RCEP, the world’s biggest trade agreement
economist.com
economist.com
However one thing that bug me is that a number of media/opinion tend to characterize the deal as some kind of China nefarious plot even though the initiative came from South East Asia.
That also includes the discussion of some detail of the trade for example as explained in the article lack of focus on "environmental , labour standards, and rules for state-owned enterprises.". Again those commonly regarded as a poison pill from Beijing, instead of considering that maybe nations in the South East Asia preferred it that way irrespective of what Beijing thinks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden/Harris lands us in another Vietnam for some other moral mandate. We went to Vietnam under the pretense of stopping Communism. Just replace Communism with slavery, climate change, sexism, and it becomes plausible based on his rhetoric.
This comment runs too close to slippery slope. Involvement does not equal war. Besides, If you survey the country about the US role in the world I’m sure many people would say they would like the US to be world leader. I personally disagree but not everyone does.
As it was it was dictated by US corporations and negotiated in secret and killed by a dedicated lobbying effort by concerned citizens.
If we're able to be sued by US patent trolls or Apple for round corners, there's not a single company in this country that could afford to fight it. Singing happy birthday was never an issue in this part of the world.
No thanks.
This statement literally makes no sense to me. Care to elaborate? As it stands, I have to admit that your statement suggests to me that you haven't the vaguest idea about U.S. versus NZ IP laws and perhaps have also gotten the idea of strong vs. weak IP laws entirely backwards. Enlighten me, please.
Negotiation requires fluidly proposing alternatives in a give-and-take that ultimately leads to an agreement. When the items being given or taken are policies supported or opposed by members of the public, it would be self-sabotage for one half of the negotiation to expose its deliberations to public debate.
Imagine you’re a couple making an offer to buy a house. Do you think it would be smart to expose all your internal discussions about the purchase to the seller along with the offer? Do you think you’d ever succeed at buying a home at a good price if you always made such a disclosure?
I think this argument that a treaty was secretly negotiated is better understood as a general-purpose process argument that can be applied against any treaty or law, not as a meaningful criticism of any in particular. It’s just how the sausage is made.
If FTAs were too and if citizens groups were to have a say we'd be putting provisions for putting tariffs on if environmental and worker provisions are not respected rather than a semi private court process where corporations can sue governments for lost profits.
I'm not from NZ, but once the treaty text has been concluded the ratification process looks similar to Australia and involves fairly extensive public review (NZ process detailed [2]). You're welcome to read the couple hundred pages national interest analysis, economic analysis and cabinet papers on the treaty as well [3].
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200122083058/https://www.mfat.... [2] https://www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/About-us-Corporate/Treaties-... [3] https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/free-trade-agreements/free...
https://rymndp.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/us-withdrawal-on-tra...
It's funny how it's all turned out. Trump ditched the TPAA, and along with it all those onerous copyright laws everybody hated. So we got a nicely watered down version. China steps into the void. But now on the day the RCEP they championed is signed, China ups the ante on the trade war it's having with Australia. They've banned just our wine imports, and threatening iron ore is next.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/markets/r/ar-BB1b2NMT
The trigger for this trade war? Our prime minister called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, right after Trump intimated it was bio-engineered by China and they were engaged in a cover up. Right now China is engaged in what looks to be genocide against their Muslim population, the Uighurs, egregious breaking of agreements with the UK over Hong Hong, threats to Taiwan, destabilising "Island Building" in the South China Sea, and we choose to take a principled stand over a ... conspiracy theory.
I don't know what it feels like in NZ, but we Ozzies feel like we are living in interesting times.
Enlighten me, please.
We got Murdoch owning 90% of the news and the other 10% too scared to piss him off.
What's your excuse?
- Straya
...
More seriously though, my guess is this is normally the thing that would hit the news cycle a month or two out but because of covid and every media outlet in the world cashing in on the last few rounds of trump derangement I'm not surprised it was missed.
Trade treaties have long been used by countries for those ends. China in particular has heavily used economic power and arrangements to expand political influence. For example, loans to many countries are used to create leverage and sometimes seize valuable strategic assets when the debtors, which most observers knew were not creditworthy, cannot pay them back. For example, China has acquired ports that way (IIRC, the one in Sri Lanka?).
Also, regardless of the situation, China will have the most leverage in any negotiation of an economic treaty (as does the U.S., despite the disinformation that those treaties are to the U.S.'s disadvantage).
The source of the initiative, if that's the case (do you have evidence?) doesn't restrain China or protect the other countries.
It seems to me that over the last four years the Trump administration's increased isolationist attitude further incentivized a free trade agreement between ASEAN nations and their partners.
As the article says this should be viewed more as an economic unification of ASEAN and FTA partners, rather than China completely dominating Asia altogether.
I would guess it's a huge win for smaller SEA countries. China could dictate the rules before anyway (big = important) but now they're all supposedly going to play on a level field.
And ASEAN being behind this project, it probably benefits Singapore greatly.
Probably useful to specify what country you are in.
> Diary[sic] & associated products from NZ to India
NZ dairy is generally considered high quality and good cost, so it is unclear what the problem is here
> Chinese goods getting re-routed through Vietnam
People say this like customs enforcement agencies don't know about this. In some cases this is acceptable, but it depends on the exact trade rules about the amount of local content that needs to be added in a country.
The diary sector in India is largely unorganized , these are managed as daily livelihood for poor income families who have at best a few cows that provide them with livelihood. The co-operative sector in India mentioned how imports from NZ will wreck the system , for example the largest co-operative AMUL in India was against RCEP and imports from NZ (https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/rcep-amul-warns-mo...)
The exact trade rules and local content are in many cases impossible to vet and verify and are in many cases not transparent. And given the sentiment in India , no one will take chances with China
(No value judgement on your position though, I generally think that this treaty is a bad thing due to its role in expanding China's power and influence, when it should be contained.)
Yes this policy helps some rural families, but it also condemns all the other rural families to getting only variable quality, intermittently available, expensive dairy products. Every protectionist support for a local industry imposes a cost on everyone else, to the point where everyone benefits a bit from protection, but also pays costs on all the goods and services they themselves consume. It may even be sustainable, but only at the price of sacrificing the chance of a better future.
Change is painful, no doubt about it, but opening up to international markets can also mean opening up to international investment, technical skills and partnerships. It needs to be coordinated and there should also be transition plans to mitigate some of the pain. I do believe it’s for the best though.
So the strategy as a whole feeds a cycle of decrepitude, decay, and corruption. Since it's unsustainable, eventually the house of cards collapses and everyone at the bottom of the economic pyramid starves anyway.
It's a particularly nasty case of a policy measure harming the people it was supposed to help. There's an adage in economics, "trade favours the poor"⁽¹⁾. Mark it well.
As a rather extreme example, the so-called "Great Depression" of the 1930s was significantly exacerbated by protectionist trade policies, ostensibly rushed in to shore up local industries with tariffs; in practice this caused the already-declining global levels of trade to collapse entirely.
Protectionism is the opposite of investment and renewal, and an enemy of prosperity.
⁽¹⁾ there's a related saying in political science; "trade stops wars".
I agree with you in your assessment that protectionism breeds inefficiency, but you are imposing your strictly one sided take on 'what should be' without stopping to consider 'why it is',
it's an answer fit for a class of undergrads, quotes and all, but has little to no real world value as its so generalist in its assumption.
Economics is a black art, and subjectivity matters more than the principles.
This isn't some abstract argument. If you want to talk about India, notwithstanding that India is so vast and complex a nation that only the unwary say "India this" or "India that" broadly, the country had a decades-long history of protectionism since independence, trying to get by with very low levels of international trade, and this being a crucial factor in the 1991 economic crisis: the government had no foreign currency reserves at time when the balance of trade was catastrophic due to rising global oil prices and the demand for modern goods from abroad.
Liberalization of trade is not without its problems - in particular, increasing wealth inequities, and cultural imperialism by economic means. Nevertheless, the subsequent lowering of barriers corrected the crises and has defined India's catapult to the top levels of international manufacturing and service provision.
India's strength lies in its size and its ability to pool resources and technology.
Compared to China, India is way more open market, it's institutions are transparent.
Where India has failed vis-a-vis China is its unwillingness to use its market size and pooling ability and play its strengths. India's past economics has been driven by too many western educated economists who fail to see India as a unique case instead have always attempted to use a European or American template for economic development.
I think most assessment of the Indian economy put the blame on incredible amounts of bureaucracy as one of the main constraints on growth. The same ("we have to protect their jobs") argument is used to protect that.
Granted it is not nice to have corruption and it introduces gross inefficiencies. But that isn't the primary reason India is lagging behind China, nor is it entirely because of a lack of free markets.
One excellent example would be solar power, India could pool its market capacity, technological ability and finance to have built up a huge ecosystem, but instead it went the route of importing everything, even as it goes about building some of the largest solar projects in the world.
The Chinese are wealthy because they would never let go of such a golden opportunity.
If NZ produces dairy products more efficiently then they deserve the benefits. At the same time in India where manufacturing is far more efficient they have the opportunity to export as many manufactured goods to NZ as they want.
If the Indian government wants to tax their manufacturers to provide support to their now unemployed dairy farmers they are free to do so but ultimately both countries are better off with India paying overall less for dairy and NZ paying less for manufactured goods.
One example is US ITAR restrictions, which prevent certain technologies being exported.
Another is looking to protect local food supplies against foreign competition — eg, dairy co-ops from foreign mega farms.
There’s lots of empirical evidence that a mixed system is more stable with little to no loss to innovation.
Most recently, COVID demonstrated the problem with foreign supply chains.
Despite great pushes over the last forty years this remains in modern form to the present day and is seen by NZ farmers as an essential part of their success, as this has allowed them to pool resources and invest in the vertical integration (transport, factories, shipping) to compete overseas. A similar structure also exists in other countries (US with DFA milk, Denmark & Sweden with Arla are also in the top ten global dairy companies)
Until the early 1980s, NZ also operated a very protectionist trade policy dependent on access to traditional markets which ultimately failed badly. This experience and the (painful) resulting changes is a major reason why NZ is such a proponent of trade agreements and multilaterality more generally on the global stage.
The more immediate concern is that making millions of families dependent on government hand outs would be disastrous.
You are severely under estimating the cost efficiency of modern mass manufacturing vs a country with very little to no infrastructure in the segment.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/rcep-other-closed-door...
A note is many US alies, Aus, Japan, SK have signed up with this
Most likely the fact that the US becoming more isolationist forces traditional allies to enter into agreements that they wouldn't have considered previously. In this instance, this is the first trade agreement that has had China, Japan, and South Korea as signatories. Also, despite their posturing China is a HUGE economic power and everyone in the region would prefer to ride that wave instead of be crushed by it.
> Do they not fear alienating the US?
To a certain extent the US has alienated the rest of the world with it's "America first" Trump policy. This is just the logical progression of countries moving on to fill the economic power gap the US has left in the Pacific.
> I suppose once we scuttled the TPP they had no alternatives?
Lol. Everyone else went onto sign the CPTTP which went into effect 30 Dec 2018 which was largely identical to the original TTP, excluding the inclusion of the US of course.
The Western narrative of China is a bubble of alternate reality. This RCEP event shows you just how alternate it is.
Sovereign nations don't have foreign occupation forces. Japan and SK are occupied client/vassal/satellite states. We can call them allies if we want to save face, but if china or russia had occupation forces there, we'd call them vassals or satellites or client. Ultimately that's what they are.
We'd never call warsaw-pact nations sovereign states, wonder why we call japan or sk sovereign states?
There are no sovereign indigenous nations in australia. You will not find them as members in the UN, you will not find them on maps, they cannot form any sovereign treaties with other nations, etc.
The idea of "sovereign indigenous nations" is just virtue signaling. Maybe one day they will be free and sovereign nations, but I seriously doubt it.
Money apparently. China will lift its tariff against 90% of imports from Japan, increasing from 8% currently. Also Japan and Korea would have similar tariff treatment between each other. South Korea and China already had their own FTA, so it won't matter that much, but has no negative impact either.
Education is the other big item, Australian universities attract a lot of foreign students and that sector is a big money earner. On the radio this morning there was talk about standardizing qualifications making more Australian degrees recognized in member countries.
It comes along at a pretty interesting time there are a lot of tension between China and Australia at the moment. There's handwringing locally over China being granted 99 year ownership leases on some of our ports. Chinese telecom firm Huawei was blocked from our 5G network for "National security" etc.
China has been threatening to block (and in some cases have blocked) shipments of Australian products there have been tariffs on Australian Barley implemented etc, ostensibly in retaliation to some foreign affair stuff. Australia called for an international enquiry into origins of Covid which really annoyed China.
This is so fascinating! I knew Australia hosts a lot of Chinese students but they're really on their way to making education an export of theirs. Thanks for the perspective. I'm beginning to see the huge potentials of this treaty for the parties involved.
For this to even work, someone has to run current account deficit and runs capital account surplus (play the role of the US). No one is willing to lol.
NY times actually summarizes it pretty well: It has little impact on legal work, accounting or other services that cross borders, and does not venture far into the often-divisive issue of ensuring greater intellectual property protections https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/business/china-trade-rcep...
No one is willing to laugh out loud. I don't know what that means?
No one is willing to do it. Ha ha ha.
One thing is for sure, as an US expat in SEA, china is #1 economically in the region as far as investing, not because they are any good, but lack of will from US investors in large… and in this environment, I'm not so sure getting in now is best because the lack of high quality collateral available to back investments if things go south (or get hold up for years like they have with projects…)
I'm more interested in to see if this will translate to more offshore usage of the chy, and offshore chy loans… if not, things will remain status quo (boondoggles)…
I believe it's supposed to be "No one is willing to, lol". In this case "lol" is describing what the writer is feeling about this statement, not what the objects of his writing are doing.
The confusion is due to the missing ",". However, it can be surmised that the omission was for brevity or by accident, and not intentionally to convey a meaning which would otherwise be inconsistent with the preceding sentences.
Japan had a trade DEFICIT with china in 2019, 15B. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/23/business/japan-... "marking a second straight year of red ink amid slowing demand in China"
> Therefore, any attempts of decoupling or supply chain realignment will target South East Asia first in which China has a significant influence.
The governments of India, Vietnam, and Indonesia vehemently disagree with you. And it's not ATTEMPT. Supply chain moving away from China is fully underway for several years already. Foxconn already declared that China is no longer the world's factory. https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/08/12/foxconn-says-trad...
Which part they are disagree with?
For the Foxconn statement.. I'll wait and see, they are prone to overpromise
>"Such announcements are far from unusual for Gou, and often, nothing comes of them. In Vietnam in 2007, in Brazil in 2011, in Pennsylvania in 2013, and in Indonesia in 2014, Foxconn announced enormous factories that either fell far short of promises or never appeared."
https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wi...
Btw Foxconn just pivot back to China
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2020/05/07/iphone...
This is completely wrong. Japan has an overall trade deficit, but not with China. It runs a 30B trade surplus trading with China, according to Chinese foreign ministry[1].
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/gjhdq_676201/gj_676203/yz_67620...
This remains the biggest question, and imo would require china to invest a lot more uncollateralized in SEA than they do already (most doable), or import a lot more from SEA (I do not see this happening).
The simple reason being that it indicates that all these countries, including US allies, are willing to put their names on an agreement with China which will only serve to anger the US even if there is no material benefit in doing so.
That’s either a huge FU to the US, or more likely, them believing, unlike in 2016 after the TPP, that it’s more important to keep China happy because the US will have relatively less influence in the region.
Either way, it indicates that the leadership of the countries who signed up for this believe that the relative strength of the US vs China in the region has reduced.
If people think the investor covenant situation in the US is bad, it's that much worse in asia. A lot of money burning pits and lack of fast progress isn't really going to change unless the situation on the ground can actually improve and it wont happen from diktats (TPP, RCEP, etc) from above.
AFAIK, hacker new is moderated and only 1 article about a topic can show up on the front page.
https://twitter.com/EvanFeigenbaum/status/132806358305853030...
[1] https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/09/09/asia-s-future-beyon...
We are in the middle of the worst trade sanctions ever from China after one of our wonderful ministers went to the US and proposed to Mr Trump an international commission to investigate the origins of COVID-19 in China.
Those from Australia will recognize "a commission" as a way to bury a problem without getting anyone offside, but apparently no one told the Chinese this.
So now we have this stupid pointless commission we can't back down from, China stopped buying our exports, and no one in the US even aware that it was supposed to be a way to help the US out.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/us-ownership-of-aus...
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/07/gough-whitlam-dismissal-lette...
It's true that many Australian companies have significant US ownership, and that ownership has benefited hugely from Australia/China trade.
The Kerr dismissal has had numerous conspiracy theories surrounding it since 1975 when it happened.
If your point is "The US has a lot of influence in Australia" then I think it is better made by going to Canberra and looking straight out of Parliament House at the tallest statute in Canberra of the American Eagle staring down from the center of Australia's defence district.[1]
What's even worse is that this sets an ugly precedence where countries first detect a new disease may not want to announce it to the world due to the stigmatisation.
I've been pointing this out for a while on this board, and every time I've done so, I've been either downvoted, flagged or both. Hence the throwaway.
I also have no idea why people have this notion to reject that COVID-19 may not have originated from China, especially the fact that most of the spread of COVID-19 came from Europe, so much so that Gov. Cuomo actually called it the Europe virus. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article...
I worked on flu surveillance and monitoring projects for 3 years, and have a forecasting paper published in PNAS (although that was for dengue) so I have some idea how it works.
Most countries have flu surveillance networks, where they sample from general practitioners swabs and look for new strains. In most cases this works reasonably well.
In Australia we have ASPREN for influenza-like diseases. There are also compulsory notification diseases, but in the pre-COVID days these were mostly useful for things like detecting outbreaks of whooping cough or measles, and weren't really used as flu tracking or detection.
> I also have no idea why people have this notion to reject that COVID-19 may not have originated from China
Because the first large scale outbreak occurred in Wuhan in December 2019. It seems pretty odd that it should have originated in Europe, somehow avoided any outbreaks, travelled to China, then come back to Europe via people who have been traced where it suddenly caused a huge outbreak.
> especially the fact that most of the spread of COVID-19 came from Europe, so much so that Gov. Cuomo actually called it the Europe virus
I presume you and everyone knows why this was - that China locked down quickly and Europe didn't.
Look - I guess the European origin is possible. But it's a pretty out-there theory and it needs some pretty extraordinary evidence (and antibody studies aren't convincing on their own) as well as explanations for the problems outlined above. And there's huge evidence pointing to the China origin theory to overcome too.
Take the genomics - there's a single original strain, which was detected in China, and the mutations clearly come off that. Again -it could be possible that strain was transported there but no where else or something, but it is lots of coincidences here, whereas the China origin story fits everything about how every coronavirus we've ever studied before behaves.
Yes, I've read about the flu surveillance networks as well. However, these work well in theory, but not always in practice right? The past few years where I've seen the doctor in the UK, they've mostly dismissed anything wrong with me by just giving me some minor medication (this is probably in accordance to meet the waiting target), so things can always be missed out. I mean, there were reports that says the UK and US are best equipped to handle a pandemic, but in reality, we are seeing otherwise.
> Because the first large scale outbreak occurred in Wuhan in December 2019
I would personally say that the outbreak in Wuhan is not really that large scale when you compare it to what's been happening to the rest of the world. The largest scale of it is the media coverage of it since China did a full lockdown of the city. What's even more is that COVID did not seem spread to much of other parts of the country.
> Look - I guess the European origin is possible. But it's a pretty out-there theory and it needs some pretty extraordinary evidence
I had been sceptical about the origin being anywhere outside of China as well initially. But given that more and more news of the possible early detection in COVID in much of Europe before December 2019 (France, UK, Italy and Spain), it does seem to me like there is a greater possibility that COVID could have originated from outside of China. Again, outside of Wuhan COVID was pretty much non-existant in other Chinese cities, even though Wuhan was only locked down late January 2020.
Basically, I'm not saying COVID-19 definitely came from Europe or didn't originate from China, all I've been saying is to have an open mind instead of immediate finger pointing, which as my original comment alluded to, was what the Australian government did.
I'm not a medical doctor, but the common cold and influenza have very similar symptoms to non doctors but doctors are good at telling them apart.
> Basically, I'm not saying COVID-19 definitely came from Europe or didn't originate from China, all I've been saying is to have an open mind
No you complained that no one is listening to you and you get downvoted.
Open minds are great. But stop sharing this nonsense until there is better evidence because at the moment it seems pretty weak.
What do you mean? trade There's always a "Oh Australia should look for more export markets rather than just China" but there has also been great and deep support for building deeper trade and investment ties with China.
As a specific example, [1] is the Wine Australia export guide for China. They provide guides like this, run trade shows in China for Australian wine producers etc etc.
[1] https://www.wineaustralia.com/selling/by-market/export-marke...
I don't believe the Australian call for an investigation was genuine/scientific/objective at all. The call was meant as a political attack. There is no way Australia or the US would accept any investigation result that doesn't put the full blame on China. It's a case of 'guilty until proven innocent, and we won't accept evidence of innocence'.
This is shown by the fact that Australia and the US are not interested in investigating whether other countries (including their own) could be related to the origin, nor whether the response outside China has been adequate. Come on, if you're already set on a result, then why begin the investigation in the first place? And why divert resources to such an investigation, when there are much more urgent issues, such as fighting the virus? Such an 'investigation' only serves to legitimize prejudice and political agendas.
It does not surprise me in the least that China sees through these disingenuous intentions.
Earlier this year, China already pledged in front of the UN that they will allow an truly independent, scientific investigation, after the pandemic was over.
Furthermore, China's response to Australia isn't just the result of Australia's call to investigate China. China has been taking punches from Australia for years. Australia went full in on Trump's rhetoric about China being a bully/threat, and has been blasting China in its media for years now. Things inside Australia have escalated so much, that anybody with a Chinese origin is viewed with suspicion for being a potential CCP agent, even if no evidence exists, and even if said person was Australia-born. The COVID-19 investigation call is just the last drop.
Is China sometimes overly sensitive? Yes. Is China always in the right? No. But when you keep insulting a big customer, is it any surprise they chose not to buy from you anymore? The media seems to want to exlusively portrait Australia as a wholly-innocent victim, meaning that that they think it's okay to keep attacking China while being entitled to benefiting from China. In my opinion, Australia needs a dose of self-reflection too, and admit that they too played a part in deteriorating relations.
I hope you guys can continue sort things out at the negotiation table, and mend this broken relationship, rather than continuing to deny own responsibility and to deny this reality where China no longer be walked all over.
But I think you are radically underestimating the amount of support China has (or had) in Australia. China has made a lot of people rich (to make it clear: not from corruption, but from trade) and there is/was a lot of admiration for how far China has progressed in such a short period of time.
> I don't believe the Australian call for an investigation was genuine/scientific/objective at all. The call was meant as a political attack. There is no way Australia or the US would accept any investigation result that doesn't put the full blame on China.
The Australian Minister who made the call (Peter Dutton) did it just as he returned from a trip to the US. He's something of a mini-Trump (with a worse TV manner) and clearly made the call to get support from the US. It wasn't something that anyone else in government seems to have known about, and support for it has been lukewarm.
In an alternate world, China could have welcomed the call with the proviso that it included the response to the pandemic. The Australian public would have supported that (there is great contempt here for how badly the US handled it), and China could have weakened the Australia/US alliance from that.
> It's a case of 'guilty until proven innocent, and we won't accept evidence of innocence'.
I don't agree with that at all. I think in Australia most people think the Chinese response was good. I think there were initial errors by the regional government (which the Chinese government has already made clear by getting rid of those people) and the inquiry should have found that.
> This is shown by the fact that Australia and the US are not interested in investigating whether other countries (including their own) could be related to the origin
Well there's no real compelling evidence, but I'm sure that could have been included in the inquiry if China had gone to work influencing the terms of reference.
> Australia went full in on Trump's rhetoric about China being a bully/threat, and has been blasting China in its media for years now
This isn't true. Australia signed a free trade agreement the year before Trump came to power and was generally seen as a great trading partner.
Australia had been opposed to Chinese policy in the South China Sea, in Hong Kong and in Tibet, but didn't do anything to help Trump in his stupid trade war.
> Things inside Australia have escalated so much, that anybody with a Chinese origin is viewed with suspicion for being a potential CCP agent, even if no evidence exists, and even if said person was Australia-born.
I can't emphasise enough how strange it is to hear someone claim that. Over 1/3 the population of Australia was born outside Australia, and China is the second most common place of birth of those. I worked in the university sector and we funded almost as many PhD students from China as were born in Australia.
It's true there have been some recent spy cases uncovered. But these have included people with no family relationship to China as well as some born there.
> In my opinion, Australia needs a dose of self-reflection too, and admit that they too played a part in deteriorating relations.
Well I think this incident was entirely Australia's fault, and I think most people realise that and the media has acknowledged it.
But there is no face saving way for Australia to back down, and there is no political appetite in any Australian political party for being seen as bowing to Chinese pressure and suggesting the call would be withdrawn.
My point is that if China had been smarter about this they could have come out ahead in Australia while making the US look bad. Instead they play the "oh we are offended" card and have lost a lot of the support they enjoyed in Australia over it.
> The Australian Minister who made the call (Peter Dutton) did it just as he returned from a trip to the US. He's something of a mini-Trump (with a worse TV manner) and clearly made the call to get support from the US. It wasn't something that anyone else in government seems to have known about, and support for it has been lukewarm.
All right. There's a disconnect between the political class and the public.
Unfortunately, this is just one of the multiple diplomatic incidents. There seems to be quite a few China hawks in your government. For example, Australia was the first country to ban Huawei. This looks especially bizarre to me because 1) nobody has ever found proof that Huawei spies, 2) multiple intelligence agencies actually said that they're not worried, and 3) it has been proven that the US spies on its allies, yet nobody's talking about banning US equipment.
You mentioned that Australia doesn't want to be seen bowing to China, yet it looks to me as if you have no problems bowing to the US. And now that you did what the US wanted, they're not even coming to save you by e.g. buying from you. Doesn't sovereignty mean that you make your own decisions?
> Australia had been opposed to Chinese policy in the South China Sea, in Hong Kong and in Tibet, but didn't do anything to help Trump in his stupid trade war.
South China Sea: okay. I also agree that this South China Sea thing needs to be resolved.
But Tibet and Hong Kong? Those are landmines. As far as China is concerned, those are sovereignty issues, and any poking by outsiders is seen as neo-imperialism. And I'm not just talking about the government: the population at large is also not pleased at how foreigners keep poking into Chinese territorial issues. It's seen ast the last remains of 19th century humiliation, where western powers could walk all over China with guns and warships and put people on drugs (literally). I think many westerners don't realize just how sensitive those topics are, in part because they have a bad understanding of China's history (or just don't care at all).
> I can't emphasise enough how strange it is to hear someone claim that. Over 1/3 the population of Australia was born outside Australia, and China is the second most common place of birth of those. I worked in the university sector and we funded almost as many PhD students from China as were born in Australia.
What do you think of these events? Demanding that Chinese-Australians (who were born in Australia) testify in front of parliament that they unconditionally condemn CCP. This looks like "guilty until proven innocent" to me?
https://archive.is/PwwXN (bypasses SCMP paywall)
https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-was-born-in-australia-why-...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/16/eric-...
> My point is that if China had been smarter about this they could have come out ahead in Australia while making the US look bad. Instead they play the "oh we are offended" card and have lost a lot of the support they enjoyed in Australia over it.
Oh yes, I agree with that. China's public communications and attitude is terrible. They have problems dealing with things in a way that makes westerners comfortable.
Oh the other hand, the reverse is also true: many westerners lack an understanding of China's history, as well as what topics are sensitive and why. They believe western ideology is (or ought to be) universal, and dismiss alternative perspectives out of hand. That doesn't help either.
China is like that Asian kid who's had to endure racism all his life but was afraid to speak up. Now that he built muscles he overcompensates by getting angry at everything he doesn't like. Everybody gets surprised at that behavior and thinks he's just being sensitive for nothing.
I hope both sides can work towards better mutual understanding and cooperation.
It's absolutely a good point and I think under the Trump administration for the first time there was appetite to question this. In a different world China would have taken advantage of that.
Did you know the US failed to appoint an ambassador to Australia for nearly 2 years?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambassadors_of_the_U...
Australia felt pushed aside by the US.
> What do you think of these events? Demanding that Chinese-Australians (who were born in Australia) testify in front of parliament that they unconditionally condemn CCP. This looks like "guilty until proven innocent" to me?
Yeah sorry about Eric Abetz.
He's pretty much a wack job, and lives to offend people. Do a search for his name on any news site and see what else he's said.
I can't and won't defend him. I'd note that your 3rd link was about how the other parties in parliament tried to get him to apologize and only failed along party lines.
I agree with your characterisation of Chinese/Western relations. I'd note in addition that China clearly decide a couple of years back to take advantage of the US's confused Asia policy and has been quite aggressive because they see a time window to act in.
So, not so big. It rubber stamps the status quo without concern for humanitarian or environmental issues. It marks a "win" for business owners, not workers.
Probably following Deng Xiaoping advice "Let Some People Get Rich First"
What Xi is doing now, such as halting major IPOs because of perceived criticism from successful CEOs, is more akin to Mao's sensitive nature than Deng's economic leadership.
Let's be clear that the consensus now is that the regulatory changes were anticipated to come, and the power broker war manifested in halting ANT IPO.
Of course, Xi is very likely to be responsible for the stop of ANT IPO (no one really can have a substantial evidence, because of the Chinese government's way of operation).
But the worrying part is not that Xi has the power, he always has and will continue to have. One should be surprised if Xi somehow lost that power.
The worrying part is that a unprecedented financial monster feed on the huge data harvested from Chinese citizens privacy (not that Xi really cares about privacy) and practicing a risky lending scheme that is larger than any equivalent US counterpart, were let to rush into IPO in less than 30 days. And can only be stopped by a dictator in a totalitarian country
Everyone should be worried about the power wielded by private cooperation nowadays, they are able to challenge a totalitarian government. Image what they can do in a democratic country...
Historically, major merchants won battles with the Chinese imperial government. Being "able to challenge" the communist party and lose is a step down.
Enlighten me, please.
But if you want a more literal example of winning battles with the emperor, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga .
But fundamentally, the relation between opium trading and what we are discussing here is nonsensical.
Opium trading is illegal, and hurting the people. It was invented to compensate the trade deficit of Britain [4].
It reflects little of the people's own judgement. Heck, one can reasonably state that Chinese people in 1840s are totally incapable of independent thinking, because of the long tradition of Chinese rulers' policy of "dumb down the peasants".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_opium_at_Humen [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humen [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War#Opium_trade
You describe what happened but not why. Merchants inside and outside of China wanted to exchange goods and imperial China wanted to restrict this. War was the result.
> one can reasonably state that Chinese people in 1840s are totally incapable of independent thinking
It's interesting that you say this because this is China's current position, that Chinese people in 2020 are too dumb for democracy. It's just another excuse used by those in power to subjugate the population.
Embracing people's lack of knowledge and encouraging them to find good ideas on their own is a feature, not a bug.
You instead should focus on the fact that Qing dynasty had a very weak government, which is neither capable of manage her own internal affairs, nor defend herself from foreign invasions.
That's totally different from Xi's China, which can rule China like a company forcing citizens to behave in certain manners, while also project it's influence far and deep.
The stakes during the so-called "Opium Wars" can be seen in the agreements made at the end of it [1],
- China would not establish any more monopolies over its domestic trade
- Several more Chinese ports would open up to foreign trade
- Chinese law would not restrict practicing Christianity
- Foreign diplomats would be allowed permanent stations in Beijing
- Foreigners would be permitted to travel within China
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tientsin#Major_point...
Yes, China/Britain have long since cracked down on opium trade and that has been a joint effort. What of it? The devil is in the details. The "Opium Wars" were about more than drugs and it is reductionist to only look at its impact on the drug trade.
> And use it to prove that domestic merchants can challenge ccp and force the current Chinese government to change behavior is as about nonsensical as claiming Trump did a perfect job in fighting COVID-19...
The desires of Chinese people certainly do impact their government's actions.
This seems a little broad. The Qing dynasty covers a period of about 300 years. Sometimes they were very strong. Sometimes they were weak. But even that is kind of a shallow view of things.
They enforced a law that all Chinese males had to wear the Manchu hairstyle. This was incredibly unpopular, but it stuck.
They also banned the binding of women's feet. That ban had no effect at all.
Where do those two positions belong on a scale of "government strength"? They look objectively similar to me.
It seems that claiming out of context statements on China becomes a standard now?
This was possible because people are killed in tens of thousands.
How is that even relevant to the discussion of whether or not today’s Chinese merchants can force government policy changes?
A single person isn't responsible for anything in a major country. Especially a country the size of china. Whenever you are told it is, you are being fed propaganda. Whether it's Xi, Putin, Trump, etc.
> What Xi is doing now, such as halting major IPOs because of perceived criticism from successful CEOs
See what I mean. Do you think Xi called any journalist at the WSJ or bloomberg and told them he's going to halt Ant's IPO because of what Jack Ma said? Or do you think it is nonsense "journalists" made up because they needed a story to sell? Sort of like how everyday after the bell, the news gives us a reason for why the dow went up or down a few points? Do you just believe nonsense you read in the newspaper?
> is more akin to Mao's sensitive nature than Deng's economic leadership.
Oh god, it's amazing how people just parrot propaganda. Yeah, deng's "amazing economic leadership". But there is no deng's economic leadership without mao meeting nixon. And mao doesn't meet nixon without hundred or thousands of sino-american meetings behind the scenes. Do you think Mao just decided on a whim one day to meet nixon? Do you think Deng was the one that set out china's econonic goals? Or do you think in a nation of 1.4 billion people, they had help?
Do you think that Ant's IPO was halted because of Xi and what Jack Ma said or do you think it was because china's regulatory agencies and intelligence apparatus had issues with it?
Just think about it. Everyone has the capacity to think and reason. Lucky for the news industry, most people don't bother otherwise, they'd be out of business.
Interestingly it started with a table tennis player
This makes no sense. If China were completely isolated, it would still have corrected to the point where it could operate without everybody just dying in the streets. And that correction would have been a suite of economic reforms, since the economic policies were what was making everybody die in the streets. An interaction with the United States might have hastened this, or included some minor US-specific side effects, but over the long term it's meaningless.
I read your statement as the same idea.
As for what factors are working in addition to Deng, you might think one way, which is indeed the case; but the OP thinks Mao's work is a part of that as well, which also makes sense.
In the end, I doubt anyone can settle the details here. As CCP does not disclose historical records as openly as US. So literally no one has the data to prove one way or the other.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/RCE...
Japan to China tariff reduction went from 8% to 86%. Doesn't seem like a status quo to me.
> A paper from the Peterson Institute for International Economics by Peter Petri and Michael Plummer cites modelling showing that it will raise global GDP in 2030 by an annual $186bn (compared with a gain of $147bn from the CPTPP).
Years later, you can analyse the data.
The costs of Australia’s “free trade” agreement with America
https://insidestory.org.au/the-costs-of-australias-free-trad...
> Enough time has now passed and there is enough data to update the Productivity Commission’s model to estimate the effect of AUSFTA on trade. What this shows is that the agreement was responsible for reducing – or diverting – $53.1 billion of trade with the rest of the world by 2012. Imports to Australia and the United States from the rest of the world fell by $37.5 billion and exports to the rest of the world from the two countries fell by $15.6 billion over eight years to 2012.
2. There were casualties on both sides. “Chinese soldiers kill our people“ You made it sound like Chinese soldiers killed civilians. Do you have any credible sources to back up your claim?
I believe my government in this respect. So that is enough evidence.
> There were casualties on both sides.
I should hope so! China should not be able to get away with illegal encroachment and murder without any cost.
The point is that China keeps on extended their claim of what border looks like for them, showing centuries old maps and treaties. Its not just limited to India. They captured few villages from neighboring country Nepal, last year their was a similar issue at doklam in bhutan where India had to step in. They have territorial disputes with All countries, even the region where China doesn't even share border by creating artificial Islands.
It's not about losing small region, but about future consequences, they'll proclaim more land. In fact, No body understand's how they could proclaim and ENTIRE STATE of India (Arunachal Pradesh), which has Its own Democratically elected Govt, since country's independence.
The Chinese Land Grab needs to stop. It's straight up Bullying.
Of course every Indian source stated that India were on the side of justice, just like Chinese media also gave a bias in favor of China. The thing is, there's no way to know which side is telling the truth. None of their sources can be considered credible on this.
You can try keeping only the "facts" as described by the Indian media in the corresponding Wikipedia entry[1] and see if others agree. My point is: You can't just assert that a unilateral statement is a fact.
> They captured few villages from neighboring country Nepal
"Nepal government says Nepal doesn't have border dispute with China"[2]
"Nepal denies claims of construction by Chinese side within its territory"[3]
Your news sources don't look that credible.
In fact, not only are there no disputes between Nepal and China, but instead there are disputes between Nepal and India.[4]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_China%E2%80%93India_skirm...
[2]: https://reddit.com/r/Nepal/comments/iybcbj/nepal_government_...
[3]: https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/nepal-denies-claims-of-c...
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Nepal_border#Bor...
The current crisis ongoing between Nepal and India is the starting point of all this. If you follow the timeline, it was after the Nepal suddenly woke up after 30 years and started laying claims on territory which was agreed to be part of India. The current sitting govt. is highly biased for the communist, to the extent that somehow the Chinese Envoy has 'special' meetings with PM and internal handling. It's a known fact. There is strategic shift since the new PM who is has communist leaning was sworn in, since day one. Whilst, India shared Open border with Nepal during all this time, Nepal was like a brother, we had everything to share with them.
It is due due to foreign interference from Chinese side these chain of events started taking place. In Past Indian Govt. was very hesitant about border clashes but now it seems like they have had enough of the bullying.
Are you really denying the expansionism by China? If you only care about hyperlink to so called 'International Credible News Sources they're not free from Foreign interference either.
There are issues in past even with Sri-Lanka, The Chinese side has occupied an entire port by debt trap policy. The Thread posed by Chinese Expansionism is real.
> but instead there are disputes between Nepal and India.
There are 2 disputes of minor region. There is no Denial of change in behavior from nepal's side, how come after decades Free trade, Open Borders, where Nepal citizen could literally get their bags and visit any city in India, decide to show their back? that too all of sudden? never in history there was a crisis like this.
Look at the larger picture, China has highest number of territorial disputes , South China Sea, Indian Border Dispute, I wonder how world has forgotten Take over of Tibet. Even Taiwan, Mongolia, Australia, Japan, They internally suppressing millions of Uighurs Muslims voices, and not to forget Hong Kong. They're debt trapping poor nations - in the name of investment they bring everything from China sounds fair enough until even the laborers are from China, its a fishy business, to an extent where they had dock yards and port in their name... It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the way leads, China's been bully for more than a decade now.
1, The first wikipedia article (the first link) I referenced was not to take it as a source, but to point out that India's unilateral statement is not convincing enough to bring consensus to the table. You missed my point.
2, The second wikipedia article (the fourth link) I referenced is something that all sides already agree on, and is adequately sourced. There's nothing wrong with using Wikipedia entries to give quick access to information to people.
3, I think you may have misunderstood something, HN is not an academic journal, and you would fully expect people to cite Wikipedia entries all the time[1].
> Nepal was like a brother, we had everything to share with them.
This was what India did in 2015: "Nepal border blockade: Hospitals running out of drugs"[2]. And you are calling "Nepal was like a brother"?
> Are you really denying the expansionism by China? If you only care about hyperlink to so called 'International Credible News Sources they're not free from Foreign interference either.
Please don't misinterpret a request for a reliable source as a denial.
I never said that the sources had to be from so called "International Credible News Sources".
After all this time, you have not even been able to give news sources from the mainstream credible media in India's ally, the United States, that support India's claims. (Not just quotes, media also quote the Chinese side)
You keep broadening the scope of the discussion. But those "backgrounds" you introduced, true or not, add little credibility to the India statement you support.
——
Let's end this discussion. At first I replied to "perryizgr8" just wanted to know why he asserted that "Chinese soldiers kill our people on the border", which sounds like they were killing civilians for no reason. By his/her reply, I understood that he/she was just blindly listening to his/her own government. The phrase "kill our people" is just his/her way of adding fuel to the fire, which is unintentionally or intentionally misleading.
[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/asia/nepal-border-blockade-dr...
India isn't protecting it's manufacturing from china, but rather ASEAN. China has already moved up the manufacturing value chain. The low end stuff has been getting shipped to ASEAN countries for more than a decade.
> If India adopted the chinese model (what americans call "cheating")
The "chinese" model is actually the american model. It's what japan and the asian tigers all modeled their economy around.
> it could probably compete against china even with a free trade arrangement, but they're probably not going to do that.
Compete in what capacity? China and India are in different leagues now. It's sad that people really believe the nonsense they read on the news. India is even behind ASEAN countries like vietnam when it comes to manufacturing.
Nothing you wrote made any sense.
[1] https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/chinas-transitioning-ec...