Are US sanctions on China backfiring?
Discussion
A lot of noise yesterday about Huawei’s new phone and operating system, suggesting that US sanctions forced the Chinese to develop their own chips and that instead of hindering the Chinese it has spurred them on to become independent and are now a competitive threat to US firms.
Should the US review sanctions against China and whether they are achieving their aims or having unintended negative consequences (for the US)?
Should the US review sanctions against China and whether they are achieving their aims or having unintended negative consequences (for the US)?
BlackWidow13 said:
It is simply a matter of time until China becomes the dominant economic, technological and probably military force globally. Fighting it is about as worthwhile as fighting the tide.
Nothing is guaranteed. China has economic issues of its own so it is not predestined that they become the most powerful economic state in the world.My greatest worry is that, if China's economy suffers any sort of major shock, it may resort to military action to distract its population from the economic problems. And, as we know, China has been rattling its sabre for a number of years now.
BlackWidow13 said:
It is simply a matter of time until China becomes the dominant economic, technological and probably military force globally. Fighting it is about as worthwhile as fighting the tide.
That may well be the case, though they have a projected significant decline in the working age population and have serious structural issues. What has become clear is their urge to dominate their region and disregard for international law. So in the West we should not be facilitating this, as a world dominated by China is not likely to be an improvement.
It is also not clear how much real "cost" is involved. The USA has most successfully "decoupled" from China and they are also doing the best economically in recent years in the West. Bearing in mind that the process of globalisation mainly benefits a small wealthy elite and its reverse, such as re-shoring production, benefits ordinary workers.
Edited by JagLover on Friday 8th September 09:27
JagLover said:
What has become clear is their urge to dominate their region and disregard for international law. So in the West we should not be facilitating this as a world dominated by China is not likely to be an improvement.
It is also not clear how much real "cost" is involved. The USA has most successfully "decoupled" from China and they are also doing the best economically in recent years in the West.
You mean what's become clear is that China is not happy to accept the status quo of US domination of their region and are happy to disregard international law as setup to favour... the US. For us, sure a world dominated by China is unlikely to be an improvement but equally it can't be a surprise that China is not going to be keen to be accept that the US is unassailable as the dominant global power.It is also not clear how much real "cost" is involved. The USA has most successfully "decoupled" from China and they are also doing the best economically in recent years in the West.
And it's not so clear how much 'real' cost is involved as it's also far from clear exactly how much the US has actually 'decoupled' from China. If China started lobbing missiles at Taiwan and the US reacted in the same way against them as against Russia (purely on economic terms without the military aspect of things) - how well do you think the US economy is going to stand up?
Edit - oops flubbed my typing....
Edited by isaldiri on Friday 8th September 10:11
isaldiri said:
You mean what's become clear is that China is not happy to accept the status quo of US domination of their region and are happy to disregard international law as setup to favour... the US. For us, sure a world dominated by China is likely to be an improvement but equally it can't be a surprise that China is not going to be keen to be accept that the US is unassailable as the dominant global power.
And it's not so clear how much 'real' cost is involved as it's also far from clear exactly how much the US has actually 'decoupled' from China. If China started lobbing missiles at Taiwan and the US reacted in the same way against them as against Russia (purely on economic terms without the military aspect of things) - how well do you think the US economy is going to stand up?
For starters international rules do not only favour the US, but any country that wants to live in a world where might is not right. Those most directly impacted by Chinese expansionism are those where China is disregarding international rules on EEZ. And it's not so clear how much 'real' cost is involved as it's also far from clear exactly how much the US has actually 'decoupled' from China. If China started lobbing missiles at Taiwan and the US reacted in the same way against them as against Russia (purely on economic terms without the military aspect of things) - how well do you think the US economy is going to stand up?
Secondly the cost being talked about is now, not any hypothetical future scenario. At present the USA has seen very significant declines in imports from China and doesn't seem to have incurred much of an economic hit over and above the impact of the pandemic.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2023/07/11...
Skeptisk said:
A lot of noise yesterday about Huawei’s new phone and operating system, suggesting that US sanctions forced the Chinese to develop their own chips and that instead of hindering the Chinese it has spurred them on to become independent and are now a competitive threat to US firms.
Should the US review sanctions against China and whether they are achieving their aims or having unintended negative consequences (for the US)?
You're talking about HarmonyOS4. It's not really competing against android, more replacing it. It can't run Android apps.Should the US review sanctions against China and whether they are achieving their aims or having unintended negative consequences (for the US)?
Let me ask you this: what would you think of a smartphone that didn't have any of the apps most people use (twitter/facebook/youtube/whatsapp/instagram/google maps) and that used something other than google for search and wallet?
This is basically China-market led, and will be using things like wechat/taobao/tencent/alipay and stuff like that being default (as they already are on china-android phones).
So really all it's doing is replaching china-android (limited thing anyway) with a native equivalent that does the same stuff.
Notably, it cannot do this outside of China.
tl;dr it's the software.
Eric Mc said:
BlackWidow13 said:
It is simply a matter of time until China becomes the dominant economic, technological and probably military force globally. Fighting it is about as worthwhile as fighting the tide.
Nothing is guaranteed. China has economic issues of its own so it is not predestined that they become the most powerful economic state in the world.My greatest worry is that, if China's economy suffers any sort of major shock, it may resort to military action to distract its population from the economic problems. And, as we know, China has been rattling its sabre for a number of years now.
The US and U.K. and others have invaded many countries since WWII.
Skeptisk said:
I don’t think China has invaded any countries or threatened to invade. Taiwan is a part of China so doesn’t count.
That is incorrect on the first count and highly dubious on the second.China has invaded Tibet, South Korea and Vietnam in its communist period.
China has about as much claim to Taiwan as it does to Tibet.
Taiwan's indigenous population were not Han Chinese. Their claim over it stems more from it being a colonial outpost at the time of the Qing dynasty.
Skeptisk said:
A lot of noise yesterday about Huawei’s new phone and operating system, suggesting that US sanctions forced the Chinese to develop their own chips and that instead of hindering the Chinese it has spurred them on to become independent and are now a competitive threat to US firms.
Should the US review sanctions against China and whether they are achieving their aims or having unintended negative consequences (for the US)?
Did you see this on CNN or MSNBC?Should the US review sanctions against China and whether they are achieving their aims or having unintended negative consequences (for the US)?
Harmony OS was released in 2019 and these things take a while to build. Did you know that Samsung has had a couple of goes at phone OS's? Must have been getting rankled by the US up to something or other....
Skeptisk said:
I don’t think China has invaded any countries or threatened to invade. Taiwan is a part of China so doesn’t count.
The US and U.K. and others have invaded many countries since WWII.
Unless of course you discard the 260k regular Chinese troops involved in the invasion of South Korea or the 400k involved in the Vietnamese War, or the invasion and annexation of Tibet etc The US and U.K. and others have invaded many countries since WWII.
Let’s not forget the Glorious Gloster’s at the battle of Imjin where they held off an entire Chinese regular army division on Hill 235
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