Equation
Lieutenant General
You made some great points, and I had been meaning to reply for a while but did not have time until now.
You showed unusual insight in seeing that in the past, American governments made grand bargains that traded wealth (in the form of access to the American market) for strategic advantage in the cold war. However, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and here, the details are of paramount importance.
You see, just because America got to write the rules of world trade does not necessarily mean the American government got to write all those rules, or wrote them in such a way as to be most advantageous to America. The detail everyone seems to miss is that the rules are actually written by powerful interest groups within American society, who have managed to thoroughly permeate and co-op the US government to do their bidding through the legalised corruption mechanism of campaign financing.
You can have the US government negociate the most amazing deal imaginable for American national interests with other countries, but if the special interest groups that owns both Houses of Congress don't get their dues, that deal isn't going to happen as its meaningless without Congressional ratification.
Even the most subservient American client country cannot offer a total blank cheque to America when negotiating a trade deal, so if Congress *cough* interest groups wants to get the parts of most import to them in, other things will have to come out. A key feature of TPP (and also the TTIP the US is separately negotiating with the EU), if not the most import (as in undroppable), is the power those deals with give to corporations over national courts and governments. That is not at all in the interests of the US as a country, since foreign corporations could just as easily sue the US government over egregious sins like harming their bottom line to protect a silly thing call the environment or workers rights etc, however, that is pretty much the only part of the deal that is beyond negotiation as far as the US is concerned.
And this is not a modern development either.
Similar clauses that not necessarily benefits the US government or country as a whole gets added to trade deals negotiated by the US all the time as a price to interest groups.
The 'trick' that China's leaders and strategists learnt was to spot this disconnect and ruthlessly exploit it to maximise the benefits for the Chinese nation and people. In that way, China managed to use enormous profits as the bait to get some of the most powerful and influential parts of America's corporate elite (and the interests groups they control) to turn against American national interest and advance Chinese national interest instead for huge profits.
People are not blind to this, however, it is a sign of the power that interests groups hold in the west, that rather than asking the obvious question of, "Hey, why aren't stopping those profiteers from harming American interest?", the masses have been brainwashed into thinking that Chinese level of government interest and activity in protecting and promoting the interests and rights of the country and its companies and citizens as somehow akin to 'cheating', hence the enormous sense of 'unfairness' and anger towards China. As any half decent spin-doctor *cough* propagandist knows, the best way to distract the people from your own failings is to point the finger of blame at foreigners.
The biggest difference between Chinese deals and American negotiated deals is the role both governments play. The Chinese government keeps an unapologetic iron fist on the steering wheel to make sure top level deals and initiatives like OBOR are uncompromising in serving Chinese national interests first and foremost. Paradoxically, sometimes that might mean companies taking a hit to their profits in order to maintain good strategic relationships with key governments for example. That is not to say Chinese companies are not allowed to make a profit, however, they must remember the Golden Rule, which is they are not to damage Chinese national interest in the pursuit of profits.
America, on the other hand, has been taught but interest groups to be almost instinctively hostile to pesky government meddling in the affairs, I mean Freedom!(TM), of companies.
On the face of it, no one could really argue with something as 'good' as Freedom!(TM), but unfortunately the very concept of Freedom!(TM) is based on a bare faced lie, which is that all men(and women) are born equally.
We are all born with the same rights, but not the same opportunities.
Sure, someone born dirt poor could still go on to change the world, but the odds of that happening are truly astronomical. OTOH, a Bush or Trump or any of the other 0.01% babies would have to be truly utterly and epically useless to not have the kind of wealth, influence and power that the other 99.99% of the population could only dream of.
In an environment where it is not only acceptable, but actively encouraged, for everyone to do any and everything they can get away with (including it seems, tax avoidance) who really benefits and who actually suffer from all these amazing Freedoms!(TM) we have all be repeatedly told governments should be handing out?
Western scholars are right that power corrupts, but they seem too preoccupied with government powers and corruption that it does not seem to have occurred to them that private individuals are just as susceptible, if not more so, since they are spared almost all the close scrutiny that would come with a powerful governmental position, yet often wields far more power.
The one thing that keeps the rich and powerful in check is the government, through laws and regulations. By relentlessly trimming back those laws and regulations designed to protect the powerless from the predations of the rich and powerful (which include trimming back legal aid, thereby massively tipping the scales of justice in favour of the rich who can afford to pay top lawyers out of their own pockets) in the name of Freedom!(TM) it is the people and country as a whole that suffers and are worse off, as the rich and powerful exploit their newly granted Freedoms!(TM) to squeeze ever more profits from their assets by, you guessed it, taking a bigger share of the economic pie for themselves at the expense of everyone else.
The story of American working and middle classes' decline is not one of China 'stealing' their jobs, its the rich and powerful owners of American companies exploiting all the new Freedoms!(TM) granted to them by the politicians they bought and paid for, and deciding they wanted a little bit more profits from their investments and so went to China (and other developing countries) to exploit the much lower wages and laxer environmental protection standards.
These corporate fat cats have zero love or loyalty towards China, and a lot of them are now busy relocating to places like Vietnam and Africa as wages and environment standards increase in China.
The big difference is that unlike America, the Chinese government had no illusions about the nature of these corporate titans, so kept its eyes on the ball and make contingency plans. One of the key ones is technology acquisition and development.
The reason American blue collar workers had it so good in the past was because of American technological superiority.
America was able to make stuff no one else could, so they could effectively name their price and see the rest of the world pay it. American companies were able to make fat margins, so more of it trickled down to the workers, who could make a very comfortable living doing very little work which required minimal skill (compared to today's American workers).
Western economists would swear blind that that was all down to their Most Holy God of Market Forces, but they forget their own history.
It is my belief that the lynchpin of American technological supremacy was in fact American government intervention in the markets in the form of the vast sums of money it was investing in R&D during the Cold War to beat the Soviets.
I think its little coincidence that with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR, and the corresponding drying up of the endless flood of government R&D money, America's previously untouchable technological lead started to erode.
With the erosion of American technological supremacy, American companies could no longer simply name their price and expect people to just pay up.
As China and others climb the technology ladder (value chain), they are increasingly able to offer products of similar if not superior performance and function to American offerings, yet charge far less.
That has forced western companies to seek cost savings, which in turn squeezed the comfortable living of US blue chip workers.
Yes but many of the US blue collar workers would still place blame on China or someone else instead of US companies for the "lost of American jobs." How's that so? The media is partly to blame but also the lack of education, understanding of culture, and the stubbornness to believe that they are still exceptional. As a result NO ONE is doing anything serious to combat the problem. That's why there is a such a deep division going on among Americans.
