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Comment by jaredklewis | Hacker News Reader

> The question is how did we let it go this far?

Because allowing countries to maximize their comparative advantages is great for economic growth. It doesn’t make sense for every nation on earth to have their own copy of every industrial sector. We don’t need all nations to manufacture their own jet engines, oil tankers, t-shirts, and Tylenol. Trade is good.

The idea that China is a major security threat is basically brand new. Half of century of economic policy can’t be reversed in 5 years.

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Great for who's economic growth? As in, when staring at the graph of GDP vs wages plotted over the last 50 years, that big-ass pie slice that everyone's excited about? That appears to have ended up in roughly 800 people's pockets. Meanwhile even mention domestic manufacturing in the country that basically invented consumer electronics and kazoo music starts playing in the background. grits teeth We knew NAFTA was bullshit, we knew it was going to break basically everything, and yet folks just couldn't quite get mad enough to scare the political elite badly enough to back off. I love my country, we have always been at war with Eurasia, I am going the fuck to bed.

For humanity? It is the same reason most of us don't grow our food or make our shoes. Specialization makes a lot of sense. Western tech wouldn't have been able to grow as fast if electronics manufacturing were not concentrated in China. It is (was?) a win-win.

One of those "wins" was based entirely on toxic wealth hoarding by financial elites, which is why we are we are, with the flailing remains of a US government taking a hatchet to science and education while infrastructure crumbles around it, and climate change alternately floods and burns prime real estate.

So in reality, not so much.

>>The idea that China is a major security threat is basically brand new

You're kidding right?

timing is important

China is always a 'security threat' to the US since 1946, but it never get a high priority untill now

- 1946-1991 Cold War with Soviet - 2001-2017 Global War on Terror in MiddleEast - 2018-now Trade War and Chip War with China

I highly doubt the memory capacity of americans, it seems like americans can only remember things that are "present"

it's just like the meme

1. Remove the chip 2. Overwrite Iraq -> China 3. Insert the chip click 4. "China is our destined enemy"

> China is always a 'security threat' to the US

Only because its been recently revealed that everyone is a security threat to the US.

No. I guess it’s a matter of degree but my memory of the 90s, 00s and even early 2010s the middle east and North Korea both received far more attention from the press and politicians than China. China seemed to be on a trajectory towards a free market and less repressive government. I don’t feel like the current “cold war” esque situation set in until the late 2010s but maybe I’m wrong? What’s your take?

You are so very wrong.

Just one example around free market: China's private sector has lost ground as state sector has gained share among top corporations since 2021 https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/chinas-privat...

2021 is not recent for you?

I'm responding to "China seemed to be on a trajectory towards a free market and less repressive government"

I thought the point being made was that this trajectory has been reversed recently.

It's been a gradual shift with rising and falling tensions and various flare-ups, but if I had to pick a date I would pin it to around 2012, when Xi Jinping became the leader of China and began taking a more hardline stance.

You're right it's definitely a matter of degree. And I would have to say early 2000 when Clinton signed the trade agreement with them. That is when our manufacturing capacity started moving to China and with that our security. It's of course way more complex than that but..

> The idea that China is a major security threat is basically brand new

That’s what I was taught when I grew up in the 1989ies.

China is a nuclear power and has been recognized as a major security threat since they acquired nuclear weapons (in the sixties?).

But your last sentence is true. Politicians and corporate executives failing to accurately extrapolate long-term consequences have not done us any favors over the past 50 years, and now we’re super fucked. It’d be hard even if we still had a competent government instead of the smoking ruin in progress.

(Thomas Friedman and his globalization-is-brilliant shtick making people think this was all OK wasn’t great either.)

> The idea that China is a major security threat is basically brand new.

And as far as I can see, that idea comes from China simply having grown its economy to a size comparable to that of the USA, nothing else?

But everyone during the Chinese miracle growth (from 1980's to today) expected China would've become the largest economy in the world by the 2020's. I guess people just didn't really take that seriously until it actually became true?

Exactly. We knew perfectly well it was coming, for decades, and we knew perfectly well the US would have put up a fight to prevent it. Not a competition, a fight: real and fake accusations, FUD, tariffs, or even actual war.

Now the time has come and we're in the middle of it. At least, I hope this is not just the beginning.

They expected China to grow in a way that would lead to the "west" exerting much more control over China than they ended up with today. Basically they wanted more western-style capitalism, reduction of state control, etc...

Now China is very strong, and the west exerts very little influence

China is weak, its current economic engines of real estate and internal consumption has failed. It is currently heavily dependent on export, of which, sanctions and tariffs on China would wreck their economy.

They account for 30% of global manufacturing, have the second largest GDP (largest GDP PPP), and are rapidly developing in the tech sector. Not weak by any means

China would have a hard time economically without being able to sell to the US. But it's been developing markets and economies in Rest of World, especially Africa. And its internal market is huge.

Meanwhile this is a thread about the US tech and retail sectors being unable to survive at all without imports from China.

Turns out offshoring was one of the most self-harmingly stupid decisions in US economic history.

Still - at least it prevented worker unionisation. So that was such a win for corporate America.

"tariffs"

My memory is not very good, but it seems that something similar has happened 4 years ago, do you remember?

We hoped China would grow into a Korea or Japan, instead we got ourselves a Russia.

So in essence a colony or puppet state? Thankfully China avoided that. And is not controlled by others like Soviet satellites were.

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