Hacker News Reader

Comment by jimmy2020 | Hacker News Reader

jimmy2020·

that's not how things work in free markets. Not even during the cold war.

I wish you the best in trying to convince China of this abstraction called 'free markets', when mercantilism is working extremely well for them, as it did for Europe too. Free trade is installed intrastate in the Empire, such as British Empire with its colonies, but even during this era the externality that Empire projected was that of mercantilism such as East India Company adventures in China. As it is clear, 'free trade' is a weapon of the strong, and strong isn't a word to call US or Europe of 2019. Certainly nowhere near strong enough to force China for free trade regiment.

Another factor in China's rise is deciding to not care about the environment at all. Western nations spend quite a bit to have clean air, clean water, parks, etc. The cost comes in the form of more costly energy, raw materials, and waste disposal.

True. It's not like when NW Europe cared about pollution when it was gunning for the top of the world. And of course we in Europe and US are making loud noises about pollution after the fact we have made it, so to speak, 'big'. Like another poster pointed out, it's a rather sad attempt to 'pull away the ladder' from still rising nation(s) to use same means to climb the ladder as we in Europe/US did.

I would believe much more into pollution talk by my dear leaders if 1. We were springing up nuclear reactors 2. Stopping third world immigration into Europe 3. Had concrete trade moratoriums against India and China. This would probably cause issues with US defense and military industries though, the situation is rather fragile [1]

> [1] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-mo...

> I wish you the best in trying to convince China of this abstraction called 'free markets'.

Nobody can, that's why US imposing sanctions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com