I'm not sure if you're aware, but "you must open your markets to our companies" is basically how a lot of colonialism and imperialism unfolded in China in the early 20th century.
Denying access to US markets in turn, or refusing to do business on terms we don't like would be pretty fair. Trying to cripple Huawei in Europe is a bit of an escalation. Imprisoning their CFO is ridiculous.
All's fair in love and war, of course, but I tire of the moralizing from people who don't know any history.
Yes, Google licenses and products are a US market, because Google sells these things as a US company. You buy these things with US dollars. Because why? Because Google isn't even allowed to sell anything in China to begin with. Everything else is semantics.
The CCP disallows foreign companies to participate in the market until the IP is in Chinese hands. This is global power politics, and has been going on for many years.
You will lose against China unless you implement full reciprocity. This should go far beyond Huawei, it should hit every Chinese company.
And the same should be true for Boeing, Airbus, US farmers and pharma companies.
Alas, we don't live in a fair world, so Huawei is a start.
Cheers, at least you're honest about it being pure Thucididean rivalry. Although I'd be willing to bet, again, that there's a significant personal component for Trump, that seems to generally be his highest motivator and we're singling out a particular company here.
Counterpoint on the broader prescription: Mercantilist systems are historically way less stable. They brought us WWI. Then the cold war brought us dozens of bloody proxy wars.
Maybe there's a win-win possibility instead? I'd contend that if we could do a better job of sharing the pie on our side, we could take the profits from trade and not have a pissed-off middle class electing demagogues.
As it stands, there were little (let's say at least felt) profits from trade for a large part of the US population. Their jobs went away, the additional money never came.
Now it turns out that the Chinese have been profiting from this, often by illegal means and on a basis that exactly isn't free trade and competition.
So what do you tell your voters if you are the Donald?
Sorry we got duped by China, but trade is still good?
Sorry its the CEO's fault for caring about short term goals?
I mean is it even ethical to continue with China? Buy Huawei after they stole all their tech from Cisco (or whatever example you want to bring here)?
I think the goal, beyond fair intra-US distribution, must be to force China to play fair. Market access, both import and export, must be tit-for-tat. IP theft and license infringement must be handled in the same way. This would give China a legitimate way to act in the same way if an US company acts out.
If that occurs, we may have a mutually beneficial equilibrium.
Currently, it is not. And it is also not stable. The more wealth, production and IP shifts - or seems to shift - from US to China based on seemingly unfair advantages, the closer we are to war.
>Their jobs went away, the additional money never came.
The jobs will still be gone after banning Huawei. Trump did not ban the manufacturing of crapple iphones in China.
You are still continuing to profit from cheap Chinese labor paid in slave wages while wanting to maximize margins selling at high prices in your own country but somehow Huawei is an evil company for selling the same product at a cheaper price.
Meanwhile in EU :
https://www.taxjustice.net/2018/06/25/new-report-is-apple-pa...
But yes it's our best interest in the world if the US shuts down all competition by destroying China's own corporations, while the US keeps using the oversea cheap labor and destroying their own lower classes anyway because the trade war is not really about bringing back the jobs and you're astroturfing for one of the most repulsive presidents in US history.
Fuck you.
> Because Google isn't even allowed to sell anything in China to begin with.
The only thing Google isn't allowed to sell in China is access to uncensored information. Their advertising business is alive and well (albeit censored), as this article about them disallowing VPN ads in China demonstrates: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-bans-vpn-ads-in-china/