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Comment by RobertRoberts | Hacker News Reader

An idea, any foreign country that forbids buying land in their country [0] is not allowed to buy land in our country. Sound equal?

[0] "Foreign investors are not allowed to buy land in China. The land in China belongs to the state and the collectives."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_law#Buying_la...

Edit: I think it's reasonable to leverage our freedom as an asset instead of a liability to be abused.

Edit: Replaced "fair" with "equal"

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This is the same argument constantly used to justify violating a country's own values: "If we can't build a church in Saudi Arabia, you shouldn't be able to build a mosque in our country."

Thing is, it's Americans selling this land. So compromising on those freedoms just to align yourself with bad policies a country is following that sound wise.

>This is the same argument constantly used to justify violating a country's own values...

I think you are conflating two separate issues, nations vs individuals. If an individual wants to buy land and happens to be Chinese, who cares? But this is the Chinese Government buying land in the US.

It's not the same thing, so different rules should apply.

Let's take this to the extreme to see how bad it could unreasonably get. What would happen if a single foreign government (for the sake of argument, run by a dictator for life) bought all the land in the US...? Or even less crazy, a majority of the movie production companies (or used their market share to force government paid censors to be at the filming and have editorial rights), colleges (or controlling interest in them), news companies, or valuable land (no need to buy deserts), etc ... seem far fetched?

Seems something the CIA would do in Cuba or Nestle would do in a small country or village if they could. Why is it OK for corporations?

http://naturalsociety.com/nestle-ceo-water-not-human-right-s...

It actually happened:

https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2006/bechtel-surrenders-...

Not only that, but businesses as well. A friend and I came up with a pretty obvious idea on something we could ship to China, only to figure out we were landlocked unless we essentially took on Chinese partners. We launched another venture aimed at the US population where Chinese citizens freely compete against us, honestly it sucks that we can't do the same.

Chinese can't buy chinese land. They only get the right to use the land. Land-use rights can be bought by foreign investors for some projects.

And they might even be granted as an incentive....

That's not the rest of the worlds problem. If they want to buy other peoples land, then other people should be able to buy theres.

They're taking advantage of us.

Except in a small number of locations, the US doesn’t exactly have a land shortage. Nor a particular shortage of small liberal arts schools with sketchy financial situations.

Yes, but for the right to use that house or condo, they don't need to pay property taxes, whereas most of the rest of the world you have to pay rent (property taxes) to the government. If you have to pay vast sums of rent to keep it, do you really own it?

Letting rich landlords accumulate land without paying any taxes on it is how you get feudalism. I don't think most people want to live in a feudal society, do you?

Maybe you didn't see that his premise is that no one in China can own land outright. But you are right concentration of land ownership is problematic for a crowded country like China and it was one of causes for the peasant revolution.

That's true, you definately want some property taxes in cities and urban areas. but, i don't see the harm of near 0 taxes in rural areas with little land demand.

Perhaps Mexico is a better example; they restrict the ability of Americans to buy Mexican land within X distance of the border or within Y distance of a coast.

Yes, and look at how well their economy does.

Yeah, but it's been over a century since they lost any states.

And millions and millions move to the US.

>An idea, any foreign country that forbids buying land in their country [0] is not allowed to buy land in our country. Sound equal?

FWICT, they also don't allow their own citizens to purchase land. In that sense, they're treating foreign citizens equally.

Also, this seems to return some useful info:

https://www.google.com/search?&q=how+to+buy+land+in+china

Seems like people have found a way to purchase land.

>I think it's reasonable to leverage our freedom as an asset instead of a liability to be abused.

What do you mean by leverage?

>What do you mean by leverage?

Use our freedom to implement a fair trading system. We are free to buy and sell here, but not in China. China takes advantage of us because of this, and up till now, we have had no recourse accept "trade wars".

Instead of a trade war with tariffs and accusations and bickering, why not remove all possible complaints and treat others as they want to be treated?

Use Chinese rules for the Chinese. Completely and utterly balanced trade. If they don't like it, they can change their rules to be more free, and they get more freedom to buy here.

How would the Chinese government complain to the international community about the US applying their own rules to land ownership? How could anyone complain? It would be the height of hypocrisy, so they wouldn't.

So why not use our freedom as the ultimate bargaining tool to create a balance in the world? Other countries could do the same to us, and we couldn't complain either. It seems there has to be a game theory equation to explain this, it can't be the first time it's been considered.

Why do you think the US would stay the same if it became closed like China? What makes you think that the freedom is a liability?

You're essentially advocating to reverse decades if not centuries of policy that justified US foreign policy actions, because the US assumed moral high ground on several geopolitical fronts. IMO it would degrade the USs standing on several policy issues. "trust us, we're the good guys." no longer works. I'm sure China and Russia would love to park their navy outside of Florida in international waters because the US does similar things.

>Why do you think the US would stay the same if it became closed like China?

I didn't suggest "closed like China", I said "treat them how they wan to be treated". Every country treated equally on their own rules.

>...US assumed moral high ground on several geopolitical fronts.

How is it not the moral high ground to "treat others as they want to be treated"? That is straight from the mouth of Jesus.

Edit: I misquoted Jesus... It's supposed to be "Treat others as you want to be treated"

How is the word of Jesus an objective moral standard?

Should we cut off a man and woman who had sex during the woman's period from society?

pretty sure Jesus never said such a thing, I think that's some old testament stuff.

It's already agreed that it's as objective a moral standard as one could be.

Jesus was only referenced as a rhetorical flourish. I prefer Kant's articulations, but the Jesus books include a not necessarily religious moral philosophy.

Society cannot hold together, when people make exceptions for themselves, or play the 'you did it first, so it's o.k. for me' game. That indicates an absence of moral principles.

Wait wait.. Isn't it "Treat others how you want to be treated"? Isn't what your suggestion essentially "an eye for an eye"?

Yes it is, I added a correction to my comment.

But that doesn't change the argument. The US wants to be treated as equals with China. Not like a sucker being tricked by a hustler, but as equals.

The only thing we control is our own actions. So to make our selves equal with China, why not make our deals with China based on China's rules?

It's: we'll do as you do.

Here is the tariff picture around the world for example:

https://i.imgur.com/ucahKjK.jpg

It's time for the US to start reciprocating trade behavior. Just look at those agriculture tariffs that nearly everyone else is using.

No eyes are in fact lost. The US increases the amount of goods it produces domestically and reduces the amount that it imports (ideally buying less consumer junk from China), which is entirely feasible now that China's manufacturing costs are nearly as high as the US. Or alternatively, the US trades with more open partners (eg where the US can properly own assets & businesses), or chooses partners that are strategically a better fit (such as Vietnam, where trade is booming with the US).

There is a tiny amount of precedent for this, in the form of reciprocal visa fees.

> implement a fair trading system.

We're now, apparently, starting to do that. It has been heating up for years, pre-Trump. We currently appear to be in a total freeze on allowing China to buy US technology assets. Which is exactly what we should be doing, until they allow US companies to operate similarly in China.

[2016] "One of the companies that first brought silicon to Silicon Valley — Fairchild Semiconductor International — said it would remain in American hands after rejecting a takeover offer worth about $2.5 billion led by Chinese state-backed buyers. Instead, Fairchild embraced a smaller bid from an American rival on Tuesday, citing concerns that federal regulators might reject the Chinese deal."

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/business/dealbook/china-f...

And more recently, prevented or killed under the Trump era:

- Qualcomm by Broadcom (Singapore)

- Xcerra by Hubei Xinyan Equity Investment (China)

- MoneyGram by Ant Financial Services Group (China)

- Cowen by China Energy Company Limited (China)

- Aleris by Zhongwang (China)

- HERE by Navinfo (China)

- Lattice Semiconductor by Canyon Bridge (China)

- Global Eagle Entertainment by HNA Group (China)

- Novatel Wireless by TCL (China)

- Cree by Infineon Technologies (Germany)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-12/trump-iss...

Nobody can buy land in china, but Microsoft was granted a long term lease on some nice prime real estate in zuongguancun that HR at the time of our move bragged had already made Microsoft a lot of money in land appreciation.

First, I agree with halflings' comment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16633122

Second, there are two sides to a deal. The parent's plan will penalize the seller as well the buyer, both buy reducing demand and by taking away the best deal.

That's a problem with all trade restrictions. If your country won't buy from others, why will others buy from you? Only North Korea tries to go without trade to a large extent and even they smuggle goods.

>...buy reducing demand and by taking away the best deal.

Are you suggesting a completely free market without any government constraints at all?

What is "fair", really? It may not sound fair to those property owners who want to sell and bought the land on the hope that they can sell it some day.

My mother-in-law is Korean (became a citizen in the 80's) and even she thinks it is stupid that anyone can come in and buy American land.

I think we should prevent any foreign country from buying our land in general tbh. Land is literally the country itself and while it's good for capital owners, the past 10 years show that foreign real estate investment seems to be decreasing QoL of the people that live here by jacking up rents and home prices.

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