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I Am Unhappy with Trump on China
I am unhappy that Trump is following the same sort of airy mess that Bush and Obama did with China. They steal our IP and we do nothing.
China is the threat to our Republic at the current time. They want to be the Asian power. The United States needs to remain the Asian power. I know many libertarians disagree on this. Tough. Someone has to be the world’s superpower, and if we retreat to a regional power in North America, China will expand and threaten freedom.
If a trade war is needed to protect American’s rights, then we need to bite the bullet. Trump should talk to the American people, explain what is at stake, and call on American’s to sacrifice in pursuit of all our interests. (Has any president since Reagan even done that? It used to be a common thing). China has a coming demographic implosion. We need to counter them until that happens.
Published in General
Everyone agrees with you who has given this even a thimble of thought – most people don’t want to think of the extent of our entanglement with China – but they’ve never seen a Pompeo – let’s see what happens – another interesting development is the Pope’s new agreement with the Chinese leadership….
Thanks, Bryan. In defending Trump’s protectionist policies, you candidly acknowledge the economic effects; that’s uncommon, and very encouraging to hear in a country where the vast majority of voters have drunk the “save our jobs” pseudo-economics Kool-Aid and gorged on the mercantilist brownies which passed their intellectual sell-by date in about 1775.
On the legal and moral question, your post is missing a necessary part of the justification: that China is breaking its agreements on IP law. Without that, you would be skating on thin ice to accuse them of stealing anything simply because they didn’t follow the U.S.’s arbitrary domestic laws defining intellectual property rights.
An extreme example will illustrate the point to critical thinkers. If country A has passed a law that the copyright on a song expires 99 years after the composer’s death, and country B’s laws say 90 years, then no-one would call a citizen of country B a criminal simply because he copied the song at 98 years. There’s no natural law defining intellectual property rights, only statutory law.
Agreed. But I don’t know how significant economic rules are in containing China. I suspect military strategies are more effectual, though expensive; like maintaining carrier presence in waters China has no rightful claim to.
Why poison the discussion from the outset, Bryan? Why not simply state your point without throwing needless barbs? Are you not interested in a free exchange of ideas?
The US did not become the dominant military power of the globe trough military strategy. We did it through the might of our economic engine.
So how can you have a trade war with China and expect them to help you reign in North Korea? Seems to me like Trump has to choose. I guess he is making his choice.
There are already mechanisms in place to fight the outright theft of intellectual property. One of the ways to strengthen international IP protections, especially in East Asia would have been the adoption of TPP – that’s out the window now.
As for the voluntary exchange of IP by companies to access the Chinese market 1) it’s their property 2) no one is forcing them to do deals in China 3) they know more about their business than you or I or Mike Pompeo or President Trump 4) I will always count on the ingenuity and resilience of Americans more so than the perspicacity and foresight of American Politicians.
We need a long term strategy for dealing with China and that is primarily one of maintaining our presence in Asia. Fortunately most of China’s neighbors agree with us on this. But to sustain the strategy we need a healthy growing economy, reduced dependence on external credit and we have to do something to defend and grow our technological lead. These are trade issues only to the extent we harm ourselves by being protectionist, empower the Federal government by giving it the power to pick and choose which sectors it will help and which it will harm. The Federal Government is incapable of doing this, but it is very capable of extracting personal rents from the process. I am always amazed that some folks on our side who know that we harm ourselves when Obama or the farm lobby pick which energy sector to favor and which to harm, turn around and think just because the picker in chief wears a Republican hat we will somehow have learned to do the impossible. To be effective a negotiating strategy must threaten to harm our competitors more than it would harm our own economy and the best strategy is one that helps our economy while threatening those who exploit our openness. We can’t get this straight for the same reason protectionism never works; those with a strong k street presence are the old companies that want protection, not the new ones that are just emerging and are too buy growing and innovating to invest in lobbying efforts. It will always be that way but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an effective strategy. It means we have know what we’re doing and that is very difficult for politicians of all colors.
Thanks, I think. This seems a bit of damning with faint praise.
I was unaware that on Ricochet I needed to go over China was violating international agreements.
It is a violation of the sovereignty of county A and the protections it offers it people. Country A is harmed in your example. It is wrong. It may not be grounds for a shooting war, but it is a violation of another nation’s sovereignty.
I believe the USA takes said violations far too lightly. For instance, had I been Bush, when China stole our airplane, I would have blow it up on the runway and given them 24 hours to return our people, before I rounded up and expelled every last China citizen in America.
That’s how you defend your sovereignty: exercise of power. That is all China understands. Trump, of all people, should too.
Agree. See post above.
So China doesn’t have a K Street presence?
Why is it that sectors of the economy have to be targeted – only a country has to be targeted. For your points to make any sense, you would have to believe that the Chinese can make what nobody else can make at as reasonable a price. And that is something that is highly unlikely. We didn’t follow such a strategy as we are currently following with the Soviet Union. We didn’t cut off all trade either. It was just highly targeted because we recognized the nature of the threat.
Because I find libertarians to be unrealistic in their foreign policy more than anything else they say. Libertarians believe that the sovereignty of other nations is as important as that of America. I disagree. Sovereignty is backed by power and will. America should enforce its sovereignty above the sovereignty of every other nation on Earth. If supporting the sovereignty of another nation is in our best interest, I am for it. If violating the sovereignty of another nation is in America’s best interest (say flying spy planes with impunity over the USSR) I am for that.
The world is tribal and red in tooth and claw. We forget that at our peril.
Exactly how would TPP boost IP protections against China when China was not part of TPP? That is a true mystery.
Exactly what help have they provided in reality?
Since the US became the dominant military power as a result of World War II and surely at least some military strategy was involved, then I would say you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The Potsdam Conference insured that the US would be the dominant economic power as well when President Truman said that international transactions would be cleared in US Dollars.
Tokyo denizen here (off and on since 1988).
Strongly agree with Bryan’s OP, with Aaron’s musing(s), and Hang On’s jabs.
The CCP and the PLA are the Ayatollahs and IRGC of this neck of the woods.
Strengthening the IP protections in the rest of Asia while liberalizing trade would 1) make US firms less dependent on China for manufacturing and selling of their products 2) expand the international adoption of US structured IP laws and 3) further marginalize China with its other trading partners making stolen IP less valuable.
And how did that happen exactly? Through our ability to manufacture more planes, tanks and ships than anyone else in the world. Why did the North win the civil war? Because Grant was a better general than Lee or Jackson? No because of its economic might
General John Monash was perhaps the finest general of WW1 – and yet you didn’t see Australia become the dominant military power in the interwar years.
TPP was not going to happen Trump or Clinton getting elected. They were both against it. Dead letter. (heh Dead letters).
Economic might is the core of being the World’s only superpower. Keeping China from stealing IP to compete with us in technology is vital to maintaining that. Where Jamie and I differ here is on how to best do that.
I don’t understand your comment, my point is that we are not capable of targeting specific sectors through trade policy and when we try we get it wrong. We don’t have to cut off trade, what we have done with some modest success is to approach the issue through strategic controls which isn’t a trade strategy it’s a way of trying to restrain certain sectors in target economies. It’s a sanctions policy appropriate when they steal our stuff or use cyber attacks on us. That isn’t protectionism like tariffs on steel or aluminum or restraining agricultural exports all of which were not credible because they harmed us more than the Chinese.
May I say: Kudos to President Trump for this shift away from truly awful trade policy.
Slight correction: I believe that the dynamism of our free market economy coupled with our ability to influence the world through free trade is key to our economic might and thus our security. Protecting existing IP is less important than generating new and better IP.
You need both economic capability and military capability – and a will to use it. Your recommendation is to use only one. And that is a mistake. I hope it never comes to war with China exactly because it would be so horrendous. You need military muscle, but you have to rely primarily upon economic levers to avoid a shooting war.
Both are important.
If I recall correctly they have clamped down on their trade with North Korea. Furthermore in any future deal or agreement with North Korea I think you can expect China to be a major part of its execution. They are the pipeline of resources into North Korea.
At the very least I think China can help to undermine any deal or negotiation if they want to, so dealing with them to just sit out might in itself be a goal.
I think either way this is the best explanation for the about face on China we are seeing. Which is of course what China likes about North Korea.
Both are important. Both were essential to America’s replacement of the British as the dominant global power.
Economic influences are more effective with national leaders who prioritize the wealth and freedom of their citizens. China’s leadership does not. Like other communist regimes, they would gladly starve their own people to maintain power.
And with Americans’ careening financial irresponsibility, let alone hyper-regulation that has only briefly slowed, the US dollar might not remain the world currency for long. So even with weakened trade, China might gain economic advantage in the long term. Comparatively, the Chinese are a patient people.
Military leverage is always necessary against tyrants.
If we blew up all of the central banks, peace and prosperity would breakout everywhere via global deflationary-style growth. Like we had before 1914.
Military might flows from economic might. Period.
But not equally so.