They know the risk of trading with China but can’t take the risk of hurting their economy before next election cycle
Corruption, like with South East Asian countries
Lack of other options
Lack of trust in the US
The last one is a big one. The US fucked up it’s alliances and countries can’t trust the US to be a reliable partner anymore. Why stand with the US against China and take a huge economic hit, when it’s not even certain that the US is a reliable ally anymore or if they will elect another Trump.
Look at Korea. One of America’s staunchest allies in the Asian Pacific and Trump tried to hit them with that ridiculous military bill
Worse yet, America simply ratchets to the right with each election cycle, where in about 5 election cycles, a Democrat would be the same as Trump today. Think about that for a moment.
Whereas China hasn’t really hurt their country, so what do they have to lose?
Someone said America is a one party state, but in the typical American extravagance, they have two.
Oh I think China will shit the bed plenty in the next ten years. We have seen a huge Leninist shift in just the last few months and they are taking a colossal gamble in restructuring their economy to a model that there is no precedent for. Xi’s second term will have all the problems of autocrats that stayed around too long.
They clearly are believing their own hype now. The last twenty to thirty years, their advantage over the rest of the world is to somberly look at mistakes and quickly reform, especially in the economy. I think they are starting to lose this.
As we see more countries around the world work together against the Chinese threat as we’ve just seen with the UK/US/AUS, these decisions will become easier. China isn’t helping their own situation in the matter as Japan has taken the threat more seriously recently as well.
As for economic decoupling on China, it will take time. I’ve mentioned why SE Asia still needs more time to develop the infrastructure to take on more of the supply chain for not just the pacific, but for the West. But it is the logical shift outside of politics as prices in China have shot up recently. I’ve seen this with my own supply chain. I’m almost completely out of China now.
China will have to face the economic reality of returning to the Maoist economic and social system deviating form Deng’s path forward.
In my industry in wealth management, my clients have recently voiced more and more concerns with the social and political implications of putting capital in China after seeing the recent tech crackdown, human rights issues, and China’s role in the pandemic. This is one reason China desperately wants to open a stock exchange in Beijing to keep companies listed in China as well. They also have a huge debt issue coming up.
Am I betting on the fall of China, not anytime soon. But I do think they might get a reality check on their role in the world as other nations start to realize it’s in their long term interest to change their relationship with China.
This is what im thinking. Although I dont think its a Maoist model, but its definitely a conservative Leninist turn. In terms of whats generally considered the model how you drive innovation and growth it seems they are deviating and taking on a lot of risk.
At the same time, the US should learn from China on some things. The US used to have industrial policy and a successful one, with things like NASA with LED technology. But think Reagan and this religious dogmatic approach that they market is always right has absolutely fucked up the US. There are times when industry needs the state to be involved and China has shown that.
Also some of the industries that China is heavily investing in, that are beneficial for the country, its hard for private companies to invest that type of money needed for real advancement. You need a hybrid approach
The US has a problem with getting their heavy hitters to innovate and look for organic growth as they are so focused on keeping their investors happy. When Trump cut corp taxes to try to stimulate growth, these corporations just used their excess cash to do massive stock buy backs. And they are all following the Microsoft approach, they just buy out smaller firms instead of R&D.
As much as I can criticize China for their tech crackdown, it’s going to level the playing field for smaller companies in China that had no chance against CHinese tech giants that did whatever they wanted.
The thing with China is, I can agree with what they are trying to accomplish, and even the end results. I do have an issue with how they execute though.
I believe this is a huge driver of America’s decline. Wage growth has gone nowhere for decades while corporate profits have been increasing. The only people seeing a growth in wages are the people at the very top. Expensive, crappy healthcare and sky high prescription prices don’t help either.
There are still some hope on the state and local level. You see places like Austin and Colorado incentivize companies to come and give a favorable environment for start ups.
The problem with the US government right now IMO, their policies towards businesses are focused on the big ones. Watch the politicians talk about their tax plans, it’s all about these big corporations. The US needs to find ways to think about how to help small to medium firms grow without hurting them in the cross fire when they try to target the FAANGS and multinationals.
I’m not sure this will change anytime soon. Big companies have the money for the lobbies. Local governments are often powerless to do much about it as since FDR, Federal power has been growing steadily.
as someone originally from a 3rd world country that went through a well known rough patch economically. moving to the states, after my country recovered wasn’t a big improvement in quality of life. and that was my biggest disappointment. tv and movies had sold me a different idea of america.
yeah, you could have amazon deliver in 2 days, and on paper your salary is higher. but your quality of life is rough.
so yeah america is on the decline, or was on the decline since reagan took over.
coz if you’re seeing potholes in major american cities, bridges that are about to fall apart, corruption - though I like how corruption is done in the states, compared to nativeland. people looking like zombies, living in the streets, then yeah like most people say, america is a rich 3rd world country.
Yea I was surprised how many potholes there are in the states and how everything seems to be deteriorating. Wasn’t like this in the 90s.
If you wanted to live the American dream, you need money, lots of it, and good health insurance or money. I was surprised how fast 200 dollars can disappear in the states…
Gotta respect the hustle I guess. It’s definitely provided me with a free source of comedy material on several occasions.
But to your point, yeah awareness is good. Although I don’t think the average say American for example gives a sh*t about Taiwan, could point it out on a map, or be trusted not to confuse it with thailand. I guess that’s what the sub header is for…
The title should have been “Taiwan: The Likeliest Flashpoint for a new World War” or something like that. I dont know why the Taiwan ABC twitterati were getting their panties in a twist as the actual article was good and most actual Taiwanese had no problem with it