[chrischen]

Because Uber invests most of their money on US soil, on US engineers, that go back into the US economy.

They just want to release an app that harvests money from Chinese consumers.

So if China can protect a local company that will clone uber, but with the difference of investing in local human capital and infrastructure, why not take that opportunity?

[adventured]

Why shouldn't the US begin very aggressively promoting its own domestic corporations, directly, at the expense of foreign companies as well then? Using all means available to the US Government to do so.

Nobody here that is saying it's great for China to protect its local ecosystem, will think it's ok for the US Government to do likewise and doing everything in its means to leverage its particular advantages in favor of companies.

How about the Fed set up a US manufacturing fund. Instantly create a trillion dollar sovereign fund out of thin air, to decimate or buy-up foreign manufacturing competition. Of course the Fed wouldn't be so obvious about it, you'd want other nations to be the frog getting boiled in the pot, you want them to go to sleep with assurances that it's nothing sinister. Next thing you know, Tesla is getting $100 billion in free capital to go after BMW and Mercedes with subsidized vehicles. Or maybe the US should start a state owned lithium enterprise and buy up all the lithium supply, and use the leverage in the Western Hemisphere, to block out all foreign access to lithium in South America. And leverage all of that into a huge benefit to domestic electric car production. China did the same thing with rare earth metals. Or how about Uber get a 0% loan from the Fed for $50 billion, to go after the rest of the world (examples intentionally exaggerated). Those are the sort of policies that China has in place right now across numerous major industries.

[chrischen]

This is Trump's campaign platform, which is to start protectionism for the US. And I agree, it would be a necessary step. You can bitch and whine about other countries being protectionist, but the appropriate response is to actually do it yourself (in the US).

[HillRat]

So if China can protect a local company that will clone uber, but with the difference of investing in local human capital and infrastructure, why not take that opportunity?

China is the textbook beneficiary of global free trade -- as Donald Trump's candidacy shows, there's significant appetite amongst the American electorate for renewed protectionism. Certainly many voters think (wrongly, I would argue) that Chinese manufacturing "harvests money" from American consumers.

Having said that, I don't think there's any evidence that the Chinese government put an anticompetitive thumb on the scales against Uber. That doesn't mean there's a level playing field for Western companies in China, but Uber's failure can be chalked up to a number of strategic missteps.