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Q: Does China trade unfairly?
I know the tax on imported cars and other goods is quite steep, but we are free to tax their goods. Is Trump correct or is the west just bitter at losing its manufacturing industry?
7 years 39 weeks ago in Money & Banking - China
Depends on what they agreed with. As far as individual trade deals between two countries go, it's up to both parties to come to an agreement, if the other country agreed too have no tax on Chinese imports while China has a 20% tax on theirs, they are stupid, but it's not unfair since they have agreed with it.
Most people's complaint revolve around the WTO that China joined in 2001. There is a fixed set of rules that apply to every members and override individual trade deals. When joining the organization, China agreed to these rules, namely opening its market to companies from the other member countries and axing import taxes from said countries altogether, you know free trade and all the usual stuff that comes along with it.
When joining, every countries get a 15 years 'trial' period to implement these regulations and to make their market WTO friendly. It's been over 15 years now and China has done none of the above requirements, if anything it's gotten worse for foreign companies in China. So yes, as far as the WTO goes, China is an unfair trader, probably the worst of them all.
And China will stomp his feet and yell like a rotten spoiled kid and make threats if any other member country of the WTO decides not to follow the rules.
If it were up to me, China would be kicked out of the WTO here and now, but the people in charge got no balls.
Robk:
Yeah, but the companies were hot to get into bed with China and could have just waited out the 15 years to see how it went... Instead they had hungry eyes for the 1.4 billion people market.Can't blame them but they knew the risks. Although China really does present its unique set of issues.
If the companies want to teach China a lesson, they can simply move all their factories elsewhere and raise their luxury foreign items for mainland China. Simply blame the Chinese government for it all.
Chinese people will stop buying in the mainland and travel abroad to buy... thus causing damage to the domestic economy... and maybe make the Chinese government think twice about what they have done.
China got their chance and they abused it. Now let them clean up their own mess. Many companies have already started to do the above and the Chinese economy is starting to suffer.
RandomGuy:
For sure, they were greedy and shortsighted, I feel no pity for Apple, Walmart, McDonald's and the likes. I feel sympathy for the Western entrepreneurs who were invited to participate in China's development then saw their business snatched from them for no valid reason by the Chinese government once it was successful enough before it was given to their Chinese partner who ended up crashing it anyway, which is exactly why I want no Chinese partner and can even shut down my office remotely if needed.
This is not something I know a lot about so I might be talking out of my arse, but I always thought that if a company wants to sell its product in China, knowing that it will be taxed heavily that's their choice and if China is able to get away with charging that tax while their goods may not be taxed as heavily in other countries can you really blame them for getting the best deal they can?
As for Americans being bitter at losing their manufacturing... it's not as if China forced U.S companies to move their factories overseas, the companies did it because it suited them and made them more money. If it wasn't China it probably would have been some other developing country with no labor or environmental laws.Blaming China for Americans losing jobs is stupid .
From what I understand Trump and his family produce their own clothing in China too so blaming China for stealing U.S jobs is hypocritical.
Shining_brow:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ivanka-trump-clothing-line-made-in-china-hong-kong-2017-2
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/08/news/economy/donald-trump-trade/index.html
Yes and No, the problem of tariffs falls on the countries signing trade deals with China. American politicians are corrupt and hell bent on selling out America. On top of the tilted tariffs China inflates the price of foreign goods. I've talked to many people who work in various industries and they've all told me the same thing. Foreign goods made in China are shipped out and shipped back in to inflate the costs then the tariffs are charged on top of the inflated costs. That's cheating. Also, China engages in price fixing when it comes to foreign companies. Example, Chevy cars must be priced higher in order to not compete with Chinese brands. That's cheating. And all of these things are ignored when it comes to foreign media.
Englteachted:
Oh and let's not forget banning companies , fining companies for being too successful, using the state owned media to screw with companies' reputation
Depends on what they agreed with. As far as individual trade deals between two countries go, it's up to both parties to come to an agreement, if the other country agreed too have no tax on Chinese imports while China has a 20% tax on theirs, they are stupid, but it's not unfair since they have agreed with it.
Most people's complaint revolve around the WTO that China joined in 2001. There is a fixed set of rules that apply to every members and override individual trade deals. When joining the organization, China agreed to these rules, namely opening its market to companies from the other member countries and axing import taxes from said countries altogether, you know free trade and all the usual stuff that comes along with it.
When joining, every countries get a 15 years 'trial' period to implement these regulations and to make their market WTO friendly. It's been over 15 years now and China has done none of the above requirements, if anything it's gotten worse for foreign companies in China. So yes, as far as the WTO goes, China is an unfair trader, probably the worst of them all.
And China will stomp his feet and yell like a rotten spoiled kid and make threats if any other member country of the WTO decides not to follow the rules.
If it were up to me, China would be kicked out of the WTO here and now, but the people in charge got no balls.
Robk:
Yeah, but the companies were hot to get into bed with China and could have just waited out the 15 years to see how it went... Instead they had hungry eyes for the 1.4 billion people market.Can't blame them but they knew the risks. Although China really does present its unique set of issues.
If the companies want to teach China a lesson, they can simply move all their factories elsewhere and raise their luxury foreign items for mainland China. Simply blame the Chinese government for it all.
Chinese people will stop buying in the mainland and travel abroad to buy... thus causing damage to the domestic economy... and maybe make the Chinese government think twice about what they have done.
China got their chance and they abused it. Now let them clean up their own mess. Many companies have already started to do the above and the Chinese economy is starting to suffer.
RandomGuy:
For sure, they were greedy and shortsighted, I feel no pity for Apple, Walmart, McDonald's and the likes. I feel sympathy for the Western entrepreneurs who were invited to participate in China's development then saw their business snatched from them for no valid reason by the Chinese government once it was successful enough before it was given to their Chinese partner who ended up crashing it anyway, which is exactly why I want no Chinese partner and can even shut down my office remotely if needed.
Yes, they do trade unfairly... but nobody holds them accountable.
They cheated but they profited so much from it that most countries turned a blind eye due to needing the business Chinese brought (tourism, students, Chinese invesments, etc.)
Now that things are starting to settle... (China's economy is taking a hit)... the Chinese will most likely start to play ball... or suffer...
Seems the world is getting tired of letting the Chinese cheat and get away with it.
RandomGuy:
It's funny because everything in China is way overvalued, from real estate to salaries. Things are starting to settle and there has been no growth in salaries in a number of sectors in 2016 for the first time since the country's opening. As for real estate, some tier-2 cities are already on the way down due to the lack of real demand (they tried luring in foreign money by relaxing requirements by the end of 2015, didn't work, too little too late), which means anyone who bought there is losing money as we speak. I predict some serious stagnation at 0-1% growth in the next 5 years and then a long way down into deflation from real estate to salaries to everything else in the foreseeable future. If you get bonuses in the form of hongbao expect it to stop soon due to stagnation, already my Chinese acquaintances complain about getting a lot less of it than before. They will stagnate, all the GDP data is bullshit, real growth must be like 2-3% right now, and it's well deserved after cheating the entire world.
China trades unfairly, no question about it.
A brief chat between a young mainland china cop and I last Friday evening said a lot, bearing in mind that cops (at least the majority) and justice in developed countries went hand in hand.
We started with the cold weather as I saw him patrolling outside a government office, and got onto global warming. He was about 27 years old, born and grew up in Henan. When he heard from me that the glaciers, the source of water for Yellow River and Yangtze River were all shrinking he said, "sure, I grew up in the North, we witnessed the drying up of the Yellow River".
We then chatted about mankind in general. I asked him, "in your opinion, how much has mankind evolved since the cavemen era?" He asked me how I defined evolution. I said, "an evolved person IMHO is one who has moral integrity, as oppose to low lives who have no integrity". He then said to him it was all about survival. It was painfully obvious that he had no moral standard (he was doing his job probably to earn a living, that's all). He also commented on the 1.4 billion population.
He wasn't the only one who I chatted with in China who gave me the survival-justified any-means belief.
CCP really did a remarkable job at teaching ruthlessness. Basically, the whole China was (and is) a NO-JUSTICE-DECEITFUL-SURVIVAL mode. You have a far better chance of success asking a pig to fly than China to trade fairly.
Englteachted:
That mindset is instilled in many people from very poor countries as well which is why developed countries need to seriously rethink unlimited and unfiltered immigration policies
China is looking at getting involved in the TPP. That would be SO scary if it goes the same way that it was looking before the yanks pulled out - companies having more legal power over national laws (especially in relation to environmental laws). Not to mention all the QR controls that are placed on goods (and flirted by the Chinese).
Unfair. Yup.
I have been here 5 years now, and I still have stuff in storage in the UK.
Why?
Because I am not allowed to import it. I have a tool kit in a roller cabinet worth 5k GB. Not allowed to bring it here. But I could export crap spanners to the UK no problem if I wanted to. Flood the market with crap but good stuff is banned.
Rant alert !!!!
As an Engineer, I am non stop fucked off with China. I cant buy decent tools. I cant even but a button that works.
I cant buy anything I need. China has a " make do" philosophy. It has an A,B and C quality concept, a tick the box management style, and a "we have a problem, lets have a meeting" solution.
Wall street love that.
China did not steal any jobs. London and Wall street sold them to the lowest bidder. And that was China.
China offered to tick the box, and the bankers said ' That's what we want"
China did not steal jobs. The bankers sold them. With your pension money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legislation
This legislation, Bill Clinton canceled this as a thank you to the people who paid for his campaign. Bill Clinton signed the bill that destroyed US manufacturing. Because his doners wanted to manufacture somewhere cheaper..
When Glass Steagall was recalled, infinate money was released. Our pension investments were used to buy the manufaturing companies we worked for, they were globalised, and the jobs sent to the cheapest country
Money is the problem.
Money needs to be seperated. Risk money and secure money
When Bill cancelled Glass steagall, he basically allowed your pension money to be spent to build up cheap Chinese manufacturing.
And Wall street was so keen to make money in short term gains, it forgot to put any reciprocal agreements in place.
They wanted returns on our cash they invested. Fast returns. A few hundred million to retire on.
Globalisation is not about China stealing jobs. It is about the bankers using our money to enrich themselves. And its about how they use that money to manipulate American elections through donations.
ScotsAlan:
Correction. Pension money is risk money. Invesment money. When bill canclled Glass Steagall, he alowed bankers to use deposit money.
