White House Weighs Limits on U.S. Portfolio Flows Into China | Hacker News Reader

White House Weighs Limits on U.S. Portfolio Flows Into China

bloomberg.com

158 pointschenzhekl147 comments

The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem:

- Should free markets/societies/cultural entities allow participation by all actors, even those which (in their own spaces) obviously don't play by the rules of the entered market/society/culture?

- Or, should entry into the entity be restricted to those that themselves (in their own space) follow the rules of the entered culture?

It seems to me that there are definite advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and it's probably something that game theorists have addressed. To use a convoluted, over-simplified metaphor of a playground:

- If we allow kids (that have different rules in their own playground) into our playground, we run the risk of their rules overcoming or having a negative effect on ours. We also enable them to play with us while having "bad" rules on their own playground - some of which might give them an (unfair) advantage over us on our own playground. However, we get the benefits of having more kids and toys to play with. And, maybe the kids will choose our rules (which we perceive as better) over their own.

- If we don't allow them into our playground, we have less kids and toys to play with. We also have no real direct influence on them - they can't see that our rules are better in person, and we can't threaten to kick them out of our playground if they aren't in it to begin with. However, we avoid the risk of having their rules overwhelm ours and we worry less about them having unfair advantages over us on our own playground.

> The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem ... Should free markets/societies/cultural entities allow participation by all actors, even those which (in their own spaces) obviously don't play by the rules of the entered market/society culture?

You're missing one of the major points: freedom. The issue is not just weighing the utilitarian pros/cons of allowing diversity of thought. In the U.S. (and generally the west), the ability to think and do what you want is valued as an important individual right that each person is entitled to, regardless of whether it's good or bad for society as whole.

I'm specifically talking about the issue of allowing non-agreeable actors into your own space, or in the case of this article, stock exchanges.

> I'm specifically talking about the issue of allowing non-agreeable actors into your own space

Yes, I get that's the point, but it's consistent with my original point: the right to be disagreeable, whether an outsider or not, is an important freedom that's valued in the U.S., regardless of whether it's a net socioeconomic benefit or loss.

>the ability to think and do what you want is valued as an important individual right that each person is entitled to, regardless of whether it's good or bad for society as whole.

At one point in life I'd have agreed with you. Now I can't agree with this at all. Usually the West wants very specific kinds of freedom; the kinds which are useful for social control. The first amendment may remain in the US as a sort of residual idea from classical liberalism, but it seems not too many people actually want this.

> The first amendment may remain in the US as a sort of residual idea from classical liberalism, but it seems not too many people actually want this.

I'm not sure the first amendment was ever really popular - Nazi's marching down a Jewish neighborhood, hippies burning the American flag, John Adams defending British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre - freedom is often very unpopular. Just because something is unpopular doesn't mean it's not sacred.

I think that you should play by the rules of the playground.

If you think its ok to try and change other peoples rules to suit yourself instead of adampting to the rules of the area you enter then you are simply a bully.

The West bulldozed its way through the whole world and imposed rules that benefit it.

The issue here is much less cultural that you might think.

China has been weak in the past couple of centuries and was thus on the receiving end. But as they grow stronger the rules will have to change to take them and their interests into account.

This obviously does not mean that we should cave in to everything. It means that they should have an equal say in the rules.

At the moment it's the US fighting China more than the West as a whole. It makes sense because it's US dominance that is under threat. The question is whether the US want to fight a losing battle or work constructively for the long term.

Let us look at the facts from [1]:

- China require companies to transfer all intellectual property to a venture owned 51% by Chinese before getting access to market

- people running joint ventures like clockwork open competing companies cutting western partners out

- China is a developed country that declare themselves as developing to skirt economic and environmental controls

- China has state owned companies that compete with western companies that they regularly subsidize to beat competition

Also on a softer end China is trying to spread its way of ruling their people to the west [2]. How long do you think you’d last under such a system before being “re-educated” like the Muslim Uighur or Confucian Falun Gong?

[1] https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2018-USTR-Report-to-Con... [2] Deceiving the Sky: Inside Communist China's Drive for Global Supremacy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641770546/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Da...

Equal say is nice, but I want equal treatment too. (Both when it comes to trading [MFN rules], and when it comes to law, courts, administration. They are extremely far in both regards from healthy/sane.)

All the amazing gain and growth given to us by the free market worths nothing if it fuels oppression, if it raises barriers to entry to markets, if it pushes the whole economy toward monopolies and monopsonies, toward fragile centralization, and toward worse lives for the participants.

And no, it should be more cultural, not less. There are clever and efficient policy tools to manage healthy free markets. Allowing China, the US or anyone to make people forget/ignore these cultural foundations and all the achievements of good policy (as in political cooperation and economic competition; from the forming of the US itself from the individual original states to the contemporary EEA integration such as traditional/geographical origin protection and indication, Schengen border control union, emission quotas, common food and drug inspection standardization, etc.), just because some country is strong would be a folly of the greatest magnitude.

>But as they grow stronger the rules will have to change to take them and their interests into account.

You're asking me to give up QoL/future income/whatever based on what? Their threat of violence? That's ridiculous, threaten them back and follow up on it if necessary.

> The growing confrontation between the West and China seems to me to boil down to a philosophical problem

It is not West VS China, it is mainly US VS China. EU and other Asian developed economies might disdain China ideologically, but I don't think they have the appetite to break the status quo this eagerly.

And it is nothing philosophical about it. It is geopolitical, and it is human nature. What you are saying are just intellectual seasoning, it may be necessary to intrigue the audience, but not for action.

China is a new world power that competes with US both militarily and economically. Post WWII, US had fought with Soviet/Japan on those fronts separately, but China looks like a combination of both, makes it even more threatening and hard to tolerate.

> but I don't think they have the appetite to break the status quo this eagerly.

Mainly they don't have the strength to break the status quo. Plus they don't want to jeopardise access to such a large market. It's a Faustian bargain they're beginning to regret.

China is going to rise, this cannot and should not be prevented. But allowing them to rise at your own country's expense is folly. America gets this.

Also US can weather itself the best if the status quo is broken, because it is currently on top. Other countries won't be so lucky.

Trump's actions feel dramatic, but mainly on the magnitude and fast aggression. Something is due to happen and the world needs to adapt to that new normal.

Trumps actions seem dramatic because they are largely incoherent with no end goal in mind and based on his personal feelings.

The US would have made far more progress against China if it had remained in the TPP.

So you change the rules in the middle of the game so you don't lose, sounds right if you are the arbiter too

China never obeyed the rules, so the rest of the world has a choice: continue to play by the old rules at a disadvantage to a cheating China, accept the new rules China has been playing by, or isolate China until they start playing by the old rules.

Which rules didn't china obey?

Broadly speaking (for a detailed list see the US Trade Representative's report[1]) they failed to allow access to their markets or respect the rights of foreign companies.

They've shown that a nationalist nation can exploit the globalist system to its own profit, raising doubts about globalism itself and leading to the resurgence of nationalism.

1: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2018-USTR-Report-to-Con...

Promise they made when joining WTO

You should look up WTO statistics sometimes. Who has substantially more complaints from the global trade community [1]? Who imposes the highest number of protectionism policies [2]? Hint: it's not China. There's no reason to believe USTR reporting, or much government reporting when it comes to geopolitics to be unbiased. Especially under this administration. During a tradewar no less. This isn't about obeying the rules. It's about the reigning cheater stacking the deck against an upcoming cheater while pretending their own hands are clean. China's ascension to WTO was inevitable despite US being one of the last hold outs [3]. An emerging great power and the largest exporter responsible for driving substantial global growth should get a say in the rules. That's just common sense. China maybe revisionist but it also has't been in a large shooting war in 40 years, that's a good direction to revise towards.

[1] https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user330...

[2] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/pub...

[3] https://thebulwark.com/a-failure-to-adjust/

When one is powerful enough, rules are an advantage. The powerful can now enjoy the well protected benefit of breaking the rules. That's how we can more or less predict who breaks the rules.

Number of complaints is irrelevant without considering the magnitude of the infractions.

Does the US require foreign firms to have local partners? Routinely ignore foreign copyrights? Completely block all foreign information from reaching its people?

>Completely block all foreign information from reaching its people?

There are many studies that shows that racism is still present in US, in police,justice, work place

Now you give me the excuse for the racism then think maybe China may have their own excuses that you will not understand, then maybe think about school shootings tell me the excuses for why those happen ..then think maybe China has some excuses too for other shit.

IMO there are problems that don't have a simple solution, tell em the simple solution for the gun violence or racism in US. Is the same for China or other country, there is a large number of people in that country, they have a different culture, they have different values and you can't change them over night and some US values should probably be not exported.

That's pretty far off topic, but China is at least as racist as the US, arguably far more so.

At least in the US, victims are allowed to publicly protest and seek redress in the courts. Not so in China.

Bringing the freedom to access all the internet and suggesting the the US actions are because Trump cares about that is ... , so let's agree that Trump or US don't started this because of human rights (see Saudi Arabia money accepted with open arms) . It is an political/economic issue and even if you as a person care about the human rights if you claim this is about that you are naive.

My points about racism is not to try to put an equality between the 2 countries, I want to show that there are issues that have no simple solution, you make a lay that from tomorrow all races are equal and it takes a few generations for the racism to completely disappear. As similar you can't have China embrace all Western values over night, it is not possible. it takes generations so you need to be patient.

I did not see your simple solutions for the US or China issues, do you have them? If there are no such solutions what do you want? An invasion or tariffs to bring down the firewall and magically fix the racism in China (while at the same time you have a racist leader)

The US is likely to have fewer infractions, because they make the rules.

Does it matter? US has a different protectionist toolbox, one that is applied more broadly and affects more countries across the world. Chinese JV affects IP heavy western companies disproportionately, companies with the loudest lobbying voices which gives the perception of magnitude. But we don't know the relative severity only broadness of impact, where US protectionism and number of victims is multiples more. Unless you want to believe USTRs 250-600 billion a year estimate, which again that's propaganda at work.

Of course severity matters. Someone who gets a speeding ticket every single day of their life is still less of a criminal than someone who commits armed robbery just once and never breaks another law.

I agree severity is hard to measure, but that's not a reason to ignore severity and compare something that's easy to measure but uninformative.

In the absence of numerical measures of severity, there's room for opinion. My opinion is that the Great Firewall or Chinese IP theft are more severe infractions than tariffs or protected industries.

The big difference between the us and china is the us doesn't require international companies building factories in the us to disclose their technology to required local partner companies here. That's the key problem with China (second would be outright stealing technology and hacking) and this first thing is the easy thing to hold against them (I'm aware this supposedly changed, tesla said they didn't have to do this for their new factory, but lets see if it is true). It's basically indefensible, just like the super low international post rates that Chinese companies have enjoyed until the recent agreement [0]. Of course china doesn't really operate according to international law unless it suits them, and so if you protest unfair treatment in China, your company won't succeed. That was all before the recent kidnapping of book sellers from H.K. (and billionaires). So to sum up my wandering comment, it's hardly surprising that there are less complaints in China, because complaining means the likely end of your chance to operate there.

Was Tibet the last place China invaded, that was more than 50 years ago though. It's true they haven't invaded any places people live, but they are taking over those atolls out in the ocean.

Every country has some protectionism (Canada and their milk farms for example), and everyone wants to help themselves. But the "proper" way to do this is trade off a few protectionistic choices against another countries and shake hands over it. China is of course the emerging great power and the us is handling it poorly at this moment. I advocate for the us to insist China stop doing the stealing by official decree, stop putting "holds"/prisoner-keeping on people at the border. If the us is able to get china to actually be a good citizen in terms of following international law, and we get back to mutually beneficial trade pacts, we'll all be okay and reduce the chance of war. I really think our insane period in the us with a nationalistic stooge will end, and we can back away from the edge of the abyss where we are now.

0. https://www.barrons.com/articles/international-postal-rates-...

>China maybe revisionist but it also has't been in a large shooting war in 40 years, that's a good direction to revise towards.

Indeed it would be, though China hasn't been in a large shooting war since Korea largely because they were incapable of it. But as their military capabilities change, their shooting war track record may too.

They were pretty happy to shoot their own citizens in 1989.

> China never obeyed the rules

did China had a say when the old rules were made?

It's far simpler than that. In order to look good domestically Trump needs a foe, and China conveniently provides that foe. They're a credible threat, they are not his Russian buddies and the US is to a large extent dependent on them.

On top of that I suspect that when the last stone is overturned we will find a bunch of ways in which the US president and his cronies profited from the wild gyrations of the stock market as a result of the trade war.

No matter who's in charge in each moment, the West should try to convince China that it must transition to a political system like ours if they want to keep dealing with us.

Allowing China to maintain its tyrannic regime is extremely dangerous for everybody in the long run.

The change doesn't need to be abrupt and it's possible to make some assurances for people currently in power.

Not that it worked so well with Russia, I know.

The only way such change can be enforced without a war is from inside.

I mean, isn’t that exactly the whole point of sanctions, to make people on the inside to feel the effects and do something about it from within?

That's the theory. The practice is the rulers will use the sanctions to prove to their people that the outside world is mean and evil and their only hope lies in their dear leaders.

"Enforced" is not the word I was looking for. More like showing the ruling class that it's in their own interest to gradually apply some changes. There are many obstacles for such a strategy. But even if there isn't a clear path, there needs to be some factors in place for somebody inside to invent that path. If nothing is ever done, nothing will change.

The other Asian countries were quite willing and ready to join with the US in action against China, eg. the TPP, but Trump seemed to have no interest in enlisting allies in this battle.

Imagine how much faster this trade war would be over if all of China's top trading partners were involved rather than just the US.

The so-called free market game is naturally rigged in favor of those who have more access to capital. And this includes capital of restricted intellectual property, however free one thinks restricting that capital is. However, even with the advantage of capital, a rich country like the US can find reasons, such as national security, to go against the rules. Agricultural subsidies and the military industrial complex go against the free market. Furthermore the US has a history of close relationships with countries which are in theory its philosophical opposite (Romania under Ceausescu, Saudi Arabia, and more recently Myanmar). Philosophical conflict is just an intellectually weak way of making a geopolitical conflict seem less cynical.

It will be quite funny if the US inadvertently makes the traditional market system obsolete by becoming too "sanction happy". Kind of like how they triggered a de-dollarization push...

China already has a crypto Yuan, there is no reason they can't use a Binance style exchange for frictionless worldwide direct investment in their companies.

China: You want to boycott investing in our companies? We'll route around your whole financial system and help make it obsolete. See what happens to the US economy when banks can no longer collect 20% fees on a growing percentage of the world population's transactions.

What other country from the West has a beef with China?

This is purely US vs China. Leave the rest of us out of your own mess please.

So what's the message, the EU is only interested in combating oppression when there's no money on the table?

Yeah a little bit like the US, supporting Saudi Arabia whatever they do.

Are we pretending that any of this has to do with combatting oppression?

So.. just to be clear. Are you aware of the consequences of economic inequality? You know, the greatly inequal opportunities, the drastic bargaining power difference, etc.

Do you think China is not going to exploit its economic power to achieve political goals?

Are you aware of China's political goals? Do you agree with them?

Just to name a few: censorship, take Taiwan, suppression of self-determination of minorities, gaining more territory in the East China Sea (island building) from its neighbors.

Counter-question: How exactly is the US combating oppression in China? Apart from ruining your own relationship with your 3rd biggest trade partner, that is.

If China abide by WTO rules, environmental protections required by developed countries and had to abide by basic human rights for religious groups the Muslim Uighur, Tibetan Buddhists, Confucian Falun Gong and other groups would be freer [1,2,3,4]. Abiding by these rules would also make it hard to make their social credit system effective in stopping anyone that themselves or with a family member that voice dissent from taking public transit, transacting, getting a job etc [5]

All great gains for the Chinese people.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/worl...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong

[3] https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/tibetan-re-educat...

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

China today is a lot more free and open than when Nixon went to China in '72 to play them out against the Soviets.

The real issue is that as China continues to grow economically, its military power grows as well and ultimately the US is no longer the dominant military power in the south china sea. Rhetorics about fair trade, democracy, freedom is just that, rhetorics; international politics is about raw power.

Europe has no military interest in the south china sea. And China does not pose a military threat to us. Therefore we are fine with China's continuous growth as it benifits us economically.

The EU has put forth a picture of itself as a defender of human rights for both EU citizens and global residents.

There are two main streams of human rights policy and action within the European Union. One is to protect the fundamental human rights for EU citizens, and the other is to promote human rights worldwide.

https://europa.eu/european-union/topics/human-rights_en

I don't see how that is compatible with the frequent violations of human rights in China. As an above commenter said: it seems to boil down to money.

Because it is bullshit. The current US administration is pushing issues now that it has ignored in the past. Eventhough in the broad view these issues are improving dramatically. Look at China today compared with how it was two or three decades ago and it will show massive improvements on living standard, environment, human rights, protection of minorities, intectual property rights, rule of law etc.

Environmental? China emit more CO2 than the EU and US combined https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/20...

Human rights? They have started putting Uighurs, Buddhists and Falun Gong into re-education camps https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong

Two previous points also counter the rule of law point, which is admittedly a western concept.

China is 1.4 B people; why wouldn't it have higher co2 emissions than EU and USA?

Anyways. We can chat about particular data points. But if you look at the broad picture over decades; you really have to be willfully blind to deny massive improvements that have happened.

The claim though was that it had improved on these and other points. And at least on these there seem to be a big and widely published degradation.

Can always talk about data on the other points as well to see what they say.

I don't have a feel for what is BS in the usual rhetoric, but I saw something interesting today - among the measures reportedly being contemplated by the administration are the elimination of "waivers" for Chinese companies that are listed on US stock exchanges without meeting US accounting/auditing standards.

Now, there may be nuance or whatever that I'm not aware of, but that actually sounds quite reasonable on the face of it. Why not require Chinese companies to meet US standards to be listed here? Maybe waivers were a type of corruption, even if well intended?

The EU consistently promotes these ideas in trade agreements (for example simply by requiring equal access to courts, administration, markets to anyone, respect for privacy and consumer rights, health safety and environmental protection). They are alas not backed on a lot of issues by other geopolitical entities.

It's not more free, less deadly though. Back then there was Mao Zedong Thought now we have Xi Jinping Though.

Canada, for one. China continues to imprison random Canadians as retaliation for the arrest of Huawei’s CFO in Vancouver.

Canada does it because of pressure from the US.

The whole Huawei CFO debacle involves them breaking Canadian laws, so I don’t see how it can be simply dismissed as “Canada is just doing the US bidding”.

I haven't found which Canadian law they are accused of breaking. Could you be more specific?

"Meng, 47, was arrested at Vancouver's airport on December 1 at the request of the United States, where she is charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading HSBC Holdings Plc about Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's business in Iran."

The mentioned market access inequality is a problem for every other WTO member too.

I was just reading an article in the South China Morning Post (from a year ago) that was making the case that it is not in fact just the US.

"In recent months, Germany, France, Britain, the European Union, Australia, Japan and Canada have all joined an unprecedented global backlash against Chinese capital, citing national security concerns. Dealmakers now wonder whether this dynamic will run its course or should be taken as a new normal."

https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/216397...

People catching a hint of the real power they have is an existential threat to traditional myth structures; not just China's.

Alternative hypothesis: Trump is bullying China to make himself appear strong to US voters. He has no objective other than that.

It's not the 'West'. It's US America. And to be even more precise: it's GOP-led US America.

People seem to forget the basic fact that markets are run by greedy psychopaths. And I don't mean this as a hyperbole. Capitalism directly selects for psychopathic behavior because it's a system of Darwinian competition. The system efficiently selects for this behavior. If you want to have capitalism then the only sane approach is heavy government regulation.

Think Anti-Vaxxers

Ok, now WH is exploring all creative (and unprecedented) ways to fight against China. I have to say this seems to have crossed a lot of boundaries, either clear or vague ones.

And we've also seen WH is doing similar things (though at a different degree) to close partners like Mexico.

So let's extrapolate, if there're some conflicts in interests between US and major NATO countries, will WH do the same thing? Make America great again even no one wants to talk to US?

Seems that the easy war with China is not that easy. So now the WH is resorting to other means to put pressure on China. This will backfire as the WH is trying really hard to make US less relevant. By actively using weapon that were previously seen as a huge deterrent, you make them a short term problem for China, but they will find a way around them and make them ineffective. The WH is fighting will almost all major economies (apart SA, Israel, and brexit Britain), and it's going to end pretty badly. I will be very surprised if we don't get a market crack before end of next year.

What'll really surprise you is when the central banking system is shut down.

Isn’t bitmain ramping down production already though?

Most of this Trump idiocy will backfire on the US.

Tiny example of today: https://www.cnet.com/news/huawei-is-apparently-already-makin...

How does having no US parts benefit America here exactly? Having one day a non-Android competitor that the largest Android manufacturers of the world (Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Oneplus, Xiaomi) might use will benefit the US how? Having Chinese homegrown chips one day will benefit the US how? etc etc

I get that something might have to be done. This certainly isn't the way.

> The WH is fighting will almost all major economies (apart SA, Israel, and brexit Britain),

I suspect us mugs here in Brexit Britain are simply being buttered up so we can get properly buggered against our wishes, and it won't be on some artsy Parisian floor, it'll be on the world stage with our pants down.

The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, it's not like anything is new here, it's just the return of an old wave.

I don't think the current White House is capable of dealing with a multilateral world. The actions taken up to this point -- tariffs and market restrictions -- are a relic of last century (even then, they never worked that well).

A lot of Obama's foreign policy focused on containment and strength in numbers.

Both the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) were as much about developing business as they were about Chinese containment.

TTP in particular grouped many of China's adversaries in the region into one large, free moving bloc. Combined with an IP protection mechanism, this group offered global manufacturers a strong alternative to China, reducing the rest of the world's dependence on the PRC.

Second, Obama realigned the military to contain China.

Unfortunately, 2016 happened and Trump, out of his principles and reasons unknown, scuttled these efforts.

I don't see the Trump administration making an about-face any time soon since it would go against their world-view.

> a multilateral world.

> Obama's foreign policy focused on containment and strength in numbers.

... and enforcing a WTO/Bretton-woods unilateral world by placating China and containing Russia/Iran to keep the BRICS bloc from gaining equal footing.

I'm guessing that Chinese companies are somewhat similar to statutory companies. I've heard that large Chinese companies have strong CCP oversight, with a party member involved that the CEO/founder has to defer to.

So the question is - does it make sense for not-actually-public-companies from other countries to be listed on the U.S. stock exchange? It could be potentially misleading otherwise.

Boeing is listed in more or less the same conditions. Google is listed and they have strong links with political parties.

edit: the more direct answer is that the shares that are listed are free and publicly tradable, there exist other shares that are not available on the marketplace, like Facebook. But those shares are owned by state entities.

All it means for a company to be a public company is that it has publicly traded equity. A company that is listed on a stock exchange is, ipso facto, a public company.

The Alibaba listing in the US isn't even for stock in the Chinese company. It's "stock" in a Cayman Islands holding company that doesn't have any guarantee for stockholders to have any rights in the Chinese parent company.[1]

When the US president uses the bully pulpit to insult and threaten American-based multinational companies to suit his political / personal needs at the threat of a DoJ / SEC investigation or FAA license threat, how is that much different than a CCP official doing the same? I would argue it's not nearly as far as my fellow Americans would like to think it is.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/beware-alibaba-ipo-isnt-re...

True but American don't like being pushed around while the Chinese are used to it. Which means the Bully is usually tolerated for much shorter durations than Chinese Bullies are. Churchill's rise and fall is a good example.

The threat by Trump about let's say a SEC, DoJ, FAA investigation is less credible due to the US still seen as having a sort of functional/independent justice system, rules for these investigations, and clearer appeals processes than in China.

Lockheed Martin is in a similar situation.

Emmmm, this is crazy. Capital will find its way just not through US exchange

Thread title does not match link title or content.

while the title is a bit more inflammatory than the article, it does say that delisting is being considered amongst other options.

Would that just mean the securities will just trade on pink sheets? Or would it be more likely that trading would migrate to a stock exchange in another country?

The London stock exchange would be an obvious candidate.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange offered to buy LSE recently. I wonder if these are connected.

I heard people were moving away from doing stocks in London with Brexit looming. Is this no longer the case?

I know blackrock will delist quite a few EUR denominated ETFs[0] from the LSE, but what stocks actually mentioned leaving the LSE?

[0] https://www.etfstream.com/news/8949_blackrock-delists-43-etf...

How would this affect foreign pension funds that invest in NYSE?

Would they just sell their Chineses stocks or move some investment to another country??

Time to bring out the duck and cover PSA videos ... US/UK vs China-Eurasian hegemony ... sounds like 1984 all over again.

Oh boy, this thread needs to be locked down. All the conversation has turned into political short outbursts and I only see one comment actually remotely talking about the topic.

Even the thread title is not what the article headline is. Maybe the title is at fault for off-topic conversations.

Im sorry but just reading this almost feels like an April Fools joke, except sadly its September

Normally the US government has extraordinary power over China in financial sector.

But Trump has alienated all traditional allies. Threat to exclude China turns into opportunity for others to exploit the situation. Euronext, London, Toronto, Tokyo and Hong Kong are in the position to gain relative to NASDAQ and NYSE.

ps. I think the change of delisting happening is less than 5%.

I do not understand why this comment is being downvoted. The OP is absolutely right about this.

China hates Canada, no way these tech stocks are being listed in Toronto, it’s nonsense.

On the one hand - I feel it is totally legitimate that the US take the view that they want a symmetrical arrangement in so far as 'if Chinese firms can access US investors then US firms should be able to access Chinese ones'.

On the other hand, this has the feel of trying to bully China into a trade deal that is good for Trump but not for the Chinese. It could also hurt investor confidence in the US.

Ultimately, its a tough one and while I think its a horrible path for the US to be pursuing, I understand why they are thinking about it.

How would it change costs of chinese goods (esp. hardware) for a third world, if implemented?

Edit: added chinese

This seems reasonable, though the administration is likely doing it for the wrong reasons. Genuine question: Is sentiment more important than correctness, or is the opposite true?

> This seems reasonable

Does it? The U.S went to wars, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to force open markets to its products, it has been preaching the free market mantra for decades. Regardless of everything else about China, they're now starting to make some actually compelling products so the U.S is acting out.

I know the argument is that Chinese companies are just an extension of the state, but you could say the same in reverse about the U.S.

I just assumed it's going to be more subtle than this, as an EU citizen, this sends a clear signal to me that the EU is only an 'ally' as long as it keeps buying American products.

> I know the argument is that Chinese companies are just an extension of the state, but you could say the same in reverse about the U.S

What

The US state being an extension of US companies, thanks to all the lobbying, collusion and some underhanded moves.

I think a good argument can be made that Lockheed Martin and Boeing are extensions of the USG.

The US and citizens, even without direct stock, are beneficial owners of US companies because they contribute to the economy and livelihood of the local economy... that and National Security Letters.

Also US started wars , military actions or changed the governments around the world,spied(maybe assassinations - I would apreciate someone if knows of a good example of this) , pushed international law for the interest of the big companies(aka for money) ex the banana wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars

Also the government will intervene on the internal market too with money,subsidies, regulations,exceptions to help the big companies,

in t he end the state and big companies are in a long relationship and there is no way you can deny this just ways you can try to find arguments that is fair and honest.

They are running rival concentration camps, I can't imagine the competition is welcome.

Since the US gained global dominance post WW2 with the Marshall plan I don't think the US has ever really been that subtle about maintaining capitalist free market dominance.

As you say, now that China is producing compelling products the US is flexing a bit more because it sees a serious non ally threat to US interests. The biggest shame of it is that it is so unfortunate that China isn't more politically and legally upstanding and morally respectable like Europe is.

I think you have cause and effect mixed up. The U.S. became a postwar economic superpower not because of the Marshall Plan, but because its chief competitors in Europe and the Pacific had utterly ruined one another’s economies after years of total war. Meanwhile, the United States’ manufacturing capacity had continued to expand.

The Marshall Plan certainly exposed Europeans to more American products, especially Hollywood and pop culture. However, the majority of Marshall Plan funds were given as grants, not loans - ultimately, even to Germany. American capital did not come to own and exploit Western Europe. On the contrary, one of the Marshall Plan’s main effects was to reduce intra-Europe trade barriers, setting the stage for the E.E.C. and later, the European Union.

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

I misworded my comment, I meant that the Marshall Plan was the first obvious act in their own corporate self interest. You can't sell anything to people with no money.

How much do you think the Marshall plan accelerated the repair and growth of Europe?

>How much do you think the Marshall plan accelerated the repair and growth of Europe?

I’m not sure what you expect me to say. I think the academic consensus is, “by a lot.” I think the immediate European reaction was also, “it’s great that we’ve rebuilt our own means of production with generous outside assistance, while retaining ownership and without accruing huge debts.”

I’m a little confused. What was the nefarious aspect of the Marshall Plan? Why was it bad to help Germans rebuild Volkswagen factories, in order that they might trade things Americans want for things that Germans want?

I'm not denying the mutual benefit of the Marshall Plan. Of course it was a great help to Europe in the post war rebuild.

But had Europe not been an opportunity market for US industry then I suspect the Marshall Plan would have never happened or maybe I'm just cynical.

> I don't think the US has ever really been that subtle about maintaining capitalist free market dominance.

Excuse me for my ignorance, but what makes US' economy a free market capitalism?

Definition of free market: "in economics, a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities."

Correct me if I am wrong, but this most definitely does not seem to be the case. There are regulations, price controls, subsidies, tariffs and other government interferences with freedom of exchange that distort the market.

The issue isn't about how the US regulates free market activities. It is about how the US uses it's power and influence to undermine the sovereign decisions of other nations that might be detrimental to US trade.

Things like protectionism, how a country may choose to do trade (e.g the currency they trade in E.g petrodollar), the rights to a countries natural resources (E.g nationalisation). These tools are effective for underdeveloped countries that don't have the market and production efficiencies to compete on a global stage or the money to subsidise nationally important yet expensive businesses like farming.

Adam Smith effectively said that trade is good because it frees up the utility of your worker to do work of a greater economic benefit and that it made greater sense to buy from a supplier nation that can produce the same product more efficiently.

Those countries with inefficient and unproductive economies don't have the high skill economically more valuable jobs so for them trade isn't an opportunity for growth because it just undermines their local economy by taking away local jobs.

>The U.S went to wars, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to force open markets to its products

This is a standard Marxist explanation for U.S. overseas military intervention [0]. It is also largely wrong.

Let’s look at the data. After 16 years of obscenely expensive American intervention in Iraq, that country exports more to China than the U.S., and imports more from China and Turkey together than from all other trade partners combined [1]. Likewise, Afghanistan today imports almost nothing from the U.S., but relies heavily on exports from China and Iran - two major U.S. competitors [2]. This is, of course, geographical common sense. If anything, recent U.S. wars have opened new markets for China, their number one geopolitical competitor.

Looking further back, Germany, Japan, and South Korea have all developed into financially independent trading partners. Far from U.S. capital dominating Japan, Americans were afraid for quite some time that Japanese cars, electronics, and industrial equipment would completely displace their American equivalents.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_explanations_of_warfar... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iraq [2] http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?La...

> After 16 years of obscenely expensive American intervention in Iraq, that country exports more to China than the U.S. and imports more from China and Turkey together than from all other trade partners combined [0]. Likewise, Afghanistan today imports almost nothing from the U.S. but relies heavily on exports from China and Iran

U.S military contractors got handsomely rich off both Afghanistan and Iraq and both nations are almost exclusively importing American military equipment. As for civilian items, the average income of an Afghan/Iraqi civilian is not enough to afford American products, but just because not every U.S economic sector benefited does not mean it wasn't worth it for the likes of Raytheon.

As for Iran being very close to Iraq now, that certainly wasn't the plan, is just that there are other players in the world making moves and reacting to U.S. ones and sometimes they come out on top, particularly if they happen to understand the local political dynamic better, because they're actually from the area.

>As for civilian items, the average income of an Afghan/Iraqi civilian is not enough to afford American product

OK, so that completely breaks the first part of traditional Marxist arguments. I will grudgingly admit, however, that the U.S. tried for many years and at great expense to improve the economic situation of average Iraqis to a point where they could afford American-made goods.

>U.S military contractors got handsomely rich off both Afghanistan and Iraq and both nations are almost exclusively importing American military equipment.

I’d 100% agree with you there. However, the military-industrial complex is a very different beast than Lenin’s theory of imperial monopoly capitalism. The M.I.C. is to me a far simpler and more boring explanation, and one which bears up better under scrutiny, than the Marxist theory of warfare which your OP postulated.

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

The explanation is not wrong.

Why do you think it's reasonable?

China as a country should be punished by the State. It has too many human rights abuses not to. However, I also think this applies to the US. The two punishing one another seems reasonable, but I cannot imagine one or the other cares about something as trivial as basic human rights.

In that case I would have to answer

>Is sentiment more important than correctness, or is the opposite true?

by saying that there's no advantage to punishing China unless the punishment is connected to the human rights abuses. If the US was saying "stop the abuses and we'll lift the tariffs" then that would be good. But they're not, so it isn't. The fact that the governments are committing abuses doesn't make it an inherently good thing that their citizens are being punished.

sadly the CCP don't play by any rules

US Propaganda and sentiment as instigated by this administration against China resembles cold war anti-Soviet sentiment in the 1970s and 80s.

Looks like a proper shakedown.

Not my VEMAX!!!

i would recommend the documentary "the china hustle"

i was skeptical of the documentary before watching, but it is very good

The China problem is of our own doing, of course. Up until Trump nobody had any interest in addressing it. I'll just say nobody before him took this on because of the potential for political suicide. Love or hate him (I'm +/- around neutral, hate how he presents the presidency, like most of what he is actually doing when he is not busy saying stupid things) forcing a realignment of China is a good idea.

This had to be done 25 years ago, when it would have been far easier to accomplish. Attempting this today is equivalent to not detecting cancer early enough for a simple operation to extract it fully with minimal consequences. Instead, we wait until it has metastasized and nearly have to kill the patient in an attempt to cure him. Notice my use of the word "attempt"...because there are no guarantees.

The China problem, I think, can be boiled down to a few important line items:

    - Intellectual property theft
    - Currency manipulation
    - Terrible disregard of the environment
    - Objectionable labor practices
    - Predatory practices with foreign entities operating in China
    - Fraud in regulatory testing and standards 
      (UL/CE/TUV mark from China testing means nothing)
    - Lackluster of participation in foreign aid 
      (for the second largest economy it is embarrassing)
    - Asymmetric property ownership laws
    - Abuse of the global postal system 
     (free shipping from China because the US taxpayers subsidize
      their packages within the us to the tune of US $500 million per year)

There's probably more, though I think these are some of the main points. If any other economy behaved this way they would be universally scolded in around the world. If the US, Germany, France or the UK behaved this way we would have massive marches all over the world. China does this and more and people, for the most part, are either oblivious to it or don't care. The problem with this is that they are sacrificing their own jobs and their kid's futures for their inaction.

I think the value of playing with reasonably similar rules is that one entity can't destroy other players by using out of the norm methods to destroy them and then gain supremacy. This is why we have such things as antitrust and monopoly laws. This is why such methods as price fixing and bribery are illegal in the US and Europe. This is why we respect intellectual property, fight for humane labor practices, respect safety testing of the products we use and help less fortunate nations to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and generally speaking.

China is almost the diametric opposite of this. And for that they likely deserve a bit of a reality check today.

Non an easy problem to fix. Others have allowed this cancer to metastasize for decades. To fix it today you have to be a complete a--hole and go for broke. It looks like the job fits the guy in the White House. Not sure if he will succeed. The other problem is that, in western democracies, leaders and some policies tend to only survive term limits and election cycles, while in China they know they can stay the course for decades.

Are there US companies that are listed on mainland Chinese exchanges?

This is typical tactics from Trump. Whenever there is a meeting he inflicts maximum leverage and stress to the opponent. I wouldn't read much into this honestly. It's a game.

I wonder when Trump will realize he's trying to play checkers on a chess board?

More trade leverage and it will also destroy Biden. Brilliant.

Good.

The CCP pretty much owns every Chinese big company. And, they don't let people examine their books. Who's to say that all that American investment money isn't going into grossly or even fraudulently overvalued stock?

The SEC. If your concern is that companies listed on US stock exchanges aren't correctly reporting their financials thats an issue for the SEC. It's not an issue for a blanket ban on Chinese companies being listed. Preventing Americans from being able to trade their investments easily on a reputable exchange isn't going to help them.

Running undercover espionage operations in China - which is what it would probably take to work out what's going on, given that the government there is in on it and extremely hostile to whistleblowers - is well outside the scope of what the SEC is capable of. Even the CIA has trouble with it.

The SEC has already failed miserably once in this exact role. What reason do we have to believe that even a fully-funded, well-staffed SEC could get the necessary _accurate_ figures out of China, and Chinese companies, to adequately perform this duty? Many Chinese companies have grossly exaggerated assets and earnings to the SEC before.

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

Except the SEC has given Chinese companies an exemption from normal oversight. I agree that there shouldn't be a blanket ban - but the companies should have to follow the same rules as everyone else.

https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/06/china-and-the-u-s-stock...

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