Comment by sjwright | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sjwright | Hacker News Reader

I hope nobody feels the urge to look at this issue through a nationalistic lens. Don't get me wrong, the Chinese government has a LOT to be ashamed about. But I don't think this is one of them.

I don't doubt that Chinese authorities want to solve this problem. The problem isn't a lack of will on the part of their Government; the problem is a lack of established infrastructure to deal with relatively nuanced issues like industrial chemicals. You're asking a country that is rapidly transitioning to modernity—perhaps faster than any other large country ever in history—to get all these things right faster than anyone else ever did.

We shouldn't stop pressuring China to do better, but the best thing we can do is good science, good measurements and helping them to solve the problem for themselves.

(Disclaimer: this post was written with an eye to Cunningham's Law. I'm a total layperson and I would be interested to hear observations from someone with expertise in this field.)

I wrote the parent post, which has been voted up quite high given the minimal traffic going to this topic. I'm disappointed that the post by fleshfly appears to have been voted to dead. Perhaps someone could actually engage the argument rather than anonymously declare it invalid?

I think it's the frequently over-sensitive new account shadow ban algo that endeadened it, as it can be vouched back to visible. Which I did. :)

No. China should not transition to modernity quickly at the expense of our environmental future. A moral environmental version of Trump's tariffs would say that we will not trade with China, or any other country, until their enforced pollution regulations are at least as stringent as ours.

Giving China an ultimatum, "do this or we will stop trading with you," is a surefire way to guarantee that they will not do whatever "this" is.

In the history of the world, trade ultimatums have never worked. For example, the US has issued such ultimatums to pre-ww2 Japan, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. Needless to say, in none of those cases did the embargoed country alter their behavior in the desired way.

And it is trivial to understand why such ultimatums don't work: they are political suicide to anyone that capitulates. Imagine if China gave such an ultimatum to the US. How popular do you think that would make China with US voters? A candidate campaigning on the platform of "we better just do what China tells us to," would be dead in the water.

They do work in the softer case. Canada never would have agreed to a weakened NAFTA without the screws being turned the way they had. Although in this case Trump came very close to a full backlash.

There was collateral, I get milk commercials explaining how the other brand is American, and this one is Canadian. The better one is left for me to decide...

I agree that trade negotiations are a useful and productive diplomatic strategy.

I would argue however that there is a night and day difference between threatening to raise tariffs unless some trade concessions are made (as was the case with Canada) and threatening total embargoe if the other country does not perform some unrelated action (like kill their nuclear weapons program or cut their CO2 or whatever).

The optics of the first is totally fine; it’s just negotiation. You expect the car salesman to try to push the price higher, he expects you to push it lower, it’s how the game works. It’s politically workable.

The latter is more like a boss telling their employee “you must convert to my religion or I’ll fire you.” Because you aren’t asking for trade concessions, it’s much more sensitive and politically unworkable.

Op suggested raising tarrifs. You were the first to speak of an embargo.

It was the United States that created modern China when we let them in the WTO and gave them most favored nation status. We got nothing in exchange for that, we could have asked for labor and environmental requirements.

What’s your point? None of those things change the fact that trade ultimatums are a diplomatic strategy that always fails.

Very well said.

People in developing countries (most of the English speaking internet) overestimate the efficiency of the Chinese government. It's not a coincidence that challenges in business regulation and judicial fairness arise there at the same time as phenomena usually perceived as abuse. What's commonly seen as evil is more simply pure incompetence, and it would take spending mere minutes with local Chinese folk to realize that their industrial habits, systems, and education are still decades behind those of the western world.

Corruption (accusations of which people dismiss as political weaponry) is actually a massive issue, especially with small-time graft and favors, both in the private and public sector -- as the only truth about doing business in China is that money greases wheels faster than it does in other places. The economics is important, as just one generation ago, China experienced intense famine and chaos that defies belief, and one can feel today still the effects of the social chaos and upheaval of that time. If one wishes to analyze the industrial behavior there, it is seldom useful to leap to moral arguments without analyzing the economic incentives first, unless ones' only purpose is to feel superior.

> People in developing countries (most of the English speaking internet) overestimate the efficiency of the Chinese government.

I disagree. I suspect that people in the developing countries have quite a clear view of just how brutally efficient the Chinese government can be if it wants to be.

You don't just magically create industrial quantities of a banned gas without having a market for it. As there is no other market for this besides inside China, these producers likely got at least tacit approval/gave solid bribes from/to important folks in the party.

If the Chinese government wants this gone, it will disappear. If it doesn't disappear, the Chinese government doesn't really want it gone that badly.

I don't think that they had to bribe anyone. There is just no quality assurance or standards.

Products sold in China must be cheaper than those exported, so that workers can afford them. That means that standards will be nonexistent.

I don't think you understand the nature of a state/federal government. the Federal government in China has absolute authority? Yes. Does it routinely interfere inside individual states regarding powers devolved to the state? No. Because when it does, there are effects which cause extreme stress.

Every province in China has a huge square of property in Beijing, with a hotel, casino or similar complex on it. They aren't there because the central power wants to give land grants to the provinces, They're there because it has no choice

The provinces are surprisingly powerful. They can make things happen. At some level, somebody is probably hoping to make the provincial government act speedily on this, and make them realize how bad it is for future trade from their factories. But these things take time.

On a Tu Quoque note.. how well did the EPA do telling the Californian Oil and Gas sector to stop leaking methane from that giant underground tank? I mean.. thats a "thing" in greenhouse gas, right? Just venting..

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