Posted on 11/01/2018 8:01:42 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
Xi, believing in the primacy of the Party and the power of the state, has marched China back to something resembling the systems created and maintained by Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin.
Xi has, for instance, been busy recombining already large state enterprises back into dominant market players and, in a few cases, formal state monopolies. He has increased state subsidies to favored participants and has placed a new emphasis on industrial policy, like his notorious Made in China 2025 initiative that seeks self-sufficiency in crucial sectors.
He has tightened already strict capital controls, often enforcing unannounced rules. Moreover, Xi has dramatically increased state control over the equity markets, especially since the summer of 2015. Market-supporting purchases by the aptly named “National Team” are, in substance, renationalization. Xi, in addition to that effort, is partially nationalizing the tech sector.
Throughout Xi’s tenure, the state has, as is so often said, “advanced” and the market “retreated,” this despite the much-publicized promise, from the 3rd plenum of the 18th Central Committee in November 2013, to let the market play a “decisive role” in the allocation of resources.
Unfortunately, Xi Jinping is making all these regressive moves with such vigor and determination that it is unlikely foreign companies will achieve, so long as he rules, fair access to the Chinese market.
Xi’s Beijing has, not surprisingly, been blatantly disregarding obligations under trade agreements. He has been closing off China’s markets to foreign companies with discriminatory law enforcement actions, state media-promoted boycotts, and legislation, such as the Cybersecurity Law and National Security Law, which target non-domestic competitors. And he has been inserting Communist Party cells into foreign-owned operations in China.
At the same time, Xi has continued to take, by theft and by rule, hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign-intellectual property each year...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
For decades Gordon Chang has been fantastic.
A great thinker and author, a huge patriot.
Stop talking about China...it’s Russia, Russia, Russia dammit!
Disengagement = Stop doing business in, and with, China.
Yes, it’s preferable to war.
And we don’t need them anyway. For anything.
And that is one of the best articles on the subject I have read in a long time.
That said, I am not sure that disengagement can prevent a war with China. When China's economy really starts sputtering and Xi gets panicky, he might resort to war.
We're utterly dependent on China for basic electronic components. There are no US suppliers who can provide resistors, capacitors, inductors, ICs, connectors, and other critical electronic components in the quantities needed. My company is buying millions of dollars of such components a year, and so is every other big electronics manufacturer.
We need to develop our own capability, but that will never happen when Chinese components are cheaper and work just as well.
What scares me is that many “American” corporations are really run and owned by globalists. I think they will do their best to undermine and defeat Trump’s attempt to restore us as an independent nation vs. just a mall where the world buys and sells.
That’s why the supply chains are moving elsewhere in Asia.
What are you manufacturing that the Chinese can’t target and make cheaper than you can with their own parts, and cut you out as the middleman? Therein lies the rub. I heard some story I think it was some Italian vendor that was getting tomatoes from China to make their sauce because it was so much cheaper. Once the Chinese figured out their product, they took their own tomatoes and started a competing brand. It’s what they do.
[restore America] as an independent nation vs. just a mall where the world buys and sells.
* * *
Well said, throwback.
Trump has reversed the attitude that America is destined to be nothing more than a “mall”. And he’s not just saying American can be great again, he’s PROVING it with results.
America is an attitude and belief that We the People are destined to rise and achieve excellence in every corner of our society. And we will do it in a unified way.
There are a streaming of categories and identies living inside me. Slice and dice them any way you want, I am FIRST a PROUD AMERICAN!
Add in DRUGS!
Y’all know just how much China is in control of the drugs (and raw ingrediants for drugs) Americans use and need? And our military?
Water meters and meter-reading equipment, for US & Canadian markets. China can't break into the market because of their sloppy quality. We and our competitors have enormous market share.
Good article.
“And we don’t need them anyway. For anything”
How about all that money we owe them, and it continues to get larger. They have a powerful weapon to use if they become desperate.
As do we, as in, "We ain't payen' piss off".
China could build a competitive product, if it were of strategic value to their goals. Otherwise they export a mimic slipshod product to separate the uninformed from their funds.
Would China throw in with Iran to keep oil flowing?
The new Silk Road route (belt and road initiate of China) runs right through Tehran. I think China has already thrown in with Iran.
Very possible...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.