Just do unilateral free trade. Why would you restrict what your customers (ie citizens) can do, just because some despotic regime somewhere abuses their citizens?
Why would you restrict what your customers (ie citizens) can do, just because some despotic regime somewhere abuses their citizens?
One reason Chinese products are cheaper is that they largely ignore environmental concerns. So by allowing the trade all we do is put our own, well-regulated factories out of business, whilst increasing the net pollution in the world, and instead of quality products that last we get junk destined for landfill, thus perpetuating the cycle. So there are very, very good reasons to look at the big picture here.
And that's before you even get into the slave labour...
> So by allowing the trade all we do is put our own, well-regulated factories out of business
Do you have any evidence for that? I doubt it.
> and instead of quality products that last we get junk destined for landfill, [...]
That seems like a decision for customers to make? If customers prefer cheaper products, who are we to judge?
> And that's before you even get into the slave labour...
I don't think that's a big economic factor. However, insofar as it is occurring, it is bad. I would suggest opening immigration more to give people around the world an alternative.
Last few decades are pretty much entirely made of evidence for that - private owners will, given insufficient barriers preventing it - move their manufacturing to the places with low labor costs. It's why almost everything you or I own has a label on it that says "made in China", and not "made in the USA".
> That seems like a decision for customers to make? If customers prefer cheaper products, who are we to judge?
Naively, yes. In pratcite, this is equivalent to letting a 3 year old choose whether they'll get chocolate or broccoli for dinner. Customers almost universally prefer cheaper products above almost anything else - including economy, environment, and their own safety. Which is why a good chunk of business-related laws in every country exists solely to remove options from which customers can choose.
You are right that Chinese manufacturing has grown a lot. But what's the evidence that this growth has anything to do with a hypothetical decline of the US? More than a century ago the US and German industrial output growing didn't diminish British output, either.
> Naively, yes. In pratcite, this is equivalent to letting a 3 year old choose whether they'll get chocolate or broccoli for dinner. Customers almost universally prefer cheaper products above almost anything else - including economy, environment, and their own safety. Which is why a good chunk of business-related laws in every country exists solely to remove options from which customers can choose.
Perhaps we should remove their opportunity to vote. When they make the 'wrong' decision when buying that mostly hurts themselves. But at the ballot box they can hurt the rest of the country and the rest of the world.
> But at the ballot box they can hurt the rest of the country and the rest of the world.
They can and they do.
In the first instance, this is why candidates are not allowed to literally bribe the electorate, and why constitutional change is harder than simply passing a new law.
In the second, it is why countries even bother trying to interfere in other countries’ elections.
Democracy is still better than the alternatives despite the failures. Oh so many failures.
The problem is that if they had opened their market to foreign corporations, their own "shit" like you say, would never have been as great and strong (at least locally) as it is now.
If you open your market too early and don't protect your own elements, they will get crushed and you will be at the mercy of other powers.
Look at the UK, look at Germany, look at the EU... Having to please two superpowers and doing so bending backwards.
That's why I asked topicseed, accepting her/his argument that emerging markets need protection, when (and if) China should open up.
But apparently topicseed hasn't updated her/his thesis since 2005.
As for Tesla in China, I dimly recall that it's in partnership. SOP for BRICS economies. Quick search... Nope. I was wrong. This 2018 article states Tesla is the first foreign company allowed to operate in China without a domestic partner. https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/news/companies/tesla-china-...
Now I'm almost curious if there have been others since.
No, unless and until there is a domestic chinese Luxury Car maker of note. This is the exception which proves the rule. They don't make directly competing products; so these come in. Watch what happens when they do.
Let's just stop beating war drums.