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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

What is the end goal here?

Move a small number of strategic industries back? We already do that by just requiring them to produce locally. Seems much cheaper and more effective that a subsidy.

Pressure China to respect interlectual property? I don't think that will have much impact if the IP in question is worth more that 25bn.

Pressure China on other issues (Corona, Minorities, Democracy, HK)? You'll need your allies in the EU, Nafta, the middle East etc to all agree to do the same. Has anyone asked them?

The big issue with China is people have ignored them for decades hoping they'll get better if they're left to it. They haven't. So now you need a joined up policy to actually do something. 25bn USD in "look, we semi sorts tried something for a week and it didn't work" isn't gonna cut it.

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When China uses the threat of cutting off supply chains to a country [1] in order to advance their own political agenda, that country should obviously protect their own national security by moving their supply chains.

Edit: Additionally, other countries should take note and protect their interests also.

1. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3925556

All corporations should follow the idea of not putting all their eggs in one basket even if that is the cheapest/best idea if you want to over-optimize.

In IT, we have backup plans, we have backup locations and resources and yes it costs money to keep such options available. Global companies need backup countries and suppliers that can supply what they need should something happen to the main supplier/country. It doesn't have to be full equivalents in capacity but should be possible to scale eventually.

Having backups and alternatives reduces the likelihood and effectiveness of explicit threats by your main location.

In the “old days,” ICs used to be dually sourced. For example, Intel created and manufactured the 8086, but AMD also manufactured them. Not a perfect solution, but better than one single manufacturer. Sadly, one can’t really do that now because of how small the features on chips are getting.

> Has anyone asked them?

We did. And like most things in the UN, it's NATO+clients vs the rest of the world.

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources... http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/.e/interactive/html5-video-media/2019...

I was thinking of something a bit more meaningful than writing a letter. Trade sanctions maybe or divestment. Limits on travel (so Chinese students can't access western education)?

The US encouraging/requiring less trade with China is a lot less important than the US+EU+Canada/Mexico. Since those countries all seem on board in letter writing, why not approach them on something more?

It doesn’t help that the US backed out of a policy solution that would actually be cheap and orders of magnitude more effective than anything that they have cooked up since in the TPP.

Backing out of it also means that the rest of the world is unlikely to trust the US on a similar effort anymore.

I felt like that was a new height in short-term-ism and miss management for the US. Trading a permanent strategic advantage in a contested region for a few shitty jobs that will be gone in 5 years anyway!?

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