[foxdemon]

I don't know if I believe war could happen. There's just too much money to be made on all sides. There are fewer and fewer wars today than there have been in the past. There's an argument that the reason for this is money. People just love making money, and wars fuck that up.

I hope you are right. It would be a terrible shame if America defeated China. China deserves a second attempt at dropping a space station on Europe.

Speaking of Europe, they seem to be the ones coping it hardest from the economic uncertainly of this trade war. And they coped it hardest from the 2007 crisis. Must be something wrong with their economy.

[ThirdTerm]

Beijing is also using its power like never before. Chinese ships routinely patrol around the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan. And while China’s leader stood in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2015 and said that his country had “no intention to militarize the South China Sea,” today, Beijing has deployed advanced anti-ship and anti-air missiles atop an archipelago of military bases constructed on artificial islands.

China’s aggression was on display this week, when a Chinese naval vessel came within 45 yards of the USS Decatur as it conducted freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, forcing our ship to quickly maneuver to avoid collision...

This has been a nagging issue in East Asia and Asian countries such as Japan are happy with the Trump administration's strong stance on China's territorial grab. Zhang Baohui, professor of international relations at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, said, “This will look like the declaration of a new Cold War, and what China may do is more important than what it will say about Pence’s speech.” These Chinese experts are naturally siding with China because of their ethnicity and there's nothing wrong with criticizing China’s aggression in the South China Sea. The Trump administration reversed America's longstanding foreign policy and stopped kowtowing to China, which is the right thing to do. Australia has been so soft on China that China could get away with interfering in Australia’s domestic affairs. There are allegations of Chinese meddling in Australian universities, where it's now a taboo to talk about Taiwan and Tibet, and donations to political campaigns by ethnic Chinese businessmen connected to Beijing.

[foxdemon]

This has been a nagging issue in East Asia and Asian countries such as Japan are happy with the Trump administration's strong stance on China's territorial grab. Zhang Baohui, professor of international relations at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, said, “This will look like the declaration of a new Cold War, and what China may do is more important than what it will say about Pence’s speech.” These Chinese experts are naturally siding with China because of their ethnicity and there's nothing wrong with criticizing China’s aggression in the South China Sea. The Trump administration reversed America's longstanding foreign policy and stopped kowtowing to China, which is the right thing to do. Australia has been so soft on China that China could get away with interfering in Australia’s domestic affairs. There are allegations of Chinese meddling in Australian universities, where it's now a taboo to talk about Taiwan and Tibet, and donations to political campaigns by ethnic Chinese businessmen connected to Beijing.

Regarding your comments on Australia, I agree that people were too soft and taken with unfounded optimism. But now the opposite is the case. There is a lot of unfounded pessimism. One extreme to the other, as a people who didn’t bother to sit down and think things through are wont to react.



On another subject, there seems to be a misunderstanding of the Chinese outlook. I find this comment by Yun Sun interesting.

”My comments to the Chinese are that maybe China should tone down its assertiveness to avoid further tension,” Ms. Sun said of her discussions with Chinese officials. “And the reaction I get is that ‘We don’t think we are being assertive.’”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/world/asia/pence-china-speech-cold-war.html

How outsiders see China and how Chinese see themselves is quite different. This sort of fundamental misunderstanding doesn’t bode well for negotiated solutions.

[Crantag]

[quote="foxdemon"And they coped it hardest from the 2007 crisis.[/quote]

Did you just confuse China with Japan or something?

China has never even had an economic recession.

[foxdemon]

[quote="foxdemon"And they coped it hardest from the 2007 crisis.

Did you just confuse China with Japan or something?

China has never even had an economic recession.[/quote]


Actually, I was talking about Europe.


Back on subject, why are the Chinese so misunderstood?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1251239/why-are-chinese-tourists-so-rude

If we take an honest look at Chinese tourists, we find that we are dealing with a nation of good old boys. This would go a long way to explaining their foriegn policy being apparently aggressive to others but they themselves can’t see how it would be understood that way by others.

Americans tend to see Chinese as either the yellow peril or cute little puppy dogs. They don’t seem to understand Chinese are no different from the folk down Alabama way.

[Crantag]

Back on subject, why are the Chinese so misunderstood?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1251239/why-are-chinese-tourists-so-rude

If we take an honest look at Chinese tourists, we find that we are dealing with a nation of good old boys. This would go a long way to explaining their foriegn policy being apparently aggressive to others but they themselves can’t see how it would be understood that way by others.

Americans tend to see Chinese as either the yellow peril or cute little puppy dogs. They don’t seem to understand Chinese are no different from the folk down Alabama way.

This article definitely makes perfect sense.

As mentioned in the article, it's especially a phenomenon for older generations.

Younger Chinese tend to be much better behaved.

Anyone that's spent time in China has witnessed this sort of stuff. Is what it is.

Where I'm at is pretty civilized by China standards.

[Rugoz]

It was fun to see the Neocons taking over. At least they are smart enough to end the trade war on American allies.

Still, the US is pretty much alone in its attempt to contain China, it won't bother Xi too much.

[Rancid]

Still, the US is pretty much alone in its attempt to contain China, it won't bother Xi too much.

This is a fallacy I pointed out earlier. From a military perspective you are mostly right. It's not that these other nations don't want to challenge China, it's that they just don't have the means to challenge them. For example Japan is all on board with containing China, along with all the countries China is trying to steal land from. However, from the far more important trade/economic perspective, you are dead wrong. As I said, the North America is actively working with the EU, Japan, Korea, and a few others specifically to formulate trade blocks. This is what Obama was doing with TPP. Trump is now talking up the same strategy after the USMCA has reached an agreement. The entire purpose of all of this is to deleverage China a bit relative to the rest of the world.

Again, the rest of the world is uniting and moving forward together. My thesis is, this is necessarily for progress (social/cultural, economic, and technological). Thus, China in the long term will hit a point where their own progress will slow dramatically because they think they are special and want to go it alone. Everyone is moving forward, while they are moving backwards.

[Rugoz]

As I said, the North America is actively working with the EU, Japan, Korea, and a few others specifically to formulate trade blocks. This is what Obama was doing with TPP.

Is it? In any case, China is still a WTO member and the aforementioned allies have, to my knowledge, no intention to impose tariffs violating WTO rules.

[Rancid]

Is it? In any case, China is still a WTO member and the aforementioned allies have, to my knowledge, no intention to impose tariffs violating WTO rules.

Yes, there are (early) discussions. Those discussion are about free trade which would not violate WTO rules at all. The point is, these other nations are forming a trading block that can rival China. If you combine all the top economies together, they start to be as big as China. Thus, trade negotiations can be done as block, and thus this block has more leverage than if each individual nation tried to negotiate with China. It's a unionization of sorts. USMCA/NAFTA achieves this in North America, TPP was trying to do it in Asia. This will happen. This is going to take a while to happen, but it's happening.

This is why Brexit could also be a bad move on the UKs part. They are now less of a priority to the US and EU to negotiate into the trade block.

You really think everyone else in the planet is going to sit by idly and let China eat their lunch? FYI, China has not played nice in the trade area either. This is one area Trump is 100% right. This is something I hate to admit.

FYI, at the moment the WTO is largely neutered because the US is preventing the appointment of some key executes in the WTO. That means WTO cases arn't being heard at the moment. Technically, the US or China or anyone has not be found guilty in violating WTO rules.

[Rugoz]

Yes, there are (early) discussions. Those discussion are about free trade which would not violate WTO rules at all. The point is, these other nations are forming a trading block that can rival China. If you combine all the top economies together, they start to be as big as China. Thus, trade negotiations can be done as block, and thus this block has more leverage than if each individual nation tried to negotiate with China.

A trade agreement between two parties does not prevent trade or the negotiation of an agreement with a third party. It's not like the EU. I don't see any indication that this "trade bloc" is going to act in concert against China. That said, the goal is obviously to form closer economic ties between those nations to make them more independent of China economically.

You really think everyone else in the planet is going to sit by idly and let China eat their lunch? FYI, China has not played nice in the trade area either. This is one area Trump is 100% right. This is something I hate to admit.

I have no illusions about China being the "good guys". Yet unless China does something really stupid I don't think there's enough incentive to break economically with them.

China's automation problem is a bigger challenge simply because they have so many people to take care of.

The "automation problem", or better technological unemployment/inequality, doesn't scale with the population, it scales with the share of the population that doesn't receive the necessary education.

While America is open to talent from all over the world, I don't think it's very good at fostering the bottom half of its population. Moreover, the bottom half in China doesn't have the right to vote. It can be suppressed more easily.

[Rancid]

I have no illusions about China being the "good guys". Yet unless China does something really stupid I don't think there's enough incentive to break economically with them.

No one is taking about breaking economically with China. It's about gaining leverage in negotiation with China. This is achieved by forming a unified economic front between as many non-China nations as possible. That was the point of TPP, and Trump appears to now try some sort of similar looking economic alliance with EU, Japan, Korea, etc.

[Rancid]

A trade agreement between two parties does not prevent trade or the negotiation of an agreement with a third party.

It very much can if the agreement calls for it. This is how unions work too. This is how cartels work as well. It's totally possible, and many nations have signaled a willingness to get into such an agreement. So long as all nations involved can see the greater good for themselves in these sort so agreements (this happens all the time in OPEC for example), it can work. That the hard work it would take to hammer out some sort of economic alliance.

Edit:

The "automation problem", or better technological unemployment/inequality, doesn't scale with the population, it scales with the share of the population that doesn't receive the necessary education.

While America is open to talent from all over the world, I don't think it's very good at fostering the bottom half of its population. Moreover, the bottom half in China doesn't have the right to vote. It can be suppressed more easily.

Maybe. I'd have to think about this much more.

[Rugoz]

It's totally possible, and many nations have signaled a willingness to get into such an agreement.

Everything is possible, but I have to ask you for a source for the second part.

[Rancid]

Everything is possible, but I have to ask you for a source for the second part.

Here's one example. Kudlow (Trump economic advisor) has started hinting at this publicly now. A hints at a so called trade coalition.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/2/larry-kudlow-trade-deals-united-front-china/

I don't know if it will ever actually happen, but it's probably the best idea yet for the rest of the world (not just the US) to finally take back some bargaining power from China.

[Rugoz]

Here's one example. Kudlow (Trump economic advisor) has started hinting at this publicly now. A hints at a so called trade coalition.

I don't think the clause in the USMCA changes anything. Sure, the US could cancel USMCA in response to being "notified about a free trade negotiations with a non-market economy". But it could already do that with NAFTA. It ultimately comes down to bargaining power, which the US has plenty of wrt. Canada.

In any case, the clause is seen more as a violation of Canada's sovereignty than as the beginning of a "trade coalition of the willing".

P.S. That "article" was devoid of substance.

[Beren]

This is one area Trump is 100% right.

He was a bit more ambitious than feuding with China alone.

[Rancid]

He was a bit more ambitious than feuding with China alone.

Sure, but aside from the words, if you look at the actions. It's been more about feuding with China (so far).

Please don't take this as me defending trump. I'm not.

[Rancid]

I don't think the clause in the USMCA changes anything. Sure, the US could cancel USMCA in response to being "notified about a free trade negotiations with a non-market economy". But it could already do that with NAFTA. It ultimately comes down to bargaining power, which the US has plenty of wrt. Canada.

In any case, the clause is seen more as a violation of Canada's sovereignty than as the beginning of a "trade coalition of the willing".

P.S. That "article" was devoid of substance.

There are also various pod casts on economics with actual economist talking about this sort of stuff. I'll leave it up to you to research this topic on your own. I don't have the time to try and spoon feed you to "prove" anything to you. Nor do I care to.

[Beren]

Sure, but aside from the words, if you look at the actions. It's been more about feuding with China (so far).

Please don't take this as me defending trump. I'm not.

If I look at the actions he messed with the EU and Japan too.

EU-Japan free trade agreement defies protectionism

However, at the end even Trump had to understand he can't feud with the whole world, and it wouldn't look good as well perhaps. I actually wonder if there's some Cold War nostalgy in the US.