What if China corners the cobalt market? | Hacker News Reader

What if China corners the cobalt market?

economist.com

94 pointsdevy96 comments

The same thing that happened when China "cornered" the rare earth metals market: other mines were opened and a temporary advantage mostly disappeared.

The same will happen here.

In addition, cobalt can be recycled from existing batteries, but it is currently not economical to do so. When you can trade existing batteries to Best Buy for a couple bucks, you'll know the price of cobalt (or nickel, or lithium) is genuinely high.

People interested should read Junkyard Planet: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion-Dol...

Yep. The author actually summarized it pretty well in the last paragraph:

      In theory, the best way to ensure sufficient supplies of
      both nickel and cobalt would be for prices to rise enough 
      to make mining them together more profitable.

Of course, that works because "sufficient supplies" is defined as "sufficient at price X to those who are willing to pay X" not "sufficient for those who only wanted to pay the original price".

The principle works for anything at any price, nearly vacuously.

For instance, there are sufficient supplies of Lamborghini automobiles, ensured by the price being high enough that making them is profitable.

Yep, but it is a useful concept with certain minerals and products. For instance, the vast majority of the cost of producing a lithium battery is the big oven to dry them out before sealing them, the price of the lithium itself is way down the list and could effectively double before it massively affected battery costs. However if the price does double, suddenly lithium is economically available pretty much everywhere.

Thus if there is a niche use for some material, and that something is very cheap, but that niche use itself is profitable, then that industry somehow ensures that it has enough of the material just for itself. Maybe by owning the production chains of that material; those units don't have to stand alone as profitable. Outsiders can't easily get the stuff, though. If the stuff becomes independently profitable, then the availability follows.

These thing can happen by accident also. If it is generally known that there are only a few places in the world that you get lithium from, then investors are going to think that lithium is very risky and may run out. They don't tend to think, "Hey, it is the third lightest element, in theory there should be loads of it, perhaps we are only mining the cheapest possible sources", which is the actual truth of the matter. So while the people inside the industry might know the potential availability, investors on the whole do not and so the market only gets enough money to expand conservatively, rather than enough to kick off a magnitude more resource acquisition at a significantly higher raw material cost.

A similar thing happened to rubber during WWII when natural rubber resources were compromised. (If anyone is in doubt about the nature of the US relationship with China, consider this news story. [1])

>"When the natural rubber supply from Southeast Asia was cut off at the beginning of World War II, the United States and its allies faced the loss of a strategic material. With U.S. government sponsorship, a consortium of companies involved in rubber research and production united in a unique spirit of technical cooperation and dedication to produce a general purpose synthetic rubber, GR-S (Government Rubber-Styrene), on a commercial scale." [0]

It seems that tech companies and the governments of the world just need to either find more resources and control them. Or find new ways to make batteries with different tech/chemistry. (The second option seems the smartest long term, just like rubber tech)

[0] https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry...

[1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-s...

Edit: Years ago a client of mine made software for satellites for an unnamed massive defence contractor. They were control systems for satellites that killed other satellites. He was doing this work in the 90s. Late 90s he said the US's biggest enemy was China.

Interesting stuff— there's a small note about it on Wikipedia as well, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrene-butadiene#History

>Late 90s he said the US's biggest enemy was China.

Well, biggest competitor. For enemy it should have also actually done something, and until now it's mostly been western nations doing things to China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation).

Besides, who else would have he said at the late 90s? Russia was a faltering non-entity under Yeltsin, and China was emerging and a billion+ strong.

> and until now it's mostly been western nations doing things to China

Except of course in the US case, China has had no greater friend than the US over the last half century. In fact, no other nation comes even remotely close to that title.

From destroying the Empire of Japan that butchered millions of Chinese during the occupation, to protecting China from getting nuke-genocided by Russia in 1969, to Nixon aggressively seeking peaceful diplomatic & trade ties, to US companies investing extraordinary sums of capital into building out China's initial industrial base, to US retailers happily importing trillions of dollars of Chinese goods (again further building out their industrial base), to the US having never taken action on Taiwan or over-stepped China's red lines on that despite having vast military superiority until recently.

All these normal geopolitical maneuvers were labeled kindness. This is a wrong statement of the matters. And a false evidence to support a normal hn commentators sense of moral high ground.

If 'Murica gets criticized for unintended "collateral" damage, may be it is deserving 'Murica gets credit for unintended kindness.

aventured has a point, actually has more than point. Your cheap ideological glasses are blinding you to them.

Please keep internet political rant tropes far away from Hacker News, regardless of how right you are. Being right makes it worse.

http://www.usefulhistorian.com/2014/03/06/dont-forget-chinas...

China's territorial expansion in the South Pacific and support of anti-American political parties in e.g. Cuba and Venezuela is certainly enough to warrant Stephen Colbert's suggested title "frenemy", not to mention their continued international temper tantrums over the status of Taiwan.

It should be noted that the US put an end to colonial expeditions in China with the Open Door Policy in 1899. The "Century of Humiliation" article enumerates complaints about the colonial expeditions but does not mention any US actions or the ODP, the latter, I assume, being considered not humiliating. It's hard for me to imagine why the US should be lumped in with Britain/France/Russia/Japan in the period before 1949. After that we were at Cold War, of course.

The United States was also one of the biggest beneficiaries of The Opium Wars.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's grandfather was a drug smuggler [1], that made his fortune smuggling opium into China.

Also, the United States aided Britain in the 2nd Opium War.

So yes, the United States must be lumped in with the rest of the Western powers, that helped to weaken and ultimately destroy Qing Dynasty China. This is history. Don't white wash the United States' involvement that lead to the destruction of the late Chinese empire.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/28/opinion/the-opium-war-s-s...

> China’s ... support of anti-American political parties in e.g. Cuba and Venezuela is certainly enough to warrant Stephen Colbert's suggested title "frenemy", not to mention their continued international temper tantrums over the status of Taiwan.

How can you not see the contradiction in this sentence? You say that China supporting anti-US elements is them being aggressive—sure. But then you characterize China’s opposition to Taiwan, which continues to exist arguably solely because of US support, as a “temper tantrum.” How is this supposed to be Chinese aggression, any more than the Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression?

The GP’s point is that it has mostly been the US being aggressive towards China, rather than vice versa. It is definitely possible to argue against, and it is definitely possible to argue that China should try to get along with Taiwan. This I would agree with.

But your argument is self-defeating and plain inaccurate. (Also, characterizing the Open Door Policy as not an aggressive action is also plain wrong. Would you characterize Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan as non-aggressive as well?)

Whether the US's support of Taiwan is aggressive is immaterial; nowhere did I suggest that the US has taken no aggressive actions against China. I responded to a claim by 'coldtea that China has taken no aggressive actions against the US and I make no claims regarding degrees. US aggression towards China does not reclassify actions by China as nonaggressive.

China's actions regarding Taiwan are nonetheless absurd because it was basically a colonial possession of the Qing Dynasty, having not been part of China before the 17th century, so China has no serious "historic" right to claim it aside from nonbinding agreements between the US/RoC during WWII. That the PRC would wish for those agreements to be binding is ironic considering their characterization of the RoC as a US puppet state.

> China's actions regarding Taiwan are nonetheless absurd because it was basically a colonial possession of the Qing Dynasty, having not been part of China before the 17th century, so China has no serious "historic" right to claim it aside from nonbinding agreements

Again, a viewpoint I entirely agree with but one for which you are making an awful argument. What became the US was not colonized before the 17th century, either.

We can oppose China’s actions regarding Taiwan because a majority of the Taiwanese people don’t want to be a part of China, not because there is no “historic” claim. If the absurdity lies in the lack of history, then it would be absurd for us in the US to support Taiwanese independence yet not return all our land to the Native Americans. Characterizing China’s position as “absurd” is self-defeating.

Also, you write that you’re responding to coldtea’s claim that China has taken no aggressive actions towards the US, but that is not at all what they wrote; rather, they wrote that it has “mostly been western nations doing things to China”.

>If the absurdity lies in the lack of history

Well of course it does, because China's claims to Taiwan are fundamentally historical. The US claim to the mainland US is not based on history but on de facto control, so history is not an injuction. But the PRC's propaganda line is "Taiwan is part of China" which is both presently and historically false. China captured Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662 and held it for two centuries before losing it to the Japanese. It is not quite as mad as Argentina's claim to the Falklands, but that's a low bar. With Macau or Gibraltar, a case can be made that they're owed back. With Taiwan it's dumb.

>that is not at all what they wrote

I responded to this:

>For enemy it should have also actually done something

I demonstrated "something".

>The US claim to the mainland US is not based on history but on de facto control, so history is not an injuction.

Well, de facto control is no moral claim.

Yes, it is. Accepting de facto control is important to ensuring a lasting peace. There will always be another objection. De facto control justifies the status of Tibet, Hawai'i, Israel, Catalonia etc.

>US aggression towards China does not reclassify actions by China as nonaggressive.

It might well reclassify them as defense.

At worst, it puts them in perspective.

Else, it's like saying "someone fighting back a bully does not reclassify his actions as nonaggressive".

>* China's actions regarding Taiwan are nonetheless absurd because it was basically a colonial possession of the Qing Dynasty, having not been part of China before the 17th century, so China has no serious "historic" right to claim it aside from nonbinding agreements between the US/RoC during WWII.*

So, the US would for example would easily give away California to Mexico, Hawaii or Puerto Rico to the natives, etc, if it came to some schism, right? After all, they're way younger possessions than a 17th century one.

(And it's not just about state ownership -- China itself was divided in many ways over the course of history. It's about common culture and ethnicity, not about it being a part of the "official state" since forever. Taiwanese are settlers from China, and even the previous local (aboriginals) had come from China).

>It might well reclassify them as defense.

>At worst, it puts them in perspective.

The context is "For China to be considered an enemy it ought to have done something." Defense of any form obviously satisfies this requirement. You are only arguing semantics.

But in Taiwan, China is the bully, and the US defends peace.

>the US for example would easily give away California to Mexico

The US controls California. If we lost it, it would be ridiculous to spend 70 years threatening war against anyone who suggested we should admit it.

>Taiwanese are settlers from China

Americans are settlers from England.

The United States considered itself a more enlightened country than the Europeans, that's why it was founded. Still, the Open Door Policy wasn't born out of a desire to end colonialism so much as strategy. The US wanted markets in China where the Europeans already had control. It didn't want to be squeezed out and so played balance of powers.

The United States was founded in order to protect slavery. The "enlightenment" stuff was PR. Check out Gerald Horne's Counterrevolution of 1776.

>China's territorial expansion in the South Pacific and support of anti-American political parties in e.g. Cuba and Venezuela

Given 100+ years of US intervention in Latin America and enmity towards Cuba and Venezuela, they'd had to cherrypick a lot to find "non anti-American" parties to support there. And if they found them, they'd usually not be very popular either.

>is certainly enough to warrant Stephen Colbert's suggested title "frenemy", not to mention their continued international temper tantrums over the status of Taiwan.

Well, Taiwan had been part of the Chinese state for a millennia before the 20th century (almost the whole US-existance of centuries officially, settling for a millennium or so) -- forgive them if they have "temper tantrums" for it still.

It's funny how one nation is OK to go all around the world kicking doors down half around the globe when it's annoyed (or when it has "interests") and another is scolded for having "temper tantrums" for a historical part of its own country.

When it comes to trade war topic these days, most Western commentators completely miss that a trade war is what China was preparing intensively for the last quarter of a century. They well expected an economic pressure on a scale even bigger than what the West puts on North Korea and banana republics. They totally understood that the West will not play nice with them forever.

There is zero questions about China's economic policy being very strategic, and deliberate. Chinese state conglomerates may look to just littering around the world with money, but analyze it more, and you see a pattern, one that is very much like a game of Go - victory by limiting enemy moves.

They buy ally countries, strategically - they buy resource supplying countries, often with major holds on markets of vital commodities.

Their tech purchases - mostly underappreciated market leaders with industry wide influence. Kuka - the only company you can say to be Tier 1 in robotics, all other competitors combined will not be an equivalent for it. I has almost complete dominance over major heavy industries. Lattice Semi - the one and only FPGA company that can threaten the Xilinx-Altera duopoly. And so on and on and on.

Their domestic tech development - even more so. People talk about China dominating consumer goods manufacturing without realisation that it has even bigger hold of manufacturing machinery industry - manufacturing can't really leave China with Chinese made manufacturing equipment being locked down.

The whole industry you can call "Manufacturing machinery 2.0" is a domestic Chinese development. Biotech - China quietly ate the market for genetic engineering reagents, as well as much for complex organic chemistry. There are megatons of biotech startups in the West, but they all feel that they will eventually have to move to China to have any chance to scale - effectively they are already a Chinese property.

Military allies - well, there things are even more obvious.

Major trade agreements - same. Their idea is to bind any major developing market niche to Chinese economy before the West even realizes its emergence.

Their idea - to make it so that if somebody wants to do anything any much big being impossible without involving a Chinese company or state institution at some part of the process - to make it "You can't do that without China"

Can you elaborate?

China has been developing its manufacturing expertise at the highest levels (they built the Bay Bridge) and their control of industrial resources (they have bought a big percentage of Africa). China is to the rest of the world as Apple is to the rest of the electronics industry.

Neither of those claims are completely true: they definitely built some of the bay bridge, but definitely not all of it. They have invested in Africa, but don’t own a big percentage of Africa (if owning a continent was even sensical). China does not have overwhelming positions outside of manufacturing, which is fairly fungible.

They're rhetorically true, and we're having a rhetorical argument. China didn't build all of the bay bridge, no. They won several large parts of the contracts and subcontracted many more. The exact percentage is meaningless, the important point for argument is that they had a large hand in it and both demonstrated and grew their engineering prowess by being involved.

So, it sounds like what the US was also actively pursuing (to say the least) for the past century or so, right?

Or any other superpower when and where it could afford it, for that matter.

That's obviously incorrect.

The US has extremely low tariffs and protectionism against foreign participation in its economy. That includes, particularly, in agriculture, where most of the world has extremely high tariffs by comparison (and the US is the world's largest agricultural exporter, so it tends to suffer more than anyone from those foreign agriculture tariffs).

Toyota gets to set up plants in the US, and own its Toyota US subsidiary. Nintendo gets to the do the same thing, owning Nintendo of America. BMW gets to do the same. Bayer is allowed to buy Monsanto; InBev is allowed to buy Anheuser Busch; Roche is allowed to buy Genentech; Novartis gets to buy Alcon; Sanofi gets to buy Genzyme; etc. None of them require forced partners to do so as in China, they can just freely go about their business and retain a 100% ownership position.

The US is among the least protectionist major economies and has among the lowest tariffs of any large economy. The exact opposite of what you're claiming is in fact true.

Check out the US agriculture tariffs versus the rest of the world:

https://i.imgur.com/F7NZXRz.jpg

Well, the US has benefited from high tariffs and protectionism (like many other countries) As is such, capturing a single data point doesn't include previous actions/policies.

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

>That's obviously incorrect.

>The US has extremely low tariffs and protectionism against foreign participation in its economy. That includes, particularly, in agriculture

It's one thing being wrong, it's quite another to so confidently assert something that is so patently the exact opposite of the truth:

http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/AgNAFTA.html

>Check out the US agriculture tariffs

But pay no attention to the massive subsidies right?

The US is a textbook dumper.

>The US has extremely low tariffs and protectionism against foreign participation in its economy

That's historically, if not presently, 100% wrong.

Protectionism in the United States is protectionist economic policy that erected tariff and other barriers to trade with other nations. This policy was most prevalent in the 19th century. It attempted to restrain imports to protect Northern industries. It was opposed by Southern states that wanted free trade to expand cotton and other agricultural exports (...)

In today's age the US is still highly protectionist, according to Global Trade Alert the US has adopted over 1000 protectionist measures since the Global Economic Crisis in 2008, more than any other country since. (...)

According to Michael Lind, protectionism was America's de facto policy from the passage of the Tariff of 1816 to World War II, "switching to free trade only in 1945, when most of its industrial competitors had been wiped out" by the war. (...)

According to Paul Bairoch, since the end of the 18th century, the United States has been "the homeland and bastion of modern protectionism". In fact, the United States never adhered to free trade until 1945. A very protectionist policy was adopted as soon as the presidency of George Washington by Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795 and author of the text "Report on the Manufactures, 1792 "which called for customs barriers to allow American industrial development. This text was one of the references of the German economist Friedrich List (1789–1846). This policy remained throughout the 19th century and the overall level of tariffs was very high (close to 50% in 1830). The victory of the protectionist North states against the free trade states of the South at the end of the Civil War (1861–1865) perpetuated this trend, even during periods of free trade in Europe (1860–1880).[5]

Beginning with the "Report on Manufactures", by the first US Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, the United States became the leading nation opposed to free trade. The report advocated measures to help protect infant industries, including bounties (subsidies) derived in part from those tariffs. Hamilton explained that despite an initial “increase of price” caused by regulations that control foreign competition, once a “domestic manufacture has attained to perfection… it invariably becomes cheaper.”

(...)

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

In other words, "Do as I say, not as I do", or at best "Now that I don't need to do that anymore, you shouldn't do it either, even though you're at the stage where I was then".

To add more support to my claim:

Just watch this https://youtu.be/CYJLmNX7B9M

And yet, the moment you want to move any of those resources from one place to another, you must deal with the US Navy, which, without meaningful resistance, can control all global shipping lanes at will.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers#Numb...

When it comes to limiting moves, no country has the ability that the US does.

Indeed, this is currently missing from Chinese strategic calculations. While they do seem to be scrambling to build a navy before the good times end, they do that not to 100% of their abilities.

That would basically be declaring war though, China can control things in peace times and during war.

I'd argue that the US-based Microsemi is more of a threat than Lattice. Fabless IC design in general is still "owned" by Western countries, especially the US.

Also, how does ABB fare against Kuka?

A 2017 Tesla battery has 4.8 kilograms of cobalt [1]. At $100/kg the Tesla uses $480 worth of cobalt. Two years ago at $25/kg it used $120 worth of cobalt. So $360 or 1.2% more for a $30,000 car.

This is important to a some people at Tesla who will try to reduce cobalt usage, to battery recyclers, and to cobalt mine owners. It is only interesting to everyone else (us).

This is not China winning or beating the US or anything like that. China has pricey cobalt too. And the best way to minimize the effect of very minor supply disruptions like this is more free trade so that when the price goes up someone opens a mine in Australia and it can be bought there. The historic shortages mentioned in these comments were in the era of protectionism. That is why economists are afraid of Trump's trade war ideas, these little problems will add up and cost the US in higher prices.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-09-28/cobalt-...

I'm afraid we are just beginning to learn how badly we have arrogantly underestimated China.

Thankfully, we are finally seeing how vulnerable we have left ourselves.

Just like the best time to plant a tree. The best time to address strategic resource vulnerabilities is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

We've been too complacent for too long, but now this issue has now been pushed into the public conversation.

The resource vulnerabilities are nothing compared to US reliance on China's industrial ecosystem.

At this point if the the US and China halted trade, China would lose soybeans and corn (easily replaceable) while half the US manufacturing supply chains would be severed leading to truly eye watering inflation.

China will almost certainly threaten to use this leverage in the next 5 years to discipline the US.

Which is weird, because this is basically how the US has behaved toward developing nations which didn't follow its dictates.

I've never understood why during my lifetime my government has allowed our economy to come to depend on a communist country which is now effectively a dictatorship.

Because your government represent corporate interests much more than it represents you. (See Princeton study for more)

Me too.....I also don't understand why our club is such a tiny one, while other clubs worrying about comparatively minor risks (scary Russian Hackers!) are so popular.

Unless China can discipline its other trade partners, it can not effectively block export to the US. This is why over the years there is only US export control against China, not the other way around.

I believe we're all actually very deep into realizing the problem, across North America-Europe-Asia. The context now is what to do about China's economic protectionism and their refusal after two decades of false pledges to actually do what they said they would to gain admittance into the WTO.

France for example is trying to get everyone to focus on banding up against China's dumping practices (the US should be working with the EU on this, Trump is half going about the trade war wrong of course). Germany & others are looking at rejecting the aggressive technology transfers / acquisitions that China is making or trying to make.

India is into overdrive about China's military plans across the Indian Ocean and greater region.

China's neighbors have been sweating for years about what's coming next out of them militarily, beyond their territory acquisitions in the South China Sea.

The US has entirely frozen China's ability to buy US companies and is reciprocating on behavior by increasingly locking out several of China's big companies.

Not to mention that China is buying land in seemingly every other country through loopholes in local laws and will eventually have the ability to disable economies all over the planet:

https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2018/03/e...

Trump tariffed the EU and Canada because they allow China to buy companies in their countries to avoid direct tariffs from the US. It wouldn't have been necessary if our 'allies' valued our relationship more than making billions from the Chinese in exchange for stabbing us in the back.

I think this has little to do with China. People have arrogantly overestimated their own situation, thinking it is a God-given right to have absolute dominance and no peer competitors.

Having competition is normal. Healthy, even. Having to work hard for the fruits of one's labor is normal. Sitting back printing dollars and pointing guns at various places when things don't go one's way is not normal.

There's a fascinating, if little-known term, the "Harbord List".

Better known via a successor concept, the Strategic Minerals Reserve, now DLA Strategic Materials. Which serves both military and commercial interests.

https://books.google.com/books?id=oy4rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=P...

https://books.google.com/books?id=OqNawWS7iHsC&pg=PA221&lpg=...

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/dnsc.htm

I have rewritten, in my head, the comment I am about to make 2 or 3 times, and it kept getting more obfuscated by me trying to portray it in a way that gets me an answer and not get my karma obliterated. So I will just go with the blurt method:

Was Trump right about China? Additionally, was it a mistake to be so helpful to the Chinese 1970s- now?

Can you be more specific? Trump makes very few consistent concrete statements about anything. Are you asking if his general attitude of "China is our competitor and we should be careful" is correct, or if his strategy of abandoning international trade, organizations, and agreements is the right response?

Both, but the former is what I originally intended. He is so helter skelter in his delivery, but I think he may go down in history as one of the most consistent presidents in terms of campaign promises and in-office actions. I am in no way implying that this is necessarily good or bad.

Ok, the former is a pretty obvious observation that I doubt anyone disagreed with. One of Trump's media strategies is to constantly hammer home some obvious point without offering any specific solutions, so that other people take the blame if their ideas fail, but he can take credit if something works.

So yes, Trump was right about China. I don't think a trade war will help the situation, but if it fails he can just say all his idiot predecessors dug a hole too deep for anyone to get out of.

I don't agree that he's being particularly consistent, I think you're just forgetting a lot of his unfulfilled promises because he made so many vague and sometimes contradictory ones. Not sure how up-to-date it is, but try this site for some examples: https://trumptracker.github.io/

Even a lot of promises from his uncharacteristically specific Contract with the American Voter are unfulfilled: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102...

It's easy to be consistent with your promises if they're vague. Did Trump ever mention anything in particular that was bad about China's trade with the US, such as currency manipulation and foreign technology transfer? It's hard for me to google things about it now that most of the news is about the current dealings, but I don't remember him really offering a coherent criticism of China other than that the US was getting a bad deal. Please correct me if I'm wrong though

He did promise to officially label China a currency manipulator in his first 100 days, which he has not done: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102...

>was it a mistake to be so helpful to the Chinese 1970s- now?

Yes

Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Nixon misunderstood crucial things about China.

Sino-Soviet split was not such. Rather than an imagined existential struggle, it is better to say it was a family squabble; like newlyweds trying to figure out who is a top dog in a family. Rather than splitting the Eastern Bloc, they just gave Chinese a much bigger advantage in negotiations with Soviets. A proof of that is USSR giving Chinese not something, but a NUKE, a jet engine tech, tanks, AA and ground to air missiles (!), and truckloads of resources looong into the split.

Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were tricked by Chinese.

If you doubt so, read excepts from Kissinger's biography about his thoughts at the moment of US-Mao deal. He was completely oblivious of all aforementioned.

The sino Soviet split was real, and could have easily escalated into a shooting war (and actually was one in Vietnam by proxy) beyond a few border scruffles. China making overtures to the USA was a matter of survival to them as they thought at the time.

I will parry this argument by saying that to Mao and Deng, just as to Soviets, "expending" few battalions worth of loyal soldiers is nothing more serious than just a play.

When Mao sent his troops to Zhenbao, he forbade them from both advancing into Soviet territory, and falling back. He ordered to execute any soldier who disobeyed. That was his idea from the beginning to make it a show tantrum.

Relations and trade in between Soviets and Mao continued well after Zhenbao, and there are living witnesses to that on both sides.

FWIW they totally duked it out in the Northern/Mongolian region. But they kept it quiet so we all forget. China also pushed heavily into India during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

True but the China of today is different from China of the cold war. You're right in that USSR and China were definitely closer together then than China and the US are now, no doubt about it. But you have to consider that, as far as we can tell, there's no threat of looming war between China and the US, so in the short term we're ok.

In the long term, I think the Chinese are becoming more Western/liberal in terms of attitudes. They like capitalism, they like international brands, and as more and more people travel between China and the US for immigration/business/education they'll be more exposed to Western liberalism too. And consider this too: in 20-30 years, the business and political leadership of China will probably only barely remember the Communist days.

Perhaps we were "tricked" in the sense that we were overly trusting or congenial, but if you look at US-Chinese relations over a longer timespan, I think it looks like our attitudes will pay off. I see things improving between our two countries, despite China's current attempts at backyard imperialism.

Your time line is off. USSR assistance to China on nuclear weapons happened before the split. The rest happened after USSR fell and Russia sold the weapons because they were economically needy.

No, please check the precise timing. Even with first relations over the nuke were happening before the split, last pieces were delivered to China well after that. Jet engine tech was given to China at the very peak of the "split" and ground to air missile tech just a year after Nixon's visit, which means they got it almost as soon as Soviet did themselves. Why would Soviets ship a supersecret, vital, wunderwaffe defence tech to an enemy?

And as for living witnesses of trains full of coal going into China. There are thousands of people in cities of Manzhouli and Zabaikalsk saw that with their own eyes, and being very puzzled by that. China never had any issue with coal supply whatsoever, it has world's biggest coal reserves. The presumption is that those wagons with coal were just a cover for Soviets to deliver China the defence tech covertly.

USSR exported their SAMs to China starting in 1950s. They had a mutual defense treaty before the split. The treaty did not end the moment fissures started to appear. I can't find any report on the defense tech exports to China well after the split. If you have references please share.

Keep in mind that even now Russia sells rocket engines to the US.

We should probably exploit local resources, anyway. Mines in some Asian and third world countries have terrible human rights records.

The US had horrible human rights records in the early 1900s, but this was fixed with prosperity and a population that demanded their government protect them.

Rights the US should be helping to motivate other countries to employ, not playing grab-ass with China over property rights and resources.

Comparing something that happened 100 years ago is not an equal comparison. The reason we have changed since the 1900s is because of horrible working conditions. The US also significantly changed in the 1970s in regards to pollution, Ohio river fire[1].

The point is we can’t allow someone to make questionable choices just because we did it 100 years ago. Especially when it’s changing the environment, it’s up to Western companies and China to make a change.

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River

>...we can’t allow someone to make questionable choices just because we did it 100 years ago.

I didn't even remotely suggest that, I said the opposite. That the real solution is to get the countries on their feet so they can run things themselves, be their own people and control their own resources. Then they can control their pollution and human rights.

Until a country can stand on it's own two feet, it will be a pawn between global power brokers.

Small nitpick, the usage of the term "third world countries" is a bit outdated. A more recent and nicer term is "developing countries" [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

What a load of rubbish I see in the comments. The US has been using all the tricks in the book, for decades, to further its economic dominance, including shaping international law in its own interest (copyright & IP law) and other niceties like invading countries, corrupting democracies, supporting dictators, and lying in the security council. All while polluting and laying to waste the planet.

And now you are complaining because China is, adhering to international trading agreements, improving the quality of living of their citizens, and winning in some areas? Whiners! What a fitting president you have ...

It would be good for you to realize that the planet is not only populated by americans, that other people have the same right as you have to improve their quality of life, and that you do not have any divine entitlement to affluence.

What do you expect from HN? US economic policy is pillage and plunder, yet the second another nation state does it we're supposed to care? Quite frankly I don't care whose exploiting the planet and robbing from us all. US or China, equally bad. This article and these comments seem to say "It was great when we had control..."

The thing is that the US could have taken actions starting 25 years ago so that all of the advantage captured by China today would have been captured by us and added even more to our privileges.

I think most of the issue is that they were let into international trade markets on the assumption that it would be a free market but they have stolen a lot of IP and not been a particularly open or free market in some areas. I hope the international community calls out the US on a lot of toxic practices but doesn't mean we need to ignore the poor Chinese trade practices

Have you even, for a fraction of a second, considered what it meant, for example, to invade Irak and kill thousands / millions of civilians, while destabilizing one of the most dangerous areas of the planet?

And you are worried that, in a playing field tilted by and towards the US, China has found a way, maybe playing the system, to improve their economic well-being? I for one hope that they keep on finding ways to force the system to "trickle down", as your right-wing capitalists like to describe your dysfunctional one-percenter system.

According to you, now is the time to call the unfair Chinese trade practices, and yes, you know, we will even maybe take a look at what the US has been doing for decades, yes maybe we will take a look now, but of course the important thing is to make sure that the Chinese do not play the system to their advantage. Once we make sure, then we can forget about the wrongdoings of the US. After all, the US are the good ones, so who cares if you kill one million here, one million there. It is for the greater good.

Rubbish.

I'm all for equal enforcement of trade issues so I'm not really sure who you are arguing against here. It's also a good time to call the US out on their problems.

Can you point out where someone is complaining about this while simultaneously denying US policy along similar lines as you describe?

I can see maybe one comment that might be somewhat close to what you describe, but you make it seem as if the whole thread is chanting "USA", and I am getting quite the opposite impression.

You may be completely right, but by expressing your points as an angry politico-national rant, you break the site guidelines and do much more damage to this majority-international community than the presumptive truth of your comment could possibly add. This damage is exactly what we don't want to see here.

I realize that others are damaging just as much from the opposite side, but that's a reason to do better than them, not just as bad or worse. If you can't help preserve this community from flamewar (which is after all a kind of war), please don't post until you can.

I am expressing my point angrily as an humanist rant.

Avoiding nationalism is exactly what I would like to see here.

Good for you to call me out on my manners, but, as we in the "international" community are quite used by now, rules are only reminded when US susceptibilities are hurt.

Please, next time do not wait for an anti-american rant to remind the community that all countries and peoples deserve respect.

This comment sort of sinks back into what we're asking people not to do here.

I know how easy it is to have perceptions like this, and how painful they are. But it's just not true that we only "wait for an anti-american rant to remind the community". Since it isn't true, it isn't necessary to perceive HN this way. Instead, why not help it to have less of the bad sort of comment?

If you or anyone run across a comment breaking the site guidelines and not getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we just haven't seen it yet. We can't come close to seeing all the comments, but we do look at all the ones that people tell us about. You can either flag the comment (as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) or email us at hn@ycombinator.com. Emailing is best in egregious cases because then we're guaranteed to see it, and probably a lot sooner.

Which country doesn't want to corner supply markets? How is this different from if any other country would have done it?

The difference is that other countries don't combine their businesses with their government, thus creating an unholy alliance where the government can manipulate the value of their currency and empower their businesses to out compete on the global markets unfairly.

>The difference is that other countries don't combine their businesses with their government,

The US government has export embargoes, and has blocked the foreign purchase of US tech firms, citing "national security". The NSA has used US tech firms to spy on foreign citizens/governments.

>where the government can manipulate the value of their currency and empower their businesses to out compete on the global markets unfairly.

Every government tries to make exports cheaper. How many billions of dollars has the US treasury printed during quantitative easing? Also, for e.g., the US defense only accepts payment in USD for weapons purchases or defense services (to korea, japan, etc) - in part - helping keep the demand for the USD high. Calling it currency manipulation doesn't make it evil when China does it. Its just a game that all countries play and each tries to brush their own motivations under carpets with different words written on top.

To me, while it's not a wash, with every country being "equally bad", its a little hypocritical to see countries adopt a "do as i say, not as I did" policy.

What I think is happening is people are identifying machiavellian actions. Chinese actions aren't 'bad' per se- they are self-interested though- and often in a zero-sum context.

The US, despite many deplorable actions by its government over the years, consistently also supported good government initiatives, development initiatives, and generally bi-lateral open markets.

This has allowed well run countries access to a large export base with minimal barriers- hence the rise of countries like S. Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan and Germany post WWII, all of which could have been foreclosed by the hyperpower of the US if it so wished.

China is completely strategic in leveraging its money and industrial base into more military and political power. It has no problem in leveraging corrupt governments like Venezuela to secure more strategic influence, much like the US did during the Cold War, which at least had the goal and virtue of halting the spread of totalitarian Communism.

If a nation is going to act completely self-interested, rather than contribute to the greater good and trust that growing the market ensures more for everyone, it then behooves other countries to act in defense of their self interest in return and potentially act in a coordinated manner to constrain that power.

The US, despite its errors, delivers value to its partners. S. Korea, Japan, Germany have all directly benefitted from sheltering in the embrace of American military might. And as the Philippines has shown, the US is more than willing to withdraw from any country (other than Cuba, for historic reasons) that wants it gone.

Thanks for the comment. I agree with some of what you said. My objection is towards the recent (mostly in the west) hyper nationalistic attitude towards China, as-if everything they do is necessarily evil. Personally, I have no dog in this fight as being neither American nor Chinese (not that it should matter anyway :) ).

I'd like to counter some of your points though. I don't think the US could have checked the rise of all of those countries. The US (Allies) forced their way economically into Japan/Germany/Korea/etc after the war, in an act of pure self-interest - Reparations, forced exports, etc. They continued to benefit from the rise of those countries anyway.

China is strategic as you say, but they've always been isolated from the West. They've tried creating alliances (BRIC), which have been moderately successful. Now they're also trading with many heretofore neglected countries in Africa to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Western media calls it "the new colonialism". I happen to think that this is the west realizing that there is a chance, however slight, that they could be excluded from a large portion of the future growth markets. Maybe an emergence of the Silk Road? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

Are you saying China making cell phones and other goods cheaply available didn't benefit most of the people around the world? I don't get your logic.

What are you talking about? Economic sanction is one of the foremost statecraft tools in the US arsenal.

Sanctions on a country with privately run businesses is not the same as sanctions on a country with government owned businesses.

"The difference is that other countries don't combine their businesses with their government."

This is just flat out and absolutely wrong, in fact, effeect, and strategy.

Just one title, author happens to be Chinese, though source is the US, 1952. Economic Warfare.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/economic-warfare/oclc/1024506...

The author wrote numerous works for U.S. policy organisations from the 1950s-90s.

See also, GOEs, such as Sallie Mae and Fanny Mae.

Are you saying that the Chinese government doesn't own or have controlling stakes in it's own businesses?

That was not the element of disagreement.

Then if China owns it's businesses, then my point stands. China uses their laws to allow their businesses to have advantages that other countries (where the businesses are privately owned) can never have.

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