They can. The western world can’t afford to be without China’s manufacturing, though.
The ones who can't afford to be without China's manufacturing are big tech companies like Apple. Perhaps they will take a huge hit but it's hard to imagine them going out of business. I remember the Apple of the mid 90's and how close they came to going out of business. Now, with the enormous cash hoard and other capital they've accumulated, I can easily imagine them surviving for many years even if they were cut off completely from all their manufacturing in China.
Cutting off all reliance on China would be economic suicide for any individual nation unless every one mutually agrees on it. Best of luck getting that to happen.
Nah, you need to read/watch Secret History of Silicon Valley to understand this is false. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Obviously, not having to rebuild your country helps. But thinking this is the only or even main reason is very shortsighted, IMO.
In the past I would have said "there's no way that we would tolerate that," but for the last two years we have seen substantially diminished standard of living already due to [redacted], the monetary response to [redacted], and the policy response to [redacted], but now that we've seen that it is conceivable that the US would go a more austere route now. I also have seen now that no one in our leadership believes in anything or has any principles, so radical shifts really are possible.
With Vietnam, a lot of its recent development is related to expansion of Chinese foreign direct investment with substantial percentage increases every year in recent years. A lot of the notions about Vietnamese hostility to China and Chinese business is out of date and becoming more out of date.
There's virtually no US industry that is not heavily dependent on Chinese industry for refined materials, intermediate goods, and consumer goods. A lot of substitution could conceivably happen at higher prices, but really the way that we get out of it is defaulting on the government's medical obligations to the boomers and rededicating the money that was slated to giving them their to-the-grave care to industrial redevelopment.
The pandemic has forced technology companies to push harder on communication products and development of virtual places.
Severely diminished trade with China would require an acceleration in manufacturing technology on a scale that could only be borne out of necessity.
Recognizing that robotics technology is orders of magnitude more challenging than an improved Zoom interface, It won’t come easy. But the demand will be there and so would be the creativity to overcome the challenges.
I think when it comes to articulating this to the public and to the government, I would never say "robots are replacing all skilled labor," because that would predispose the legislator or the staffers supporting the legislator to think about what they could do to quash it.
Fwiw, I see only a downward trend in the effectiveness of governments larger than cities to contain or regulate technology. What is possible is changing too fast.
Note that the last major riot against China in Vietnam was way back in 2014. As long as China doesn't do anything aggressive in the SCS, the Vietnamese should come to like China again, however the chances of the former happening are very slim.
I'm not a fan of the heavy dependence on Chinese manufacturing as it comes at huge human rights/ecological costs (in that order), but companies typically care about the bottom line above all else. How the product is made is less important typically than whether or not it __is__ made.
And it's a simple truth that right now a lot of companies are heavily dependent on China for production of goods, and if the US/UK unilaterally were forced to drop Chinese Manufacturing without time to plan, it would be pretty devastating to a lot of businesses.
Please don't misread this as "no action should ever be taken against China", as absolutely that is not my position; moral stands sometimes have a significant cost. Same with changes for a more sustainable future, you might need to have a higher upfront cost than you may want.
That doesn't mean these changes are bad, it just means that there is a non-trivial cost to consider. For me, this is a no brainer, as I like to look more towards the future and have the comfort zone to do so. Many businesses do not have that comfort zone, and regardless of the reason they're in that position, it's a reality for them that losing their chinese suppliers is a deathknell for them.
I'm not trying to propose anything except that I can understand why some businesses are against taking strong stances against Chinese manufacturing; I don't action _shouldn't_ be taken if China is not behaving well, just to be clear. But I can understand where people are coming from if they are opposed to it, as they don't want to bite the hand that feeds so to speak.
But I don’t imagine Western nations will ever remove their embassies from China, as OP suggests. Those are useful for both official and backchannel communications, and have no bearing on nation’s leverage over the other.
China is just as dependent on the clients of those factories.
Your suggestion is that the rest of the world should play nice with China, and accept an invasion of a free nation (Taiwan) and its people because not doing so would hurt Chinese nationals within China?
Chinese people suffering due to the CCP is bad, certainly. But what's worse is another country (having nothing to do with the CCP) suffering for it.
So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China. Hence why everyone (from Putin, to China to even our allies the US) are so invested in breaking EU apart (and even succeeding - the Brexit).
Second largest, at $17.1tn, after the US ($22.7tn), but ahead of China ($16.6tn).[1]
> is by far the wealthiest region on the planet
North America is the wealthiest region, with the United States alone having a total wealth of $126tn. European wealth is around $103tn.[2]
1. World Economic Outlook Database, April 2021
2. https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...
Unfortunately (?) not. By nominal GDP the US is the largest. By PPP-adjusted GDP China comes first.
> So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China.
On approximately equal terms, yes, probably.
The West will not go, and die without one xmass season, and a new Iphone 99.
But Western elites all holding stocks of companies valued in trillions will do.
I requires a healthy conversation in society about this. It will come to a time when people will have to decide what to do with these people.
Potential adversaries now do things which just 15 years ago would've meant a real hot war with the whole Western world by leveraging their financial influence on Western elites, and a threat of bankrupting them.
Not selling to a citizen of China regardless of race (not all Chinese are from the same race) is much different than not selling to anyone who has a Chinese gene.
The nation state you think China and the US to be doesn't exist.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna12...
As the article already mentions: "While Biden performed well among Asian Americans, the data suggest that Trump didn't lose support with the group, either."
If the support didn't go down doesn't that mean the level of support hasn't changed? And this election wasn't an outlier for this group?
I think you are being a bit too idealistic and have quite honestly drank the Kool-Aid and forgot about the original purpose of why America dislikes China. They are a rising power seeking to disrupt the current one. Good playing American jobs have been cut and Chinese jobs have sprang up in their place. People who had those jobs are now experiencing a reduced quality of life.