Trade War with China

Faithlock said:

Of course, I can think of a better way.

Anybody could, if they just willing to think for a few minutes.

Eventually, one got to fight back.

It is USA who takes the initiative to "kidnap" (in my mind) Meng, why is China only target Canada (I applaud China's response to Canada)? What is the response to Poland? Is Xi afraid of EU?

Just mark my words, it is not going to stop at Huawei. Other successful Chinese companies are going to suffer in the future because their country won't fight back.

Right now, Trump is doing to China how Mao Zedong had done to Soviet Union and United States. Trump is taking initiatives. He is deciding the time, the place, the when, the where, the how.

If one don't touch tiger's ass, how does he know how will the tiger behave? Well, now Trump is finding Xi had a tender ass.

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gelgoog said:

One thing which China can do, although it will take a couple of years, is to file an appeal to the WTO against the relevant countries with regards to illegal trade barriers.
Although the USA might still ignore the resolution, as usual, it will make most other countries basically ignore USA's threat for sanctions. It also means that China can legally impose not only counter-sanctions but demand the payment of fines due to those countries breaking the WTO rules.

In the meantime the Chinese might either enact counter-sanctions, like denying the use of some technologies to Poland, which has a pretty large industrial base, or, for example, they can hit them in a more indirect way. For example, they could co-finance the expansion of the Russo-Chinese Siberian gas pipeline network, and the interconnection of the European and Asian Russian gas pipeline networks and Russian LNG projects in Asia. If Russia stops exporting that gas through Poland and it instead goes to China, then Poland will lose a lot of money in transit fees from the Yamal pipeline. But for that China needs to import like 80 bcm or more of gas.

The Chinese could also, for example, ban the export of products of Kuka machine tools, which is Chinese owned, to Poland, plus all relevant maintenance services. They could also stop importing copper from Poland.

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Equation said:

Ah, I thought your solution might be to kidnap Americans in return. Next time, if you think that a solution within minutes of consideration is better than the one that Beijing chose, scratch it out and sit down for a few hours. A lot of very smart people people, likely much smarter than you or I, and with undoubtedly more information, have worked together for a long time to come up with the current plan.

Remember, the purpose of arresting people is to convince the offending nation to stop hostilities against Chinese businesses. We don't arrest people just to see what they look like in orange jumpsuits behind bars. If this objective cannot be obtained, it is useless to arrest people. We can achieve this with Canada, but not with America, because Canada is a bystander while America believes it's in a fight for its life.

Here's why it's stupid to tit-for-tat with the US: NY issued an arrest warrant for Meng. That's fine; this is a crazed country doing whatever it takes, legal or not, to try to hang on to its edge in the world. You cannot stop that. But Canada is not in the equation. Canada should have recognized that Meng can't be wanted internationally for violating an American law not on American soil regardless of the truth of the claim. This is Canada choosing to get into a fight that it should have sat out from. Canada needs to be punished so that it does not repeat this mistake. She's still on Canadian soil.

You cannot target the US like Canada because the US has everything to lose if Chinese tech dominates while Canada has (almost) nothing to lose. Loss of its telecom supremacy is a disaster to the US, one that they are watching unfold with horror. In this sense, America is a cornered animal sensing that you are here to kill it. Under this circumstance, there is nothing that you can do to convince it to stop fighting. Cornered animals fight until their last breath. Canada, however, is not a cornered animal. It is an animal standing on the side deciding whether or not to join the fight for its neighbor. You can frighten it enough to flee and convince it that the battle is not worth fighting.


To enact your plan of targeting Americans, especially when Meng is not even in the US, can only lead to the US arresting more Chinese people and then China arresting more Americans, which in the end will get nothing accomplished except build further hate and unite angry Americans behind Trump and a hard-line approach.

Tigers who are stupid don't live very long. If someone dares grab a tiger's tail (yes, tail, not ass), he might be ready for the tiger to turn its head. He might be carrying a club waiting for the reaction. A smarter tiger might choose instead to pull forward or to claw with the hind legs, but the lesson is that the most obvious knee-jerk reaction that you seem to lose is not always right.

In summary, China's current plan of targeting Canadians can lead to a stripping away of American allies. Your plan of going loggerheads with the US is only going to stir up mud, endless reciprocating arrests, and fuel American unity at a time when America is most fractured.

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Faithlock said:

Yes, it doesn't take much for people to come out with better approaches than just sit there and let a little country like Poland to crap over China.

But the key point is actually not Poland. USA is the one who is initiating the attack. Xi needs to stiffen his spine and doing some counter attack.

Older generation leaders such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping understand the importance of taking initiatives. They are probably rolling in their graves now seeing how Xi is handing the trade war.

You take initiatives so you can use your strength against your opponent's weakness. You take initiatives so that you can decide when, where, and how the battle is conducted.

But every times you attack (even against your opponent's weakness), you will incur losses. But it seems it is not something Xi is willing to make. Xi is just taking a complete defensive posture.

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Faithlock said:

Why do you want to put words in my mouth? Did I said I want to kidnap American?

Can you quote me saying I want China to kidnap American?

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Equation said:

You answered exactly none of my points. Your entire post can be summed up as "Do what feels good! Be the craziest most aggressive person in the room and don't worry about strategy."

Once again, the biggest problem with attacking the US in this way is that it will only cause Americans to unite and right now America is so badly fractured. It's really doing them a favor. The other problem is that it won't have any effect other than causing a whole bunch of people in both countries to go to jail. It won't achieve your objective of providing safety to Chinese businessmen abroad.

Mao Zedong lived in an era where China was in a terrible position with nowhere to go but up. That means that being aggressive and shaking things up is a good bet that they'll end up better because there really is no worse. In other words, Mao was aggressive out of China's weakness. The US was powerful, confident, and feeling invincible thus it kept its cool and didn't seek to escalate. Xi is in an era where Chinese power is rising while US power is waning in comparison; it is to the point where you can see the crossing point and that is making the US lose its composure. That's why it makes more sense for Xi to be measured and Trump to be crazy (or rather, for Americans to elect a crazy president) because shaking things up wildly without full consideration of the consequences is likely to be detrimental to the status quo of China's rising momentum.

Believe me, no sane person thinks that China is weaker in 2019 than in 1949 just because Xi isn't as openly aggressive as Mao was.

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Equation said:

Oh, no? Then how did you want to directly retaliate against the US for ordering the Canadians to kidnap Meng? Please do tell.

And my point still stands: the US is a cornered animal in this fight and it sees the Chinese as there to kill its technological dominance. You cannot convince a cornered animal to stop fighting for its life. Direct moves against the US should be aimed at whittling away its dominance, not at persuading it to lighten up its combativeness. That is a fool's errand.

And yes, the US is the root of the problems against China but that does not mean that all efforts must be directed at the root. The US is well-protected in a network of "allies" bought with benefits. Once they are stripped away, the US will be much more vulnerable. When playing Chess, you don't just throw all your pieces at the enemy king hoping one will be successful. You disarm him across the board by taking his knights, bishops, rooks, etc...

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Faithlock said:

I wasn't talking to you on that post. I was talking to gelgoog.

But USA is united (between Democrat and Republican) on the issue with China right now. The reason is because there are very little cost in attacking China.

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Equation said:

OK, you were talking to gelgoog but this is an open discussion and all the points still stand. I'm talking to you, no mistake.

Democrats and Republicans are united on the extremely vague idea that the US needs to keep ahead of China. They are not united on how to do it, and they are not united on other issues, which is why the US government is experiencing its longest shutdown in history. You cannot say this is a sign of unity. There is in general, disunity, and antagonizing the US will cause all other points of contention to fall into the background and for them to unite on responding to China. Both unity and disunity build like snowballs so let's not start a snowball of unity for them because that can become momentum for further unity. China should use this period of disarray and dissonance to distract and immobilize the US as China builds itself as quickly as it can. Hopefully, when the US wakes up, it finds a much more powerful China. The last thing Beijing should do is disrupt this huge American mistake in the making.

Let's talk about Mao and Deng again. Mao was known to be poorly educated and particularly aggressive, with both America and the Soviet Union. He allowed the Chinese to keep our heads held high in pride in a time when we had nothing else. Chinese people will forever love him for that but under his reign, China did not develop. China remained backwards for decades because Mao was aggressive and did not know how to use diplomacy. When he died, Deng took over and thus began China's evolution and rise. Deng, in contrast, was never known to be aggressive. To the contrary, Deng was known to be wise and diplomatic. This actually proves that the aggressive answer is not always or even in most cases, the correct response.

So I never thought you meant all out war. I thought you meant measured counter-attack. But it needs to be much more specific than that. What is the precise action that constitutes this measured and smart counter-attack? That is the million dollar question.

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