In 1987 Reagan slapped 100% tariff on Japanese electronics and the widespread hatred towards Japanese resulted in a American-Chinese man getting killed.
I assume those who post here don’t go to that extreme. But you may want to consider… as US citizens we want US to be the dominant country in the world, and every nation including China has the right to have the same aspirations. Still, US is the best place in the world, that welcomes immigrants, you can work hard and provide for your family, your freedom, and liberty are enshrined in constitution and cherished values. Let us focus on these values. China is not our Villain, didn’t attacked us, it just competes in the marketplace. That’s a fair competition.
I bought $20 worth of stuff on TEMU a few hours ago. It was cheaper than Amazon despite the 134% tariff. Makes me wonder what Jeff Bezos’ mark-up is. {{ LOL }}
Is it? There is fair play and there is foul play. There are laws and regulations that define the border between fair and foul. Your post suggests that there is no foul play ever. Can you prove it only assert it without proof?
I’m reminded of a time my nephew and I played a round of golf against my brother and his other son, match play. When I showed up, I learned my cocky nephew had agreed to give them 10 strokes to make it competitive.
I was upset he conceded so many strokes, but relented and played. We lost.
Maybe there is foul play, maybe we also agreed to terms giving China too many strokes.
And then there’s the not-so-small matter of intellectual property which has been “transferred” for decades.
Also, “Recent estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) reveal that nearly 90% of all seized counterfeit goods originate from China.”
Is the stuff being shipped from China, directly to you? Don’t laff until it’s in your hands. A guy I know ordered some parts for his vintage Citroen, from Europe, shipped via FedEx. FedEx is holding the parts, demanding he provide them with a ton of content information, both as auto parts, and as metals.
Around here, TEMU seems to have their own captive delivery company. I’m pretty sure that the Chinese had this figured out. That’s why they’re running rings around the US.
If they tell me that my $20 order is now $45, I just tell them to refund the money. “100% satisfaction guaranteed”.
Keep us posted. For years, there were flox of Chinese products on eBay, shipped direct from China. Apparently, the US’ tariff was so low, it wasn’t worth assessing on small packages. That free pass for small shipments is now gone. Customers assesses everything.
That’s correct. Yet TEMU hasn’t doubled their prices in recent weeks. Like I said, the Chinese are running rings around American policymakers who seem to have trouble with basic arithmetic.
Why are US Tech companies doing business in China if it puts their intellectual property at risk? My guess is because they’re still making money hand over fist even after accounting for the theft.
It kind of like US oil & gas companies complaining about the bribes they’re paying in Africa – the cost of that is included in the project economics.
Years ago, savvy Bill Gates quipped, “If the Chinese are going to bootleg software, I want it to be Microsoft software.”
Interesting question. I was at Motorola (Semiconductor Products Sector) from '96 to '04. We were just starting to get into China at that time and I asked about that myself. The question I always got back was, more or less, if we don’t our competitors will. And if the theft and such gets out of hand the government will eventually take care of it for us.
So. Greed. Sprinkled with socialized downside protection. As you can surely guess.
Ayup. USian companies would agree to anything to sell their rope to the Chinese. Now that the Chinese are putting all that rope to use, the USian “JCs” are crying foul.
Many misunderstood this quote. China is one of the earliest countries to embrace “open source” software. They leaned into Linux over Microsoft. They were always afraid US will suddenly pull licensed software. We were aware of Deepseek, a great contribution to open source AI. But before that China has a history of over 25 years with open source.
Also, they believed with “open source” no one can accuse them of stealing any IP.
I took it to mean he understood the network effect, that if another OS was bootlegged and got traction, Microsoft would be locked out of the entire country. If it was Microsoft’s OS he would at least have a chance to sell some software because it would be the standard. If Linux or (unlikely) Mac or something else was he’d have no chance at all further down the road.
Yes. Many software companies want to let you use their product first, and then come after you to charge you for that. If Linux were to replace Windows, then $MSFT lost the enterprise market in china to Linux first, then they lost consumer market later.
The software companies have tightened anyone’s ability to bootleg software. Most are living 20, 25 years ago. China has embraced “open source” very seriously and have build, use “open source” products. The BABA, BIDU’s of the world are not bootlegging anyone’s software.
Unfortunately most Americans view China has a low-tech, toys making economy. China’s BYD sells twice the number of Tesla in EV, their robotics far more advanced than any company in US, Vivo and Huawei are outselling iPhones in China, TikTok has a better algo (Mouse trap) than US companies, i can go on… But China is getting very close to US in technology skills. Just look at the number of patents granted, China is outstripping US by 2 to 1. Just on AI, artificial intelligence, China had applied for 5x more patents than US.
If you want to live 25 years ago, and think they are just making cheap toys, and you can slap tariff and break them economically, you are living in the past century. If you want to compete with today’s China, make US a welcoming place for talent, creativity, again.
China confuses people, and usually makes them radically ignorant of what China has done historically and its real capabilities.
Arguably (and I so argue) it is the greatest and deepest human culture on Earth, but with terrible vulnerabilities (Mongol Barbarians, grain lands terribly vulnerable to floods and droughts, powerful centrifugal regionalist/warlord tendencies, brutal class divisions).
From the time of the near total European takeover and domination of China in the 19th Century, up through the reign of the “Gang of Four” after Mao died, China has been grotesquely, tragically, and idiotically misruled and increasingly thought of as backward and near brain dead. Helped by Zhou Enlai’s steadying last efforts, Deng Xiaoping finally corrected course away from theoretically based insanity, decentralized the economy, largely liberated the culture from Maoist lobotomy, and put China back into contention for greatest nation on Earth.
Xi seems to me to be an atavistic*** return to the Maoist CCP’s centralized brittleness, dominated by personal struggles for internal dominance at all costs in an ever more corrupt and internally contradictory system mixing economics, politics, and egos.
You know, like what our own USAian ruling idiots are busily doing….
***atavism is a misunderstood yet superbly useful word in this context:
