Why won't the US?
I truly become the time for decoupling from China has come. It will require a massive economic cost. China's economy will suffer greatly and many millions will be prevented from overcoming poverty.
And, it's worth it. It's absolutely necessary to ensure our country's security. We just can't depend on an adversary for critical goods.
This feels like economic policy from the 18th century. The decline of mercantilism and expansion of free trade ushered in modern global prosperity. Tariffs, protectionism, and trade wars still exist, but nothing like what you're suggesting. It's not just China's economy that would be affected - the developed world lives on cheap foreign goods, and any politician that suggests sacrificing that much quality of life for "security" wouldn't last long.
The majority of the world consider their quality of life depend on stuff like jobs, housing, healthcare and childcare, not having cheap e-waste.
Sure, it's nice that now I can afford to watch 4k movies beamed wirelessly to my phone which is a powerful computer in my palm, while I'm on the toilet in my tiny apartament, but I'd rather be able to afford a bigger apartment and be contempt with older shiny tech.
I'm not against free trade between nations, I'm against imbalanced free trade. We're trading with partners who are on the opposite spectrum of labor laws, environmental laws, etc,. making local workers/companies unable to compete in the race to the bottom, costing a lot of working class jobs and environmental damage be x10 except not in our back yard.
They don't have to be. Speaking of toothbrushes, a lot of cheap stuff can be made in the west. For example my local DM (European version of CVS/Wallgreens) is full of toothbrushes made in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and one time I even got an US made Oral-B which I loved but can't find anymore, all costing not significantly more than the toothbrushes made in China.
Plenty of cheap stuff in my house is made in the west as well: my plastic garbage can is made in Switzerland, my plastic AeroPress and its paper filters are all made in the US, the list could go on.
Till the early 00's I could buy Blackberries, Siemens, Nokia and Ericsson phones made in their respective home countries, while not costing more than Chinese made flagship phones cost today adjusted for inflation and purchasing power.
The mass offshoring of manufacturing to China mostly benefits the shareholders as they can pocket the savings since obviously they aren't passing them down to the consumer if Chinese made goods cost nearly as much as those made in wealthy developed countries.
I'm not against free trade, but tariffs should have been left in palce to level the playing field and tariffs only would have hurt corporates profits and executive compensation, not working class prosperity which was at an all-time high before the mass offshoring of jobs.
Disruption to trade with China would affect prices in proletarian supermarkets in the short-term, which would be a huge problem when millions of Europeans (and their counterparts in other Western countries) are already complaining of inflation.
You write of having been able to buy European electronics at competitive prices, but that was long ago and Europe has already lost the whole production landscape that enabled such quality at competitive prices.
The struggling people who are struggling because their working class jobs were offshored and instead must find consolation in being able to only afford dirt cheap Chinese-made stuff? The irony is not lost on me.
Plus, most of peoples' biggest current expenses are education, housing and healthcare, not that a toothbrush costs $1.99 and not $0.99.
>Disruption to trade with China would affect prices in proletarian supermarkets in the short-term
"Oh look, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions".
Sure, now a trade disruption would suck, but my point was that we could have kept developing industrial capacity and jobs in the west and it wouldn't be this way if we haven't offshored so much manufacturing to China so quickly in the first place, chasing short term profits at the expense of everything else, especially since none of those profits went to the working class who's jobs were gone.
Other cheap stuff in the supermarket, like bananas, is basically tied to slave labor in those countries, but I can live without cheap bananas and not support slave labor.
If you think that, you are looking at things from an elite perspective. You might want to look at any national subreddit in the last couple of years and read some threads about inflation and how people are feeling the squeeze and having to deny themselves all kinds of ordinary things. As I said, this is not just toothbrushes, that was a mere example, it is almost every non-food product a person would have to buy.
Can u give the examples of the essential items that has to come from China?
> r
Please don’t do this on HN.
Until shit hits the fan, then it's a free for all
https://www.rfi.fr/en/europe/20200402-china-coronavirus-face...
I actually don't know why I'm supposed to hate China, or Russia I don't though. I understand these countries have problems but so do all countries. I think working for peace is the way to go, not fabbing our own chips and encouraging tribalism...
I truly feel deeply that the world we're moving towards will actually send us "backwards" and not forwards. We'll end up isolationists, all technology and economic progress will slowdown at a time when the developing worlds population is already declining quite rapidly, I don't think this will end well?
Agree with working together but many leaders don't see it that way, so it's best to remain realistic and be prepared for bad scenarios.
The reality is, America sent many things overseas to be manufactured because it was cheaper, and I don't really see this changing in the near future, at least at scale. If India starts producing chips that work just as well as American chips and if they're cheaper than what's available in the USA, you will be using Indian chips and American manufacturing firms will either have to work for cheaper (unlikely) or offshore as well.
Where I live, we sent fruit grown locally, halfway across the country to a market, and then we buy them back at a higher price, this is clearly the stupidest thing ever on so many levels, but economics is a bitch.
That's a long way off, still.
Just the other day, I spotted an India-made Arduino style board on RISC-V Exchange.
Followed the link, saw there were several flavors & revisions, and with a "buy" link below. So.. how much? "Please login".
So, some university-developed academia/student only thingie.
That's just pathetic. Meanwhile, I bought a made-in-China, 4-core board with decent GPU, 8GB RAM, lots of modern peripherals for ~€100, mass produced, 2 day shipping (Germany warehouse -> NL).
There's smaller boards + chips popping up left & right (like Milk-V Duo, BL808, a ~$0.10 uC, etc) from Chinese vendors. Not to mention high-end offerings.
Sure, India will get there. They'll have their fabs (if they haven't already some halfway large/modern fabs).
But the path from "we're gonna make our own CPUs" to having a mature, diverse, mass producing semiconductor industry with a matching local talent pool & investment capital, is a long one. Silicon Valley & Hong Kong / Shenzhen took decades to become the powerhouses they are.
India is taking their first steps on this path but they have a long way to go (but letting uni students tinker with RISC-V designs, is a good start :-).
If China starts making good RISC-V chips at half the price of the USA. I bet you will be seeing a lot of Chinese chips in the USA…
If China makes more better chips cheaper it will not be financially viable to do what you’re talking about.
Take a look at the state of automobiles which is not that liberalized unlike electronic manufacturing for some reasons.
Only one new car in the U.S. now sells for under $20,000 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitsubishi-mirage-cheapest-new-...