[dirtyid]

Does it matter? US has a different protectionist toolbox, one that is applied more broadly and affects more countries across the world. Chinese JV affects IP heavy western companies disproportionately, companies with the loudest lobbying voices which gives the perception of magnitude. But we don't know the relative severity only broadness of impact, where US protectionism and number of victims is multiples more. Unless you want to believe USTRs 250-600 billion a year estimate, which again that's propaganda at work.

[leereeves]

Of course severity matters. Someone who gets a speeding ticket every single day of their life is still less of a criminal than someone who commits armed robbery just once and never breaks another law.

I agree severity is hard to measure, but that's not a reason to ignore severity and compare something that's easy to measure but uninformative.

In the absence of numerical measures of severity, there's room for opinion. My opinion is that the Great Firewall or Chinese IP theft are more severe infractions than tariffs or protected industries.