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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

From what I've read, this looks like it's just posturing on China's part. There are plenty of other sources that can be brought online quicky. The bigger picture is what I'm trying to understand.

How real of a threat is the trade war to China? Could it cause a recession? Worse? Will it have long-term effects for them?

Which party is likely to suffer the least, or gain the most?

Is the US planning on strong arming China long enough for other countries to step in, eg. India, Vietnam, etc.?

What's the objective here? Is it to rebalance power, maintain the lead a little longer, permanently knee-cap them, ...?

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It seems like once the old guards in the CCP rejected the reformist trade deal in late May that the inevitable path for both countries is disentanglement. Thus the 25% tariff hike on all Chinese imports possibly starting June 24. Thus the crackdown on Chinese tech with ties to the Chinese government, such as Huawei and DJI. We are now seeing the progression of complete separation of US and China, economically and financially. Between two completely different ideals: autocratic authoritarian, state sponsored economy vs republic, free market

I'd never thought about it like this... pretty scary. Our economic ties always calmed my anxiety about a US-China war starting

I wouldn’t worry, China is no shape to start a war with US. It is currently facing 3 wars: political leadership - with Xi faction vs the old guards. Internal population, with unrests in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and economically suffering northeast and western region. And neighbors, with Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, and India, over South sea. The CCP doesn’t have the financial or political capital to fight any of the wars currently.

A 4th war with the economic superpowers - US, EU, Japan would end with so quickly with simply an economic sanction.

OTOH, we can say something similar about the US.

Trump has been battling investigations and possible impeachment hearings since day one. Partisanship amongst voters is at a 40 year high. And the US is waging the longest war in its entire history, with no proper resolution in sight. Plus -- who knows? -- it might just start a brand new war against Iran.

The last thing the US needs is a military war with China.

A war with China won't be a war fought on the ground. It will almost assuredly be a war of navies and cyber. The US can handle both in perpetuity. Neither country wants to use nukes and the US has 0 interest in occupying China.

> The US can handle both in perpetuity

How can we be so sure?

Unfortunately I suspect the Chinese -- coming from a culture with one party and zero dissent -- take all the anti-Trump rhetoric in the American media as a sign of weakness, and this emboldens them to drag out a trade war that they have no hope of winning.

Economic ties are great and all, but compared to the absolute insanity of opening up the possibility of MAD I don't think they're really all that important when we're talking about a US-China war.

They might do something to limit proxy wars, but if we're already cutting some ties over some bullet points on a trade deal, I can't imagine they would have deterred any type of at all war anyways.

yeah starting to realize how fragile they were in the first place but I guess I'll know more as we see it play out

That is the terrifying situation we are in... where the current batch of populist authoritarians are starting to tear down the economic spiderweb that connects most of the world. This was a system created with the intention of making another war so costly/impossible it was avoided. The EU arose from this concept. This isn't something I am afraid of in the next 5 years, but it is something I am really afraid of over the next 25. Unless China gets crazy and goes after Tawain for posturing.

I don't fully blame the populist either for their recent craziness, not enough was done to keep society "fair" and to provide a strong social safety net during the wild ride of globalization. The EU did a better job but is now under migrant pressure and fear-mongering, and the USA is imploding under health care, the cost of having/raising kids, and the middle and lower income brackets having 40 years of degraded earnings power.

Hopefully, we can sort it out with some good voting and a political realignment in the USA.

Not 100% true. Semiconductor industry isn't a result of free market, it is a highly strategic sector that is largely influenced by political/military goals, this is a claim from Obama administration's own report of China's ambition in chips.

Quote from the report

> 'The global semiconductor market has never been a completely free market: it is founded on science that historically has been driven, in substantial part, by government and academia; segments of it are restricted in various ways as a result of national-security and defense imperatives; and it is frequently the focus of national industrial policies. Market forces play a central and critical role. But any presumption by U.S. policymakers that existing market forces alone will yield optimal outcomes – particularly when faced with substantial industrial policies from other countries – is unwarranted. In order to realize the opportunities that semiconductors present and to effectively mitigate major risks, U.S. policy must respond to the challenges now at hand'

This is my take:

Since China has had US military bases in its backyard for the past 70 years it finally feels that it’s big enough to flax some muscle in Pacific. Hence they’re doing that shit in South China Sea. US empire naturally sees this as a threat to its colonies and interests in Pacific. In order to seam like it’s doing something about it is pushing the anti China propaganda to its population by imposing the tariffs and in turn it is filling its coffers which are somewhat lighter since it gave the tax cuts to big business. Of course it has positioned the tariffs as if China is giving them that extra 25% instead of letting the American consumer realise that they’re the ones who will eventually foot that bill through higher prices. There won’t be any war. Neither country can afford it. And China won’t do much about it. They just want to seam like they’re retaliating in front of their population.

I would say to get China to stop doing a bunch of shady shit like IP extraction but in reality I doubt people in charge care about that as anything but an excuse for strategic leveraging.

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