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Comment by cafard | Hacker News Reader

Did the West make that bet? Or did the businesses of the West see a big market and ultimately a big, inexpensive supply chain?

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I tend to think that, worst of all, the West saw an inexhaustible supply chain.

Nobody was thinking about what to do next after all that money filled the coffers of a political establishment not under any pressure to liberalize.

Speaking of that, can someone explain me how did the West figure that both this and oil imports were a good deal? A book on energy/climate I'm reading[0] is making a point that in the last decades, the West funneled ridiculous amounts of money to oil exporters, which are predominantly authoritarian nations that don't give a fuck about human rights or Western values. And those nations used the money to gain control over companies and assets in the Western nation. The exact same thing can be said about outsourcing manufacturing to China and them using the money to buy Western companies and real estate.

So, what am I missing here? How on Earth was this a good idea?

[0] - a polish one, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22310339-wiat-na-rozdro-....

> How on Earth was this a good idea?

On whose time horizon?

If yours is "the next five years", it probably looked pretty good for a solid thirty years or so.

>West funneled ridiculous amounts of money to oil exporters, which are predominantly authoritarian nations

The countries in question are authoritarian specifically because of the single dominant source of income (the oil exports). A specialized economy that relies on foreign sales is pretty easy to put under governmental control - and the arrangement is also convenient for the buyer. For non-authoritarian setup, you want diversified economy that's largely self-sufficient and trade-balanced; in such economy the government is mostly just an arbiter between roughly equal businesses and consumers.

>outsourcing manufacturing to China and them using the money to buy Western companies and real estate

The single biggest failure of the several recent US administrations: allowing the Chinese supply chain to become dominant; even "too big to fail". So big that there's a persistent narrative "we can't tariff chinese imports because it would hit the US consumers hard.". It is indeed similar to how the problem of oil imports used to be[1].

There's no fixing it other than slowly but surely shifting the bulk of imports away from China and towards multiple alternative sources[2]. Once there are several major sources of import competing[3], putting a tariff or two on China won't move the prices all that much, thus making the tariffs a practical tool of trade negotiations again.

[1] big props up to both Obama and Trump for helping domestic US oil extraction expand & provide a counterbalance to the foreign exports

[2] India is a particularly good candidate for a major trading partner, with compatible culture, existing economic ties, and already growing industry

[3] diversity

I'd say the latter, and "the bet" was used as an after the fact excuse.

That came after China was addmitted in the WTO. I think the West made that precise bet when they admitted China, market forces did the rest.

> Clinton began his term believing that trade sanctions could pressure China to improve human rights conditions. But after a year of debilitating debate, he was forced to reverse his policy of link- ing trade to human rights. >He was right to do so. By continuing to grant MFN to China, Clinton will help advance the $38 billion trading relationship which the U.S. now enjoys with the world's fastest growing economy. Moreover, by increasing prosperity in China through greater trade, the U.S. can help to create the economic freedoms that are the foundation upon which political freedom will someday emerge.

>Clinton began to end this spectacle of confusion last week when he decided to renew MFN almost with- out condition. Perhaps the most important aspect of his decision is philosophical; the President has now adopted the view that trade relations must be separated from U.S. political goals with China. Moreover, he has endorsed the view that increased U.S.-China trade can promote economic freedoms, which in the long run will spur the growth of political freedoms in China.

>This step alone will help to reassure Asian friends and adversaries that Clinton plans to get a better grip on foreign policy.

>Now that Clinton has reversed his policy, he should move quickly to exact a price-of Beijing's cooperation in two areas of critical concern to the U.S. They are:

* Ending North Korea's nuclear threat...

* Better treatment for Hong Kong and Taiwan...

https://www.heritage.org/report/the-collapse-clintons-china-... June 3, 1994

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