Trade War with China
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Your first link shows exactly that Trump's trade war isn't working, because the foremost reason that Trump started the trade war in the first place is to bring manufacturing back to the US. It didn't happen. It only brought low-end manufacturing elsewhere, to countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, or Indonesia.
As for the second one, this isn't anything new. In fact if you search for such news they often date back years. China has been deliberately pushing over-capacity and low-value-added industries outside of the country and focus instead on consumption driven economy and service oriented economy.
Last year China's domestic consumption accounted for 75% of its GDP growth, further proof that its strategy is working. Export as a component of GDP has been steadily decreasing since about ten years ago. This is nothing new. Trump's trade war only accelerated this process.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Why would you think that the opposite was happening? Do you not know what decoupling means? This is what decoupling means; less business between China and the US while Chinese business is still booming and rising with other countries while American companies have to find other places for cheap labor as China moves up the value chain.
From the sentence you quoted and tried to debunk with these completely unrelated articles: "Companies are avoiding US supply chains to do business with China." I can tell you didn't understand what I was saying. Tech companies in Europe that do a LOT of business with Huawei and China, are finding ways to dump the US in their supply chains so they can keep doing business with and selling to China.
Meanwhile, Vietnam can't handle all the orders from the US trying to decouple so it's taking Chinese goods, putting a label on them, and selling them to the US:
Chinese Exporters Dodge Tariffs With Fake Made-in-Vietnam Labels
By
and
June 9, 2019, 10:54 PM EDT Updated on June 10, 2019, 2:59 AM EDT
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manqiangrexue
Brigadier
The more I think about this the more it's wrong. China is nothing like the USSR. China's population is greater than that of the US, EU, Japan, Russia added together. China has more STEM graduates than all of them added together by far. It's only China's late start that held it back but China is a very technologically advanced country as it is today and it's got more momentum than anybody. Once China moves ahead, it's going to kill the competition. China's tech ecosystem should outperform all of these countries combined because the population of China is like 4 United States working together. This is what the US fears most. Once China gets into its groove, it will out-innovate the rest of the world, have superior technology in every field, and be impossible to catch up to as they snowball faster and faster. The reason for the recent US freak out is because they are literally seeing this take shape and have realized they have a very late start to stopping this. Relative dependence is for small countries; China truly possesses the resources to be dominant in every technology there is.
The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates [Infographic]
Feb 2, 2017
Some estimates see the number of Chinese graduates aged between 25 and 34 rising compared to just 30 percent in the U.S. and Europe. According to the World Economic Forum, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has become a pretty big deal in China's flourishing universities. In 2013, 40 percent of Chinese graduates finished a degree in STEM, over twice the share in American third level institutions.
The thing about trying to project scenarios is you have to also make an argument for how likely you think something is going to occur or at least to explain your reasoning behind it.
In this case, you're basically talking about high level technological decoupling between China with the US+EU+Japan+SK (+ presumably some others that you haven't mentioned but which I imagine you would want to include if you thought of them) at national, whole-of-society levels.
I think it is worth it for you to first consider why various technologies are shared and traded between those nations first and who benefits, and then to consider under what circumstances might it be deemed necessary for those nations to stop that practice.
What has been said in the previous 2 posts is broadly correct.
@manqiangrexue
Yes, China does have a larger population than the rest of the developed world.
So if China was cut off by the USA, China could still develop a larger, leading-edge and entirely separate hi-tech world, given some time and also pain in the short-term.
But the rest of world will still be a lot bigger than just China or the USA, so it would be better if China didn't have to go it alone.
And yes, the US is freaking out now, because they can't imagine a world where they aren't telling everyone else in the world what to do.
The existence of China challenges this.
But the world is not wedded to the idea of eternal US leadership. After all, the US only accounts for 4% of people in the world.
@Josh Luo
In the economic realm, the European Union is a rival as it has a hi-tech economy which is the same size as the USA.
In the past year, the French President and German Chancellor have publicly declared the USA an economic and military threat to Europe.
South East Asia and East Asia have already accepted that China will become far bigger than the US.
We see this in the surveys of decision makers in South East Asia, along with published comments/writings from decision makers in Japan and South Korea.
So nobody in Europe or Asia wants to join the USA in a new technology cold war against China.
@manqiangrexue
Yes, China does have a larger population than the rest of the developed world.
So if China was cut off by the USA, China could still develop a larger, leading-edge and entirely separate hi-tech world, given some time and also pain in the short-term.
But the rest of world will still be a lot bigger than just China or the USA, so it would be better if China didn't have to go it alone.
And yes, the US is freaking out now, because they can't imagine a world where they aren't telling everyone else in the world what to do.
The existence of China challenges this.
But the world is not wedded to the idea of eternal US leadership. After all, the US only accounts for 4% of people in the world.
@Josh Luo
In the economic realm, the European Union is a rival as it has a hi-tech economy which is the same size as the USA.
In the past year, the French President and German Chancellor have publicly declared the USA an economic and military threat to Europe.
South East Asia and East Asia have already accepted that China will become far bigger than the US.
We see this in the surveys of decision makers in South East Asia, along with published comments/writings from decision makers in Japan and South Korea.
So nobody in Europe or Asia wants to join the USA in a new technology cold war against China.
The more I think about this the more it's wrong. China is nothing like the USSR. China's population is greater than that of the US, EU, Japan, Russia added together. China has more STEM graduates than all of them added together by far. It's only China's late start that held it back but China is a very technologically advanced country as it is today and it's got more momentum than anybody. Once China moves ahead, it's going to kill the competition. China's tech ecosystem should outperform all of these countries combined because the population of China is like 4 United States working together. This is what the US fears most. Once China gets into its groove, it will out-innovate the rest of the world, have superior technology in every field, and be impossible to catch up to as they snowball faster and faster. The reason for the recent US freak out is because they are literally seeing this take shape and have realized they have a very late start to stopping this. Relative dependence is for small countries; China truly possesses the resources to be dominant in every technology there is.
The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates [Infographic]
Feb 2, 2017
Some estimates see the number of Chinese graduates aged between 25 and 34 rising compared to just 30 percent in the U.S. and Europe. According to the World Economic Forum, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has become a pretty big deal in China's flourishing universities. In 2013, 40 percent of Chinese graduates finished a degree in STEM, over twice the share in American third level institutions.
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The European Union does not depend on NATO for its survival.
Russia is just too small to obtain a permanent military conquest over Poland, never mind the rest of Europe.
For example, Russia has an economy which is roughly 10x smaller than the EU, and everyone knows this
It is Russia that fears becoming an economic appendage to a neighbouring EU. Think Canada which has an economy 10x smaller than its US neighbour.
In comparison, the USSR could have conquered all of mainland Europe in a single campaign, which was the original reason for NATO.
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On the Korean Peninsula, China is right next door and can project more military power and economic influence than the USA, which is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
And this power disparity increases every day as China's economy/military continues to develop faster. How would a rerun of the Korean War look today?
So can a Korea-US alliance guarantee the survival of South Korea?
In addition, North Korea's survival is reliant on China.
So the reality is that South Korea's survival is actually dependent on:
1. a non-hostile relationship with China
2. China reining in North Korea.
broadsword
Brigadier
But South Korea's leaders think differently. They want the US to be in the equation.
That doesn't contradict what I wrote.
South Korea want the US as a balancing power, so they can play off China against the USA.
That's not a situation where a US military alliance can guarantee their survival.
But let's say China - South Korea relations completely break down and China decides South Korea is an implacable enemy and a true national security threat.
China could conquer South Korea, even if there was a military alliance with the US.
In comparison, the US doesn't have the capacity to conquer and occupy South Korea, in the face of Chinese opposition.
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The EU have a hi-tech economy which is slightly larger than the US economy.
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