- cross-posted to:
- europe@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- europe@lemmy.ml
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Free trade except when you out-innovate and out-compete us at every turn
what's the equivalent of sending some marines to shit all over the forbidden city? china should do that, since that's a completely fair way to handle trade disputes in a rules based international order.
I think China should take over the UK port city of London for a few decades (more than 150 years seems fair) and efficiently provide hormone replacement therapy to everyone in the UK from there while they're at it. London can be communist and the rest of the country can have whatever system it deems most appropriate.
Get some permanent presence and military bases on the isles of Wight, Man and Jersey (especially Jersey since significant chunk of chinese exports to Europe goes through there). This would also help to guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Thesis: the biggest threat to humanity is climate change
Antithesis: the biggest threat to humanity is pointless great power rivalries
Synthesis: this fucking bullshit
They should probably subsidize their own EV sector properly but I guess when you are run by a shadow government comprised primarily of fossil fuel corporations it gets in the way.
From another SCMP article:
It will not only look for support given to Chinese brands, but also European and other international brands with a presence in China.
This means Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW models made in China could all be subject to import duties – indeed, discriminating on the basis of brand nationality would go against World Trade Organization rules. It also leaves Germany, whose automotive industry is highly exposed to China, vulnerable to retaliation.
I am pretty sure they will only doscriminate against Chinese brands. WTO "rules" mean jack.
So much for the so-called "free" market and "free" trade, huh... Western hypocrisy at its "glory".
The free market is an illusion. One of the EU founding reasons is to be meddling with the free market. Regulation of the market and nature preservation is the playing ground that the EU operates on. That is slowly expanding, really slowly.
And China never had a free market so it's hard to compare. https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/china_en
Same story with solar
https://reneweconomy.com.au/looming-catastrophe-eu-solar-makers-issue-sos-as-cheap-china-modules-flood-market/
I'm not really sure how new cars are an answer to the environmental issues. But yeah they seem to be consistent.
Electric vehicles include stuff like buses, almost 80% of public transit in China is now run on clean energy https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2403089981/
I don't think anyone in Europe has bought noteable quantities of electric work vehicles or public transportation from china for the EU to really care about it on it's own to be honest.
The region of Flanders in Belgium has recently bought loads of Chinese busses. It's not the whole of Europe but still half a country that's switching to Chinese busses. Few weeks after this decision hundreds of people got laid off.
Especially Belgium is very susceptible to the influx of cheap Chinese cars because 1 out of 4 employees in Belgian drives around in a company owned car. These cars are part of their wage because it's a way to evade taxes. As those leased cars are replaced every few years they soon will be replaced by cheap Chinese products. That's at minimum 200.000 vehicles in the next 6 years.
Yup. We even had the mandatory media push of BYD lately. Not only because of their buses but because of their cars as well.
This news is actually half a year old.
https://nieuws.kuleuven.be/en/content/2023/made-in-europe-ku-leuven-institute-releases-documentary-on-challenges-faced-by-european-electric-vehicle-industry
It's an invasion. And that is the war they're waging. Flooding the EU market with cheap products. Wish, AliExpress, Temu...
Now they're dropping these data collecting hubs and get even more eyes on the ground.
Europe: literally invades the entire planet
Crackers: that's not an invasion, they were just spreading civilization
China: sells some cars
Crackers: it's an invasion
True. We invaded, colonized, suppressed. That doesn't make this a lesser invasion. It's hard to have an open market and protect the local producers at the meantime.
That doesn’t make this a lesser invasion
Are you sure about that? Selling cheap EVs does seem to be a lesser invasion than raping and pillaging European style, if it can even be called an invasion in the first place.
I meant it semantically, not literally. Of course. English is my third language.
The western sphere has been running a racket against the global south for the last century, ensuring none of their resources can be owned by the citizens of the land, and forcing them to buy back the assembled goods, now you're complaining that your precious less-than-free market is being undermined with similar tactics?
Your problem is with capitalism. You are against the profit motive that forces companies to expand into new markets or die. For some reason you are choosing to frame this in a way that equates market expansion with an actual military invasion.
The problem that I see is the EU governments not reacting accordingly.
Chinese companies that are of a certain size have to allow govt representatives in the boards. The clear strategy is to take over and the way it's organized has similarities with military strategy. They send out spies (and I'm not saying EU or US isn't doing the same), they have illegal police stations in the EU to make sure people don't defect (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-003838_EN.html).
The objective is to weaken or destroy local production and gather as much Intel as possible. This is not about a company like BYD entering the market to claim their spot. This is about the government deploying a wider strategy. If you don't like the word invasion than I'm sorry. I can't find a better way to phrase it.
And to make things clear I'm not judging anyone. It's just something that I'm noticing.
You understand the reason for this is to ensure that Chinese companies are held accountable to the people? Just like in Germany, where companies have board members from the bank that is financing them, to ensure that companies are held accountable to financiers
It goes deeper than accountability. If it would be confined to board memebers then the analogy would stick but there is also a mandatory représentation in management.
Although the specific amendments vary by company, in many SOEs—and even some private companies—these “party building” provisions include giving the company’s internal Party organization a voice in management decisions and ensuring that key personnel of the Party organization also serve in management or board positions. Already required for SOEs, the CCP has recently begun to extend this system to private enterprises.
In some companies it goes really deep.
For example, in April 2018 a website run by the CCP Organization Department released an article about the Chinese internet giant Tencent, heralding the significant overlap between the company’s Party organization and its management. According to the article, Tencent’s information security management team, which also handles “public opinion guidance,” is led by a deputy secretary of the firm’s internal Party organization, and 80 percent of the team are Party members.The article also states that eleven members of the Tencent Party organization are company executives or heads of major business departments. This overlap between the Party organization and firm management suggests a deeper and more surreptitious influence on company operations than is commonly assumed, particularly as Xi Jinping has made clear that all Party members should “keep in mind that their first identity is as a Party member, and their first duty is to work for the Party.”
I'm aware that this should be no surprise and all in line with China's governmental structure but I'm not sure that European lawmakers are aware of this. China's gonna China and they have the right to do so.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-challenge-communist-corporate-governance
You do realise this is all good and as it should be, right? To make sure that companies operate in the public good, and not purely for their own profit?
I generally distrust state actors. Especially when they take up seats in companies. There are certain things you should never leave to private companies like water, electricity or public transport but there is no freedom when you install permanent supervision in every corner of society.
But I speak from a democracy. There's no comparison when you speak from a single party government.
That's it, I suppose. I would never trust the government. Not in the long run. Elected politicians have a program but, and I know that from actively writing legislation, after a few years it is hard to find a politician that is still on the same course as when elected.
Well, that's the thing, there is a single party, but this does not mean China is not a democracy. Their government is far more responsive to protests and popular demands, and the Chinese Communist Party is made up from millions of people who get a say from the local level upwards. People are actively involved in designing policy. Contrast this to the US and UK, for instance, where the voices of the general public are drowned out and ignored, and elections are won by appealing to the interests of big businesses and foreign donors. In the UK right now we have a government which is completely beholden to business interests, and a Labour party which has repeatedly purged its socialist elements under the guise of combating anti-semitism. It would be less antagonising if they admitted what they were really all about, which is crushing the working class. We even have a monarchy and state sponsored propaganda to prop them up.
i'm all for using tariffs to expand your local productive capacity, but describing market forces as "invasion" is just silly. You want invasion? France is still running an old-school colonial empire -- for fuck's sake, they're charging reparations for """"freeing"""" the countries they violently took over in the first place!
Yes colonialism bad... But that's not what we're discussing here.
If your government is deliberately funding industry so that they're able to flood markets at stupid low prices, even at a loss and with the sole goal to destroy competition and take over than that can be seen as an invasion. I'm not saying any other country is doing better or worse. Yes, France is still doing bad stuff, so is the UK.
Google image pictures of China and tell me if they look like they are running businesses at a loss because they are evil, mischievous orientals
I never said that. As a country they are taking giant leaps and bringing prosperity to their civilians.
But they are doing the same as, for example Uber. This company has never made any profit and is purposefully pushing competitors out of the market while they keep pouring funds into the bottomless pit. Same for Ryanair.
Disruptors enter the market with war funds. They deliberately lose money with the promise that when the dust clears they will be the last man standing.
True. We invaded, colonized, suppressed. That doesn't make this a lesser invasion.
Well shit, if what we're already doing is no lesser an invasion than what Europe did, we might as well burn down Versailles while we're at it. Why not? It's exactly the same level of evil to selling cheap solar panels.
It's an invasion. And that is the war they're waging.
Fuck off Europe. You show up in China, wage war on our people, burn our monuments, loot our treasures, steal our land, and sell drugs at gunpoint but we sell solar panels to you and that's an invasion?
We're even when the PLA is in Brussels setting fire to the EU Parliament and in France taking paintings from the Lovure, not a second earlier.
This kind of language is like a convicted serial murderer constantly saying "boy, that was murder on my wallet" or "man I sat down and murdered that cake".
Fuck. Off.
We're even when the PLA is in Brussels setting fire to the EU Parliament and in France taking paintings from the Lovure, not a second earlier.
Have you ever heard me saying EU countries are saints? They're a global trade war at hand. That's the fact. China is deploying a strategy that is very effective because western countries have no response to it.
Fuck off with your both sides bullshit. Even if every single allegation levied at China was true (they are not), unfair trade practices are not equivalent to the repeated invasions that Europe inflicted on China.
This is Bill Cosby going "I never said I'm a saint, but those court settlements really r*ped my bank accounts."
Europe deserves everything it's getting and much, much worse.
It's nice having a mature conversation with you.
It is an invasion. There is intent on destroying economical structures. Is it malicious? We'll see. China is playing by the rules set by the EU. The fact that companies in the EU have to play by different rules concerning minimal wage, social security, etc... is up to the EU, not China. If you don't have a level playing field you get run over, that's not China's fault. They're just using the system.
And yes, there's an historical deficit. Same for climate adaptation. We've had our industrial revolution 200 years ago. We've polluted the sky to such extent that black snow fell in the UK. How can we be mad at African countries for wanting progress and be demanding degrowth?
I get what you're saying but I see a system crashing and I'm not really sure that I want to see people get hurt. I see a local bus factory shutting down because our local government has bought hundreds of Chinese busses because they sell for about 30% under local market value. In short term this is great. Electric transport, less pollution en less money spent. On the other hand, within a year about 300 people will be fired. 300 families will be struggling. I live in a small country. There is no solution to this so they'll be on welfare. In the long run this is damaging our system.
Dude if you think China is destroying Europe and not four to five decades of neoliberal economics, you need to take a break from "the news" and read a fucking book. I would suggest you begin with Michael Parenti's "Inventing Reality" for a real wake up call. Your opinions are not your own.
I'm no fan of neoliberalism. I see the everyday results of a society that raises welfare without being attentive to wellbeing.
I don't watch the news and read plenty of books. I'll take up your recommendation. Of course my opinions are not my own. I became who I became through the influences that made me but I'm willing to learn.
And, to be clear, I don't think China is destroying Europe. We're pretty capable of doing so by ourselves.
I wonder how you seemingly acknowledge some realities yet still say the things that you do. It feels like you are being pedantic, maybe? It is hard to put my finger on. It is just strange to buy in to the dialogue which is 100% being pushed by all mainstream media about a Chinese invasion, the danger presented by China, etc., and yet you have shown you know all these issues could be avoided simply by not having a shit government that values profit and capital accumulation over nurturing domestic industries.
It is really worrisome to people like me, because if you buy into the current narrative, that makes me think you would probably support the US military encirclment of China, and the arbitrary tariffs which are not designed to benefit anyone, only to punish China.
We are in a world today with the war in Ukraine and the destruction of the Nord stream pipeline, where there is a lot of evidence that the US hegemony is only interested in handicapping Europe and strangling its enemies in Russia, China, The Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, as it has done for a century already, and this is why you are getting such a hostile reaction here, because even if you don't support the current regime, you really strongly sound like you do. It's puzzling. You say something we think is stupid, we come back to you, and you say yeah yeah I know all that, I agree, you're right, nevertheless. I am not sure what to make of you. Do give the book a read though, or try some lectures on YouTube, Parenti is very entertaining and easy to get into, and I get the vibe you would like him, even if you are not all the way there yet. His stuff is especially good as even though most of it is now 20 years or more out of date, he still exactly describes the current state of affairs.
I'm sorry if I come over as pedantic. I'm an autist and sometimes have difficulties expressing my thoughts. I am sincere in my opinions and non judgmental. I want to understand.
As for these matters, I've learned a lot from discussing with an aquintance of mine who's an expert on thes matters, Jonathan Holslag. https://www.jonathanholslag.be/
I strongly feel we are being played by the powers that be. I see the US as big of an evil as I see China when it comes to these matters. I am aware of the role the EU played in the past but in the meantime I am a child of my generation that saw the EU unfold as a beautiful ideology. From Benelux to what we are now, a giant bureaucratic system that has lost it's way.
Again, I'm sorry if my responses confuse you. I'm better with spoken words.
No worries, I too used to appreciate the EU back when it meant freedom of movement for myself. Even today, they do good things that I wish we had in my country, like forcing Apple to adopt new standards, but they also do things which are kind of shitty and make them a force for bad, in the same manner as the IMF and World Bank. Something especially bad which they have done is to impose austerity upon Greece for example and handicap their recovery from the 2008 financial crisis in order to protect German banks, which is something you can learn more about from former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis' book on the subject "and the weak suffer what they must". This is the book that helped me to understand why socialists are not generally very fond of the EU and its predecessor organisations.
I'm giving you a lot of book recommendations but not telling you where to find them. If you like, you can download Tor Browser and get them for free from z-library.se.
I've read Varoufakis' books. What the EU did to Greece is awful. I had flashbacks to what they did to Germany after the first world war.
Thanks for the recommendations.
Flooding the EU market with cheap products
It is fully within the power of the EU to invest in European manufacturing and weaken the Euro, making local goods cheaper and imported goods more expensive. They choose not to do this because to do so would even out the system of unequal exchange that the European economy is currently built on - but unlike Europe, China's manufacturing economy is entirely built on the blood, sweat, and tears of Chinese workers, which is why they don't have that problem.
Everything is fine, carry on.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/09/chinese-police-patrol-alongside-hungarian-officers/
Are you simultaneously so seething and so cartoonishly racist that you both immediately see some scheming terror in a joint policing agreement, and immediately think to post it back here almost a week later? Unironically seek help for this
You mean a general distrust against surveillance states is racist? I distrust governments in general. How is that racism?
I follow up on the attacks on my networks and if it's not the Chinese state then at least some Chinese citizens are heavily targeting us. But no less than Middle Eastern or American states.
If you read the reports on how Chinese underground police stations were operating on European soil a healthy distrust would be in place.
There's no conspiracy theory. Large nations are en masse collecting our data. Everyone's data. Whether you're a hairdresser or a politician. Cambridge analytica showed us how that knowledge can be weaponized. So yeah, it bothers me that the tin foil hat card is drawn when I point out genuine risks to our society.
ITS AN INVASION
there's no conspiracy
Not reading the rest of this bullshit, flustered racist loserRacism where? If anyone says something you don't like, you pull the racism card?
Lol you sound exactly like every other racist pussy from 2015 talking about how no, I'm not being racist because Islam isn't a race
The Chinese government isn't a race. I distrust all governments. I distrust all religions. Islam isn't a race. I hate partisan politics.
You do you but keep it intellectually fair.
I see. Mentally challenged with those concepts? Trolling much don't you?
Dawg your phone and car are all sending your personal data to the five eyes governments and a billion data collection firms to be sold to advertisers and insurance companies. I'm way more worried about my "democratic" western government, who dissappears and kills protestors, getting my data, and they already have it. Everything you're saying is projection, except the parts where you're correctly assessing the inherent contradictions between free markets and nation states, but then just choosing to blame the inevitable outcomes of those contradictions on the country that we paid to make all our shit for us.
And I don't agree with that either. I'm not blaming anyone.
It's an invasion. And that is the war they're waging.
God you're spineless. Lie to yourself all you want, your lies to others are incompetent.
You ok? I'm here to discuss. I'm fine with you having a different opinion but where are the lies?
I'm no China fanboy nor a EU fanboy. the world isn't binary.
I see a world at war. In some parts the war is explicit but there's a trade war at hand as well. You can't be blind to that.
You're free to block me but I'd rather discuss in an orderly manner.
You ok? I'm here to discuss.
Reddit Cares.
You're free to block me but I'd rather discuss in an orderly manner.
Id rather you suck my taint in an orderly manner.
This is inviting someone to stay at my house and then claiming they invaded it.
It's leaving the door open and then being surprised someone is taking advantage of the situation. But yeah, it's stupid and hard to trace back on your steps.
Oh no someone sold me something cheaply and I bought it because the rulers of my own country have crippled domestic industry in order to make line go up
Do you think China should do the same to European imports?
We could also speak facts.
https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/china_en
Wow, the facts look like EU is not following the spirit of WTO rules-based trade. It's a bad look for EU as a whole and is very enlightening. Thanks for the link.
They aren't. Their free market has no answer to the global economical politics of China.
They are. They limit import wherever they see it strategical. China doesn't have a free market.
There's no such thing as a free market. You're replying in a thread about protectionism.
