The Chinese Car Invasion Is Coming
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I'm horrified by some of the stories I've been told by my Chinese co-workers. Threats of violence to family members (for speaking freely) by the Chinese government is extremely common.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/world/asia/china-xinjiang...
I’m not saying that doesn’t occur, but I would be interested in non-anecdotal sources. If any exist.
Earth has no foreign trade and extreme poverty there fell by 50% between 2000 and 2012. China is not even an order of magnitude smaller.
Like geography. Earth does not have a totalitarian government for that reason. It's too hard to control the whole thing, while it would be much easier if it were one contiguous flat continent. Probably the reason Europe isn't, but China and Russia are. And why North America may be in the long run (yikes!).
I personally don't see any other way. Either it's this or exploitation. You shouldn't ignore the effects of your trading with China (and all countries). Doing so just legitimizes their actions and is entirely immoral.
Don't be shitty to people and people usually won't be shitty to you. If they are anyway, put the recorded dash-cam event on YouTube and they will get fired.
And that's just the president. What about US incarceration rates, use of the death penalty and racial bias in law enforcement? Or the frequent, devastating use of military force on populations all over the planet.
I'm not equivocating, just stating some facts that may offer perspective on your suggestion that we diminish the living standards of 1.3 billion people because their government is terrible in different ways than our own.
Here are a few I can think of:
1. Mass global pollution. Not only transporting materials, but largely unregulated environmental destruction. What would the pollution levels look like today without NAFTA ETC? I muse at how the most ardent environmentalists (pushing for environmental regulation in California ETC) are also often the biggest globalists. A clean planet and Globalism have been proven in the last 25 years to be mutually exclusive.
2. The morality issue that was raised. We have unions and social justice warriors in this country fighting for higher minimum wage, living wage, cheap/free health care, open borders to refugees and any in need, Freedoms of every sort. Politicians run campaigns and voters vote for people because of this stuff, yet they buy 80% of their merchandise from countries that treat their people like human garbage and 20+% of their produce and services from companies employing illegals (who treat them like garbage). What does that say about us? We are virtue seeking people, which boycotting China and other groups doesn't currently recognize? Do we only fight for peoples rights and well being when it won't cost us cheap crap from Walmart or cause the businessman that exploitative but lucrative offshore business. Or do we care only about the plight of US Minorities, but not the far worse off people in China. Our poorest 10% are far freer and better off economically and medically than 90% of them you know? Don't start stating fabricated census garbage to me. I am close friends with people who grew up there and have heard first hand how poor most factory workers are there. Every US citizen with half a heart should be appalled and demanding that we boycott China until they start to treat their people with a shred of human dignity. Their leaders see the citizens there as nothing more than disposable drones who's only mission is to deliver ever more power to the top.
3. We have enabled China to become a world power. People laugh at the thought of China being a military threat to the US. Are you kidding? Do you know the raw manufacturing power of that country? Do you realize that the next war will be fought and won with Drones? (in the millions or perhaps tens of millions). So who do you think can outlast the other? Manufacturing and innovation has always won wars. Good segway...
4. Innovation and intellectual property. So I don't know if you have noticed this, but all of our technology seems to leak out and end up all over China. They clone everything. Are they just really good at reverse engineering things? Well yes, but often they steal (helped by their own government) from us (high tech espionage). They produce counterfeits that compete with out own designed products and flood our own market with them. They even combine stolen research and create superior products to ours. They stole Nuke technology from us for crying out loud, and we just shrugged... Why can't we hold them accountable for these things? When Google was over there, they tried to steal all of their tech at the time. They do it to everybody. When it comes to dealings with other countries, they are lawless. Their own government conspires against us along with wealthy business owners.
5. They manipulate their own currency to force out factories out of existence. Since they don't care about how impoverished their work force is, they can outlast any competitor. Many factories move abroad because of this (just to compete).
6. Since we pay them with American currency, they often buy up our countries bonds, companies, real estate, ETC. How is it good that we have become so dependent on a rouge and untrustworthy, immoral state who owns much of our property and debt?
Is it really worth all that cheap crap we have sitting around in our closets, attics and garages (not to mention landfills) for all of this?
Someone please tell me all the benefits of globalism (particularly with China). Make a convincing argument FOR globalism please.
Actually, the environment is what gets cleaned up as people are lifted out of poverty (which globalism accomplishes better than anything else). See reforestation of Europe, the post-industrial USA, and now even China tackling a severe pollution problem. People need the ability to provide food before they worry about the rest.
> 2. "We have unions and social justice warriors in this country fighting for higher minimum wage, living wage, cheap/free health care, open borders to refugees and any in need, Freedoms of every sort"
Unions began as (fairly racist) mechanisms for preventing labor competition and thus artificially high wages. Minimum wage is not a national issue and causing problems in a lot of places trying to push it too high too fast (and another mechanism, like unions that keep out other laborers / raise the cost of production, that will help some and really punish those kept out).
"Cheap/free healthcare" as I'm guessing you perceive it to be, is more likely pushing the costs higher in a lot of ways through market distortions. US healthcare suffers extreme cost disease as SSC would say, but the cause is primarily driven by government encouraging consumption and restricting supply (similar to housing in major cities)
No idea what you mean about open borders, but it's not generally the left pushing for that. Sanders' platform was rooted in nativism and economic fantasy, like Trump's (cue "Bernie would have won!")
If we care about the poor in China, or elsewhere, we will trade with them and let them plug into the global economy. Period. The last 50-70 years have lifted people out of poverty at an unprecedented rate in human history because of the globalism you decry. Your anecdotes about however difficult factory life might be do not change the reality that the people there have overwhelmingly voted with their feet to take those jobs over the old ones in the field. Change takes time, and holding poorer nations to the strict standards of the first world is counter-productive, cruel, and unawares.
> 3. "We have enabled China to become a world power. People laugh at the thought of China being a military threat to the US. Are you kidding?"
I don't think anyone takes that lightly, certainly not the Pentagon. Still, the US is flush with natural resources, still ahead technologically though that is certainly changing fast and a better trading partner with the world. They still have the upper hand. US manufacturing output has also never been more productive than today, so the "death" of it is overblown. There are fewer jobs because we're able to do more with less, thanks technology.
> 4. "Their own government conspires against us along with wealthy business owners."
Certainly a problem, hopefully our country takes cybersecurity seriously. Still, you want a globalized China because that's the only way to influence them. Trade makes war unlikely, unlike the opposite.
> 5. "Since they don't care about how impoverished their work force is, they can outlast any competitor."
Tell that to the SE Asian economies that are stealing a lot of work from Chinese factories these days?
> 6. "How is it good that we have become so dependent on a rouge and untrustworthy, immoral state who owns much of our property and debt?"
That… doesn't make much sense. They're investing here and abroad, which is generally a good thing. If you haven't noticed, it isn't like the US Government isn't willing to pull things like keeping their tech out of US telecom and such if it need to. If you think an increasingly wealthy country of 1.6 billion people will be prevented from investing globally, its simply nuts.
> "Is it really worth all that cheap crap we have sitting around in our closets, attics and garages"
If you haven't noticed, goods from there and many other developing countries are no longer "cheap crap", it also means that US consumer dollars go much farther. US citizens get more for less, and can allocate more resources away from spending on necessities (or deal with the rising healthcare benefit costs often depressing their wage growth -- though thats another problem)
TLDR: Argument for globalism "Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years"
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bil...
We won't fix poverty in places by not engaging with them. You don't fix problems w/ governments in India, Africa etc by not engaging with them b/c they don't meet your standard of virtue today. Despite the surveillance state, China in particular is certainly far freer today in 2018 than it was when Mao was murdering 40 million people, and I'd rather that trend continue steadily, if slowly -- just like elsewhere in the world.
You can't just flip a switch, and alienating governments has a pretty poor track record of changing any minds.
What I was asking is what was the price that the planet payed to bring China to the place it is now? (What has NAFTA done to the earth?) Was it worth it? Next is India ETC. This planet cannot bear globalism for another 20 years. It's rate is increasing, and the pollution output of up and coming countries will drive us over the edge. Why are environmentalists often also globalists? That is simply illogical.
>"If you haven't noticed, goods from there and many other developing countries are no longer "cheap crap", it also means that US consumer dollars go much farther. US citizens get more for less, and can allocate more resources away from spending on necessities (or deal with the rising healthcare benefit costs often depressing their wage growth -- though thats another problem)"
No, most of it is Cheap crap that we hang on our walls of disposable toys we give to our kids. Materialism is rampant in America. Look at the landfills, Look at Thrift stores, Look at peoples garages and attics. People have 5x the amount of clothes, and stuff that they will ever use or need. This is what I am referring to.
>"Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years"
What does that even mean? Farmers who lived happily off of the land, and had little use for much currency were in poverty. Now they live in a pollution filled death trap and work with no sunlight in a soul-crushing factory job. Is that an improvement in the quality of their lives? Poverty is a very misleading term that is too often used politically.
You aren't answering the moral dilemma except to say that it takes time and that it could be worse. Well that isn't good enough for me. Our behavior is enabling people to be jailed or killed if they want to do things that anyone can do in a Free country. You are downplaying, or not addressing the rest of my concerns. I am not at all convinced that globalism has been a positive thing in the world. All the pollution, all the exploitation, empowering countries that wish to do us harm economically and politically if it benefits them (these are not our friends). Destroying the planet? How can one justify this?
It seems to me that external powers have built China into what it is today. Mao Zhedong was installed by a group working through Yale, home of the Skull and Bones. They put him in charge of propaganda and you can see their own article about it here - http://digital.library.yale.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collectio...
Mao went on to murder somewhere between 70 and 100 million Chinese people who threatened the new communist government. Western media never talks about that.
Every nation has given up their technology to China one way or the other. Bill Clinton was accused and tried for selling nuclear secrets to them. Israel regularly funnels military technology to China. So where's this going?
My opinion: This is your next world government, built by shadowy figures who are constantly at work to own every aspect of you life.
My wife and I own a Chery J3, purchased it new. It came with a 3 year mechanical warranty plus other benefits for like half the price of a Japanese car.
I mean, it's pretty obviously catering for the "budget" market, it is literally the cheapest new car you can buy in the country. But it has suited our needs and we're actually a bit attached to the stupid thing.
Edit: okay the main issue is described here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5RWnocukG8 The steering wheel gets pushed into the driver's chest.
Chery A3, M11, Cielo etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chery_A3
> The Chery J3 costs just as much as the Japanese car if not more.
You're really not correct on this. Some of the budget Japanese models come close, they are between 5-7k more in local currency. The popular "standard" Japanese models really are twice the price. The South Korean "Kia" is probably the close in terms of pricing/competition.
Have a look through the AA new car price list:
https://www.aa.co.nz/cars/buying-a-car/car-buying-guide/new-...
We're talking 16k NZD for the Cherry compared to anywhere between 22k - 32k for Japanese models. Maybe you could find some random model that comes close, but we couldn't "out in the wild" when we were shopping.
I was told that BYD vehicles are the cheapest option but also have terrible reliability.
Also, Eastern Europeans like to show off. Car is a major status symbol. Driving a Chinese car is a hair above driving a Soviet car. So anyone who can afford anything better will not buy it.
You can buy a brand new Chinese car with a 3 year warranty for less than the depreciation on a new Ford/GM/Toyota would be in 2 years.
So after 3 years you can literally drive the Chinese vehicle to the dump and buy another one, and you're still up financially.
Reviews so far say they're cheap, you get what you pay for, but they work and are reliable enough.
The decline of Australian car makers was entirely a result of consumers favouring (a) European car makers e.g. Mercedes and (b) smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
People just don't want large, 4 door sedan cars with V8 5L engines, a comparatively lower class brand and a less than luxurious interior.
Chinese vehicles are not as safe in accidents as those cars which have had a longer time to engineer safety technologies. Also the price point of most Chinese cars do now allow for addition of safety technologies at the level of most other non-Chinese vehicles.
Same thing with the upcoming COMAC Chinese-made airplanes. You do not want to fly those planes when they finally hit the market.
I can hear a dealer now telling a prospect, you can wait another two years for a Model 3 or buy ours and drive it home tonight. There's a pent up demand for battery powered cars under $40K.
A Chinese SUV? It would have to be rather compelling to take a chance.
Most of the cars aren't electric but some are.
Typically electric cars and plug in hybrids are exempt from the scheme. This means that if you live in Shenzen and want to get around then you can see if you win the lottery of licence plates and are allowed to pay $10K to join the club, or you just get an electric car.
The electric cars are better than the old fashioned cars with better ride quality due to the battery weight, better turning circles due to no huge motor between the front wheels, spritely acceleration off the line (if not at highway speeds), plus silence when waiting at the lights. This is a civilised experience and people don't go back to noisy motors with 'stick shift' involvement in driving. Much like how people did not go back to the horse when the car came along. A cheap basic car is better than a horse with fluffy cushions.
China are leading the way on this electric car revolution, they are doing great with their domestic market and when the rest of the world goes electric the Chinese brands will have quite an advantage.
In Europe a lot of fanfare was made about Jaguar and their electric SUV, which is not out yet. It will be contract manufactured by Magna in Graz Austria, not made in Jaguar's own factory in Birmingham.
The Nissan Leaf (new version) is a car well suited to Western markets and built by Nissan/Renault rather than outsourced. A very nice product, as is the BMW i3, but it seems that the Chinese really have a better product for the market - affordable!
Tesla have shown that car interiors do not have to be 'luxury leather' with a massive console thing, dashboard resembling a radiogram from the 1950's, silly carpets everywhere topped out with chintzy bling trim.
The budget Chinese cars have none of the 'luxury trim' with hard plastics everywhere. However the experience is actually civilised, no noise, no rattles, lots of interior space. So owners are quite willing to forget the fluffier aspects of old fashioned cars.
There is no range anxiety either, if you are going to drive all day to get somewhere you just get a plane instead and get your day back.
My hope is that China will moderate and become less authoritarian and less of a threat to its neighbors. Most countries have over time.
And I hope the US will be less involved in foreign military adventures. There's no doubt in my mind that much of what dictators do is driven by what we do.
I also believe that trade helps prevent war. We tend to not go to war with countries with whom we have many profitable relationships.
That Xi just took power until his death means that this is not happening in China.
Doesn't China have a exceedingly good record here? Quick googling suggest it has had no major (and certainly no unilateral) military conflicts in the last 30 years. Military build up seems reasonable given the situation in Korea, Pakistan and India, the growing isolation of Russia, and America's continued military "adventures." It's claims in the south china sea do seem out of character, but we live in a world where might is right.
So yeah, even though they're not currently adventurous militarily, I wouldn't count on that being the case forever.
The dealer network system in the United States.
So I get that franchising laws require dealers to be independent from manufacturers and they're up there with occupational licensing, but how exactly does that prevent a new manufacturer from entering the market?
I assume if you can raise a few billion to build a plant, kickstarting a bunch of new "independent" dealerships is just another line item you plan for...
I know I'm Old school, and some day in the Future self-driving cars MAY dominate the highways... but (thankfully) that day is not today.
Mercedes is spending 300 MM this season to win in F1 just to sell cars. What are those Unheard of companies in China doing?
Plus we're gonna save a fortune on speed enforcement on the roadways. I'm happy about that.
Oh man, and that's right--we better close all the indoor karting tracks, and my buddies who run succesful Racing Schools here should probably also look for another job.
Wait... will this also affect GTA related online gaming? Sure it will. IRacing too I bet. Shoot!
Oh well... it was fun while it lasted.
Montréal company is already in the process of importing BYD electric cars for taxis.
http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2018/03/05/teo-taxi-aura-un...
Our rules in Canada are just as strict as in US. So if they can do it - anyone can do it.