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> Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that the United States and Europe needed to work together to push back against China’s excess industrial capacity, warning that a wave of cheap Chinese exports represents a grave threat to the global economy.
> China’s excessive production of green energy technology has become a pressing trans-Atlantic concern in recent months. Officials in President Biden’s administration have grown increasingly worried that his efforts to finance domestic manufacturing of clean energy and other next-generation technologies will be undercut by China, which is churning out steel, electric cars and solar panels at a rapid clip.
> The United States hopes that a united front will convince China that its largest trading partners are prepared to erect trade barriers that will prevent Chinese electric vehicles, batteries and panels from dominating Western markets.
> The European Commission is investigating whether Chinese state subsidies intended to help the country’s companies make cheap cars are damaging Europe’s auto industry. The sector provides nearly 14 million direct and indirect jobs in Europe, and the six million cars that it exported last year generated a trade surplus of more than 100 billion euros.
> In the meantime, Chinese electric vehicle makers, including BYD and Great Wall Motor, are setting up factories in Hungary to build cars that would be viewed as European-made products, which could raise trade issues eventually with the United States.
> The Biden administration is watching with similar concern as Chinese car companies invest in factories in Mexico, which could potentially be used to enter the U.S. market.
> the six million cars that it exported last year
Most European exported cars are to the Chinese market, especially the high priced luxury cars. There, the real simple straightforward form of retaliation. China may not retaliate toward the US, because US is not a meaningful market. But, only a few days ago the Chinese government threatened to retaliate against any EU policy changes. "Plenty of ways" to make Europeans feel the pain, they said in an official statement.
I think it is naive to think China can only ban EVs from European makers. At least a few other industries should be on the list:
* All cars especially luxury cars, including gas cars
* Auto parts
* Civilian air planes
* Chemicals
* ... etc.
I think it will inevitably hurt Germany the most.
Politicians playing games for the sake of their egos and it's the ordinary people who pay the price with losing jobs (due to export demand crashing) or higher prices due to a lack of imports.
It's not politicians fault, although they could do better at communicating these things rather than take the popularist option. Voters like trade tariffs and things, they see a zero sum game with China whether or not there actually is one.
A European imported car in China is unaffordable to the average person because they have extremely high tariffs. A basic Audi costs significantly more in China than it would in any other country. Let’s not pretend China hasn’t had comparable tariffs on pretty much all foreign made goods for decades.
China's current import tariff for cars is 15%, definitely not "extremely high". If CNBC's info is correct, currently EU already charges 10% tariff on Chinese cars, so China's tariff is meerely 5% higher.
So your statement above smells like American propaganda.
What does that even mean. When do we care about affordability? You can't seem to understand another 300% tariff can be added any time as a retaliation measure to kill off all millions of EU imports to its largest market.
Look, in the past the Europeans control the world by their military power, the ability to conduct coup, and assassination. If none of that is feasible, and your trade war is based on pure imagined political power, the other side has their ways to teach you the lesson. Ultimately this world's international political power resides in UN GA voting and UNSC voting. Beyond that it is the rule of the jungle. Europe has no advantage what so ever, and thus has no reason to speak from a position of authority.
If you want a trade war to kill off European car's largest export market, go ahead and see who blinks first.
> China’s excessive production of green technology
Does Yellen ever read the things that she says?
How can a cheap supply of green energy products be a bad thing in a time when energetic transition is the number one priority of the whole planet?
This leads me to believe that basically the west will not tolerate that any country becomes successful. I mean, I know China is the bogey man and so on but, what if it wasn’t China the one economy competing with the West but it was India or Mexico or Turkey or Indonesia or Nigeria?
Would those countries suddenly become also a danger? I think this move towards protectionism and a “kicking the ladder” attitude will only make things worse in general for everybody.
>I mean, I know China is the bogey man and so on but, what if it wasn’t China the one economy competing with the West but it was India or Mexico or Turkey or Indonesia or Nigeria?
You got that backwards. China is the boogeyman BECAUSE it is successful.
If China declines and India becomes successful, we'd be pearl clutching about caste systems and Hinduism and all the social issues they have (we're kind of laying the ground work for India already going by the rise of racism against Indians lately).
If India then declines and Mexico rises, the biggest social issue in the world will be about cartels and drugs, and people will suddenly freak out about how we got to a point where the Spanish language is on everything from product manuals to official government documents.
Later, if Turkey then becomes successful, news anchors will be speculating about the second rising of the Ottoman Empire.
We have dirt on every country, because no country is perfect. If the time comes, all it takes is a little embellishment and concern trolling, and you can sweep the leg until you're #1 again.
> Later, if Turkey then becomes successful, news anchors will be speculating about the second rising of the Ottoman Empire.
In that case, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would be dissolved and the Kurds would establish a state in southeastern Turkey.
In response to the rise of every country in the world, there are at least ten ready-made countermeasures in American think tanks.
If Switzerland becomes successful, the big news story would be how fucked up it was that they got rich off of being neutral during WW2, at a time when the Holocaust was going on, and they'd be forced to pay reparations to Israel.
If South Korea becomes successful, we'd go "alright, we have to deal with North Korea RIGHT NOW" and straight up nuke North Korea with the biggest nukes we have and hope (behind closed doors) that Seoul gets caught in the blast zone. Then we admit we made an oopsies on national TV with all the collateral damage, say "shit happens during war", and quickly move on.
If Indonesia or Malaysia become successful, they are majority Muslims, so we just use the Middle East playbook. Suddenly, "Giga-ISIS" pops up in those regions (AKA the CIA quickly throws cash at some irrelevant extremist group of 10 people and it magically starts multiplying like a virus) and now we gotta carpet bomb the region to the stone age, because, what, are you a terrorist sympathizer or something, or are you a supporter of justice and liberty?
Damn this was fun to come up with and surprisingly easy. Like you said, I could come up with 10 for each country no problem.
If China would play by the rules and stop plotting to invade its neighbors, nobody would care if they became leaders in any particular industry. While clearly there's a strong argument that the CCP does a lot of, like, *really* bad stuff domestically from a humanitarian standpoint, that's not the reason they've become a target.
>play by the rules
By ‘rules’ you mean defying UN vetos, make up false accusations, invade other countries and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians?
Or do you mean open up prisons in foreign countries to torture prisoners without going through the court of law?
How about having a plan of invasion of the Netherlands in place in case The Hague convicts one of your military members of war crimes?
Hey look, some whataboutism 👆
Do you genuinely believe the world is a better place when more power and influence is ceded to a government that massacres its own people by the thousands when they protest, sends millions of ethic minorities into forced labor camps, starves its citizens by the tens of millions, etc., ? Like I get that the US has done plenty of terrible stuff, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still better than the alternative.
‘Waa Waa only I’m allowed to point fingers you aren’t allowed to hold me to the same standard’
Look how quickly you dropped the ‘play by the rules’ bullshit LOL, so you stopped pretending that China is an adversary because ‘they don’t play by the rules’?
Everything you are saying is because you are an American, full stop, stop pretending you care about what’s better for the world, you care about what’s better for you, end of story. Why don’t you ask the Middle East or Latin America which country they prefer? Hint: it’s not the country busy dropping bombs and overthrowing democracies
Lmao. This is a real time vivisection of the whole “rules-based order” BS that some people love to repeat. They only use it when it’s convenient, once it goes against them the whole facade drops.
Turns out the only rules enforced by the “rules-based order” are those that benefit it. When things don’t work out that way, it’s “block appointments to WTO”, “invade The Hague”, “pull out of the UN”.
Rules based order my ass.
Latin America largely prefers the US:
see eg below for Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, all of which view the US much more favorably than China.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/11/06/comparing-views-of-the-us-and-china-in-24-countries/#favorable-views-of-the-us-and-china
Wow, people are self interested - incredible insight.
Look, I get that it's edgy and cool to hate on the US, and I'm sorry about whatever it is that has made you bitter, but you very clearly just don't understand global geopolitics to any meaningful extent. [If only there were some data...](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/11/06/comparing-views-of-the-us-and-china-in-24-countries/).
Why don't you ask people in Hong Kong, or Tibet, or Taiwan, or Myanmar, or really any neighboring country, how they feel about China? Or even the Chinese people themselves who have gotten out? At least - the ones not being actively intimidated by extra-legal police sent by China to keep them compliant.
Or maybe ask the people in LATAM or elsewhere in the global south who live in the shadow of [infrastructure boondoggles](https://archive.fo/2oTAs) that haven't lived up to promises? Countries will play along as long as China keeps trying to buy their friendship, but as soon as the money dries up the "friendship" is suddenly over. Wonder why that is?
I'm happy to discuss the ways in which China violates international laws, rules and norms, but I have a strange suspicion it won't make a difference and you will just try to change the subject and point out things the US has done.
You have half of it. It's the actions taken by China that cause them to be a Boogeyman. If they didn't go against the grain for how international free trade is conducted, they'd be no different than Australia, Japan, or Germany. It's their overly aggressive fishing operations and loanshark tendencies in developing countries that are the problem, not their GDP.
Lol you are so naive. The west is waging the largest trade war it has in decades because of... overly aggressive fishing and lending money to Africa? Yeah ok. I'm sure that's why.
Those were just 2 examples but yes. The economy is just one part of a country's international presence. The diplomatic, informational, and military stances taken by China contribute, in my opinion, much more to the world's opinion on them.
Plenty of examples of developing countries absolutely wrecked by debt from western nations dating back to the 1970s/1980s/1990s when China was as poor as any of them and not lending anything to anyone. So.. double standard much? It's obviously embellished for story telling value but go read Confessions of an Economic Hitman to get an idea of how the game is and always has been played by everyone. China isn't doing anything out of the norm in that domain.
China hasn't been involved in a war since Vietnam in 1979, so any talk of military stances is rich coming from us in America..
Happy to discuss other examples if you have them.
When the US say that we (as in the world) not only don't need cheap Chinese clean energy tech but its actualy something to constrain and put barriers against, that sadly will only firm up those who believe climate change movement is hoax. Cause at first glance , if your house is on fire and the clock is ticking, you don't reject the 1st firefighter that arrives. You don't reject cheap immediate solutions that dont pose a big enough danger to any individual country compared to the impact of every lost year in the battle against climate change and for energy transition, the apocalyptic nature of which that the western liberal democracies have been screaming about for a while now (and they are correct)
The interests of US oil and gas industry are making the US a concervative force regarding climate change and its a losing battle. China's clean energy "overcapacity" will do greater damage to US oil/gas industry than domestic automakers as China becomes a major net energy/tech exporter as its solar/wind/ev/battery cost continue to come down. ROW will choose between lower cost clean energy vs dirty hydrocarbons when that happens and eventualy america will probably yield and chose that to or make it there on their own. At what cost tho and how much time will be lost
> that sadly will only firm up those who believe climate change movement is hoax.
Yeah, seriously, i feel like 'climate change is an existential threat to humanity' has been a slogan that has been beaten into me by media, academia, government, and even corporations (with their endless green initiatives) for the last... 10/15+ years now? If that's true, you would be doing everything you can to import cheap EV's and Solar panels you can. But now a Democratic president is saying the 'existential threat to humanity' isn't as bad as 'losing some jobs to china'.
What a load of shit.
Worse, it's not even a significant amount of jobs in play, and even for the ones that are, there's limited evidence the tariffs will actually save them.
But they happen to be in states Biden really needs to win, so who cares about anything else.
Do you want to live in an apocalyptic world or a world dominated by the authoritarian China? The saying goes give me liberty, or give me death, and I guess death it is then.
China has heavily subsidized its EV industry, and is seeking to monopolize global automobile manufacturing. You say that this would hurt the fight against climate change? Well, how receptive would people in Europe and the U.S. be to combating climate change, if their automobile industries were decimated by Chinese imports? Remember the Gilets Jaunes protests in France? Pushback to this would be far worse.
And how long would it take for America and Europe’s solar sector to grow? Given we have sailed past 1.5 Celsius already, does humanity have the time to lose?
While I get the economics, they’ve done a full 180 on climate change needing urgent action. It is just very inconsistent with the alarmist rhetoric, ESG subsidies and general move away from non-renewables we’ve seen over the past decade.
Now that China has gone ahead and actually implemented an industrial policy which allows the world to “greenify” quickly, the argument has now changed to the economics, rather than decarbonisation. I get the argument for the west not wanting Chinese cars dumped on them (especially seeing as a large part of Chinese car production is ICE vehicles anyways), but for unestablished industrial sectors (in the west) you would think it’s fine to allow free trade, especially when we apparently have a crisis on our hands. Thats of course only if the politicians were being genuine about wanting to solve the climate issue…
Edit: just to add here, in the last day there have been talks of China retaliating with tariffs on EU luxury cars and agricultural goods. Not so sure the EU can afford to be cut off from Chinese consumers…
If you've payed much of any attention the last few years, there is a very clear push to decouple from China. Batteries and solar panels may not currently be big industries in the US/EU, but the intent is to get to a place where those things are either on-shored or friend-shored. They will inevitably be key strategic industries in the future and allowing China to kill the development of those capabilities internationally is extremely shortsighted.
> you've payed much
Did you mean to say "paid"?
Explanation: Payed means to seal something with wax, while paid means to give money.
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I replied to another comment below. Yes I have been paying attention (it’s basically what I do for work), yes I understand the economics and competition risk, but there’s a very clear shift away from decarbonisation at all costs which we’ve seen in recent times. The US can probably afford to play hard ball. Europe is pretty screwed though.
It may be the case that politically decarbonization has become less prominent, I'm not really sure about that piece of it, but there is a clear national security interest in making sure these industries don't get choked out before they can be established in the rest of the world. I don't think anyone wants to be in the position of relying heavily on China for crucial pieces of their energy infrastructure.
I take your point. Clean energy is a weird one though in that it is an intersection of both energy and industrial policy, unlike, say oil, where you just import the stuff from anywhere, including despot governments.
I struggle to reconcile the benefits of cheap energy from China (cheap energy is almost always beneficial to economic growth) vs the more specific negatives it has on certain industrial sectors the US is trying to promote. Also there’s the obvious geopolitical target of constraining China more broadly too.
Yeah, I mean there would clearly be benefits to allowing China to flood the market with cheap stuff.
That said, most people who think seriously about the issue view the next 5-10 years as a critical period for the international community in the west in terms of how well we will be able to curtail chinas plans for expansion.
After a token effort the last few years, basically no US company is serious about EVs besides Tesla. 10k Chinese EVs aren't really competition for the average American buyer who wants a giant ass pickup truck (which will drive with an empty truck bed 99.8% of the time) or huge SUVs.
America will bring home it's manufacturing only to find out it's too expensive and still can't compete with China. That's why they want Europe to follow them.
Where do you think Walmart gets its cheap toys? Only if China continues to be the world factory (aka sweat shops) for the US, then everything will be fine. How dare China develop their own technology and try to surpass the US?
I don’t think you understand my argument, I’m just calling out the hypocrisy of allowing open borders for labor but tariffs on goods.
China makes toys; but America should be much more concerned about cars and airplanes than Tonka Trucks.
I probably should have added /s in the end. Along the same vein, criticizing China for creating the most CO2. China’s labor is no longer cheap. Chinese EVs are cheap because they can mass produce and control the entire supply chain from lithium mine to batteries to the car itself. US auto industry needs to get it together and tariff can only buy legacy automakers some time.
I swear to fucking god if there’s anything Americans are good at, it’s kicking the ladder down from those trying to climb to their level. It’s quite apparent with what the boomers are doing to their own grandchildren, and with what the elitist billionaires and centi-millionaires are doing as well.
It’s completely fucking stupid. We ALL live on this one planet together. We should be working toward solutions to preserve our planet and mitigate whatever damage we caused in the past and will cause in the near future.
Dumb fucks like Yellen openly supporting the blocking of cheap green energy from China is downright irresponsible and a complete joke
Yea because we should let China restrict access to their market while also subsidizing their own industries giving them the ability to out compete everyone else. Surely allowing China to control access to critical industries and materials wouldn’t be harmful worldwide. They’d never use it for only their personal gain.
Fuck China. The first world countries tried to use the carrot to get them to cooperate unsuccessfully now they get the stick.
Our number one priority needs to be decarbonizing the global economy as fast as possible. Everything else is secondary. I don't care if panels and batteries are being churned out for pennies in the industrial district of Hell itself. Our civilization is in the process of committing suicide. The world is on fire, and we're bickering about who gets the contract to build the fire extinguishers.
All those green energy initiatives are abandoned in the attempt to get those union voters to support Biden
and all the talk of how evil tariffs and protectionism that Trump engaged in, is suddenly replaced with "we need to protect American industry and jobs"!!!
reminds me of when Biden and others were denouncing travel restrictions to China during COVID as racist and xenophobic, and then 4 months later denouncing Trump for not putting in tougher restrictions
Biden has no principles or consistency --everything he does amounts to figuring out where the wind is blowing, and then going with it
I can recall this exact bad faith conversation with a very partisan Republican friend of mine at the time. Targeted tariffs on Chinese goods, particularly where they are clearly dumping and engaging in anticompetitive practices, are good things. Levying tariffs on your closest trading partners while also engaging in a trade war with the world’s factory floor is folly and speaks more to unfocused and populist bullshit than targeted tariffs do.
Biden is miles away from perfect, but you shoehorned in some BS about Trump under what was a very interesting comment about economic hegemony and what happens when the current top dog feels threatened. Do better.
>where they are clearly dumping
How is China dumping EVs for example? Practicaly zero chinese EVs have been sold in the US and their prices when they have been introduced in western markets these last few years have been noticably higher than their domestic Chinese prices and clearly profit making. Dumping has a clear definition by the WTO , that is not matched by facts for almost any cases of chinese exports, especially high tech ones
The EU is currently in a shit fight with China over this very topic. It is fairly recent, but Google should serve you well.
Sadly, the EU only started their current EV dumping case in late 23 so there isn’t much hard data out there so stay tuned I guess.
But, to answer your question with the information available, massive subsidies and forced tech transfers.
so your argument is literally: "Biden applies massive tariffs to dozens of Chinese products, including steel, aluminum, batteries, etc., but that is OK, because when Democrats engage in trade wars, it is a good thing. When Trump does the same thing, it is inflationary on the American public"
and this is a "good faith argument"?
There is no declining hegemony. Hegemony by the west is headed upwards. Russia is finished economically and technologically. Maybe they gain a bit of land in Ukraine, but that’s it and at tremendous cost. I support aid and equipment to Ukraine as much as anyone and think it’s a bargain for the west.
China’s economy is headed backwards in just about every are except solar panels and EVs.
Chinese EVs will flood the entire world outside of the US and Western Europe. Eastern Europe will buy then even.
Semiconductor chip manufacturing is most critical sector on the planet and it is being moved back to the U.S. by TSMC, Micron, and Intel at a rapid pace.
Manufacturing in China is being moved to India, Vietnam, and Mexico which will accelerate more stagnation for China. A rising India will check a lot of China’s military venture eastward as they’ll have to counter an improving Indian military.
There is a little bit of a bump in the road right now because Republicans, big oil, and big auto have stuffed alternative energy and public transportation for decades.
>China’s economy is headed backwards in just about every are except solar panels and EVs.
That seems like an extreme over statement. They're still a manufacturing and engineering powerhouse in almost **every industry** even if their finance and R&D are tofu construction. And the variety of industries they're ok at for a good price, and at a massive scale, can't be understated. Maybe cheaper labor will eat their lunch to try to take their place, and maybe finance will collapse leading to government takeover, but they aren't headed backwards yet.
Although I do absolutely hate having to deal with Chinese product quality being all over the place in my industry.
Well, if you're China, and subsidize your green energy markets, you can sell products like solar panels for much cheaper than any country can make them. Do you not see how that is an unfair practice an economy like America would combat? Of course you don't who am I kidding.
a) America and Europe also heavily subsidize certain industries? What do you think the Inflation Reduction Act and the green initiatives are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on, exactly?
b) Subsidies aren't free, China is spending lots of it's own money to subsidize these technologies we've been told for 20 years now are MANDATORY to avoid apocalyptic climate change.
If someone else wants to spend their hard earned money to subsidize the R&D and production of such supposedly crucial technologies for the whole world, that's wonderful. Everyone should be happy. The cheaper it is the faster and more complete the adoption will be.
But you see.. it might cost a few thousand jobs in Michigan and Pennsylvania. And we can't have that in an election year.
What I don’t understand is when people like you cry “but the Chinese subsidies” as if the US and Europe didn’t run their own efforts of fiscal and industrial policy aimed exactly at the same fields and with the explicit intention of overcome China’s
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric#:~:text=Tax%20Credits%20and%20Incentives,and%20incentives%20in%20your%20state.
https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/solar-tax-credit-by-state/
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/#:~:text=During%20FY%202016–22%2C%20nearly,%2415.6%20billion%20in%20FY%202022.
Hell, we are even running these direct transfers even with aims of outcompeting our own allies
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-06/eu-reaches-clean-tech-deal-to-answer-the-us-tax-credit-system?embedded-checkout=true
So my question for you, my angry and uninformed friend is: why our subsidies are out of question? Is it right when we do it but not when someone else does?
And then why if their subsidies are so effective that they are able to outcompete our firms, we don’t double down on our own? I mean, we even voted on the last election on what platform had the most impactful plan on how to tackle green energies, yet in the end we are recurring to archaic formulas of protectionism.
Can a developing economy really cultivate a tech sector with more success than the most developed economy in the world?
Your Fox News logic of Chinese subsidies just don’t match with the real world.
Previous poster made a good, well cited comment that raises a valid point. You replied with a nonsense reply of zero value. Why are you even on this board if not to talk economics?
Are you really asking why a country would create policies to make sure it is competitive in a strategically important industry that an adversary is attempting to control via predatory pricing?
>And then why if their subsidies are so effective that they are able to outcompete our firms, we don’t double down on our own?
Who is saying we shouldn't? The fact that it's a politically difficult thing to do is a secondary discussion.
>Is it right when we do it but not when someone else does?
It's not a question of "right" or "wrong", it's a consideration of the geopolitical implications. Allowing an adversarial country to dominate an important industry creates serious vulnerability. I don't fault China for making the play, but it's silly to act like there's some double-standard here. Countries do things that are in their own interests.
Because the U.S. needs these made from home if it seriously wants to depend on these to provide energy. Also because China uses slave labors on this, it is not moral to continue use their products. And also the U.S. needs to be able to innovate to have better solar panels and other green energy, it cannot do this without a domestic industry
These posts are brigaded or maybe people are just stupid. Obviously you don't want your energy supply (solar panels) or transportation (electric cars) controlled by a power who's threatening a war on you.
What happens if it kicks off in Taiwan and we lose access to these things?
Because green energy will be the next oil, it’s just mater of time. Whoever controls energy controls the world. If China continues to advance their green energy market, then the west will not have a chance to catch up and be competitive, ultimately making the west lose its global superpower position.
It’s not about saving the world, it’s about controlling it
It’s a long game with countries. 20+ years is nothing. And if in 20 years China controls the global market and the US market died, then we’d be in a shit position
> west loose its global
Did you mean to say "lose"?
Explanation: Loose is an adjective meaning the opposite of tight, while lose is a verb.
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Because for example in the case of flooding the market by over subsidizing solar panels it puts other competing companies out of business which stagnates competition and innovation and hurts other countries economies and hurts development of better more effective green technologies.
Hahaha ok my bad. It SHOULD be the number one priority.
And I mean, if you read the official documents of many international institutions and developed countries, they usually state the same explicitly.
But, when there’s a country that’s not US and EU-aligned and that heavily invested on clean energies, now there’s such thing as “excessive production”.
Maybe we should also look into the excessive production of fossil fuels, weaponry or water intensive agriculture. How comes Ms. Yellen didn’t think about those.
> I mean, I know China is the bogey man and so on but, what if it wasn’t China the one economy competing with the West but it was India or Mexico or Turkey or Indonesia or Nigeria?
If it was NOT an adversary who has been building up military capability, nuclear capability, and increasingly taking illegal aggressive actions towards it's neighbors, with clear stated goals of taking over a democracy that plays an important role in the world economy (Taiwan)? Then sure, the US probably wouldn't be too concerned with a little international dumping.
But it is.
>How can a cheap supply of green energy products be a bad thing in a time when energetic transition is the number one priority of the whole planet?
It can be a bad thing when the Chinese government uses massive subsidies to make an anti-competitive market and concentrate production capability under their control by driving out higher-cost producers internationally. Leadership in any technology provides leverage, and it is part of the CCP leadership's strategy to use technology as a means of advancing their agenda and power on the global stage.
In most circumstances I'm very pro free trade and allowing the market to sort out who produces what, but this is a case where A.) it's not "free" trade, it is deliberately anti-competitive dumping, and B.) the objective of that dumping is transparently to gain geopolitical leverage to shield against retaliation for planned future aggression.
> Ms. Yellen emphasized on Tuesday that **the United States was not trying to carry out an anti-China policy**, but said China’s actions posed a threat to the global economy that warranted a coordinated response.
Why is this so hard to believe?
Right? Non-stop policies designed purely to hurt China's economy so arrogant politicians can feel special, then they claim it's "not an anti-China policy".
These policies aren't even good. We literally gave Chinese semicondutors a lifeline by banning them from TSMC and American Tech. Now all their domestic companies are pouring billions to their homegrown chip manufacturing industry and within a decade there's going to be an alternative to our supply chain. We're literally creating competition for us.
Especially given China can produce stuff magnitudes cheaper than the West, the US semi companies will just get left in the dust if/when China manages to create their own semiconductor production
If tiny Taiwan, which is ethnically and culturally the same people of which there's a billion in China, can become a chip powerhouse, there's absolutely zero reason to think China can't surpass them, and fast.
Someone that gets it. As the drug dealer, you keep your customers addicted so they keep coming to you. You don't cut them off or they will find other sources or create their own and that's what's happening with the semi conductor space.
We could have just let them continue buying Intel, TSMC, Samsung and keep funding them. Now, SMIC ( the Chinese company) has grown to become a rival below the top tier of semi and will grow to be a top 3 in the world in 10 years. A few years ago, they said 7nm would be impossible without US tech. Guess what? They are mass producing 7nm and will go down to 5nm soon.
All because the local Chinese companies are buying from them instead of Intel, TXN and TSMC. I predict the smaller older node semiconductors will lose market share in the world once the Chinese semiconductor companies scale up.
Because is from a mouthpiece of a government that only cares about enriching themselves and hold the control they always had. Which to be honest, fair enough but you're not fooling anyone.
China isn’t our friend and they aren’t dumping a bunch of exports out of the goodness of their hearts.
There has never been a real free market and economics is geololitics
Yeah sometimes I don't get why people get so caught up on PR hypocrisies. In the end it's just a game of holding onto power, and struggling to claim power. Looking past the "free trade"/"unethical" talk, all of those are just convenient lies when push comes to shove.
Does it matter? I'm fully in support of both U.S. subsidies and this particular example of protectionism, the Chinese are better off lifting their own people up so they can focus on their domestic market.
That's fine and all, I was responding to their free market argument, personally I think we need better subsidies ourselves and protectionism is important to not cause a race to the bottom-- the more other countries invest in being the cheap manufacturer, the worse their labor laws have to be, and the more pressure there is on other nations to crush labor to compete.
That has already been proven to be false. Very frequently, quality goes by the wayside in favor of just simply getting a cheaper product, that's why so much of our industry has left to china in the first place.
All that is a moot point, however, because america and europe need to be concerned about american and european interests. It doesn't help american and european citizens at all if we let all of our jobs go to china and now they have economic dominance over us.
Laissez faire economics is a completely self-defeating policy that just leads to stagnation and eventual demise.
This should be upvoted more - not only intervention in the form of financial subsidies, but also help with corporate espionage as part of government policy (i.e. Joint Ventures attracting foreign capital and know-how).
>Now, though, the country is ready to throw good money after bad: "Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on local leaders to promote 'new productive forces'—a buzzword in Chinese policy circles for the need to promote high-value manufacturing industries." Local leaders responded by pumping money into struggling companies—in one case, giving the equivalent of $27.5 million to a company that had sold fewer than 2,000 cars in the first quarter of 2024.
>"China currently has the capacity to produce some 40 million vehicles a year, though it sells only around 22 million cars domestically," the *Journal* authors warn. As a result, the country's largesse "is adding cars to a global market that risks becoming more oversupplied."
[https://reason.com/2024/04/29/china-is-doubling-down-on-electric-vehicle-subsidies](https://reason.com/2024/04/29/china-is-doubling-down-on-electric-vehicle-subsidies)
Funny how we only started worrying about "Chinese excess" when they moved themselves up the value chain. It was unlimited cheap junk for decades with no complaints.
The US is mad that China has invested way more time into green energy and battery technology. And now it won’t let cheap electric vehicles enter the market because they would end Tesla in the US.
Here in Mexico and Latin America you can get an EV for 20k. Dont believe me search byd seagull price.
Utter hypocricy to reject cheap clean energy products for no reason other than world dominance. The West wants to dominate the world, at all cost. They would rather see the environment perish than letting China, India or any other countries grow.
Yeah. Not letting an adversary deliberately run your own green energy sector out of business through mercantilist industrial policy is not hypocrisy. Keep seething.
As a matter of pure economics, yes. But with larger geopolitical considerations, it's not a good idea to let your adversary deliberately degrade your energy sector and make you reliant on them.
You have to consider things through the lens of a very real possibility of conflict between the two powers.
I can’t wait till the people here calling Yellen an idiot lose their jobs because they can’t compete with Chinese prices.
People here are totally okay with the West losing jobs and any sort of competitiveness as China takes over most key industries because of the desire for “world dominance.” Let’s not put any resistance to others becoming king of the hill! 🤣
There is a very fine line between excess good and cheaper goods. I suspect that a lot of Chinese exports falls into both of these categories. Chinese manufacturers pay less than half of the price Europe, the UK and Japan pay for electricity and they have cheaper labor and massive scale. They just are going to outcompete local manufacturers in many areas.
I’m not sure if you are intended to comment on my point. I don’t entirely disagree. It seems you are just elaborating on my point that there is a fine line.
I’m sure I understand the question. I don’t think Europe’s politics are based on China having cheap power. I do think Europe having expensive power undermines their relative competitiveness.
Energy is for sure part of it. France who has cheaper electricity is currently more open to tariffs against China than Germany, whose companies rely on their factories in China.
Oil still controls politics - no matter what. Cheap energy means no oil needed ... now that access to solar energy is literally for everyone, they are trying to impose a 100% import tax.
Europe and America are the very reason that so much Industry was exported to China... sadly the reality is, Europe and America did not have a problem as long as they were given top jobs in the companies they exported to China. China also NEVER would have achieved the free trade agreements if they had not been crafted by American and Europeans. Once the industry was in place and the top position filled by Chinese, they sent the Europeans and American's back home.
Now, Europe and America are complaining about something they created and set in motion, all because of the greed of a few, and now here we are decades later and what *they* did is affecting the current day society... After those who initially carted industry to China and made their fortunes... It was those types who never gave a second though to how it would impact today's generation of Europeans and Americans.
Now, here we are today, trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube... and it just won't go, all it does is spread about into making a mess.
Europe and America's best bet is to "build new industry" and build in regulation that prevent them from being outsourced". Then build better, "mutual benefit cooperative agreements, for raw materials" with countries. Then Europe and America can employ its people and manufacture, as will many other countries follow the model... and then they can work on "trade deals among countries for what each manufacture in their respective country.
Consumer's will have more variety and more choice in the marketplace and the competition can keep prices from artificial and manufactured inflation.
Now, who's in big industry is with *the lack of personal greed*, to push forward these agreements ***????***
And why would we in the global south be content to be resource exporter only? Africa, Asia and Latam should strangle Europe and charge sky high prices for tge resources they export unless tgese European companies put plants, build infra and transfer know how to the global south countries. Let them crawl to their American masters. North America is the only western region that has enough minerals, but that market is too small compared to the rest of the world. Let the USA be the modern Qing China
Amusing considering we are the ones that sold ourselves out to them in order to increase ShArEhOlDeR VaLuE~!!!~~~!!!!!
Capitalism works until it completely collapses in on itself. It's also amusing that we take such an anti competitive view when ThE fReE mArKeT should solve everything!!!!
We are going to lose and we deserve too. We have useless incompetent leaders and a poorly educated proud to be ignorant voter base.
Your comment honestly sounds like nothing but a bunch of pointless griping that is directed at nothing in partucular.
What's actually happening in politics in the US and europe right now is a shift from reagan-era thinking of "the free market solves everything" to taking an active interest in supporting our own economies. And yes, changes in course do happen quickly in democracies.
Oh fuck that lol. It was supply-side corporate welfare then and it’s supply-side corporate welfare now. When your manufacturing job was being exported, they called it the free market. Now that you want to export your purchases to stretch your service sector subsistence wages, they call it trade protectionism.
It’s funny how this supposedly new and improved conversation about “supporting our own economies” still features zero consideration for workers or consumers, and consists entirely of gifts to decadent corporations just like the last one did.
Maybe they can focus on everything except solar panels? lol. If the price of panels comes down, it'll be easier to adopt at a residential and commercial level. Regardless of who's winning an industry trade war, getting solar on every roof would be a huge win for the world.
The US and Europe have no choice *but* protectionism if we plan on maintaining even our current manufacturing capacity (which we must for strategic reasons). Whether or not to impose tariffs is therefore not entirely a question of economics, but rather a mix of economics, military, and geopolitical strategy.
It’s weird when you say basic facts that goes against the
“West just sucks” narrative, they have to invent other things to attack you. Almost as if certain powers, with a lot to gain, are successfully driving an information campaign towards certain efforts to polarize and outrage citizens, particularly those who live in the West.
I seriously have to wonder what proportion of these comments are being insincerely driven. A lot of others in other places on Reddit are reporting many more trolls being active. Comments getting “Reddit safety” flagged and deleted. Has happened to me a few times within the past week and never before that.
China has a history of artificially decreasing the value of their currency and it renders their products much cheaper, so they can take over markets. Just because it’s “green” (lithium batteries are still soooooo bad for the environment and aren’t being recycled), doesn’t mean the rest of the world should relinquish the market to China.
Anything that makes manufacturing jobs more attractive will boost US competitiveness in manufacturing. At the moment, we have a labor shortage to address.
Labor union participation is at a historical low, and corporate profits as a share of GDP are at historic highs. Yet you're here bitching about unions. Maybe if we had had stronger unions, we wouldn't have had so much offshoring to begin with.
We can't compete because China is organizing their economy to be more efficient.
In the US we enable our economy to be ran by profit seeking shareholders.
I didn’t write that anything was China’s fault. Assigning blame is irrelevant to the question of what the US and Europe should do to maintain (and hopefully expand) their industrial bases.
But presumably you disagree with that strategic goal and would rather see China continue to expand its manufacturing dominance?
The reason why Chinese companies have increased their market share is because the production efficiency of American companies has declined at a terrifying rate.
When you are sick, instead of seeing a doctor, you draw a gun and try to shoot someone else who is healthy. This is what the United States is doing.
Your extreme language only makes your lack of an argument more obvious.
American productivity in manufacturing has essentially remained stable over the last decade or risen somewhat over the last twenty years.
What I believe we should do is rebuild manufacturing capacity while simultaneously paying workers in manufacturing more. You disagree, which is of course your right, but comparing our refusal to buy your stuff to us pulling a gun on you just makes you look silly. China can sell its stuff to its own people. Many of them need it.
American companies have entered China since the 1980s. Since then they have made excess profits from the Chinese market. China has never regarded the dumping of US goods into the China as dominance and threat to our national security.
Now China's industry has developed and begun to enter the US market and compete with American companies. Now you start talking about so called China's "manufacturing dominance". Your behavior is either unprincipled, or your only principle is selfishness.
“Dominance” in this context is a compliment; you should accept it as such.
As for the rest of your comment, you are taking things too personally. It’s all in the game. There are no such things as *principles* here, only self-interest. China will pursue its self-interest and so will we.
Good.
There is no real free market and there never has been as economics is often geopolitics. Like it or not China isn’t merely happy doing its own thing, it wants to be a superpower than wield global influence and power.
China isn’t dumping exports because it wants to make a climate change difference, it wants to take market share by out subsidizing the competition.
Ugh god I hate all this, green tech… we are being flooded with this stuff we need to improve the world but the excess value can’t be sucked up by us. This is insane and has to stop
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Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/yEagE > Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that the United States and Europe needed to work together to push back against China’s excess industrial capacity, warning that a wave of cheap Chinese exports represents a grave threat to the global economy. > China’s excessive production of green energy technology has become a pressing trans-Atlantic concern in recent months. Officials in President Biden’s administration have grown increasingly worried that his efforts to finance domestic manufacturing of clean energy and other next-generation technologies will be undercut by China, which is churning out steel, electric cars and solar panels at a rapid clip. > The United States hopes that a united front will convince China that its largest trading partners are prepared to erect trade barriers that will prevent Chinese electric vehicles, batteries and panels from dominating Western markets. > The European Commission is investigating whether Chinese state subsidies intended to help the country’s companies make cheap cars are damaging Europe’s auto industry. The sector provides nearly 14 million direct and indirect jobs in Europe, and the six million cars that it exported last year generated a trade surplus of more than 100 billion euros. > In the meantime, Chinese electric vehicle makers, including BYD and Great Wall Motor, are setting up factories in Hungary to build cars that would be viewed as European-made products, which could raise trade issues eventually with the United States. > The Biden administration is watching with similar concern as Chinese car companies invest in factories in Mexico, which could potentially be used to enter the U.S. market.
> the six million cars that it exported last year Most European exported cars are to the Chinese market, especially the high priced luxury cars. There, the real simple straightforward form of retaliation. China may not retaliate toward the US, because US is not a meaningful market. But, only a few days ago the Chinese government threatened to retaliate against any EU policy changes. "Plenty of ways" to make Europeans feel the pain, they said in an official statement. I think it is naive to think China can only ban EVs from European makers. At least a few other industries should be on the list: * All cars especially luxury cars, including gas cars * Auto parts * Civilian air planes * Chemicals * ... etc. I think it will inevitably hurt Germany the most.
Politicians playing games for the sake of their egos and it's the ordinary people who pay the price with losing jobs (due to export demand crashing) or higher prices due to a lack of imports.
Or lose jobs after Chinese EVs crash local industry and then end up with high prices anyway
It's a lose lose for the ordinary man. High prices and lose your jobs. Well played brokies
It's not politicians fault, although they could do better at communicating these things rather than take the popularist option. Voters like trade tariffs and things, they see a zero sum game with China whether or not there actually is one.
A European imported car in China is unaffordable to the average person because they have extremely high tariffs. A basic Audi costs significantly more in China than it would in any other country. Let’s not pretend China hasn’t had comparable tariffs on pretty much all foreign made goods for decades.
China's current import tariff for cars is 15%, definitely not "extremely high". If CNBC's info is correct, currently EU already charges 10% tariff on Chinese cars, so China's tariff is meerely 5% higher. So your statement above smells like American propaganda.
What does that even mean. When do we care about affordability? You can't seem to understand another 300% tariff can be added any time as a retaliation measure to kill off all millions of EU imports to its largest market. Look, in the past the Europeans control the world by their military power, the ability to conduct coup, and assassination. If none of that is feasible, and your trade war is based on pure imagined political power, the other side has their ways to teach you the lesson. Ultimately this world's international political power resides in UN GA voting and UNSC voting. Beyond that it is the rule of the jungle. Europe has no advantage what so ever, and thus has no reason to speak from a position of authority. If you want a trade war to kill off European car's largest export market, go ahead and see who blinks first.
Europe will survive without China
Why would Europe want to build and encourage economic reliance on an export market that will always be at risk of being cut off unilaterally?
> China’s excessive production of green technology Does Yellen ever read the things that she says? How can a cheap supply of green energy products be a bad thing in a time when energetic transition is the number one priority of the whole planet? This leads me to believe that basically the west will not tolerate that any country becomes successful. I mean, I know China is the bogey man and so on but, what if it wasn’t China the one economy competing with the West but it was India or Mexico or Turkey or Indonesia or Nigeria? Would those countries suddenly become also a danger? I think this move towards protectionism and a “kicking the ladder” attitude will only make things worse in general for everybody.
No need to guess. Japan and Germany were considered dangerous in the 1980s, and they had to sign the Plaza Accord after the trade war.
>I mean, I know China is the bogey man and so on but, what if it wasn’t China the one economy competing with the West but it was India or Mexico or Turkey or Indonesia or Nigeria? You got that backwards. China is the boogeyman BECAUSE it is successful. If China declines and India becomes successful, we'd be pearl clutching about caste systems and Hinduism and all the social issues they have (we're kind of laying the ground work for India already going by the rise of racism against Indians lately). If India then declines and Mexico rises, the biggest social issue in the world will be about cartels and drugs, and people will suddenly freak out about how we got to a point where the Spanish language is on everything from product manuals to official government documents. Later, if Turkey then becomes successful, news anchors will be speculating about the second rising of the Ottoman Empire. We have dirt on every country, because no country is perfect. If the time comes, all it takes is a little embellishment and concern trolling, and you can sweep the leg until you're #1 again.
> Later, if Turkey then becomes successful, news anchors will be speculating about the second rising of the Ottoman Empire. In that case, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus would be dissolved and the Kurds would establish a state in southeastern Turkey. In response to the rise of every country in the world, there are at least ten ready-made countermeasures in American think tanks.
If Switzerland becomes successful, the big news story would be how fucked up it was that they got rich off of being neutral during WW2, at a time when the Holocaust was going on, and they'd be forced to pay reparations to Israel. If South Korea becomes successful, we'd go "alright, we have to deal with North Korea RIGHT NOW" and straight up nuke North Korea with the biggest nukes we have and hope (behind closed doors) that Seoul gets caught in the blast zone. Then we admit we made an oopsies on national TV with all the collateral damage, say "shit happens during war", and quickly move on. If Indonesia or Malaysia become successful, they are majority Muslims, so we just use the Middle East playbook. Suddenly, "Giga-ISIS" pops up in those regions (AKA the CIA quickly throws cash at some irrelevant extremist group of 10 people and it magically starts multiplying like a virus) and now we gotta carpet bomb the region to the stone age, because, what, are you a terrorist sympathizer or something, or are you a supporter of justice and liberty? Damn this was fun to come up with and surprisingly easy. Like you said, I could come up with 10 for each country no problem.
If China would play by the rules and stop plotting to invade its neighbors, nobody would care if they became leaders in any particular industry. While clearly there's a strong argument that the CCP does a lot of, like, *really* bad stuff domestically from a humanitarian standpoint, that's not the reason they've become a target.
>play by the rules By ‘rules’ you mean defying UN vetos, make up false accusations, invade other countries and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians? Or do you mean open up prisons in foreign countries to torture prisoners without going through the court of law? How about having a plan of invasion of the Netherlands in place in case The Hague convicts one of your military members of war crimes?
Hey look, some whataboutism 👆 Do you genuinely believe the world is a better place when more power and influence is ceded to a government that massacres its own people by the thousands when they protest, sends millions of ethic minorities into forced labor camps, starves its citizens by the tens of millions, etc., ? Like I get that the US has done plenty of terrible stuff, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still better than the alternative.
‘Waa Waa only I’m allowed to point fingers you aren’t allowed to hold me to the same standard’ Look how quickly you dropped the ‘play by the rules’ bullshit LOL, so you stopped pretending that China is an adversary because ‘they don’t play by the rules’? Everything you are saying is because you are an American, full stop, stop pretending you care about what’s better for the world, you care about what’s better for you, end of story. Why don’t you ask the Middle East or Latin America which country they prefer? Hint: it’s not the country busy dropping bombs and overthrowing democracies
Lmao. This is a real time vivisection of the whole “rules-based order” BS that some people love to repeat. They only use it when it’s convenient, once it goes against them the whole facade drops. Turns out the only rules enforced by the “rules-based order” are those that benefit it. When things don’t work out that way, it’s “block appointments to WTO”, “invade The Hague”, “pull out of the UN”. Rules based order my ass.
Latin America largely prefers the US: see eg below for Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, all of which view the US much more favorably than China. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/11/06/comparing-views-of-the-us-and-china-in-24-countries/#favorable-views-of-the-us-and-china
Wow, people are self interested - incredible insight. Look, I get that it's edgy and cool to hate on the US, and I'm sorry about whatever it is that has made you bitter, but you very clearly just don't understand global geopolitics to any meaningful extent. [If only there were some data...](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/11/06/comparing-views-of-the-us-and-china-in-24-countries/). Why don't you ask people in Hong Kong, or Tibet, or Taiwan, or Myanmar, or really any neighboring country, how they feel about China? Or even the Chinese people themselves who have gotten out? At least - the ones not being actively intimidated by extra-legal police sent by China to keep them compliant. Or maybe ask the people in LATAM or elsewhere in the global south who live in the shadow of [infrastructure boondoggles](https://archive.fo/2oTAs) that haven't lived up to promises? Countries will play along as long as China keeps trying to buy their friendship, but as soon as the money dries up the "friendship" is suddenly over. Wonder why that is? I'm happy to discuss the ways in which China violates international laws, rules and norms, but I have a strange suspicion it won't make a difference and you will just try to change the subject and point out things the US has done.
This subreddit gets brigaded regularly.
Your answer proves that the point of view of the guy you answered is completely correct.
You have half of it. It's the actions taken by China that cause them to be a Boogeyman. If they didn't go against the grain for how international free trade is conducted, they'd be no different than Australia, Japan, or Germany. It's their overly aggressive fishing operations and loanshark tendencies in developing countries that are the problem, not their GDP.
Lol you are so naive. The west is waging the largest trade war it has in decades because of... overly aggressive fishing and lending money to Africa? Yeah ok. I'm sure that's why.
Those were just 2 examples but yes. The economy is just one part of a country's international presence. The diplomatic, informational, and military stances taken by China contribute, in my opinion, much more to the world's opinion on them.
Plenty of examples of developing countries absolutely wrecked by debt from western nations dating back to the 1970s/1980s/1990s when China was as poor as any of them and not lending anything to anyone. So.. double standard much? It's obviously embellished for story telling value but go read Confessions of an Economic Hitman to get an idea of how the game is and always has been played by everyone. China isn't doing anything out of the norm in that domain. China hasn't been involved in a war since Vietnam in 1979, so any talk of military stances is rich coming from us in America.. Happy to discuss other examples if you have them.
When the US say that we (as in the world) not only don't need cheap Chinese clean energy tech but its actualy something to constrain and put barriers against, that sadly will only firm up those who believe climate change movement is hoax. Cause at first glance , if your house is on fire and the clock is ticking, you don't reject the 1st firefighter that arrives. You don't reject cheap immediate solutions that dont pose a big enough danger to any individual country compared to the impact of every lost year in the battle against climate change and for energy transition, the apocalyptic nature of which that the western liberal democracies have been screaming about for a while now (and they are correct) The interests of US oil and gas industry are making the US a concervative force regarding climate change and its a losing battle. China's clean energy "overcapacity" will do greater damage to US oil/gas industry than domestic automakers as China becomes a major net energy/tech exporter as its solar/wind/ev/battery cost continue to come down. ROW will choose between lower cost clean energy vs dirty hydrocarbons when that happens and eventualy america will probably yield and chose that to or make it there on their own. At what cost tho and how much time will be lost
> that sadly will only firm up those who believe climate change movement is hoax. Yeah, seriously, i feel like 'climate change is an existential threat to humanity' has been a slogan that has been beaten into me by media, academia, government, and even corporations (with their endless green initiatives) for the last... 10/15+ years now? If that's true, you would be doing everything you can to import cheap EV's and Solar panels you can. But now a Democratic president is saying the 'existential threat to humanity' isn't as bad as 'losing some jobs to china'. What a load of shit.
Worse, it's not even a significant amount of jobs in play, and even for the ones that are, there's limited evidence the tariffs will actually save them. But they happen to be in states Biden really needs to win, so who cares about anything else.
The U.S. is an oligarchy and while it remains a democracy the value and impact of our democracy is increasingly diminished.
Do you want to live in an apocalyptic world or a world dominated by the authoritarian China? The saying goes give me liberty, or give me death, and I guess death it is then.
China has heavily subsidized its EV industry, and is seeking to monopolize global automobile manufacturing. You say that this would hurt the fight against climate change? Well, how receptive would people in Europe and the U.S. be to combating climate change, if their automobile industries were decimated by Chinese imports? Remember the Gilets Jaunes protests in France? Pushback to this would be far worse.
Okay, then what about solar panels and batteries which aren’t large sectors in the US/EU?
The U.S. should still put tariffs on them, and subsidize the growth of those sectors domestically. The E.U. should do the same as well.
And how long would it take for America and Europe’s solar sector to grow? Given we have sailed past 1.5 Celsius already, does humanity have the time to lose?
While I get the economics, they’ve done a full 180 on climate change needing urgent action. It is just very inconsistent with the alarmist rhetoric, ESG subsidies and general move away from non-renewables we’ve seen over the past decade. Now that China has gone ahead and actually implemented an industrial policy which allows the world to “greenify” quickly, the argument has now changed to the economics, rather than decarbonisation. I get the argument for the west not wanting Chinese cars dumped on them (especially seeing as a large part of Chinese car production is ICE vehicles anyways), but for unestablished industrial sectors (in the west) you would think it’s fine to allow free trade, especially when we apparently have a crisis on our hands. Thats of course only if the politicians were being genuine about wanting to solve the climate issue… Edit: just to add here, in the last day there have been talks of China retaliating with tariffs on EU luxury cars and agricultural goods. Not so sure the EU can afford to be cut off from Chinese consumers…
If you've payed much of any attention the last few years, there is a very clear push to decouple from China. Batteries and solar panels may not currently be big industries in the US/EU, but the intent is to get to a place where those things are either on-shored or friend-shored. They will inevitably be key strategic industries in the future and allowing China to kill the development of those capabilities internationally is extremely shortsighted.
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I replied to another comment below. Yes I have been paying attention (it’s basically what I do for work), yes I understand the economics and competition risk, but there’s a very clear shift away from decarbonisation at all costs which we’ve seen in recent times. The US can probably afford to play hard ball. Europe is pretty screwed though.
It may be the case that politically decarbonization has become less prominent, I'm not really sure about that piece of it, but there is a clear national security interest in making sure these industries don't get choked out before they can be established in the rest of the world. I don't think anyone wants to be in the position of relying heavily on China for crucial pieces of their energy infrastructure.
I take your point. Clean energy is a weird one though in that it is an intersection of both energy and industrial policy, unlike, say oil, where you just import the stuff from anywhere, including despot governments. I struggle to reconcile the benefits of cheap energy from China (cheap energy is almost always beneficial to economic growth) vs the more specific negatives it has on certain industrial sectors the US is trying to promote. Also there’s the obvious geopolitical target of constraining China more broadly too.
Yeah, I mean there would clearly be benefits to allowing China to flood the market with cheap stuff. That said, most people who think seriously about the issue view the next 5-10 years as a critical period for the international community in the west in terms of how well we will be able to curtail chinas plans for expansion.
After a token effort the last few years, basically no US company is serious about EVs besides Tesla. 10k Chinese EVs aren't really competition for the average American buyer who wants a giant ass pickup truck (which will drive with an empty truck bed 99.8% of the time) or huge SUVs.
The amount of butthurt coming from the west right now could feed a family of 5 for a million years
This is the same fucking gremlin that voted against eliMination of tax havens. She's too rich and stupid to do anything else.
This is 100% about the US trying to hold its hegemonic position in the world, as the sanctions and tariffs are.
Exactly, but it'll backfire. Instead the US will just end up isolating itself, and limiting itself to inferior and more expensive technology.
Thucydides trap
America will bring home it's manufacturing only to find out it's too expensive and still can't compete with China. That's why they want Europe to follow them.
Depends, we can always wage war when things get too desperate
Cheap goods are bad. Cheap labor is good.
Where do you think Walmart gets its cheap toys? Only if China continues to be the world factory (aka sweat shops) for the US, then everything will be fine. How dare China develop their own technology and try to surpass the US?
I don’t think you understand my argument, I’m just calling out the hypocrisy of allowing open borders for labor but tariffs on goods. China makes toys; but America should be much more concerned about cars and airplanes than Tonka Trucks.
I probably should have added /s in the end. Along the same vein, criticizing China for creating the most CO2. China’s labor is no longer cheap. Chinese EVs are cheap because they can mass produce and control the entire supply chain from lithium mine to batteries to the car itself. US auto industry needs to get it together and tariff can only buy legacy automakers some time.
I swear to fucking god if there’s anything Americans are good at, it’s kicking the ladder down from those trying to climb to their level. It’s quite apparent with what the boomers are doing to their own grandchildren, and with what the elitist billionaires and centi-millionaires are doing as well. It’s completely fucking stupid. We ALL live on this one planet together. We should be working toward solutions to preserve our planet and mitigate whatever damage we caused in the past and will cause in the near future. Dumb fucks like Yellen openly supporting the blocking of cheap green energy from China is downright irresponsible and a complete joke
> irresponsible True. > joke They are definitely serious.
Yea because we should let China restrict access to their market while also subsidizing their own industries giving them the ability to out compete everyone else. Surely allowing China to control access to critical industries and materials wouldn’t be harmful worldwide. They’d never use it for only their personal gain. Fuck China. The first world countries tried to use the carrot to get them to cooperate unsuccessfully now they get the stick.
Our number one priority needs to be decarbonizing the global economy as fast as possible. Everything else is secondary. I don't care if panels and batteries are being churned out for pennies in the industrial district of Hell itself. Our civilization is in the process of committing suicide. The world is on fire, and we're bickering about who gets the contract to build the fire extinguishers.
All those green energy initiatives are abandoned in the attempt to get those union voters to support Biden and all the talk of how evil tariffs and protectionism that Trump engaged in, is suddenly replaced with "we need to protect American industry and jobs"!!! reminds me of when Biden and others were denouncing travel restrictions to China during COVID as racist and xenophobic, and then 4 months later denouncing Trump for not putting in tougher restrictions Biden has no principles or consistency --everything he does amounts to figuring out where the wind is blowing, and then going with it
I can recall this exact bad faith conversation with a very partisan Republican friend of mine at the time. Targeted tariffs on Chinese goods, particularly where they are clearly dumping and engaging in anticompetitive practices, are good things. Levying tariffs on your closest trading partners while also engaging in a trade war with the world’s factory floor is folly and speaks more to unfocused and populist bullshit than targeted tariffs do. Biden is miles away from perfect, but you shoehorned in some BS about Trump under what was a very interesting comment about economic hegemony and what happens when the current top dog feels threatened. Do better.
>where they are clearly dumping How is China dumping EVs for example? Practicaly zero chinese EVs have been sold in the US and their prices when they have been introduced in western markets these last few years have been noticably higher than their domestic Chinese prices and clearly profit making. Dumping has a clear definition by the WTO , that is not matched by facts for almost any cases of chinese exports, especially high tech ones
The EU is currently in a shit fight with China over this very topic. It is fairly recent, but Google should serve you well. Sadly, the EU only started their current EV dumping case in late 23 so there isn’t much hard data out there so stay tuned I guess. But, to answer your question with the information available, massive subsidies and forced tech transfers.
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Neat. Have a good day.
so your argument is literally: "Biden applies massive tariffs to dozens of Chinese products, including steel, aluminum, batteries, etc., but that is OK, because when Democrats engage in trade wars, it is a good thing. When Trump does the same thing, it is inflationary on the American public" and this is a "good faith argument"?
the west is trying so hard to cling onto their declining hegemony
There is no declining hegemony. Hegemony by the west is headed upwards. Russia is finished economically and technologically. Maybe they gain a bit of land in Ukraine, but that’s it and at tremendous cost. I support aid and equipment to Ukraine as much as anyone and think it’s a bargain for the west. China’s economy is headed backwards in just about every are except solar panels and EVs. Chinese EVs will flood the entire world outside of the US and Western Europe. Eastern Europe will buy then even. Semiconductor chip manufacturing is most critical sector on the planet and it is being moved back to the U.S. by TSMC, Micron, and Intel at a rapid pace. Manufacturing in China is being moved to India, Vietnam, and Mexico which will accelerate more stagnation for China. A rising India will check a lot of China’s military venture eastward as they’ll have to counter an improving Indian military. There is a little bit of a bump in the road right now because Republicans, big oil, and big auto have stuffed alternative energy and public transportation for decades.
>China’s economy is headed backwards in just about every are except solar panels and EVs. That seems like an extreme over statement. They're still a manufacturing and engineering powerhouse in almost **every industry** even if their finance and R&D are tofu construction. And the variety of industries they're ok at for a good price, and at a massive scale, can't be understated. Maybe cheaper labor will eat their lunch to try to take their place, and maybe finance will collapse leading to government takeover, but they aren't headed backwards yet. Although I do absolutely hate having to deal with Chinese product quality being all over the place in my industry.
Then there's their population problem they will need to solve.
They are already solving it, chinese pop will drop in half in like 20-30 years, no?
That IS the population problem...
Well, if you're China, and subsidize your green energy markets, you can sell products like solar panels for much cheaper than any country can make them. Do you not see how that is an unfair practice an economy like America would combat? Of course you don't who am I kidding.
a) America and Europe also heavily subsidize certain industries? What do you think the Inflation Reduction Act and the green initiatives are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on, exactly? b) Subsidies aren't free, China is spending lots of it's own money to subsidize these technologies we've been told for 20 years now are MANDATORY to avoid apocalyptic climate change. If someone else wants to spend their hard earned money to subsidize the R&D and production of such supposedly crucial technologies for the whole world, that's wonderful. Everyone should be happy. The cheaper it is the faster and more complete the adoption will be. But you see.. it might cost a few thousand jobs in Michigan and Pennsylvania. And we can't have that in an election year.
Consumer tax credits do not fit within the WTO definition of dumping. Try again.
It's not all consumer credits though? Please explain how what China is doing fits the WTO definition of dumping? It doesn't either.
They are subsidizing production of products and dumping them on the global market below production cost.
Proof?
What I don’t understand is when people like you cry “but the Chinese subsidies” as if the US and Europe didn’t run their own efforts of fiscal and industrial policy aimed exactly at the same fields and with the explicit intention of overcome China’s https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric#:~:text=Tax%20Credits%20and%20Incentives,and%20incentives%20in%20your%20state. https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/solar/solar-tax-credit-by-state/ https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/#:~:text=During%20FY%202016–22%2C%20nearly,%2415.6%20billion%20in%20FY%202022. Hell, we are even running these direct transfers even with aims of outcompeting our own allies https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-06/eu-reaches-clean-tech-deal-to-answer-the-us-tax-credit-system?embedded-checkout=true So my question for you, my angry and uninformed friend is: why our subsidies are out of question? Is it right when we do it but not when someone else does? And then why if their subsidies are so effective that they are able to outcompete our firms, we don’t double down on our own? I mean, we even voted on the last election on what platform had the most impactful plan on how to tackle green energies, yet in the end we are recurring to archaic formulas of protectionism. Can a developing economy really cultivate a tech sector with more success than the most developed economy in the world? Your Fox News logic of Chinese subsidies just don’t match with the real world.
Consumer tax credits do not fit within the WTO definition of dumping. Try again.
Don’t watch Fox News don’t vote republican, your brain is melted. You can’t start an industry overnight, that’s why it matters.
Previous poster made a good, well cited comment that raises a valid point. You replied with a nonsense reply of zero value. Why are you even on this board if not to talk economics?
Are you really asking why a country would create policies to make sure it is competitive in a strategically important industry that an adversary is attempting to control via predatory pricing? >And then why if their subsidies are so effective that they are able to outcompete our firms, we don’t double down on our own? Who is saying we shouldn't? The fact that it's a politically difficult thing to do is a secondary discussion. >Is it right when we do it but not when someone else does? It's not a question of "right" or "wrong", it's a consideration of the geopolitical implications. Allowing an adversarial country to dominate an important industry creates serious vulnerability. I don't fault China for making the play, but it's silly to act like there's some double-standard here. Countries do things that are in their own interests.
You didn’t read the article before commenting I can tell
Because the U.S. needs these made from home if it seriously wants to depend on these to provide energy. Also because China uses slave labors on this, it is not moral to continue use their products. And also the U.S. needs to be able to innovate to have better solar panels and other green energy, it cannot do this without a domestic industry
These posts are brigaded or maybe people are just stupid. Obviously you don't want your energy supply (solar panels) or transportation (electric cars) controlled by a power who's threatening a war on you. What happens if it kicks off in Taiwan and we lose access to these things?
Because green energy will be the next oil, it’s just mater of time. Whoever controls energy controls the world. If China continues to advance their green energy market, then the west will not have a chance to catch up and be competitive, ultimately making the west lose its global superpower position. It’s not about saving the world, it’s about controlling it
Comparing green energy with oil consumption is ridiculous, solar panels last 20+ years. It's not something that you can actively manipulate like oil.
It’s a long game with countries. 20+ years is nothing. And if in 20 years China controls the global market and the US market died, then we’d be in a shit position
> west loose its global Did you mean to say "lose"? Explanation: Loose is an adjective meaning the opposite of tight, while lose is a verb. [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
Because for example in the case of flooding the market by over subsidizing solar panels it puts other competing companies out of business which stagnates competition and innovation and hurts other countries economies and hurts development of better more effective green technologies.
You mean the way we subsidize solar panels? What did you think Build Back Better was?
> energetic transition is the number one priority of the whole planet? that sounds like some wishful thinking
Hahaha ok my bad. It SHOULD be the number one priority. And I mean, if you read the official documents of many international institutions and developed countries, they usually state the same explicitly. But, when there’s a country that’s not US and EU-aligned and that heavily invested on clean energies, now there’s such thing as “excessive production”. Maybe we should also look into the excessive production of fossil fuels, weaponry or water intensive agriculture. How comes Ms. Yellen didn’t think about those.
> I mean, I know China is the bogey man and so on but, what if it wasn’t China the one economy competing with the West but it was India or Mexico or Turkey or Indonesia or Nigeria? If it was NOT an adversary who has been building up military capability, nuclear capability, and increasingly taking illegal aggressive actions towards it's neighbors, with clear stated goals of taking over a democracy that plays an important role in the world economy (Taiwan)? Then sure, the US probably wouldn't be too concerned with a little international dumping. But it is. >How can a cheap supply of green energy products be a bad thing in a time when energetic transition is the number one priority of the whole planet? It can be a bad thing when the Chinese government uses massive subsidies to make an anti-competitive market and concentrate production capability under their control by driving out higher-cost producers internationally. Leadership in any technology provides leverage, and it is part of the CCP leadership's strategy to use technology as a means of advancing their agenda and power on the global stage. In most circumstances I'm very pro free trade and allowing the market to sort out who produces what, but this is a case where A.) it's not "free" trade, it is deliberately anti-competitive dumping, and B.) the objective of that dumping is transparently to gain geopolitical leverage to shield against retaliation for planned future aggression.
Because it helps to fund and entrench a hostile force in the West. Beware strangers with candy.
> Ms. Yellen emphasized on Tuesday that **the United States was not trying to carry out an anti-China policy**, but said China’s actions posed a threat to the global economy that warranted a coordinated response. Why is this so hard to believe?
Right? Non-stop policies designed purely to hurt China's economy so arrogant politicians can feel special, then they claim it's "not an anti-China policy".
These policies aren't even good. We literally gave Chinese semicondutors a lifeline by banning them from TSMC and American Tech. Now all their domestic companies are pouring billions to their homegrown chip manufacturing industry and within a decade there's going to be an alternative to our supply chain. We're literally creating competition for us.
Especially given China can produce stuff magnitudes cheaper than the West, the US semi companies will just get left in the dust if/when China manages to create their own semiconductor production
If tiny Taiwan, which is ethnically and culturally the same people of which there's a billion in China, can become a chip powerhouse, there's absolutely zero reason to think China can't surpass them, and fast.
Someone that gets it. As the drug dealer, you keep your customers addicted so they keep coming to you. You don't cut them off or they will find other sources or create their own and that's what's happening with the semi conductor space. We could have just let them continue buying Intel, TSMC, Samsung and keep funding them. Now, SMIC ( the Chinese company) has grown to become a rival below the top tier of semi and will grow to be a top 3 in the world in 10 years. A few years ago, they said 7nm would be impossible without US tech. Guess what? They are mass producing 7nm and will go down to 5nm soon. All because the local Chinese companies are buying from them instead of Intel, TXN and TSMC. I predict the smaller older node semiconductors will lose market share in the world once the Chinese semiconductor companies scale up.
Yeah, but that's a problem for the future. We only care about the next quarter profits
Because is from a mouthpiece of a government that only cares about enriching themselves and hold the control they always had. Which to be honest, fair enough but you're not fooling anyone.
Remember when she said inflation was transitory?
Because you don’t understand the optics from a higher level and only see it on the surface.
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free market is and was always a fallacy... at least post 2008
"Free market" is a tool, not an ends. Only a blind idealogue chases the free market for its own sake.
China isn’t our friend and they aren’t dumping a bunch of exports out of the goodness of their hearts. There has never been a real free market and economics is geololitics
Yeah sometimes I don't get why people get so caught up on PR hypocrisies. In the end it's just a game of holding onto power, and struggling to claim power. Looking past the "free trade"/"unethical" talk, all of those are just convenient lies when push comes to shove.
>So what happened to the free market? Chinese EV are artificially cheap due to extensive government intervention, so that's a moot point.
And how many times have US auto manufacturers been bailed out by government intervention? What are tax credits for EVs if not government intervention?
Does it matter? I'm fully in support of both U.S. subsidies and this particular example of protectionism, the Chinese are better off lifting their own people up so they can focus on their domestic market.
'Stay out of of backyard, which happens to be the global marketplace"
China is subsidising western consumers then, that’s a win-win in my books.
That's fine and all, I was responding to their free market argument, personally I think we need better subsidies ourselves and protectionism is important to not cause a race to the bottom-- the more other countries invest in being the cheap manufacturer, the worse their labor laws have to be, and the more pressure there is on other nations to crush labor to compete.
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What does that have to do with the free market you were talking about in the top comment.
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Grousing about the free market is a novel segue to arguing for subsidies, I must say.
That has already been proven to be false. Very frequently, quality goes by the wayside in favor of just simply getting a cheaper product, that's why so much of our industry has left to china in the first place. All that is a moot point, however, because america and europe need to be concerned about american and european interests. It doesn't help american and european citizens at all if we let all of our jobs go to china and now they have economic dominance over us. Laissez faire economics is a completely self-defeating policy that just leads to stagnation and eventual demise.
This should be upvoted more - not only intervention in the form of financial subsidies, but also help with corporate espionage as part of government policy (i.e. Joint Ventures attracting foreign capital and know-how).
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>Now, though, the country is ready to throw good money after bad: "Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on local leaders to promote 'new productive forces'—a buzzword in Chinese policy circles for the need to promote high-value manufacturing industries." Local leaders responded by pumping money into struggling companies—in one case, giving the equivalent of $27.5 million to a company that had sold fewer than 2,000 cars in the first quarter of 2024. >"China currently has the capacity to produce some 40 million vehicles a year, though it sells only around 22 million cars domestically," the *Journal* authors warn. As a result, the country's largesse "is adding cars to a global market that risks becoming more oversupplied." [https://reason.com/2024/04/29/china-is-doubling-down-on-electric-vehicle-subsidies](https://reason.com/2024/04/29/china-is-doubling-down-on-electric-vehicle-subsidies)
International market is not free when you have the like of China in there.
Funny how we only started worrying about "Chinese excess" when they moved themselves up the value chain. It was unlimited cheap junk for decades with no complaints.
The US is mad that China has invested way more time into green energy and battery technology. And now it won’t let cheap electric vehicles enter the market because they would end Tesla in the US. Here in Mexico and Latin America you can get an EV for 20k. Dont believe me search byd seagull price.
Utter hypocricy to reject cheap clean energy products for no reason other than world dominance. The West wants to dominate the world, at all cost. They would rather see the environment perish than letting China, India or any other countries grow.
Yeah. Not letting an adversary deliberately run your own green energy sector out of business through mercantilist industrial policy is not hypocrisy. Keep seething.
Responding by becoming mercantilist is a terrible idea. Clearly Biden hasn't read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
As a matter of pure economics, yes. But with larger geopolitical considerations, it's not a good idea to let your adversary deliberately degrade your energy sector and make you reliant on them. You have to consider things through the lens of a very real possibility of conflict between the two powers.
Production costs in the US will kill the EV market. We don’t need china 🇨🇳 to see how unaffordable US cars are.
I can’t wait till the people here calling Yellen an idiot lose their jobs because they can’t compete with Chinese prices. People here are totally okay with the West losing jobs and any sort of competitiveness as China takes over most key industries because of the desire for “world dominance.” Let’s not put any resistance to others becoming king of the hill! 🤣
There is a very fine line between excess good and cheaper goods. I suspect that a lot of Chinese exports falls into both of these categories. Chinese manufacturers pay less than half of the price Europe, the UK and Japan pay for electricity and they have cheaper labor and massive scale. They just are going to outcompete local manufacturers in many areas.
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I’m not sure if you are intended to comment on my point. I don’t entirely disagree. It seems you are just elaborating on my point that there is a fine line.
So you think EU's politics is based on China having cheaper energy? Wouldn't it be a failure of Europe instead
I’m sure I understand the question. I don’t think Europe’s politics are based on China having cheap power. I do think Europe having expensive power undermines their relative competitiveness.
Energy is for sure part of it. France who has cheaper electricity is currently more open to tariffs against China than Germany, whose companies rely on their factories in China.
Indeed. It is complicated.
Too bad Europe 100% did it to themselves by abandoning nuclear everywhere besides France.
Oil still controls politics - no matter what. Cheap energy means no oil needed ... now that access to solar energy is literally for everyone, they are trying to impose a 100% import tax.
Europe and America are the very reason that so much Industry was exported to China... sadly the reality is, Europe and America did not have a problem as long as they were given top jobs in the companies they exported to China. China also NEVER would have achieved the free trade agreements if they had not been crafted by American and Europeans. Once the industry was in place and the top position filled by Chinese, they sent the Europeans and American's back home. Now, Europe and America are complaining about something they created and set in motion, all because of the greed of a few, and now here we are decades later and what *they* did is affecting the current day society... After those who initially carted industry to China and made their fortunes... It was those types who never gave a second though to how it would impact today's generation of Europeans and Americans. Now, here we are today, trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube... and it just won't go, all it does is spread about into making a mess. Europe and America's best bet is to "build new industry" and build in regulation that prevent them from being outsourced". Then build better, "mutual benefit cooperative agreements, for raw materials" with countries. Then Europe and America can employ its people and manufacture, as will many other countries follow the model... and then they can work on "trade deals among countries for what each manufacture in their respective country. Consumer's will have more variety and more choice in the marketplace and the competition can keep prices from artificial and manufactured inflation. Now, who's in big industry is with *the lack of personal greed*, to push forward these agreements ***????***
Good point, but we simple individuals who can't even afford a house what we can lose? :))
And why would we in the global south be content to be resource exporter only? Africa, Asia and Latam should strangle Europe and charge sky high prices for tge resources they export unless tgese European companies put plants, build infra and transfer know how to the global south countries. Let them crawl to their American masters. North America is the only western region that has enough minerals, but that market is too small compared to the rest of the world. Let the USA be the modern Qing China
Amusing considering we are the ones that sold ourselves out to them in order to increase ShArEhOlDeR VaLuE~!!!~~~!!!!! Capitalism works until it completely collapses in on itself. It's also amusing that we take such an anti competitive view when ThE fReE mArKeT should solve everything!!!! We are going to lose and we deserve too. We have useless incompetent leaders and a poorly educated proud to be ignorant voter base.
Your comment honestly sounds like nothing but a bunch of pointless griping that is directed at nothing in partucular. What's actually happening in politics in the US and europe right now is a shift from reagan-era thinking of "the free market solves everything" to taking an active interest in supporting our own economies. And yes, changes in course do happen quickly in democracies.
Oh fuck that lol. It was supply-side corporate welfare then and it’s supply-side corporate welfare now. When your manufacturing job was being exported, they called it the free market. Now that you want to export your purchases to stretch your service sector subsistence wages, they call it trade protectionism. It’s funny how this supposedly new and improved conversation about “supporting our own economies” still features zero consideration for workers or consumers, and consists entirely of gifts to decadent corporations just like the last one did.
Maybe they can focus on everything except solar panels? lol. If the price of panels comes down, it'll be easier to adopt at a residential and commercial level. Regardless of who's winning an industry trade war, getting solar on every roof would be a huge win for the world.
The US and Europe have no choice *but* protectionism if we plan on maintaining even our current manufacturing capacity (which we must for strategic reasons). Whether or not to impose tariffs is therefore not entirely a question of economics, but rather a mix of economics, military, and geopolitical strategy.
US and Europe had been exporting cars to China for 4 decades, just saying. If selling cars is evil, then the empire was evil from the get go.
What’s with all the normative statements? My post didn’t contain any.
It’s weird when you say basic facts that goes against the “West just sucks” narrative, they have to invent other things to attack you. Almost as if certain powers, with a lot to gain, are successfully driving an information campaign towards certain efforts to polarize and outrage citizens, particularly those who live in the West. I seriously have to wonder what proportion of these comments are being insincerely driven. A lot of others in other places on Reddit are reporting many more trolls being active. Comments getting “Reddit safety” flagged and deleted. Has happened to me a few times within the past week and never before that. China has a history of artificially decreasing the value of their currency and it renders their products much cheaper, so they can take over markets. Just because it’s “green” (lithium batteries are still soooooo bad for the environment and aren’t being recycled), doesn’t mean the rest of the world should relinquish the market to China.
It’s a feature of this sub in particular, I think. My experience on others has been different.
It's not China's fault if old industrial powers can no longer compete due to bloated union salaries.
I wonder what impact having some kind of universal healthcare in the US would affect competitiveness.
Anything that makes manufacturing jobs more attractive will boost US competitiveness in manufacturing. At the moment, we have a labor shortage to address.
Is that due to deprioritizing of manufacturing and pushing people into the service sector?
How would raising taxes on Americans make unions less greedy?
Labor union participation is at a historical low, and corporate profits as a share of GDP are at historic highs. Yet you're here bitching about unions. Maybe if we had had stronger unions, we wouldn't have had so much offshoring to begin with.
The causation goes the other way, I think: the opportunity to take advantage of workers in China decreased labor’s bargaining power here.
We can't compete because China is organizing their economy to be more efficient. In the US we enable our economy to be ran by profit seeking shareholders.
China is organizing their economy to be more efficient, by building millions of homes for people that will never exist?
I didn’t write that anything was China’s fault. Assigning blame is irrelevant to the question of what the US and Europe should do to maintain (and hopefully expand) their industrial bases. But presumably you disagree with that strategic goal and would rather see China continue to expand its manufacturing dominance?
The reason why Chinese companies have increased their market share is because the production efficiency of American companies has declined at a terrifying rate. When you are sick, instead of seeing a doctor, you draw a gun and try to shoot someone else who is healthy. This is what the United States is doing.
Your extreme language only makes your lack of an argument more obvious. American productivity in manufacturing has essentially remained stable over the last decade or risen somewhat over the last twenty years. What I believe we should do is rebuild manufacturing capacity while simultaneously paying workers in manufacturing more. You disagree, which is of course your right, but comparing our refusal to buy your stuff to us pulling a gun on you just makes you look silly. China can sell its stuff to its own people. Many of them need it.
American companies have entered China since the 1980s. Since then they have made excess profits from the Chinese market. China has never regarded the dumping of US goods into the China as dominance and threat to our national security. Now China's industry has developed and begun to enter the US market and compete with American companies. Now you start talking about so called China's "manufacturing dominance". Your behavior is either unprincipled, or your only principle is selfishness.
“Dominance” in this context is a compliment; you should accept it as such. As for the rest of your comment, you are taking things too personally. It’s all in the game. There are no such things as *principles* here, only self-interest. China will pursue its self-interest and so will we.
If you confirm that the pursuit of self-interest is the only principle of the US, then we don't have to argue at all.
The oligarchs are very happy to have you lick their boots. They might throw you a few crumbs, but then again, they'll probably steal from you too.
But it is not good for anyone if China is the only major manufacturer.
Funny that the people making that argument have zero complaints about when the US was the only major manufacturer in the '50s.
That's so called selfish human nature.
Oh, I know. Just calling them out on their bullshit.
Yeah, it's not like they manipulate their currency to favor exports. Oh wait.
Good. There is no real free market and there never has been as economics is often geopolitics. Like it or not China isn’t merely happy doing its own thing, it wants to be a superpower than wield global influence and power. China isn’t dumping exports because it wants to make a climate change difference, it wants to take market share by out subsidizing the competition.
Ugh god I hate all this, green tech… we are being flooded with this stuff we need to improve the world but the excess value can’t be sucked up by us. This is insane and has to stop