couldn't happen because global trade had made countries too dependent on each other and war too costly. Then it happened. quote:
ORIGINAL: rustysi Yeah. Its things like this that make me nervous when we do things like unilaterally dropping out of a Pacific trade agreement, especially when it hasn't even been signed yet. Nations like New Zealand and Australia started talking with China about some sort of agreement. Not a scenario I would encourage. Free trade is a great thing theoretically and even in practice if its truly done so. Unfortunately, almost all nations engage in some form of protectionism, either through formal or informal means of mercantilism. Europe is not an exception; Japan and China are also heavily protectionist. It would be great if we could get true free trade agreements with other nations, but that has never been the case. Europe refuses to open up its agricultural industry as part of any free trade deal, Japan as well, Germany has auto tariffs on US cars, etc. the list goes on. But those issues are minor relative to the malpractices of China. It would be much more in the interest of the U.S. to keep the EU and other Asian nations close through trade agreements as you say, however bad, and to work together to force China to change its trade practices. Maybe that will happen with the recent US-EU partial rapprochement. Regarding Australia and NZ, I'm not up-to-date and perhaps some forumite from there can inform us. Last I checked, there was also a lot of discomfort with Chinese influence, such as Chinese investors and local property markets with pushback building. Australia has also made investments in its military. I don't think they seriously entertain the idea of moving closer to China.
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