[rawrawrawrr]

> Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Tuesday urged the Netherlands "to be impartial, respect market principles and the law, take practical actions to protect the common interests of both countries and their companies and maintain the stability of international supply chains".

This amuses me greatly. I had no idea China is explicitly pro-market capitalism.

[esafak]

America's respect for free market principles here doesn't amuse you too?

[corethree]

This site is American and thus patriotism plays a heavy role in the bias of comments. Usually, China is by default viewed in a negative light.

It blinds people to the obvious fact that the US is heavily using anti free market tactics to end globalism while China is not acting as the aggressor here.

[Roark66]

Every country in the world is supposed to work to further the interests of its citizens (in accordance with human rights, international agreements etc).

Trying to appeal to some higher ideal of "free market" between countries is just silly. Did China and EU sign a comprehensive free trade agreement when I was asleep? (as Netherlands is an EU country and all cross border trade lawmaking is offloaded to the EU). If not, they really should just shut up.

There of course exists a World Trade Organisation which is like a treaty that essentially says "we're not going to engage in targeted regulation", but it has caveats "unless it has to do with national security" and few other things. So it's really a framework to facilitate trade rather than a global free market.

[sofixa]

> Trying to appeal to some higher ideal of "free market" between countries is just silly

Tell that to the US and Americans that don't shut up about it any time a country other than theirs does something even vaguely protectionist. It will never not be funny that Boeing pushed Bombardier over the edge with protectionist tariffs over state subsidies while simultaneously suing Airbus for getting state subsidies while simultaneously getting billions of state subsidies themselves.

[esafak]

A selective memory works wonders for cognitive dissonance. Doctor approved!

[corethree]

National security is the cover story. The real story is about economic power.

[esafak]

America loves competition as long as it's winning.

[tom_boneahawk]

China has been explicitly pro-market for the last 40+ years (see: Deng's reforms)

[seanmcdirmid]

It has been ambiguously pro market, not explicitly. They still have lots of protections in their economy, it isn’t a place where pure capitalism and free trade are the dominant ideologies.

[FooBarWidget]

China has been pro-market since the 80s. But they don't view markets as fundamentally incompatible with socialism. Their approach is to utilize markets and to further open up, but to step in when the market fails. In other words: yes to markets, but use it as a tool and don't trust it blindly.

For example the recent real estate bubble pop was intentional. They've recognized for a decade that the real estate market is dysfunctional and that people shouldn't invest all their money into a rent-seeking unproductive dead-end. Instead, they want the market to redirect their money to advanced technology like advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, AI, etc. And that's happening now.

[biotopia]

China was pro-market until Xi Jing Ping tightened control. The moment when everyone realized that things had changed was when Jack Ma's ant group was prevented from going IPO, and Jack disappeared shortly after for a long while. Now it's regressing quickly back into state controlled economy.

[FooBarWidget]

I think Eric Li is the best speaker around who's able to explain what's actually going on, cutting through the sensationalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb835NzfzFw

[jpgvm]

China is a more market orientated economy than most people would expect. There are large SOEs (state owned enterprises) sure but ultimately the whole point of "communism with Chinese characteristics" is to leverage market forces for efficiency where that makes sense.

China generally speaking is very free from a business/trade perspective, the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.

I would say the Chinese aspire to be more on the EU-esq end of the regulation spectrum than the US though. So over time they are trending towards more regulation even as they open up areas that were traditionally SOE only to private enterprise.

[itsoktocry]

>the exceptions to that are mostly related to finance or national security sensitive industries.

Yes, those things are off limits. Now, how do you define what's finance or national security? Whatever they need to control (the US does this too).

All of these "China is a free market" comments are funny; their capital markets are closed, you can't freely move money in and out without government permission.

[pi-e-sigma]

So exactly the same as in the US? For instance the Russians got their assets frozen by a whim of the US government

[throwaway290]

> the Russians got their assets frozen by a whim of the US government

Who are "the Russians"? The party elites who invaded another country on a whim? Their relatives and cozy oligarch friends with yachts and London flats? The residents of Russia who pay taxes and finance the war?

As a Russian not in those categories I did and do business with US companies/freelancing platforms (except for a few specific ones like Github) and my meagre assets are OK. Even if I was back in Russia I would be able to get my funds out until I get suspended

[phatfish]

Humm, I wonder what happened in 2022 that might make other countries freeze Ruzzian assets?

[KptMarchewa]

Russians got their assets frozen because they are aggressive genocidal invaders.

[pi-e-sigma]

It doesn't matter if it was ethically justified or not. The fact remains that the assets were frozen by the US government which runs contrary to the notion that the US allows unrestricted capital movement. Today it's Russians' assets, yesterday it was Afghanistan's central bank's assets and tomorrow it can be any other country

[The_Colonel]

> tomorrow it can be any other country

US can even invade any other country tomorrow. There are risks everywhere, every country has to evaluate "Do I need to insure myself against US invasion / asset freeze in the next 5 years? How much will such insurance cost?". Unless you plan to invade your neighbor, the chances of such events are pretty low and the cost of insurance usually does not outweigh the benefits.

[KptMarchewa]

I assume you'd deliver fuel to the Japanese Empire until they directly attacked you. Or maybe even later, after all deals have to be kept right?

[seanmcdirmid]

I think parent meant that China has explicit capital controls that you have to navigate to transfer money between countries. In the USA, this is just a wire and you don’t need a ton of documentation and approval to do it. The USA uses that ease of access as a carrot and a stick, the Chinese can’t use that as a carrot and a stick because they simply don’t have it.

[pi-e-sigma]

That is simply not true. The US has a complex capital controls laws in place, mostly disguised as anti-money laundering rules.

[seanmcdirmid]

Capital controls in the USA are reactionary, you are free to transfer money, you just have to ask forgiveness rather than permission if you do something bad. In the PRC, it is all about getting lots of permission to convert your life savings from RMB into USD because you are finally leaving china after 9 years of working there.

RMB is simply only limited convertible, it is not freely convertible like CHF, EUD, AUD, USD, JPY, etc...it isn't very useful for trade, and even the Chinese will convert to dollars and use the American financial system because the Chinese system is so limited.

[seanmcdirmid]

National security concerns includes semiconductors, so if the shoes were on the other foot, China wouldn’t act much differently in withholding machines.

[adamsb6]

Walk around any Chinese city and you’ll see hundreds of small businesses, as well as evidence of massive conglomerates.

That the state reserves the right to interfere as it sees fit doesn’t make it not capitalist. Unless the current chip war is evidence of America being not capitalist.

[Roark66]

By this measure even North Korea may be considered capitalist as there are private (illegal, but often unenforced) businesses. The essence of capitalism is not existence of private enterprises, mafia(or an oligarchy) is a private enterprise. Capitalism requires the rule of law that enforces private ownership and laws people can count on to resolve commercial disputes.

This is what differentiates capitalism (US, Europe etc) from authoritarianism (China) or mafia run states(Russia).

[supermatt]

where have you been the past 40+ years?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy