I was involved with China at government and business levels from 1976 to the mid naughties. One thing you very quickly learned is that the playing field is not level. China — by which I mean Chinese companies and the Chinese governments at central and provincial levels — has a top-to-bottom clear understanding of its interests, aims and agenda and pursues them ruthlessly. Whereas we Aussies had our hands tied by that dratted democracy thing; and the rule of law, darn it.
Aussie companies might be able to get its government — from time to time — to help them pursue their interests, as do Chinese companies with Beijing.
But the opposite is not true. An Australian government that tries to get Aussie companies to bolster its political or diplomatic ends will find itself at the receiving end of a court case.
Yet China does that all the time. It has political ends and companies have to line up behind them. Even if they are in breach of WTO rules that China undertook to abide by when in joined in 2002.
No wonder that folks on both right and left are in favour of taking China on. Just that not all agree that tariffs are the way to go.
This article argues, inter alia, that the main reason for Trump's moves is business. Not a geopolitical attempt to stop China's rise.
China, apparently, believes it's the latter, the geopolitical, and if that's its belief, while it's not the case, it could lead to miscalculations. Beijing seems to be getting touchier and reverting to the paranoia that I knew seventies through nineties. Not good. But article good...
Snip/quote here on various cases of China's use of trade to pursue political ends. Just look at them!
China's use of trade to retaliate in political disputes – an embargo on rare earth exports to Japan following the arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain in 2010; restrictions on salmonimports from Norway following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo that year; restrictions on banana imports from the Philippines following the escalation of South China Sea tensions in 2012; a boycott of Lotte stores in China after the deployment of THAAD missile defence batteries in South Korea in 2017 – changes the calculus of the benefits of trade with the world's second-largest economy.Read it all at SCMP
