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Comment by nixon_why69 | Hacker News Reader

Eh. Industrial policy in a big country is always the output of politics between stakeholders, anthropomorphizing it to a "guy with a plan", especially an "overlord" looking to "annihilate" is probably getting it wrong.

A friend of a friend is married to a member of the national academy of sciences in China. I heard at dinner a few years ago that he had been lobbying for more onshoring of chip production for years before the Nvidia restrictions, and always heard "you're right, maybe next year we'll be able to fund that". Then the restrictions came in and everything changed.

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There are literal 5 year plans, eh?

And they are more about sounding good than about reality. They also affect a much smaller share of the economy than they used to -- which is very good! The original five year plans caused nothing but misery and starvation.

I’m pointing out it’s disenguous to say ‘it’s not like there was a plan’, when there was explicitly a plan with that title on it. Especially if the plan didn’t work out well.

It's disingenuous to characterize "don't anthropomorphize the political process" as saying no planning documents exist as part of that process.

And, to the point I was responding to originally, we can check those documents! They don't speak of "annihilating" other countries' industrial capacities.

>They don't speak of "annihilating" other countries' industrial capacities.

Why would they have to?

When China talked about their 5 and 10 year plans on solar panels there was no need to talk about putting the rest of the competitors out of business. That was a highly probable end goal of what they were doing, no need to state it.

It would be like Walmart stating "We're going to put out massive loss leaders in sporting goods to put X out of business". Instead they'll talk about growing market share and long term customer loyalty.

I'm sorry, I'm not following. Is the problem here that China is too capitalist or too communist?

Yes.

More of, China is smart enough to use the benefits of both capitalism and authoritarianism to grow their country while western governments are busy stealing the furniture and fixtures off the walls.

I agree with 100% of that comment but I'm struggling to understand the beef?

Of course they're trying to take care of themselves while the US implodes, how can you blame them for that? The whole world has a serious oil problem right now, because of US actions, and of course each country is dealing with it in their own way. Why is that a problem?

You do realize that a lot of people have had problems with America after WWII and using their economic and military power to dictate what the rest of the world does, right?

"Problem" is a relative term for those dealing with the consequences of it. It is one if you are America means a whole lot less economic freedom than you had in the past. If this is a good thing or not depends on your position.

If your beef is that they are succeeding or at least failing less while America steps on it's dick repeatedly, maybe this isn't their problem?

If you're fired up by nationalism but your nation is sucking, getting mad at the Chinese isn't the answer. And that's before we even get into relative levels of activism, Chinese political ideology is much more biased towards "neutral, just trade" than American politics.

Oh boy, how to get a bunch of seething haters more seething.

Near as I can tell, they fundamentally believe that the US actually can’t do better (despite protestations to the contrary), at least not with them there doing there thing, which is why they get so manipulative and shitty. They are unwilling to make other decisions than the ones leading to these outcomes.

Yes people, it is actually possible to do better. It requires making better choices, however.

False dichotomy. the problem is far deeper than that, and wanting to simplify the problem to those two extremes belies a belief that the world could and should be able to be simplified into two power dynamic. It is not. The world, and the powers that fight within in, are far more dynamic than a simple communist or capitalist spectrum, and attempts to simplify the world along those lines is only going to hurt you.

That just means your stakeholders argue twice: once when drafting the five year plan and then again, later, saying their policy position is more aligned with the spirit of the plan.

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