[bhaskara2]

CCP must not go unpunished. The world needs to stand up to their lone wolf style. If we do not stand up against CCP now it will only embolden the evil. Vote with your wallets. Avoid buying China made products. Pressure/ Make laws for retailers to enforce Country of Origin information for each and every product especially Amazon. Amazon is flooded with cheap Chinese products almost certainly made in inhumane conditions. CCP and Xi Jinping must not be emboldened any further.

[tim333]

A few individuals buying less stuff isn't going to have much effect. We need something more like the west putting 50% tariffs on Chinese products so all the manufacturing starts moving to other countries. That would probably get their attention.

[lordnacho]

The real issue is that we don't care to hurt ourselves enough in punishing the Chinese.

If they were some minor country that supplied all the world's bananas someone could potentially put together something like that, and we'd all live without bananas for a while.

But China makes just about everything, and not just cheap and simple stuff anymore.

In game theory (and experiments with real people) sometimes it makes sense to punish a misbehaving player even though it harms you yourself. It really does not seem like any country in the West is anywhere close to being willing to do that.

[chadcmulligan]

Australia is - its stood up to china - in a fairly minor way - demanding an investigation into the origins of covid 19. It's now involved in a tit for tat thats probably going to cost a lot.

[token78]

Australia and Japan and a number of Asia-Pacific nations have joined the CPTPP - the reality is that the main driving force has been a mission to build a trading coalition in which the participating states can extricate themselves (and the supply chains of their businesses) from what has become a dependency on cheap Chinese goods/manufacture. Hot take - embracing the trans-pacific partnership is the best thing we can do to contain the rising influence and ambitions of Xi Jinping's China.

[chadcmulligan]

Indeed you can't trade with a partner who uses trade as a weapon - it does occur to me that china thinks the same of the US. We're just the smaller monkey getting hit down the line.

[mmm_grayons]

You're absolutely right. The thing America most needs to do is open her borders to truly free trade with the world, with the exception of Red China and a few other nations we want to topple. More than that, we need to build free trade areas (of which we are a part) in those areas, strengthening them further against her influence. We need everyone else on our side and that's a great way to make progress towards that goal.

[ng12]

Even on HN all anyone could talk about was how Trump's Trade War was hurting the economy. I thought the trade war was poorly executed but at the same time at least he was doing _something_.

[ZeroGravitas]

He pulled out of the TPP which was fairly explicitly about containing China.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

Which was failry explicirly aboit containing China.

[jessaustin]

Opposing Trump Trade War (TTW?) wasn't going to resurrect TPP wasn't going to resurrect TPP. I doubt Biden has the stomach for that either. Most people hate boondoggles, and we've noticed ISDS.

[stickfigure]

I'm sort of coming around to this perspective, but I think it's a bit rash.

I'd like to see something along the lines of "tariffs go up 5% each year, and will be dropped to zero when China drops the GFC". I don't want huge economic disruption for China or the US, but a slow disentanglement. And a clear carrot that lets them know it's not personal, the CCP just has to let its citizens talk with the peoples it wants to trade with. "Your move" to the CCP, while remaining positive about the Chinese people.

[h0l0cube]

The only motivation for policy makers to do this, is if it would appease swing voters. Voters need to be at least as interested in the human rights angle as the domestic employment angle, if we are to see tarrifs being used specifically as leverage to improve those global human rights.

Otherwise, in spite of gains in redundant manufacturing capacity (great for local employment, and for national security), it's likely there would be a degradation in workers' rights domestically in order to keep costs low. In order to avoid these outcomes, workers' rights and human rights need to be something that most voters believe are important.

[snicker7]

There isn't a functional difference between a 5% tariff and a 50% tariff for most goods.

[d0gbread]

Why is that?

[loceng]

The number may be higher than 5% but it's because exponentially more and more non-Chinese competitors can outcompete more and more based on price the higher the tariffs on Chinese goods are.

[snicker7]

Competition. In a competitive and rational market, the cheapest good (of comparable quality/availability) will get 100% of the sales.

[nickff]

Your comment made me think of the anti-apartheid boycotts against South Africa; I am not sure exactly how those worked, but it would seem that we should at least consider how that worked.

[simonsarris]

South Africa probably produced commodities, like natural resources and agriculture, and not things like iPhones, drones, etc.

Any pressure would need to come from governments forcing the hand of larger businesses to slowly move complex manufacturing elsewhere.

[mixmastamyk]

"I ain't gonna play Sun City…"

Interesting, although it's not clear that they worked because of or alongside efforts. China is not a small country that can be economically isolated.

[stjohnswarts]

I agree, the western democracies tried opening up trade and hoped that would open up the Chinese government to a new way of looking at the world with more tolerance. That has gotten us no where. They will have to hit them in the wallet or it's all just huff and puff complaints and strongly worded letters from the UN. Of course this will hurt Western economies as well so it may just never happen.

[hcurtiss]

There’s a lot to not like about Trump, but he’s literally the only one in 50 years who’s been willing to play for keeps on Chinese tariffs. And he’s been raked over the coals for it.

[ansible]

And accomplished jack-all.

The real problem is not China producing cheap steel, but human rights abuses, and censorship. 45 hasn't done anything about that.

[abc-xyz]

Here’s an incomplete list of things Trump has done to stand up to China. I challenge everyone to name a single person (or country, or continent) who’s done more than him.

- He refers to the Wuhan Virus as the China/Chinese Virus (CCP is trying very hard from distancing themselves from responsibility; they won’t even let us into Wuhan to investigate).

- He started a trade war with China, which has forced companies to move their manufacturing to Vietnam, India, Mexico, Taiwan, etc. (Biden admittedly said he would end Trump’s China tariffs, but the many companies that already left are unlikely to return), and even high end tech such as the iPhone is starting to get assembled outside China as well.

- He was the first US President to speak directly with Taiwan's President since 1979.

- He made the largest arms sale to Taiwan in the past few decades.

- The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act were signed under his administration.

- The TAIPEI Act was signed under his administration.

- The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act was singed under his administration.

- Meng Wanzhou was arrested under his administration (which dragged Canada into it because China decided to arbitrarily arrest Canadian citizens).

- China Mobile was blocked from offering services in the US, citing national security risks.

- Huawei was blocked from using Android and chips with US tech (which will effectively kill their mobiles once their stock runs out).

- Huawei was blocked from building 5G networks (USA paid other nations to block them as well).

- Hong Kong’s special status was revoked.

- Universal Postal Union agreed to let countries raise postal rates after Trump threatened to leave - this means you’ll no longer be able to buy cheap junk from Aliexpress (and resellers like Wish) at no shipping cost (the receiving country was previously forced to deliver the products for free, even if you brought some toy for 10 cents).

- Trump is pushing for WTO to drop China’s developing country status.

- TikTok and WeChat (likely with more to come) would’ve been blocked by now if it wasn’t for judges temporarily blocking the bans.

There's a reason China's GDP growth in 2019 was the lowest it's been since 1990, and there's a reason China's worldwide reputation is at an all-time low. That reason is Trump. It's also no surprise that all the nations that suffer the most from CCP's actions, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc. tend to be pro-Trump.

[tracer4201]

Serious question - which of these advance American national interests or prevent human rights abuses?

The first item in your list is President Trump calling the virus the Chinese virus. Aside from maybe bringing his supporters as a rallying cry, what does that actually achieve? It feels more like hollow political rhetoric and not something that delivers any kind of results.

What do the arms sales achieve? Is it merely profit for the American industrial complex, or are you saying Hong Kong now has some chance against China in the event of a military conflict?

[ryandrake]

> Serious question - which of these advance American national interests or prevent human rights abuses?

You're moving the goal posts. OP simply said the president "accomplished jack-all". I can't stand the guy either but these are at least accomplishments, even if the effects of some of them are symbolic. What do you want him to do? A land invasion?

[wolco2]

The 5G Ban gives other local companies the leg up.

[eitland]

> Serious question - which of these [...] prevent human rights abuses?

Replace prevent with reduce and I'd say almost all of them.

Say what you want about Trump but he has started to made it clear that there will be consequences.

[netsharc]

> I challenge everyone to name a single person (or country, or continent) who’s done more than him.

Kublai Khan. For your education: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_China . To respond to your hyperbole, he actually conquered China rather than issue some decrees which you're counting as "winning".

Obviously (from my point of view; I could be wrong...) you're a deluded Trump supporter and there's no point in trying to convince you what a terrible president he is and to show you how he hadn't even considered how his policies (domestic as well as foreign) could (and did) backfire and disadvantage American businesses and consumers, but maybe I can convince you to consider this, written about Primary Candidate Trump in December 2015: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/the-donald-and-...

> Bear in mind that embarrassment, and the desire to avoid it, are enormously important sources of motivation. [...]. Nobody likes looking like a chump, and most people will go to great lengths to convince themselves that they weren’t.

> Now think about someone who has been supporting Trump since the summer. For the Trump bubble to burst, many people like that would have to slap their foreheads and say, “Wow, he’s not a serious person! What was I thinking?”

> And very few people ever do that sort of thing. Someone who has spent months supporting Trump despite establishment denunciations — which means something like a third of Republicans — will go to great lengths to avoid conceding that he has been foolish. At this point such people will insist that any negative reports about Trump are the product of hostile mainstream media; Trump’s very durability so far is likely to make him highly resilient looking forward.

But who knows, maybe I (and the Not-Trump voting folk) are the chumps, eh? To quote Orwell (full essay: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...):

> [W]e are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

[timmytokyo]

>President Donald Trump says he did not sanction Chinese officials further over the detention of Muslims in Xinjiang as he was in the "middle of a trade deal".

>Mr Trump told the Axios news site that achieving a "great" deal meant he could not impose "additional sanctions".

>The issue arose after allegations in a book by ex-Trump aide John Bolton.

>Mr Bolton had alleged that at a summit last year Mr Trump gave Chinese President Xi Jinping the green light on building the camps in its western region, with the US leader saying it was "exactly the right thing to do". Mr Trump denies the allegation.

>Axios says that when Mr Trump was asked why he had held off imposing further sanctions on Communist Party officials over the issue of the camps, he said: "Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal.

>"And when you're in the middle of a negotiation and then all of a sudden you start throwing additional sanctions on - we've done a lot. I put tariffs on China, which are far worse than any sanction you can think of." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53138833

[marsrover]

One of the reasons I voted for him this time, even though I didn't in 2016.

[ReactiveJelly]

Maybe next year Trump will break up my gay marriage and make it illegal for me to get the medicine I'm on. Nothing like a little down-home American human rights abuses. He can't even condemn a terrorist group when asked directly to.

[_-david-_]

>Trump will break up my gay marriage

Trump is first president to come into office already supporting gay marriage.

>make it illegal for me to get the medicine I'm on

You are going to need to explain this since as far as I can tell Trump has not attempted to make any medicine illegal.

>Nothing like a little down-home American human rights abuses

Will you explain this one as well?

> He can't even condemn a terrorist group when asked directly to.

Trump has denounced white supremcy like 20 times.

https://thepostmillennial.com/over-20-times-trump-publicly-d...

[spinny]

You gay marriage is safe, your medicine will probably become cheaper. He has condemned the antifa scum plenty of times

[blub]

Are you posting from 30 years ago? Because of the greed and stupidity of Western governments and companies it is literally impossible to avoid buying China made products.

[slashdev]

The monster we created. You can say all you want about the mistakes and dirty actions of the USA-led world since the end of the second world war, but you're delusional if you think a CCP led world order would be an improvement.

[ddelt]

> " ... if you think a CCP led world world order would be an improvement."

I don't think the parent comment suggested anything like what you just said. And I agree with that parent comment, in that I find it amusing mental-floss to imagine how a very-low income family in the US can completely avoid Chinese made products.

[wolco2]

What kind of low income family?

Family living off the grid in eco-friendly community already does.

Farmer family can avoid a lot.

Poor family in the city or burbs has few options and can't avoid walmart/dollar stores.

[slashdev]

I'm using "you" to refer to the reader, not the OP. English can be confusing at times.

[segfaultbuserr]

I learned to say "one" instead of "you".

[eloff]

Yeah, that would have been clearer, I should try that.

[agent00f]

> Because of the greed and stupidity of Western governments and companies

Interesting how you left out the folks who buy the products in question.

[abc-xyz]

You don’t need to boycott 100% to be effective. Boycotting 80%, or even 10%, is surely better than doing nothing.

I’d also say it’s surprisingly easy to boycott Chinese goods, as well as companies kowtowing to China.

[wolco2]

Easy? Does your list extend to the tech giants whi have kowtowed already?

[throw_m239339]

> CCP must not go unpunished.

The CCP already went unpunished with the Tibetans. Very few people in the west cared and it was before China became member of the WTO. The current administration tried to impose tariffs on China which were deemed illegal by the WTO. Maybe the west should have cared BEFORE welcoming China in the WTO.

[agent00f]

Tibet really is the perfect case study for US agitprop. The typical audience for this material literally know nothing about the region outside of state dept/cia pr. For example, the Lamas ran a feudal theocracy but get played up like disney characters. I guess those are only supposed to be bad to the atheists here if it's scary Muslims. Or how it's portrayed as some invasion about as much as the union "invaded" the confederacy.

It's also a perfect illustration of how otherwise supposedly intelligent people in tech are just as easily manipulate outside their area of expertise as the fox news audience.

[Diesel555]

Yes, but arguing we didn’t already do something so we shouldn’t start now isn’t right.

I know that isn’t your point, and agreed on the WTO. As a mass we will never sacrifice a 10% cheaper product to stop inhumanities. We need to elect officials who will handle that via economics. I’ve always been a fan of taxing Chinese imports to offset this factor.

If only we can just keep partisan politics out of the discussions as the taxes on Chinese products were immediately bashed based on the person who implemented it. We need to look at the decision itself to evaluate it, not the party that made the decision. We can disagree with most of a party’s decisions but if you find you hate 100% of them you are likely applying a bias to something that may be good.

Check out Crouching Tiger. It’s a great modern book that includes how we are buying/trading our way into losing the next war.

[xxpor]

There will never be a hot war between China and the US. Or if there is, it'll be the end of the world so it doesn't matter. Two nuclear triad powers simply can't fight directly.

[blonde_ocean]

Why not?

[Canada]

It's "wolf warrior".

Avoiding Chinese made products isn't a practical solution. Contract manufacturing needs to move elsewhere.

[Khaine]

You are absolutely correct.

The CCP gains legitimacy from brining prosperity to the Chinese people. This prosperity is off the back of human rights violations, bullying other countries and corporate espionage. It is time we boycotted China. The whole world must turn its back on China to show this behaviour is not acceptable. It may hurt in the short term, but will benefit all of humanity in the long term.

[franklampard]

"This prosperity is off the back of human rights violations, bullying other countries and corporate espionage" - USA?

[phobosanomaly]

Unfortunately, I don't see that the West, and the United States in particular, is in a position to do anything in the near future. China seems to know that. They have by-and-large solved their Coronavirus problem months ago (with some pretty draconian methods), but the West is still reeling.

The US is heading into a pretty contentious election, nobody is sure whether or not we're on the brink of a recession, international diplomatic relationships are in tatters. If the CCP took Taiwan right now, I don't see the US lifting a finger.

[T-A]

> nobody is sure whether or not we're on the brink of a recession

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872470104/economists-announce...

> If the CCP took Taiwan right now

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4034710

[phobosanomaly]

You're 100% right. Depression! I should have said depression!

Maybe. They could still infiltrate Special Forces teams (I'm sure they have boat teams trained for this very thing), hit Taipei with DF-17s, mine the outside boundaries of the strait, parachute guys in and take the harbors.

My point is more that the US isn't in a position to do anything right now, than that China is going to take Taiwan.

[FindMySocks]

I've heard people chime in that China used Draconian methods to contain COVID, but what Draconian methods did they use?

[phobosanomaly]

"How China Slowed Coronavirus: Lockdowns, Surveillance, Enforcers" https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-slowed-coronavirus-lo...

"China, Desperate to Stop Coronavirus, Turns Neighbor Against Neighbor" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/business/china-coronaviru...

[franklampard]

Which part is "Draconian"?

[phobosanomaly]

I guess that's relatively subjective, and depends on what you or I feel is draconian.

I might feel something is a little over-the-top, but you might feel it's just fine. You might feel something is a little over-the-top, but I might feel it's just fine.

So, I guess my only answer would be that you would have to read the articles and decide for yourself.

You may have a different tolerance for the techniques described than I do.

"In the eastern province of Jiangsu, quarantine turned to imprisonment after authorities used metal poles to barricade shut the door of a family recently returned from Wuhan."

"Authorities have used computerized systems that track ID cards — which must be used to take most long-distance transport and stay in hotels — to round up people from Wuhan."

For example, I find this to be a bit much. I do, however concede that it works. You may be perfectly fine with it.

I find the prison camps in Xinjiang to be a little draconian. Plenty of other people feel that it's a wonderful idea.

[franklampard]

The second quote is literally digital contact tracing. How is that bad?

[totalZero]

We don't have to punish them. We just have to stop enriching them.

[berdario]

The US must not go unpunished. The world needs to stand up to their lone wolf style. If we do not stand up against the US now it will only embolden the evil. Vote with your wallets. Avoid using US made products and services. Pressure/ Make laws for retailers to enforce Country of Origin information for each and every product. The web is flooded with services made in the US that spread their propaganda (antivax and QAnon started in the anglosphere) made to keep their population feeble and powerless (some of them even die because they cannot afford insuline). The US, Trump and their 2 party system must not be emboldened any further.

[_-david-_]

Stop whitewashing China's crimes. The US and the rest of the West's abuses are no where near the level of the Chinese government's.

[berdario]

China didn't drop the nuke on harmless civilians, the US did.

China didn't displace tens of millions of people in the middle east from their homes, the US did.

China didn't destabilize dozen of countries (via assassinations, coups, and other unsavory ways to initiate regime change), the US did.

There's one threat to world peace, and that's the US. It's ridiculous that people think that somehow China could be worse than that.

[_-david-_]

Mao killed tens of millions of people which is significantly more than US nukes.

China destabilized Korea, Vietnam and other countries in the area. Are seriously suggesting they didn't want regime changes in those countries?

Many of those people were displaced.

The US under Trump is actually starting to pull out of the Middle East. While bad things happened the US is at least stopping it.

China is continuing their aggression towards minorities in their country.

[berdario]

You should learn some history, instead of repeating US propaganda talking points, example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Korea

There was a unified Korea, led by Lyuh Woon-hyung.

Americans arrived afterwards, Lieutenant General John Hodge said: "one of our missions was to break down this Communist government".

If the Americans wouldn't have come, there wouldn't have been any north/south division (in fact, Kim Il-sung wouldn't probably end up leading a country). And you somehow think that it's China who destabilized it?

Similarly, it's the US that invaded Vietnam from the other side of the world. The only difference is that the country was already divided, after the Anti-French Resistance War. You think of it as "communist aggression", but the truth is that these were liberation wars from western colonization.

Similarly, the US propaganda personally blames Mao for "killing" people due to a famine. The reality is more complex, and unfortunately personal responsibility of state leaders is never recognized during these events. Similarly, Trump is "killing" hundred of thousands of people due to his mishandling of the pandemic, but we both know that he won't be held personally responsible.

I can get into more details, but you should reconsider what you choose to spread. If you're just repeating propaganda talking points, you're not going to accomplish anything good for the people in Korea, Vietnam, China or US people themselves. The only people that you're doing a favor to are the fat cats in Washington.

[hnaln]

Yeah what's a few million deaths in the middle east in what? The past 2 decades? War in Yemen. Oh wait it's alright because we'll make a documentary about how it was wrong and how killing all those Iraqis made marines feel bad.

[_-david-_]

I never said the US or the West are perfect but the idea that China

China destabilized Korea, Vietnam and other countries in the area.

The US under Trump is actually starting to pull out of the Middle East. While bad things happened the US is at least stopping it.

[manuu80]

How did you come to that conclusion (the levels of abuse)?

You should watch "A radical experiment in empathy", by Sam Richards

[cercatrova]

What a strange decree. States don't punish or get punished for moralistic reasons. It's like saying we should punish Alexander the Great. It's all a part of history, he was a terrible person for ravaging the land but we celebrate him today. There are no morals in empire building.

[cheese_van]

Xi Jinping has a constituency and to a degree opaque to the West, that constituency provides his mandate. Discomfit the constituency, the princes and princelings, in their pockets, and that mandate might be withdrawn.

That revolution will be messy, but it's needed.

[agent00f]

Thanks for at least admitting the goal is regime change, same as for the "Arab spring" which has left much of that region as failed states.

It's always amusing when people who cause the most misery in the world shout the loudest about human rights and such.

[newen]

Scream for the blood of their enemies while calling them sinners. It’s as old as time.

[crispyporkbites]

Any Amazon engineers want to comment on why a country of origin flag is not on every product? Has this been discussed internally at Amazon?

[pjc50]

That would cost Amazon money.

Besides, the rules around country of origin are complicated, and some countries have product description law about this. And what's to stop Amazon sellers sticking fake country of origin on, as they can already do for CE marking?

Or the reverse: Amazon stick a China flag on iPhones. Apple are going to get extremely upset about this and sue/offer money to change that to a US flag.

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act may make it illegal to force Israeli sellers to identify their country of origin.

[juiyout]

Amazon could do A-B tests on this. This might just earn them more money instead.

[pjc50]

How do they get the information, though? Oblige resellers to put it on? Who then proceed to lie about it? It's just the "fake commingling" problem all over again.

[whoknew1122]

Not an Amazon engineer (I work at AWS). But how would that be workable at Amazon's scale?

Who declares the country of origin? Who ensures compliance for item? How is compliance done? Do you review every single item?

How do you ensure that manufacturers update their country of origin declaration if/wehen they change downstream procurement? If you the raw materials are sourced in China and assembled in Vietnam, does that count as a Vietnamese product?

Amazon still has trouble with fake reviews, brushing scams, and straight-up counterfeits. Adding another system that needs to be policed doesn't seem like a very good idea. Especially when that system (country of origin flag on every product) has questionable upside.

[oezi]

Don't forget that for trade purposes (customs!) every item that is crossing borders already need to declare COO and that documentation and rules exist how to assign it based on value-added manufacturing steps.

[TheKarateKid]

Probably because it only serves to hurt their sales.

Amazon has also become almost as bad as Alibaba in allowing counterfeit and knockoff items to be sold openly.

[heavyset_go]

At least with Alibaba you're going right to the source and not paying some reseller's markup or for the 'free' Prime shipping that just gets baked into prices on Amazon.

[crispyporkbites]

Wouldn’t it push people to higher cost and higher margin products (locally made or from more ethical sources) and thereby increase their profits? Seems to me like you could make a strong case for it

[kepler1]

As long as 95% of the people in the US keep on buying items with their wallets open, and we're distracted with our own internal strife, what hope is there to counter this? Our leadership certainly isn't up to standing against this sort of thing these days.

[apexalpha]

Addressing indiviuals for group behaviour is bullshit.

It's pointless. Actions that address the result of group behaviour need to come from the group (government). All else is just grandstanding.

[WillPostForFood]

People want the information, and if they had it many would adjust their buying behavior. I see the "where is this made" question on Amazon products all the time. Even if it didn't make a difference, having the manufacturing origin, and shipping origin clearly labeled would be a good start.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aamazon.com+%22where+i...

[aphextron]

Information doesn't matter when you have no other choice. There's practically zero affordable consumer products still made in the US or Europe. Just try finding any form of electronic made outside of Asia. It's nonexistent.

[spinny]

Chy-na imports a large portion of it's food supply, and the recent floods have destroy a large portion of it's own supply. people don't eat consumer electronics.

[ordo_inf]

Not just the US, China exports stuff everywhere. I think this can be mitigated by making planned obsolescence illegal and somehow forcing companies to maximize quality.

We don't need crappy pens, toys, electronics, etc...

I don't know about you, but I'm personally happy to own one ballpoint pen that'll last me for 20 years (and only have to refill it from time to time). If anything, just to not see some poor guy work as a slave (long work-days, minimum pay, suicide nets). Right now you can just go purchase 10x crappy pens that easily break and dry out for around €2, whyyyy?

[Hydraulix989]

Say what you want about Trump, who is a completely disgusting individual, but I have seen more progress this presidential term in this regard than ever before.

[eloff]

You're getting down-voted because trump derangement syndrome. But it's true. No President has taken a harder line on China and the CCP. If you're in the US and you want to do something about the CCP, probably the most effective thing you could do is vote Trump. And I'm saying this as liberal who can't stand Trump.

If that's effective for the long-term future and prosperity of the US, which is also important to counter the CCP - I don't know.

[spaetzleesser]

Maybe Trump has started changes for the better. Let's hope. My personal worry is that he (and the US in general) is mainly about business and will ignore the human rights abuses as long as the money is right. The friendly position towards Saudi Arabia seems to indicate that.

[eloff]

Yes, to be fair I don't think he's being tough on China for humanitarian reasons. Nevertheless, I would say the outcome here matters more than his motivation.

[_-david-_]

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is better than not doing anything, even if it is just temporary.

[gremlinsinc]

As a leftist, who hates biden AND trump (almost equally) and voted green but almost voted Biden (i'm not in a swing state), I see Trump as a catalyst for change, I wanted him to win to unite people on the left to move more left, and upturn neoliberalism (looks like it's working), however - I'm changing my tune a tiny bit, namely because of covid and how that's going down. I don't think Trump can handle fixing this, and I honestly think we're in over our heads as it is.

We really need UBI, stimulus, healthcare reform, and as much as I hate to say it Biden is the closest we get to that. But, vote who you feel is good and safe, I voted green. I'm not gonna vote shame anyone.

Just when you vote think about all that's coming : Global Warming, Water Wars (already started in Mexico), Droughts, More Fires, Covid, Covid part 2, Income inequality raised a factor or two, joblessness, homelessness for millions, protests, uprisings, etc... Next two decades will make or break us.

TLDR: Trump probably would be best against china, and if that were the only issue facing us, it might be good enough reason to go against the grain, but there's so much shit hitting the fan now, maybe we do need change.

[throw51319]

What kind of fool would vote 3rd party in an election with the gravity of this one?

This isn't the time to make some symbolic stand, it's time to vote Trump out - if that's what you believe in.

[spaetzleesser]

I am making a stand to not support either of the corrupt big parties in the US. I can't vote for one guy only because the other guy is bad. The democrats should have put up a candidate people actually want to vote for. They didn't do that either in 2016 or 2020. Not being Trump is not a good program.

[whack]

> President Donald Trump expressed approval of a concentration camp for Uighur Muslims in China during a private meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to former national security adviser John Bolton's upcoming memoir

> Xi "explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang," Bolton wrote, citing the interpreter's account. The interpreter added that "Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do," according to the book.

> Bolton also wrote in the book that Matthew Pottinger, a retired US Marine and the current deputy national security adviser, "told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China."

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-china-detention-camp-x...

Make no mistake about it, Trump's anti-China rhetoric arises purely out of Xenophobia, not concern for Uighurs or human rights.

[tim333]

Still at least he's started the ball rolling on anti China tariffs and the like.

[adventured]

Somehow a war-lusting psychopath like Bolton is trustworthy, as he pushes a book out of a vendetta for having been fired?

This is the same Bolton who publicly declared that the single biggest mistake of the Trump presidency was not launching a war against Iran (a war that would kill a million people most likely). The same Bolton who has never shown a problem with aggressively supporting lies, like the foundational lies used for the Iraq war, of which he was a big proponent. There is very little from someone like Bolton that can be trusted directly - which also doesn't mean everything he said about Trump is false, it means there is inherently a severe credibility problem with anything he says.

[abc-xyz]

Biden has been pro-China throughout the entirety of his political career.

As Senator he voted yes to give China permanent normal trade status, stating:

> [Our course is clear. China's growing participation in the international community over the past quarter century has been marked by growing adherence to international norms in the areas of trade, security, and human rights.](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2000-pt13/html/CRE... of our colleagues disagree on this point. They would have preferred that the China trade bill be turned into an omnibus China Policy Act. I understand their objectives and their frustration with the slow pace of reform in China. But amendments offered by Senator Smith of New Hampshire--covering such diverse issues as POW/MIA cooperation, forced labor, organ harvesting, etc.--and Senator Wellstone of Minnesota--conditioning PNTR on substantial progress toward the release of all political prisoners in China--pile too much onto this legislation. Moreover, those amendments would effectively hold the trade legislation hostage to changes in China which passing the trade bill would promote. This seems backwards to me.](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2000-pt13/html/CRE...)

Biden later lobbied to grant most-favored-nation trade status and World Trade Organization membership to China:

> [In the critical fight over whether to grant most-favored-nation trade status and World Trade Organization membership to China in the 1990s — a fight in which, again, many of his party’s leaders in Congress were on the right side — Biden carefully shepherded China through the process from his powerful perch as the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Wherever a brake might have been applied — by placing human-rights or labor conditions on most-favored-nation status, for example — Biden voted the measures down and lobbied other senators for Beijing. Unfortunately, China and Biden got their way, and American workers are still suffering from it.](https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/joe-biden-is-chinas-c...)

As Vice President:

> ["In order to cement this robust partnership, we have to go beyond close ties between Washington and Beijing, which we’re working on every day, go beyond it to include all levels of government, go beyond it to include classrooms and laboratories, athletic fields and boardrooms."](https://newspunch.com/unearthed-biden-speech-in-china-urged-...)

> ["Already, we have made thousands of new items available for export to China for exclusive civilian use that were not available before, and tens of thousands of more items will become available very soon. That’s a significant change in our export policy and a rejection of those voices in America that say we should not export that kind of technology to – for civilian use in – China. We disagree, and we’re changing."](https://newspunch.com/unearthed-biden-speech-in-china-urged-...)

> ["I believed in 1979 and said so and I believe now that a rising China is a positive development, not only for the people of China but for the United States and the world as a whole." He continues: “it is in our self-interest that China continues to prosper” and retained hope “a rising China will fuel economic growth and prosperity and it will bring to the fore a new partner with whom we can meet global challenges together.”](https://newspunch.com/unearthed-biden-speech-in-china-urged-...)

> [Vice President Biden convinced China's vice president to agree to a deal that would unlock new fortunes for Hollywood. Biden asked Xi Jinping to relax China's quota of allowing only 20 foreign films to be shown at a time and to increase distribution fees for Hollywood firms.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/02...)

> [In 2013, the Obama administration allowed Chinese companies to invest in U.S. capital markets without having their books inspected by U.S. regulators, after meetings between Chinese officials and Biden.](https://epochtimes.today/where-biden-trump-stand-on-the-chin...)

As Presidential Candidate:

> [In 2019, Biden boasts about having spent more time with Xi Jinping than any other world leader, and that China wasn't a competitior to the United States. "China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man," Biden said at the time. "They're not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They're not competition for us."](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-trump-mischara...)

> [Biden Says He Will End Trump’s Tariffs On Chinese-Made Goods](https://news.yahoo.com/said-trumps-ideas-good-one-153901834....)