[chadAnon69]

Everyone trashed Trump for the solar tariffs but I liked it for this reason. Sure, temporarily they get more expensive but what happens in 20+ years when the world is reliant on solar power and China has a complete monopoly because they played the long game and subsidized it until all competitors died out?

China is playing the long game, the west plays quarter to quarter because of the stock market

[specialist]

Not an expert, so please forgive overgeneralization.

The USA (and the West) has played the long game. Very successfully. We somehow avoided WWIII.

Nixon thru Obama, the USA engaged with China with the goal of normalization (with the West). This has been standard procedure. For whatever reason, this strategy hasn't worked. (Yet?) Further, some have concluded China is becoming less likely to normalize.

Every successfully developing country has bootstrapped itself thru some measure of theft, cheating, protectionism. Recognizing the power imbalance, some proponents of active engagement in the West have let it slide, for a period.

--

I am unhappy with the stalled relationship between USA and China. While I do not support Trump's actions (tempting a trade war, weird rhetoric), I understand the impulse to do something. In truth, I do not know if there is any satisfactory path forward.

I grew up during the anti-Japanese hysteria of the Reagan years. I hated it then. I hate such rhetoric now.

Happily, it passed. I'd like cooler heads to prevail again. We'll see.

[shanghaiaway]

What you call normalization is submission to US values and power. No nation wants to do that. The difference is that China is powerful enough to go their own way.

As long as you call it normalization you will remain unhappy.

[java-man]

and of course we don't want the free market to punish the incompetent and reward the smart ones, do we?

[djohnston]

we want to position ourselves for not being steam rolled in the next half century. that is what being competent demands.

[chadAnon69]

In what free market does a government subsidize a company and force competitors to give their native companies their IP to do business?

China never cared about free trade, they use it like a weapon to beat idealists like yourself over the head

What happens in 20 years when China has complete dominance of the solar market and those "cheap" solar panels get tripled in price because there is no competition left and the rest of the world can only grit their teeth?

[dnomad]

> In what free market does a government subsidize a company

The idea that the Chinese government subsidizes every Chinese company is nonsense. This is just something that Americans need to believe because they don't want to admit how extraordinarily inefficient their domestic industries were before 2000.

> and force competitors to give their native companies their IP to do business?

This is hilarious. Nobody forces foreign companies to give away their IP. These companies, which are supposedly the best in the world, analyze the trade and make it voluntarily or walk away. It's called the free market. Remember that?

> What happens in 20 years when China has complete dominance of the solar market

The irony here is that all the tariffs do is put America further and further behind. The tariffs don't help America at all eg [1]. This should be obvious to anybody who understands how solar works and knows that the real money is not in panel printing.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillbaker/2018/04/06/tariffs-on...

[NicoJuicy]

All companies report to the party, there is no free market there.

XI is the new emperor for life

[CamperBob2]

What happens in 20 years when China has complete dominance of the solar market and those "cheap" solar panels get tripled in price because there is no competition left and the rest of the world can only grit their teeth?

Everyone warns of this scenario, but it never seems to happen in real life. Sure, the old, inefficient producers disappear as foretold, but the goods in question just keep getting cheaper and more plentiful. Can you think of any historical counterexamples?

[java-man]

what we should do then is to support local manufacturing by purchasing massive amount of solar panels, building battery based grid storage, switching transportation to electric on massive scale.

slapping tariffs on foreign products ensures that our manufacturing becomes even more backward, while the rest of the world takes off.

if we want to avoid monopoly - build own capacity, competitively.

[yourbandsucks]

I used to think this, but the Chinese themselves have proved me wrong.

I think it's smart to use some amount of protectionist tarriffs in "industries of the future". Furniture? Who cares. Solar? Might be worth it.

[java-man]

I think it applies equally to furniture or solar. If you want quality local manufacturing, it is better to let it compete on the global market. Help by placing orders, may be, but let it compete.

Otherwise we'll only prolong inevitable decline.

Example: go to Japan and check in into a modern hotel. Then look at the hardware - door latches, bed, toilet... Then compare the quality of these products against their American counterparts. An isolated example, may be, but the outcome is higher quality at lower prices.

[echaozh]

If there is only one manufacturer of solar panels in China, but that is not the case.

If the Chinese don't produce solar panels, the price would have been tenfold instead of tripled. With the Chinese in the game, tripling may not even happen, because the Chinese will compete with themselves.