China setup a new trade deal in the beginning of the new year however it’s been pretty contentious due to the alleged human rights violations (I say alleged as China denies them). Prior to this China did trade with specific countries.
> You're technically correct - but consider that China is simply too big to be run as a dictatorship, and the CCP do not act in the interests of their citizens' human rights and individual freedoms.
I don't understand what China's leadership is afraid of such that they have their internet filter and suppress independent journalism. You can't have economic freedom without individual freedom.
I’m not really here to defend or attack China - it just annoys me that such blatant misinformation is being spread.
It might be time for democratic countries to consider not trading with China. China is totalitarian and marxist and is therefore incompatible with democratic values. But still democratic governments and corporations aim to trade with China because it's a massive market and there's plenty of money to be made.
The Australian Prime Minister is between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, China is our major trade partner. On the other hand, America is our ally and also a major trade partner. So Morrison has to dance with each.
Blizzard, I read, have significant investment from China, and China are a massive market for them. So they self-censor in order to stay in China's good graces.
I don't see how corporations and countries can do business in China, without compromising their values and possibly stepping on the values of citizens/customers in democratic countries.
China is not only a dictatorship, but a market that is closed or highly restricted to most US businesses. Free trade isn't an option if the US wanted it.
If China won't respect human rights, I would support moving away from them as a trade partner. There are other producers with more liberty for their people.
Free trade is good but it takes two to tango. The tariffs are simply reciprocation for unfair trade practices by China - not to mention industrial espionage at unprecedented levels.
Also there’s more than just economics at play. China has recently become a brutal, oppressive dictatorship. Xi is doing the opposite of what allowed China’s economy to growth at an incredible pace (the growth is thanks to Deng’s policies), but Xi looks like a genius due to recency bias. He will not look like such a genius in ten years.
I feel sorry for the Chinese people. They deserve better.
It seems like the exact opposite is true. China in some sense doesn't abide by free market or free trade principles, and this can be seen as a principled stand against that.
Why change it at the consumer level when we can change it at the governmental level?
Personally I think trade with China should be banned until the CCP is gone and democracy installed. I think trade with China is wrong, we are helping prop up an unelected, oppressive and illegitimate government which massacres its own people every time they call for democracy.
But I have been having more and more doubts when it comes to China. Free trade has not made China a more free place. It looks like they are just using their economic power to hurt freedom everywhere.
China is not playing by the same rules that the US or any other western country is. They don't believe in free trade, they have heavy restrictions on imports and exports out of the country, money transfers to other countries, and foreign investments, they effectively block non-Chinese internet services, and of course all of this has astounding levels of government subsidies.
Well, don't forget that China has been ready and willing to take the benefits of global trade when it suits them. 'We don't want aggressive imperialistic foreign multinationals coming in and bullying our poor domestic companies...', but sure, we'll take all of yor technology, programming languages, operating systems, do literally nothing to stop piracy of Microsoft software...
It's protectionist for sure, but please don't frame it in moral terms of exploitative foreigners. China has played a viciously exploitative game the last 30 years or so.
Plus let's not forget the other major reason for the firewall and other government barriers to foreign market access have been to restrict free flow of information to the Chinese population for purposes of control. It's very righteous to bring up Facebooks occasional gaffe, but you don't consider the CCP to have any devious political slant of their own?
So you concede that China imposes unfair and unilateral constraints on foreign businesses, and you are asserting that it's alright because foreign businesses _still_ have something to gain.
But you don't mention what that something is. Stockholm syndrome? Or a propaganda bot user?
The question stands: Why should anyone put up with a one-sided, unfair trade regime.
To be fair, China doesn't really want "fair" trade either. China would like to become a high-tech autarky dominating modern global supply chains [1], is very happy to throw its economic weight around to punish countries for doing things it doesn't like [2][3], and has a habit of playing by international rules only when it suits them (America isn't great on this point either) [3][4].
All I stated was that there's no reason for the issue of trade with China to be treated with kid gloves. That made sense 25-30 years ago when a vast majority of China was still in poverty and clearly still a developing country.
Now, China has several billionaires, globally-recognized companies, a growing military footprint, some of the top academic institutions on the planet, a billion+ people lifted out of poverty, etc. It's economy has the ability to stand on its own feet without the support of the USA.
China can play the protectionist card all they want to, but when they claim that their goal is to surpass the USA and EU , then both the US and EU need to play the same card in their backyard, too.
How is this allowed from a free trade perspective? Not to diminish the human rights portion, but even from a purely financial standpoint how does China get away with this?
Of course it's about trade. This isn't about an argument between you and China, it's about US foreign policy toward China, vs Chinese foreign policy towards the US. The US has never cared about human rights violations as a high priority. Look at any year of US foreign policy history for the past century at least, look at who the allies are, look at who gets invaded.
When discussing US foreign policy, human rights is a fig leaf, not an actual cause of policy.
> You're technically correct - but consider that China is simply too big to be run as a dictatorship, and the CCP do not act in the interests of their citizens' human rights and individual freedoms. I don't understand what China's leadership is afraid of such that they have their internet filter and suppress independent journalism. You can't have economic freedom without individual freedom.
I’m not really here to defend or attack China - it just annoys me that such blatant misinformation is being spread.
reply