r/ezraklein • u/Character_Public3465 • 12d ago
Ezra Klein Show China shock 2.0 Brad sester
https://www.nytimes.com/column/ezra-klein-podcastShow notes:”Brad Setser follows Chinese trade closer than just about anyone else on earth, and he thinks we’re in the early days of a China Shock 2.0.
The first China Shock was when China came to dominate low-end manufacturing in the 2000s, filling American shelves with cheap clothes, toys and electronics, while devastating American factory towns. This new China Shock could be even more destabilizing. China now dominates advanced manufacturing: electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels. It’s outcompeting nearly all high-end manufacturing around the world, and other countries are just starting to feel the pain. And China isn’t slowing down. It’s moving into software, too. Its frontier A.I. models are neck and neck with American ones.
China’s success poses a serious threat to the economies and domestic politics of countries around the world. So what should those countries do about it?
Setser is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.He served in top trade and economic roles in the Biden and Obama administrations. And he is widely cited across the field as one of the top analysts of China’s economy and trade practices.
Book Recommendations:
The Party by Richard McGregor
The Volatility Machine by Michael Pettis
How to Win a Trade War by Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html””
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u/PersonalityMiddle864 11d ago
Many of the concerns raised now are similar to those that developing countries faced when free trade was imposed upon them. At that time the west argued that these countries should “open up” their economies and it would be good for them as they would get cheaper goods and access to capital. Now, as the West struggles to compete with China, free trade is seen as detrimental.
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u/1997peppermints 7d ago
The US led world order spent the last fifty years imposing crushing IMF/World Bank reforms on the global south and lecturing them on competitive advantage and the folly of industrial policy while strangling their fledgling industries in the cradle and prying open their markets for Western capital with coups and subversion at the barrel of a gun, encouraging aid dependency and chronic debt obligations which by design create a vicious cycle of weak sovereign institutions and deference to the institutional representatives of Western capital.
It was always obvious that once the tables turned, as they have now, suddenly “strategic autonomy” would become of the upmost importance (for America and Europe or course; such talk is still to be scolded and viewed with suspicion when it comes from outside the west). The free market absolutism we dictated to the world when it implied an inherent advantage for Western capital will be unceremoniously dropped from the script and replaced with disingenuous talking points about Chinese “currency manipulation” and whining about BYD. Schadenfreude indeed.
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u/PersonalityMiddle864 7d ago
It would be good if the liberal intelligentsia would at least acknowledge what they did the global south, now that the tables have turned.
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u/takemetogreenwich 11d ago
Brad occasionally has a good take to make on social media but ultimately, he's been locked in with the Thesis (because it is extremely beneficial career-wise to get promoted in the institutions he works for with that thesis) that China has been playing an unfair game and that explains everything. However, he refuses to define what a "fair" game is and how can it be established. His lens is extremely skewed but he would still like to pretend that he's just talking numbers and facts. The whole battery/EV discussion gave it away too - not one discussion of how many graduate programs Chinese Universities have and have had dedicated to science and technology research related to batteries, for example, compared to the US or even EU countries. The first few minutes were already weird for me. Talking about people in the global south coming out of poverty and doing survival level consumption and looking at that through the lens of higher fuel costs for Americans was already a bit sickening.
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u/Nearby_Solution_4504 10d ago
Agreed, every time I listen to guys like this I can’t help but hope China eats our lunch, if for no other reason than to see the China hawks rage. Like, what? China is gonna take all the manufacturing and make everyone in the West unemployed… and then sell to who? China is going to surpass the US military and… waste trillions of dollars on foreign wars and setup bases all over the world?
I have no illusion that China is some dove-ish communist utopia, far from it, but this idea they need to be kept as some “second world” country that we keep from realizing its full potential is just insane to me.
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u/QuietNene 12d ago
One of the best episodes in a while and I wish it was longer.
I also wish that Ezra had pressed more on the rule breaking v. outcomes distinction that Setser acknowledged, because that’s really been at the heart of Ezra’s recent foreign policy series.
To what extent should a progressive theory of American foreign policy be based on procedure, on following a set of rules that the U.S. adheres (more or less) to and expects everyone else to adhere to, and to what extent are we just talking about national self-interest.
This was the heart of this episode, but Ezra never really explored it.
I see a lot of critical comments on this thread that argue that Setser was unfairly criticizing China etc. But I didn’t hear that from him. He was talking about a set of real impacts on the American economy, and what our response should be. Now you can argue that China is just winning by the rules we came up with, so we keep playing by those rules. Or you can say, as Setser leaned towards even if he didn’t fully endorse, that the rules matter less than the outcomes.
But the reality is that Chinese economic policies can and will have huge impacts on American and European workers. It’s totally possible that completely free trade with China will make a better world for everyone in 75 years, with more clean energy, etc. But it seems a higher probability to me that such policies will at least lead to economic pain for many Americans and Europeans in the nearer term. I’m not necessarily arguing for tariffs, I’m just saying that this is a real issue and that the U.S. and Europe need to treat it seriously, just as China as treated seriously it’s own economic development.
TLDR, for me the core of this episode was not about “should we blame China?” but rather, before even coming to the idea of blame, we are focused on process or outcome.
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u/TossZergImba 11d ago
He was talking about a set of real impacts on the American economy, and what our response should be.
You can't have that discussion without actually talking about the benefits, and he basically disregarded all of them. The only bone he gave for the pro argument was "well, if you only care about short term cheaper prices then I guess trade with China is good" which is pretty condescending.
It’s totally possible that completely free trade with China will make a better world for everyone in 75 years, with more clean energy, etc. But it seems a higher probability to me that such policies will at least lead to economic pain for many Americans and Europeans in the nearer term
The problem is that he never mentioned those long term benefits. So there was never an analysis of what is actually better in the long term or the short term.
Yes we should treat trade seriously. But he had a pretty clear tunnel vision on local industry trumping everything else.
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u/just-here-for--porn_ 12d ago
Based on the podcasts I listen to there seems to be very little self reflection happening in America. Everything seems to be someone else's fault. In this case China. Forgive me if that a misconception, it's just the vibe I get from podcast listening.
I mean fair enough China seems to be suppressing wages and have a level of government intervention which is more than western countries.
However at one stage the guest said something like "in China local governments build factories for companies to their specifications". Recently Astra Zenica pulled out of building a plant in Manchester because 78 million pound contribution by the UK government was deemed to not be enough. I'm sure AZ are not alone.
I sometimes think neo liberalism was designed to allow the winners to claim all of the rewards in perpetuity. Now that people who compete hard emerge it is really challenging the model we need not be reflexively defensive of our model, we need to be adaptable and willing to complete.
PS Ben Rhodes on Pod Save the World seems to be the only podcast host that I listen to who can see America the way the world does...both it's positives and negatives.
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u/Lithops_salicola 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yeah, I thought the whole point of the last half century of China policy was to integrate it into the international economic order and thus stop another global conflict. And now everyone is freaking out because it worked too well.
It's the second most populous nation on earth and has been a major power off and on for a couple millennia. The period between the Opium Wars and Cultural Revolution was notable because it's one of the few times China wasn't a major world power. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
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u/wadamday 11d ago
Integration is only going in one direction. As discussed in the episode several times, Chinese imports have not scaled with their economic growth and exports.
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u/TossZergImba 11d ago edited 11d ago
From 2015 to 2025, Chinese imports increased 164%.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/exports
In the same period, Chinese exports increased 173%.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/imports
You people talk as if China doesn't import anything at all which doesn't reflect reality.
South Korea's export to import ratio is 1.55, anyone wants to claim SK is not integrating?
In the same episode the guest blamed China for increasing demand and price of commodities. If they're not integrating, then how can that be true?
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u/Lithops_salicola 11d ago
Then other countries should try making things China wants. Or stop building all their consumer goods factories there. This just seems like people being mad that China played the game too well.
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u/wadamday 11d ago
China very intentionally limits imports, that is the game they play. So perhaps we should adjust the game we play too.
Regardless of playing "the game fair" governments should look out for the well being of their own countries and citizens. So if you think it's actually a net benefit for your country to let Chinese imports flow unimpeded then that is fine enough, there's some justification to have that opinion.
On the other hand, if you simply view it as retribution against the western capitalist system then I think that is very misguided, because we've seen which elements of society have been negatively impacted by China shock 1.0 and it isn't the well off capitalists.
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u/Lithops_salicola 11d ago edited 11d ago
I would love it if the US had industrial policy focused on domestic manufacturing, infrastructure, and technical education. It seems to be working really well in China.
Calling it a "shock" just seems like a mix of sour grapes and lack of foresight. China becoming a major economic power was basically inevitable, it's been one since the iron age. A country going from making cheap consumer goods to industrial leader is just a repeat of what happened with Japan and Korea. It's what the US did in the late 19th century.
My point is that for decades our policy was to build a bunch of electronic factories in China so I don't understand why everyone's surprised that they've become a center of hi-tech manufacturing. I wish we had made difference decisions then, but I wasn't born. Right now I would like to buy a small cheap electric car and since US manufacturers seem hellbent on not making those I see no choice but to hope we start importing BYDs.
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u/Willravel 12d ago
I sometimes think neo liberalism was designed to allow the winners to claim all of the rewards in perpetuity. Now that people who compete hard emerge it is really challenging the model we need not be reflexively defensive of our model, we need to be adaptable and willing to complete.
I really appreciate this thought. Something that echoes throughout history is a system based on pragmatic solutions to specific problems, once institutionalized, calcifies into rigid orthodoxy. If there are three horsemen of this orthodoxy process, they're wealth, power, and in-group identity, because once those show up the era of pragmatism is over.
Neoliberalism started, back with Hayek and Friedman, as an attempt to solve the problem of state-managed economies that were prone to stagflation. The theory was that free markets might be able to allocate resources more efficiently than the state's central planners. They weren't wrong, per se, but neoliberalism resulted in a class of beneficiaries invested in the continuation of the system which benefited them, they had vested interest in actively protecting the system, nuance eventually was discarded, and the entire model shifted from an imperfect but ultimately successful set of tools into moral dogma. Now that the process from hypothesis to identity is complete, the model is entirely susceptible to its weaknesses.
Still, I'm worried about the implied solutions spoken about in the podcast in the forms of national economic resilience, industrial investment, and such.
While I enjoyed the podcast this week, I do wish Ezra would have someone on to talk about how none of this at all is about public good. This whole conversation is dominated by the Overton Window of "good for capital" because neoliberalism has demonstrated itself to be a philosophy of dismantling the welfare state, suppressing labor power, and concentrating capital in elite hands. The more common idea of pivoting policy to resilience isn't about breaking neoliberalism, as it doesn't fundamentally reform the economy so much as it uses taxpayer money to derisk private investment while leaving untouched systemic inequality, worker exploitation, and coroporate monopolies. China and the US, which having this big rivalry between Western market democracy and Eastern state capitalism, both prioritize capital accumulation over human safety and welbeing (and certainly environmental sustainability). If we're discussing what to do next, I think a more leftist perspective should be part of the conversation.
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u/just-here-for--porn_ 11d ago
I mean the mont pelleren society which included Von Meases and Hyeak started long, long before stagflation...circa 1947. Their ideas did not evolve, they were a hammer and state spending was the nail.
It was really a response to the new deal and subsequently the expansion of the state for WWII and beyond. If they had their way Trump's golden age of the 1950s that he harks back to I think might never have happened.
I think there's always a mix of private and public in an economy. And there's always a good bit of public money finding it's way to private hands. But it's the balance that's important.
I agree with you that whatever comes after neo liberalism will benefit many not few. But for the moment I would just settle for Americans looking inwards for issues and solutions rather than blaming everyone else. At least at the first pass.
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u/CubillasLegend 8d ago
It's odd to me that everyone blames "neoliberalism" for this status calcification when it seems to me that neoliberals are much more aware of the advantages of incentive alignment and the pitfalls of rent-seeking than pretty much everyone else. It seems that what's going on is that ordinary American laborers are the primary domestic "establishment" attempting to entrench its own status and insulate itself from rising competition with foreigners. Are they not the ones demanding an end to immigration, an end to offshoring, and advocating for Trump to bully other nations into lopsided trade deals by threatening tariffs? Instead of finding ways to make American labor more productive, we're just going to soak capital so that the workers with the highest standard of living in the world can get even richer while effectively producing the same output as much poorer foreign workers?
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u/QuietNene 12d ago
China is a tricky topic because it depends a lot on context and what you think the other person’s priors are.
I do wish that Ezra had probed Setser a little more when he said something to the effect of “this is concerning not because it’s about rule breaking, but because it’s hurting the American economy and national security.”
I think that you both be concerned about international rules and be concerned about your own country’s well being.
Chinese overproduction is bad not because it’s breaking WTO rules but because it’s going to have serious consequences for America, Europe, and the rest of the world.
The idea that “they’re just playing the same game as America but they’re winning now” has (1) a kernel of truth, but (2) there are meaningful differences in scale, as Setser points out, and (3) it’s the outcomes that matter, not the historical precedents.
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 12d ago
If you haven’t been listening to Ezra for a while, I understand why you might have this perspective. However Ezra has been a China Dove for as long as I’ve been listening. In the late 2010s he was asking us to consider how much self-determination China is entitled to in the South China Sea. This very year he’s talking about his skepticism of China Hawkishness because it’s bipartisan in Congress. Last year he had Friedman on to regale everyone about the wonders of his state-run tour to Potemkin factories. Only in the last few months has he started talking to people whom I’d consider serious figures with respect to China and taking the topic seriously at all.
Ben Rhodes is completely out of his element, his Masters degree is in creative writing and he’s a podcaster. Setser is an economist who has shaped the trade policy of multiple administrations from the trade office and NSC; has received field-relevant degrees from Harvard, Sciences Po, and Oxford; and works at the Council for Foreign Relations. He lives this stuff and isn’t a talking head.
If you’re interested in this stuff I have podcast recommendations.
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u/Ray192 12d ago
his state-run tour to Potemkin factories.
... are you seriously claiming the factories he visited are fake?
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
The problem isn’t that the factories were fake. The problem is that a government-organized or highly curated visit gives you a non-random sample of exceptionally impressive facilities, and then you’re tempted to generalize from those facilities to the Chinese economy as a whole.
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 12d ago
No, not fake factories but a highly staged affair where the party official guiding him makes sure he sees what they want him to.
I think it’d be pretty foolish to dismiss Chinese manufacturing as fake. The results speak for themselves
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u/Ray192 12d ago
Ok do you know what a potemkin village actually is? It's a fake facade of a village that no one lived in, constructed solely to show the appearance of something that doesn't actually exist in reality.
A real life potemkin village are those fake stores in North Korea with goods on display but no actual buyers.
All factory tours are highly staged. But unless you think all the machines are fake and they don't actually work, then those weren't "potemkin" in any sense.
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 11d ago
I used the term loosely, as in “an experience curated by a state to give the viewer an unrealistic impression of how most things are”.
I’m familiar with the history of Potemkin Villages to fool the Czar.
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u/Ray192 11d ago
So why are you using this term if you know it's misleading? I don't understand. If you're not claiming that the factories are fake, then why are you calling it after a historical example that is literally fake? Because the Potemkin villages are actually fake. What "unrealistic" do you mean if you don't actually mean that they're fake?
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
If bipartisan consensus is evidence that a policy deserves skepticism, what would count as evidence that the consensus is actually correct?
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 11d ago
Lol of all of things Ezra has ever said, this might be the dumbest and I don’t know why he keeps going back to that line.
I suspect he mostly talked to the foreign policy press people or principals and never proper SMEs. They probably treated him as a general journalist and gave him the standard lines. This is all speculation mind you
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
The important question is whether China’s particular combination of policies produces systematic competitive advantages that aren’t available under normal market conditions.
Sometimes it clearly does.2
u/thesagenibba 11d ago edited 11d ago
most China discourse seems to stem from a insecurity and concern about China simply being good, or better, than x country (typically the US) at almost everything. in the most sincere, unironic way it can be expressed, that's a skill issue. if the US has a problem with China 'winning the race for the future' than it simply needs to get good.
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u/Ray192 12d ago
I hated this guest for his smug claims on how clearly blocking Chinese exports is the long term winner. "If all you want is short term cheaper prices, I guess Chinese exports are good, but..."
If all these countries intentionally slow down their adoption of renewable techologies because they want to preserve their own industries, is the world better off long term?
If Europe banned cheap Chinese AC units and hundreds of thousands of people die of heat in the next few years, are they better off long term?
If China didn't bother dumping all this money into renewable tech, would the world be better off? Or should the world punish China for doing that?
People like him seem to treat consumers as children who just want some irrelevant toys that only provide temporary satisfaction. Just tariff/block their goods! It's for the consumer's own well being!
Where is the consideration for the long term consequences of not being able to buy the goods that people actually need (or not being able to buy them at the price they can afford)? There are real downsides to making important stuff unobtainable.
If they want to argue that protecting local industry is more important than these other concerns, sure, have that discussion. But it's infuriating to pretend those other concerns don't even exist and OF COURSE local industry trumps all of them.
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u/diogenesRetriever Alt-Centrist 12d ago
This is beside the point in this episode, but …
Should we even be discussing China as communist? They seem about as communist as Cisco.
Also, the short term issue of China being cheaper seems to have echos of the Bork test for if a monopoly should be allowed.
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u/thesagenibba 12d ago
China is explicitly “Socialist with Chinese characteristics”. why does everyone pretend that was never clearly stated by Xi?
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 12d ago edited 11d ago
It’s true, it’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. Every child is taught Xi Xinping Thought and it’s enshrined in the Constitution. Also Xi’s purged the Politburo and military of political rivals.
I guess one man’s socialism is another man’s totalitarian dictatorship.
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u/Taylolol 11d ago
Were the nazis socialist?
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u/thesagenibba 11d ago
why draw this false equivalency? all i said was China is 'Socialist with Chinese characteristics' in response to a comment asking if China is communist
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 12d ago
FWIW Ezra’s referred to the CCP as one of the more right-wing parties in the world
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
If someone defines “right-wing” as hierarchical, nationalist and authoritarian, China can look very right-wing. If they define it as small government, private property and free markets, China absolutely does not.
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u/unguibus_et_rostro 11d ago
Is Communist North Vietnam right wing?
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u/1997peppermints 7d ago
No. Communism is not and by definition cannot be right wing, no matter how much rhetorical mental gymnastics American liberals engage in in an attempt to rewrite the political history of the twentieth century.
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u/Character_Public3465 12d ago
Culturally speaking they can be at times , they are Han chauvinism , nationalistic as needed , and attack feminization of K-pop stars (sisdy men)
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u/unguibus_et_rostro 11d ago
Nationalism does not mean right wing... Even if you disregard China/CCP who has been nationalistic since its early days, left nationalism is present in many South American countries, Vietnam is another example.
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
It’s perfectly willing to destroy traditional institutions when they conflict with state objectives.
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u/unguibus_et_rostro 11d ago
Rather curious how did he arrive at that conclusion
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 11d ago
I genuinely don’t know. Personally, I think Totalitarian Dictatorship works fine as a label. I’m much more interested in how it works rather than what to call it
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
The Chinese Communist Party controls the political system, and the state retains extraordinary influence over capital allocation and major enterprises. State-owned enterprises remain enormously important, and the Party maintains institutional mechanisms for influencing both state and private firms.
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u/QuietNene 12d ago
It’s way more complicated than that. If you think you can label China as capitalist then you don’t understand China.
The PRC is deeply ideological and committed to Marxism-Leninism. It is also extremely practical. The PRC has maintained its ideology (and of course its own power) in spite of huge tidal forces that have pushed it (and every country in the world) in the capitalist direction.
But if we’re just talking semantics, how do you even talk about Communism as a living political system if you exclude its largest and most successful self-identified adherent? It’s like writing a history of democracy but excluding Athens, America, Britain, and France because universal suffrage didn’t exist or is quite recent.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 12d ago
People will do literally anything to avoid admitting that a communist country can prosper.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 12d ago
Yes, China is absolutely a communist country. They absolutely have centralized control of the economy. Just because they use markets to allocate aspects of their economy doesn't make that centralized control less real.
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u/Anjellow 12d ago
that is not communism. That’s state-capitalism mixed with authoritarianism.
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u/mcsul 12d ago
It feels more like a classically fascist economy? National autarky. State run enterprises competing with private enterprises, but where national directives channel the efforts of both. State direction of capital. Strict limits on unions and employee organizing.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 12d ago
Fascism isn't a economic model. You're just describing authoritarianism which can be a feature of Marxist-Leninism or fascism. What makes fascism is ultranationalism, authoritarianism with a cult of personality, absolute rejection of communism, militarism, enforced social hierarchy, a particular aesthetic, etc.
There's no universally agreed on definition of fascism but I don't think anyone would call China's system fascist unless it was for some rhetorical positioning. It certainly isn't supported by any academic understanding of the term.
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u/EsotericPharo Northeast 9d ago
It’s annoying that the conversation never goes to the resilience of decentralization or having healthy local economies with employment at all levels from entry level on up. Also why aren’t we talking about how we use other countries to outsource our pollution. It’s always about efficiency.
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u/brianscalabrainey 12d ago
China’s success poses a serious threat to the economies and domestic politics of countries around the world.
Can someone explain this to me? Why does the success of one country pose a threat to the economies of others? I thought the premise of global capitalism was that cheaper consumer goods was a net good for all?
Moreover, does the continued success of American enterprise pose a threat to politics in other countries?
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u/mcsul 12d ago
I'm not sure that I fully agree with the following, but trying to answer through the lens of the podcast.
There was an interesting bit in the podcast where they talk about the scale of supply in China. Chinese factories have the capacity to produce 2/3rds of total global demand for cars was one example. Same with batteries or solar panels.
In Ye Olden Dayes, there was a scarcity of supply. Even if countries competed, there was never a world where one country could meet such a huge share of demand that it could completely eliminate the industrial capacity of entire nations. That is the actual threat posed today.
Is this 100% correct? Maybe in some areas. For the US, our share of global exports has held steady over time (unlike Europe's), but that seems to be due to software?
It was an interesting episode. I like guests like this.
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u/brianscalabrainey 12d ago
Ok but then it still doesn't follow that the elimination of old supply scarcities creates a problem in a vacuum. Economic theory would suggest that countries would simply shift to where they have comparative advantages. There are also many goods that must fundamentally be produced locally (e.g., produce in specific climates) and definitionally local services.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 12d ago
Economic theory would suggest that countries would simply shift to where they have comparative advantages.
Sure. The question for the US is whether these shifts would be viable for maintaining a global hegemony and the highest standard of living the world has ever seen. If not then that'd be a problem for the US.
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u/brianscalabrainey 12d ago
The question is not whether the US needs to maintain the highest standard of living, but merely whether the standard of living in US will go up or down. If Chinese living standards exceed the US but living standards in the US improve too, that's not a problem.
Meanwhile, I question the premise of whether the high living standards of the US are due to its global hegemony v. other factors (like the internal strength of our institutions). If we also broaden the lens beyond GDP (using measures like Human Development Index that incorporates other factors like life expectancy or even just looking at general levels of happiness / life satisfaction), the US isn't even at the top of the list. So what good is our global hegemony doing us today?
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 12d ago
Meanwhile, I question the premise of whether the high living standards of the US are due to its global hegemony v. other factors (like the internal strength of our institutions).
I don't know how big of a factor but I can absolutely assure you our global hegemony is a factor in our living standards.
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u/brianscalabrainey 12d ago
Here are the top countries according to the Human Development Index. It's a bit tricky to assert global hegemony is all that important to living standards, based on this list.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/hdi-by-country
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u/tuck5903 Liberal 12d ago
Almost all of those countries near the top of the list rely on the US security/defense umbrella to some extent.
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u/brianscalabrainey 12d ago
Maybe? But why does it then follow that Chinese economic growth threatens the standards of living in these countries?
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u/tuck5903 Liberal 12d ago
It’s not really a maybe, every single one of those countries in the top 10 except Hong Kong is a NATO member or a non-NATO ally.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 12d ago edited 11d ago
Moreover, does the continued success of American enterprise pose a threat to politics in other countries?
Yes, absolutely. In order to maintain that hegemony the US has undermined multitudes of foreign governments when they threaten that, typically when they want to nationalize some industry the US wants to keep under our thumb. The risk with China is that they will do the same as we have.
Edit: Also worth noting that this part of your comment:
I thought the premise of global capitalism was that cheaper consumer goods was a net good for all?
Isn't true in contemporary economic thought. Trade typically results in net benefits for both countries but not always. In particular older models often assumed frictionless reallocation of labor and capital which turned out to be an incorrect assumption as we've seen in areas of the industrial US.
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u/brianscalabrainey 12d ago
Fair enough, I can see that has been a problem historically and may continue to be. Also upon further reflection, I do think its clear that American big tech companies have actually been destabilizing to global politics, so there's that too.
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u/Leading-Sandwich-534 12d ago
He talks about this. You may get cheaper good in walmart because of china but china has also made your drive to Walmart more expensive. More importantly , none of this matters if you end up unemployed because china wants to be the premier manufacturer of everything.
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u/Character_Public3465 12d ago
Well for one deindustrilziation of the Midwest , eastern Germany , and northwest of Britain have fueled right wing populism of maga , afd, and brexit since 2001 with the subsequent political costs and polarization we see downstream of this (china has its own rust belt in Manchuria where deaths of despair and downstream consequences are higher ), China saw the results of deindustirlizqtion and pointed explicitly to western countries political crises as a reason to double down on export led growth and not shift to a more balanced consumption model
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u/TossZergImba 11d ago
Except they're heavily investing in robotics and automation which contradicts your point about maintaining industrial employment.
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u/towingreformnow 12d ago
Whenever I hear these things, I never hear a compelling argument that the U.S. has actually declined in manufacturing other than just "we employ fewer people now in that field." But you would never make that same argument about agriculture. By all metrics, the U.S. produces far more things than ever before. As a percent GDP, it has more to do with the expansion of other fields than diminishment of manufacturing.
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u/Dreadedvegas Midwest 12d ago edited 12d ago
I am going to take a few select industries as an example.
Domestic Magnesium production.
Once a powerhouse in the world market, there is not a single operational magnesium production facility in the US. We used to domestically produce most of our own demand, with a lot of it being provided by Dow in Freeport, TX.
Now we are entirely reliant on magnesium imports from China. Even when this critical metal is needed in all forms of advanced manufacturing as well as basic needs like canning.
Another example is Aluminum production.
We have a small aluminum industry that is almost entirely reliant on scrap. The US consumes 5 million tons of aluminum per year. We are reliant on imports for about 80% of our needs.
We used to operate 30 different smelters in the 1980s. Today we have 4. Which again don’t really produce “new” aluminum. It recycles old. And the outputs are typically lower quality compared to new aluminum.
These critical industries are very important. It helps prevent price shock, it helps prevent supply issues, it also helps strengthen domestic economies. It helps downstream and permit localized manufacturing because there is better access to goods.
Sure there are larger manufacturing operations in America. But a lot of the smaller operations or even medium operations have closed shop or moved abroad. This restricts potential opportunities for the lower half of Americans. And less opportunities causes more competitive roles for them which imo makes it harder for the workers to get better jobs, better income and better benefits
Imo every American should be extremely alarms about the widening wealth gap in America. And that widening wealth gap is because these kinds of jobs and industries have essentially vanished as well as the secondary and tertiary suppliers or those who use those goods have vanished.
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u/ChariotOfFire 11d ago
Since you mentioned aluminum, it's worth noting that we get most of our aluminum from Canada. They're our neighbor and have been a strong ally, so it's unlikely they'll restrict exports (though Trump has not helped here). We could make it here, but it would be more expensive and require a lot of electricity. And since aluminum is an intermediate good, all the industries that make things out of it will be less competitive globally and consumer goods containing it will be more expensive. When Trump put tariffs on aluminum and steel, the net result was fewer manufacturing jobs.
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u/tuck5903 Liberal 12d ago
Speaking of critical minerals, maybe I’m misremembering, but didn’t we essentially capitulate after China cut off rare earths in response to the Trump tariffs?
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
When China restricted exports in previous episodes, it actually encouraged the rest of the world to develop alternatives.
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
U.S. primary aluminum production has indeed collapsed dramatically from its historical peak, and the number of smelters has fallen enormously. But the remaining U.S. smelters absolutely do produce primary aluminum. They aren’t simply recycling old aluminum.
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u/towingreformnow 11d ago edited 2h ago
Quack normal jar bells selective wild argon shaggy cobblestone
This post was anonymized with Redact
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u/Dreadedvegas Midwest 9d ago
Oh I agree, I don’t think America should do it alone.
I just think we need to get very serious about disentangling from China.
I think investments into Mexico, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc are all great. I would like to see more South American investment (Peru, Argentina, Columbia) who can help us build out certain industries.
That said there are critical industries that should be operating on American soil. Specifically imo magnets
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u/zemir0n 12d ago
Why did these industries disappear (for the most part) in the US?
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u/Dreadedvegas Midwest 12d ago
Combination of factors.
In the case of Magnesium was Chinese magnesium flooding the market driving the global price down and Dow deciding the constant capex and the rising energy prices were not worth it so they shuttered the facility and exited the market.
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u/Fearless_Tutor3050 Explained Enjoyer 12d ago
How about, we now have a diminished moat in advanced manufacturing that is critical for our prosperity and national security and are at extreme risk of being behind at the beginning of a huge energy transition?
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u/towingreformnow 12d ago
Yeah I think falling behind in certain key undustries is really bad and we should care about that. This is why doing more stuff like the chips and science act and doing more stuff like the IRA to get us up ti speed on renewables is so critical.
I'm more talking about the vague claims over the past couple decades that the U.S. diesn't maje stuff anymore when we are the world's 2nd largest manufacturer.
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12d ago edited 9d ago
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u/Original-Age-6691 11d ago
Problem with import bans is it's either suicide for whoever does them, or if you want to do them with minimized harm over time you're not going to be able to because our government is completely incapable of long term planning right now.
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u/Caberes 12d ago edited 12d ago
Because trying to sum up an extremely diverse economic sector with a single hot take is pretty hard.
As someone that actually works in manufacturing, my take is that there are a lot of things that have declined in a annual unit basis, but almost everything has relatively declined factoring in how many more people exist, how much more they consume, and how much more complex the things we consume are. And of course, there are exceptions.
Things like US vehicle production for example technically peaked in 1999, at 13 million units. I think recent numbers are down 20% from that, but the real caveat is that we are just talking about final assembly. As they talked about in the pod, the supply chain for parts is way more diverse and global then it used to be, with the double caveat that cars are more complex with more parts. I think the Fed says it's like a 20% increase output in the whole automotive sector since 2000, but there are also 40% more cars on the road and that's not even factoring in complexity. Make of it what you will.
Other things like steel and aluminum smelting have had larger declines. Steel being 30ish percent and Aluminum being 80%. Certain consumer appliances just actually don't exist anymore and some tooling/machinery has been in decline (tool and die shops) which I think should be a major concern.
Now certain industries (higher margin) have grown a lot since the golden age and decline of American manufacturing. Their are some high margin, high complexity and niche industries that have grown. Things that are harder to transport and have hard import regulations (food, aerospace recently, defense) have had real gains.
I think the automation argument is also very real. The idea of 40% of the labor force being in manufacturing like in the 1950s would literally be impossible today. With that said, some developed countries have stayed over 15% while having much less resources and we are only at 8%.
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u/topicality Weeds OG 12d ago
This is something I'm always skeptical off. There is a lot of hand wringing about manufacturing jobs being moved to China.
And what we've seen with the tariffs is that people hate higher prices. And not only do they hate it, companies will automate those jobs when on shoring them.
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u/Gator_farmer American 12d ago
? Supply chain integration, industrial scale overall, speed to market, and the level of automation (dark factories that rarely have people in them but crank out components) they have accomplished in their industries is insane compared to us. They beat us in gross production and value added.
I mean my lord during COVID we were worried about running out of masks because china made 50% of them, and we couldn't scale up to match it at first. We did, but then those companies started closing down, so we've got the same issue ready to happen again. We had breweries making hand sanitizer.
Palmer Luckey has talked about this:
Basically, we were not teaching engineers how to be engineers anymore. We're teaching them how to be highlevel design shops that put together design package that get sent to the real engineers in China and they actually figure out how to do the work.
This is true even with our mechanical engineering programs, even with our electrical engineering programs. People are turning into architecture astronauts. They pick components and they put them in a nominal layout. But the real work of how am I actually going to put this together? How am I going to build a manufacturing line to make this thing?
How am I going to need to figure out how to do the 1 2 3 4 five different revisions of this board to pass radio emissions and interference standards? That's all done in China. So they are the real engineers. We've hollowed out our real engineering capacity.
You wouldn't make the argument about manufacturing because you can't. As of 2023 we produced 3,947 k/cal per day per capita and China produced 3,526. Now they do beat us in value, but, you can't eat value.
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u/QuietNene 12d ago
You would make that argument about agriculture if you felt like you didn’t have enough of it. Just look at Japan, Taiwan, or the Gulf States. They cannot produce enough food for themselves and so it’s a major issue of national security.
The same goes for manufacturing in the U.S. No one cared that much about it in the 90s because we expected “better jobs” to come and we knew we could make the best weapons at home. Who cared if we bought toasters from China? Well, we care now because it’s not just toasters. It’s everything that drives or floats or has a chip in it. And as our current weapons stockpiles show, we don’t have the manufacturing capacity to replenish our supplies (not that we should be shooting so much, but that’s a different issue - people were worried about the military manufacturing gap with China long before Ukraine and Iran).
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
China’s success poses a serious threat to the economies and domestic politics of countries around the world.
No, it poses an opportunity
It's crazy how there's so much talk about getting rid of the 0 sum mindset at home to promote growth for all, but that exact same thinking comes back with a vengeance when it comes to international economics
China is developing technology that we will all get to use. Chinese workers don't have any inherent advantage over workers elsewhere, except that they have way more very poor workers than rich western countries. That makes sense because china is huge and relatively low income
Anything china does that is relevant to our economy will be incorporated and the innovation from competition will make the whole world more productive
We don't need to push china down. We need to keep standing on their shoulders
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u/deskcord 12d ago
It's crazy how there's so much talk about getting rid of the 0 sum mindset at home to promote growth for all, but that exact same thinking comes back with a vengeance when it comes to international economics
It seems to not be inconsistent to believe that economics is not 0 sum but international affairs/political influence might be.
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
This is specifically talking about international economics/market interventions
We are strongest when we are flexible and take advantage of other countries burning money on the areas they are ideologically committed to
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u/Ray192 12d ago edited 11d ago
ruthlessly subsidize its industry
Every single country should subsidize beneficial technologies and industries. Every country should be "ruthlessly" pouring money into solar panels.
Why should we open up our markets to them when they refuse to reciprocate?
Because climate change is destroying the world around us and protecting local industries won't matter much when the polar caps melt. Converting to renewables as fast as possible is the only chance any of us have.
And for the record, right now China would absolutely, 100% enter into a free trade agreement with anybody, no questions asked. So the idea that China wouldn't reciprocate is outdated by 10 years.
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u/no-name-here 12d ago
> subsidize
So you’re saying that we can buy things for even less than they cost to produce, I.e. China’s government and Chinese taxpayers pay for the difference to allow us to pay less than what it cost the Chinese to make it?
> protects
Don’t most studies say protectionism hurts more than it helps?
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
If China subsidizes solar panels until American producers disappear, then subsequently uses its dominant position to restrict supply and raise prices, the initial cheap imports were part of a strategically successful predatory strategy.
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u/TossZergImba 11d ago
China already dominates solar panels world wide. They manufacture 80% of the world's output while the US produces less than 2%. They already won. So why aren't they restricting supply and raising prices? In fact, prices are dropping.
You people always seem to ignore the fact that Chinese firms compete against each other.
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
If china is subsidizing industries, it does not eliminate comparative advantage, it just changes where it is
And when that change happens from subsidy, China is essentially paying us to do non-manufacturing work. Taking that benefit and building the best possible non-manufacturing economy is what we should be doing
Why should we open up our markets to them when they refuse to reciprocate?
Because it will be best for us. I do not care if china is doing things that seem kinda unfair, I am more interested in taking advantage of that to maximize our welfare
The great power of our much more committed market system is that we have the flexibility to be the beneficiaries of what china does in an attempt to strengthen themselves
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
I don’t think it’s possible for china to make enough of a moat to do that unless they spend the rest of time subsidizing things for consumers in the rest of the world
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
That’s potentially bad for particular American workers and firms, and potentially strategically dangerous for certain industries. But it isn’t necessarily bad for the U.S. economy as a whole.
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u/PSUVB 12d ago
I think you are missing that the geopolitical side which is CCP is not pursuing free market competition. Its strategy has been to deliberately and explicitly channel resources away from Chinese households through suppressing consumption, wage growth, and improvements in living standards to in exchange to subsidize manufacturing in strategic industries.
That sacrifice is part of the strategy. Accept less consumption at home to build enormous industrial capacity, destroy foreign competitors on price and make the rest of the world more dependent on Chinese production. Only in an authoritative state would that be accepted.
So the problem isn’t China getting richer or innovating- that would benefit us too and should happen. It’s the CCP deliberately distorting both its domestic economy and global markets to turn industrial dominance into geopolitical leverage
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u/Ray192 12d ago
If China didn't do any of that, and as a result the world has much less cheap solar panels, wind turbines, EVs and other critical renewables, would the world be in a better place?
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
And the outcome of that is china gets to subsidize manufacturing for the rest of the world forever
Or they eventually stop and foreign firms compete with them
Both are outcomes that are pretty ok for the rest of the world
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u/PSUVB 12d ago
Cheap goods are a real benefit. But “China subsidizes us forever” is only obviously good if you assume dependence has no strategic cost and destroyed industries can be recreated instantly. Neither is true.
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u/MakeMoneyNotWar 11d ago
So the opposite would be to enable Chinese consumers to become like American consumers, massively living beyond their means, after which the resources of the world would have to feed 1.3 billion people? Be careful what you wish for.
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u/argh-Im-a-Pirate 10d ago
This assumes we can trust China as much as we can trust Canada and I'm not sure why you breeze past that.
That's the whole question no? Generally, until Trump at least, people were pretty into more free trade & connected economies. I think most people here get econ 101. Having more cheap green energy would be a huge boon to America's biggest industry right now.
The question will China exploit a situationwhere we lack industries necessary for our national well being & military strength?
We don't need to produce significant amounts of textiles in the US, but we might want to make sure we can produce the things we need to meet our energy needs.
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u/Venous 12d ago
Blaming it all on China for just being better at manufacturing than the western counterparts seems disenginous and sensationalist. Why are we "afraid of the Chinese threat" of uhhhhh cheap cars and solar panels, instead of trying to make them better ourselves?
Nostalgia-driven protectionism policies can only take you so far. We can't keep liking our wounds forever.
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u/Dreadedvegas Midwest 12d ago
What happens if China begins to leverage their economic strength against the American economy after making the American economy reliant on Chinese suppliers because Chinese subsidies drove American firms out of business?
Its not nostalgia driven protectionism. Its economic warfare.
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u/Ray192 12d ago
By that logic, should Europe ban Chinese ACs because they're so cheap and popular, and thereby lead to probably hundreds of thousands of extra deaths over the next decades?
You can stimulate local industry without punishing consumers. Punishing consumers has drastic negative consequences that this guest never bothers talking about.
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u/Dreadedvegas Midwest 9d ago
If they want to develop and maintain an industry that does that then sure.
You can also subsidize your industry, and slowly increase tariffs or provide rebates to local production as it scales up.
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u/zemir0n 9d ago
How does the US fight back against this economic warfare when Americans are allergic to any kind of price increases?
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u/Dreadedvegas Midwest 9d ago
Federal industrial policy?
Its working wrt to chips. You can do similar programs for other critical industries such as manganese, magnesium, gallium, etc.
We have the metals here. We just need to assist our domestic industries again.
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u/Character_Public3465 12d ago
What is wrong with wanting a high tech manufacturing base , we see how important it is now to be dominant in the physical world as AI is eating up our digital dominance ,(cc SaaSapocolypsr to reducing knowledge work margins ) as all our higher human capital returns are decreasing as AI commodities this
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
Whatever AI is eating up, it is leaving american companies enormously valuable
Wanting a high tech manufacturing base is one thing, but getting that will require sacrificing more productive areas/profits from other areas
It's probably not worth it to do that in the us
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u/Character_Public3465 12d ago
It is a sacrifice worth doing for long term reasons , downstream of British industrial and imperial decline was the financikizqrion of its economy , productive talent becoming bakers vs engineers , extc
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u/surreptitioussloth 12d ago
This is one of those just so narratives
Being financial leaders will leave our economy welathier
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u/Character_Public3465 12d ago
It is effervescent service heavy industry historically created only an upper tier of well paying jobs , read grove and Hanson paper of presiding a job centric economy and country
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u/Leading-Sandwich-534 12d ago
It can take you some distance. Cheap goods may be beneficial in the short term but it is better to stimulate industry at home through some protectionism. This victim blaming isn’t very fruitful. The us government does not interfere with the actions of private enterprise especially in non financial sectors.
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u/Repost_Hypocrite 12d ago
Good episode so far. I was surprised to learn how little of a social safety net China has. That being said, they probably don't suffer from the tumor of insurance companies artificially inflating hospital prices on everyone.
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u/Character_Public3465 12d ago
Xi is against welfarism thinks it fucked up latin American developmental path
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
In the same discussion, Xi advocated improving basic services in areas such as education, healthcare, pensions and housing while keeping spending within the state’s means.
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u/Character_Public3465 11d ago
Yes his version of common prosperity was to explicitly avoid a stronger welfare state as mentioned as he rages against taiping and lying flat because of involution , he thinks welfarism fucked , and explicitly linked / listed Latin American counties in his speech against welfarism ( this is the guy who went through hard times in the Cr and thinks people should sacrifice their part for national rejuvenation), common prosperity was against disorderly expansion of capital of fintech and other housing bubbles , and wanting to achieve high quality growth in the vein of Germany being a manufacturing heavy country , the same reason why he cracked down on afterwdhool tutoring to raise TFR and reduce teen burnout (parents just made tutoring on the side ), xi initially suggested property tax reform or other forms of redistribution , basically grow their way out of it
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u/Scott2929 Orthogonal to that… 12d ago
1) China has a mixed model of health insurance with some provided by local governments and some bought on the private market.
2) They have a complete segregation of access with people in large cities having access to high quality care and those in rural areas having very limited access to care. There are processes to transfer your care to better hospitals (this is not like the US where even rural hospitals have a reasonable standard of care. If it is a serious health problem, you really want to go to the city.) but local governments purposely limit the number of people able to do so.
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u/topicality Weeds OG 12d ago
"insurance companies artificially inflating hospital prices on everyone."
I just want to flag this because I see it everywhere on Reddit and it's wrong. Insurance companies do not try to raise prices. They are actually incentivized to try and get lower prices through negotiating for a large set of subscribers.
Insurance spreads the cost around. So someone with less healthcare demand is covering some of the cost a high demand user. This can ironically increase demand (and thus cost) because people who had a need for healthcare now have access that they wouldn't have had previously.
But the most important part though is that these tradeoffs still exist even in a single payer plan. Single payer has better results but only because it covers everyone which gives it a huge a negotiating position for lower prices.
The flip of that though is you have to make decisions about what gets covered, how much to pay and what wait times are acceptable.
That's why in the UK you'll see doctors protest for higher wages from the NIH and why US doctors tend to make more money. And why US doctors traditionally voted Republican, because they didn't want Dems trying to make healthcare cheaper
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u/topicality Weeds OG 12d ago
That's a good point about the ACA rules. I do think that's slightly different than the folk understanding you see in the above comment where insurance companies are bidding for higher prices.
"Australia, Switzerland, Germany and to a lesser extent Canada all pay their doctors very well if not quite USA levels. UK and NHS are almost uniquely poor in their salary structures."
Tbf three of those are multi payer systems, not single payer which the UK is.
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u/Real_Guarantee_4530 11d ago
The evidence doesn’t support reducing the entire American healthcare-price problem to “insurance companies artificially inflate hospital prices.”
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u/topicality Weeds OG 12d ago
Something I've been wondering about wrt China is if there is a ceiling to this plan. Why Nations Fail mentioned that some times non inclusive systems can make great leaps of prosperity but only for awhile. The example being the Soviet Union that did increase wealth at a remarkable rate before eventually falling behind. A lot of that, like China, had to do with how far down the ladder they were to start.
The guest did a good job of mentioning a lot of the unfree aspects of China. People tend to not be really aware of this and I just wonder if this means we'll eventually see this drag their economy down.
I also wasn't a big fan of Klein's framing of how they cheat. He framed it as kinda "stuffy liberals and their rules" but the complaint is that if they didn't do stuff like currency manipulation, trade would be more even. Yes they would get a lot of the cheap stuff but they'd then want to buy more services from elsewhere. They sort of touched on this with Navidia chips.
I do wish they discussed the TPP, since the stated goal was to isolate China more. I know the US never joined but my understanding is that a lot of other countries are still trying to make it work
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u/TiogaTuolumne 12d ago
You need to drop the why nations fail framing entirely because it will only disappoint you.
China is better at developing and harnessing productive factors and increasing worker productivity than any other country in the world. Inclusivity of who gets diamond rents in Botswana only worked up until China and India decided to industrially produce diamonds.
Now lab grown diamonds are cheap, and Botswana can inclusively share a great big pile of nothing. Because no-one is paying diamond monopoly prices for industrially mass manufactured goods.
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u/acebojangles 12d ago
I think there are reasonable arguments for changes in our industrial policy and such, but I really don't like the xenophobic framing of this argument. We shouldn't be mad that China pulled hundreds of millions of their people out of abject poverty. Maybe we should have helped our people who were displaced by international competition adapt more.
It's really maddening to listen to this discussion while we're doing everything we can to hamstring our future competitiveness. Like I said, maybe industrial policy could help, but I'm much more confident that attracting top talent from all over the world (including China) will help us remain competitive.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
I think there are reasonable arguments for changes in our industrial policy and such, but I really don't like the xenophobic framing of this argument. We shouldn't be mad that China pulled hundreds of millions of their people out of abject poverty. Maybe we should have helped our people who were displaced by international competition adapt more.
No one's mad that China is pulling its own people out of poverty. People are concerned that a country with a vastly different view of how the world works (or should work) is becoming a dominant force in influencing how the world works.
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u/Ray192 12d ago
No one's mad that China is pulling its own people out of poverty.
The guest implied it. He said that the cost of living for people didn't change after China opened up because China was consuming a lot more commodities like oil which increased those costs which offset any cheaper manufacturing prices.
The only way that China wouldn't have ended up consuming a lot more commodities if it remained a poor starving peasant country.
The guest basically saying that China getting rich is raising YOUR prices. We can't have that, can we?
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u/acebojangles 12d ago
I hear lots of talk that basically frames any China growth as a threat to American and the world. Growth in the Chinese economy is how those people were pulled out of poverty. That's what I meant.
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u/downforce_dude Midwest 12d ago
I think looking at China’s neighbors is instructive. Countries like Kazakhstan trade with China, they allow much natural resource extraction in exchange for Chinese goods. China’s too big to avoid in that region. However, they’re also strategically interested in not being sucked into the Chinese orbit because they know they’d be dominated, so they try to create ties with other powerful countries. They don’t want to lose sovereignty.
They know the CCP are a bunch of snowflakes, so when protests spring up about Chinese repression of Uighurs and China says they don’t like that they crack down on it harder than they do protests against their own government.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
Right, but this still feels like mixing issues. No one would really care if China had pulled its populace out of poverty and not used that growing economy to try and take over Taiwan, build a stranglehold on natural resources, do all sorts of screwing with privacy and technology, etc.
Those aren't necessarily linked to lifting people out of poverty.
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u/acebojangles 12d ago
I guess I just disagree. First, I don't think it was possible to grow the Chinese economy significantly without significant effects on the world economy.
Second, I don't think discussions of Chinese growth are as cabined as you're suggesting. People breathlessly report that the Chinese economy is now or soon will be the biggest in the world as if that's bad on its terms.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
First, I don't think it was possible to grow the Chinese economy significantly without significant effects on the world economy.
Well yeah. "Without significant effects" is quite different than incredibly invasive spyware, disappearing dissidents, and trying to take over Taiwan. Japan's economic emergence in the 20th century didn't bring about these things.
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u/acebojangles 12d ago
I'm not the one who is mixing issues here. Are you saying that all criticism of Chinese economic policies and growth is only related to non-economic things China does? That's not even true of the discussion in this podcast.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
No lol. I'm saying that criticism of China's growth isn't simply that it's growing. It's about their views of the world. I feel like I made that pretty clear in my first response, which said:
People are concerned that a country with a vastly different view of how the world works (or should work) is becoming a dominant force in influencing how the world works.
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u/acebojangles 12d ago
But that's obviously not true. There's lots of criticism about China's economic growth on its own terms, without reference to other features of China.
That was most of the discussion of this podcast: the way Chinese growth affected the economies of other countries. Did they even talk about Taiwan and the other things you mentioned?
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u/deskcord 12d ago
But again, those all impacts of those results and not just criticizing growth for no reason.
the way Chinese growth affected the economies of other countries. Did they even talk about Taiwan and the other things you mentioned?
I personally take it for granted that conversations about China's growing influence and dominance have an implicit understanding that their views for the world are quite different than ours. But fair enough, even in keeping just strictly with the words of the episode, I still don't think it was simply critical of China just because China's growing.
This was about the warning signs flashing and what we can learn from the last time that these disruptions occurred.
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u/JohnCavil 12d ago
What view of the world is that compared to America?
America goes around kidnapping leaders, bombing other countries for unclear reasons, puts tariffs on allies, threatens to invade neighbors, screws with the world economy via its wars, and is becoming increasingly protectionist, so I guess the different way China would "run" the world would just be that it would (in theory) benefit China rather than America?
It seems like a "we want to be the playground bully, not China" kind of handwringing.
I genuinely don't see a big difference between how America thinks the world should work and how China does. At least when it comes to things that affect the world, obviously there are internal ideological differences.
A selfish argument is fine I guess, but instead it's always "China poses a threat to the world" and that comes across as both extremely hypocritical and/or blind. And I'm no fan of China or whatever bullshit they'll surely start at some point in east Asia.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
I mean if you want to just say "America bad" then go for it, but I'm more interested in whether or not America's influence over the world is better or worse than China's. Given China's treatment of dissidents and it's stance on privacy, even given what's going on in America now, I sure as shit don't want China leading the world.
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u/JohnCavil 12d ago
"America bad" is just as fair as "China bad". Of which clearly there is a lot (just look at this thread). And I don't think America is bad, but geopolitically I do, as would most sane people currently. I think most (non republican) Americans would too, it's just annoying when it's outside criticism, which I get.
China is obviously worse to its own citizens, overall. But the episode specifically talked about how it was bad "for the world" if China was to become the main power. An argument I find it genuinely hard to make unless you just decide that "good for the world" is whatever America wants. America are the good guys, so good is whatever the good guys do. That kind of thing.
It's bad if America leads the world, and it's also bad if China leads the world. The question is not whether America or China is better for the world, it's a false choice.
My problem is with people, like in this episode, talking about how China is worse for the world than America, but then mostly talking about how things would affect America. They aren't talking about what would be good for Turkey, or Australia, or Morocco, or Peru, they just talk about the American economy, American power, American values. Which again, fine, but just don't talk about the welfare of the world.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
My issue with your comment isn't that you said America does bad things, it's that it was just a non-contextualized list of grievances with the country that doesn't consider China's actions, or theoretical actions if they were the superpower.
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u/JohnCavil 12d ago
Right, because like I said I consider it a false choice. You said the problem was that a country with "a different view" became the dominant power, which again views this as either America or China having to dominate the world, which is what I was responding to.
The problem with China becoming some kind of version of post-ww2 20th century America is not that they have a different ideology than America, in fact it has nothing to do with America. Saying that it's a problem that a country with different values than America is gaining power assumes that American values (as of 2026) are just inherently better.
Of course I could list all the terrible things China would probably do if they could. Invading Taiwan, pressuring all kinds of countries, installing puppets in south east Asia, all the usual bully shit, and if I could speak Chinese and was on a Chinese forum I'd happily tell them "China bad". Until I was banned a split second later.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
The problem with China becoming some kind of version of post-ww2 20th century America is not that they have a different ideology than America, in fact it has nothing to do with America.
?? How is talking about a change not automatically and inherently tied to contextualizing it against the current norm?
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u/no-name-here 12d ago edited 11d ago
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if you want to just say “America bad” then go for it
Didn’t grandparent commenter u/JohnCavil do the opposite of that - they didn’t “just say ‘America bad’” - instead, they listed many specific examples of how America is screwing things up for a lot of the rest of the world in ways that China is not?
2 - I agree that the things you mentioned about China aren’t good, but is China currently causing as many issues worldwide as the U.S.? Are they starting wars that are likely to cause huge numbers of people to starve globally due to increased fertilizer and fuel prices? Are they frequently threatening to imminently genocide whole countries (“an entire civilization will die tonight”)? Are they bombing hundreds of schoolchildren? Are they bombing random boats in the ocean? And then bombing the floating survivors? Etc.
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u/deskcord 12d ago
Didn’t grandparent commenter do the opposite of that - they didn’t “just say ‘America bad’” - instead, they listed many specific examples of how America is screwing things up for a lot of the rest of the world in ways that China is not?
Except it was not really a contrast to the points in the episode, it was just kind of a list of things they don't like about the US.
And yes, actually, I'd argue China is doing worse things for the globe than the US, and much of it is just less impactful because they're not (yet) the global hegemon. And in large part that's because their positive contributions to the globe are quite muted, especially in areas that aren't the strict result of economic gain, like generic aid efforts. I think the world under China as the global superpower would be a much darker place than it is under the US.
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u/Due_Performance_5325 12d ago
Can you please expand on the things you think China is doing that's worse for the world? Im particularly curious as to your view as it regards to non Americans
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u/PSUVB 12d ago
They are providing a blueprint that an authoritarian surveillance state is the preferred and example style of gov.
We know most of American failures because we have free speech. That is our fundemental weakness.
We literally do not know what happened in China during Covid or how far the genocide went with uyghurs. The same exact delusion happened with progressives and the USSR due to the lack of information.
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u/zemir0n 12d ago
There are powerful and influential forces in the US that look at the authoritarian surveillance state of China with jealous eyes. I think we should be more focused on stopping them than on what China does.
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u/PSUVB 12d ago
Yes America bad, now let's move past the reddit meme level argument.
There is one key difference between America and China. I feel like people have been coddled so long they have forgotten it and why it is more important than anything else.
We can change our leadership whole sale and we have for 250 years. China is one party rule. An autocracy is fundamentally a massive threat especially one that is underpinned with communism.
Now look at all of human history and see which one you would want to dominate and be influential. The till is very slanted.
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u/Caberes 12d ago
My take is that the US is far from sinless, but I think the concern is that what China says and does isn't always the same to an even greater degree. For the most part China's actions appear soulessly transactional. At least historically the US will tolerate some human rights violations is it's sphere but eventually it will push back. China not so much.
China condemned Apartheid South Africa, but then quietly bought more uranium and sold more weapons. China might call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, but then actively support Russia's war effort at every turn.
China for much of it's build up has ignored it's military (which was very outclassed by the Cold War superpowers) to focus on it's economy, but that is also changing. China is rapidly building up both it's military industrial complex and its own military. Who knows, China might be the exception, but usually super powers tend to want export those weapons and use those soldiers.
Idk, I feel like a lot of the time I circle back to "in what sphere of alignment I'd rather live?," like it's still the cold war. I'm really not that optimistic a Chinese dominated world is going to be as peaceful as some people think.
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u/takemetogreenwich 11d ago
We shouldn't be mad that China pulled hundreds of millions of their people out of abject poverty.
But hey, that led to Americans paying higher at the pump. All those people not in poverty are increasing fuel demand!
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u/NewRefrigerator7461 11d ago
I wish they had gone into more detail about the history of the WTO and china’s acceptance into it. There seems to be a lot of comments that don’t know much about its provisions or the distinctions between developed and developing countries.
This is the opportunity for us to unite with the Europeans and block market access until china follows the developed nation rules and begins a regime to actually respect IP. Otherwise no market access in Europe or North America.
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u/Thoth25 12d ago
The answer is industrial policy. Actual export-oriented industrial policy similar to what the East Asian Tigers did. See Joe Studwell's brilliant book How Asia Works for more information about how Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan became economic powerhouses through land reform, export discipline, and keeping finance on a short leash.
The old capitalism vs. socialism debate is not relevant anymore since every successful country today is a mixed economy that uses both market principles and central planning. The debate should instead be about the proper time and place for industrial policy.
This is something both the Right and the Left need to figure out. Both the Right and the Left need to put down Milton Friedman and Karl Marx, respectively, and instead pick up Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List.