Economy The U.S-China Trade War: China said it would impose retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods

This is fitting. I was literally just in another thread (Sorry @Arkain2K) talking about how contemporary China lacks the culture and environment for genuine innovation, how their young talent isn't nurtured to think in the abstract as well as the social/political system in place that even actively works to inhibit it.

SCMP: A Century On, China Still Lacks The Drive For Scientific Truth, Says Outspoken Editor

China to send trade delegation to U.S, raising hopes of breakthrough in escalating trade war
Michael Collins, USA TODAY | Aug. 16, 2018

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WASHINGTON – Analysts said Thursday that China’s decision to send a trade delegation to the United States this month could be the first signs of a breakthrough in what has been an escalating trade war between the two countries.

“It’s definitely a good sign that the two sides are talking,” said Erin Ennis, senior vice president of the U.S. China Business Council, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

China’s Ministry of Commerce announced Thursday that Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen will lead a delegation to the U.S. in late August to hold talks on the economy and trade issues.

Wang will meet with a U.S. delegation headed by David Malpass, the undersecretary of Treasury for international affairs, the commerce ministry said in a statement on its website.

“China welcomes communications and dialogue on the basis of reciprocity, equality and integrity,” the statement said, but Beijing emphasized that it continues to oppose “unilateralism and trade protectionism and does not accept any unilateral trade restrictions.”

The statement did not say when or where the meetings would take place. But the discussions would mark the first formal dialogue between the two countries since trade talks broke down two months ago and both countries began a series of tit-for-tat actions by slapping tariffs on each others’ imports.

While the agenda has not been disclosed, analysts noted that the announcement did not indicate that the U.S. Trade Representative’s office would be involved in the discussions. They interpreted that as a sign that the talks could be a prelude to further negotiations down the road.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross have both shown interest in trying “to get some things moving in the relationship that shows the two sides can work together,” Ennis said.

“You need to create the circumstances so that both sides have trust that they are going to follow through on their commitments, but then also use that as a basis of being able to have the more difficult discussions that are going to take a little longer to work out,” she said.

Both countries are experiencing mounting domestic economic pressures from key sectors as a result of their trade war actions, “so they need to get to the negotiating table in an effort to ease those pressures,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican consultant who has worked with private companies to promote free trade.

The decision to resume talks is an indication that, “while the politics of trade war rhetoric can be alluring, trade wars are still not good and not easy to win,” Madden said.

The announcement out of China comes just one week before the U.S. is set to impose a second round of tariffs on Chinese goods.

In July, the U.S. placed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese products, including farm equipment, motor vehicles, medical equipment and products made of aluminum and steel, in response to complaints that Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology.

China retaliated by slapping an extra 25 percent duty on 545 products from the United States including soybeans, electric cars, orange juice, whiskey, salmon and cigars, in retaliation for Trump’s initial round of tariffs.

Last week, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office announced that it also is moving forward with a 25 percent tariff on $16 billion in Chinese goods. The tariffs are set to take effect on Aug. 23 and will impact 279 product lines, including electronics, plastics and railway freight cars.

It was not clear whether the latest round of talks would begin before those tariffs take effect.

In response to those levies, China slapped additional tariffs of 25 percent on $16 billion worth of U.S. goods, including fuel, steel products, autos and medical equipment.

President Donald Trump also has threatened to levy a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion of Chinese products, prompting a warning from Beijing that it would retaliate with duties on $60 billion of U.S. goods including coffee, honey and industrial chemicals.

I hope the discussions go horribly tbh.
 
"China welcomes communications and dialogue on the basis of reciprocity, equality and integrity."

<Lmaoo>
 
This is fitting. I was literally just in another thread (Sorry @Arkain2K) talking about how contemporary China lacks the culture and environment for genuine innovation, how their young talent isn't nurtured to think in the abstract as well as the social/political system in place that even actively works to inhibit it.

SCMP: A Century On, China Still Lacks The Drive For Scientific Truth, Says Outspoken Editor



I hope the discussions go horribly tbh.

Neo Confucianism. It fucked up Japan till Perry showed up with his boats, then Japan had a sense of crisis. China had a chance of reversing the trend but they fucked up by censoring the internet. Certain ideas that make the society progress threatens the standing of the current powers, it'll take violence (in Japan's case, civil war) to fix that if those powers-may-be don't step down.
 
Neo Confucianism. It fucked up Japan till Perry showed up with his boats, then Japan had a sense of crisis. China had a chance of reversing the trend but they fucked up by censoring the internet. Certain ideas that make the society progress threatens the standing of the current powers, it'll take violence (in Japan's case, civil war) to fix that if those powers-may-be don't step down.

It's kind of bizarre for Xi Jinping to double-down on the institutional imprint with totalitarian vibes considering he comes from a chemical engineering background and clearly 'gets it' to a degree.

He's made quite a few changes including reform of the S&T funding and evaluation systems, shifting priorities towards fundamental/applied research and instigating policies to encourage investment in them, raising the budgets for R&D overheads, cutting bureaucratic red tape to give scientists more freedom and incentivization efforts for foreign talent to come abroad.

Despite that, China still has major issues with academic fraud and misuse of research grants despite a heavy crackdown effort and scientists there also tend to be fixated with numerical output. The PRC could take the global lead in both R&D expenditure and total output whilst actually remaining behind the US in high-impact quality.
 
It's kind of bizarre for Xi Jinping to double-down on the institutional imprint with totalitarian vibes considering he comes from a chemical engineering background and clearly 'gets it' to a degree.

He's made quite a few changes including reform of the S&T funding and evaluation systems, shifting priorities towards fundamental/applied research and instigating policies to encourage investment in them, raising the budgets for R&D overheads, cutting bureaucratic red tape to give scientists more freedom and incentivization efforts for foreign talent to come abroad.

Despite that, China still has major issues with academic fraud and misuse of research grants despite a heavy crackdown effort and scientists there also tend to be fixated with numerical output. The PRC could take the global lead in both R&D expenditure and total output whilst actually remaining behind the US in high-impact quality.

When you inherit a country that is founded on the suppression of dissidents, you need a lot of money to keep the suppressors happy. At the same time, if you are a scientists with no heavy backing and you got a scientific breakthrough, chances are it's gonna be taken away (usually by your more-connected superiors who will take credit for it and earn more money from it). Why slave for R&D as a grunt? And many serendipities are first noticed by the ones doing the gruntwork. Thus opportunities are wasted.

One thing I've learned from the Spratly islands fiasco rings true to this situation (and many things as well, however it's not that evident):

If you cannot protect it, it's not yours.
 
https://www.timesofindia.com/world/...for-new-cold-war/amp_articleshow/65452666.cms

Critics of Xi say policies like Made in China 2025 (a plan to dominate industries such as aircraft, new energy vehicles and biotechnology) and the Belt and Road Initiative (a mechanism to finance infrastructure investments around the globe) raised alarm in the West, and prompted the US to target China before it could build critical technologies.

This was seen by how swiftly Trump could bring down ZTE Corp., China's second-largest telecommunications equipment maker. In April, his administration prohibited the company from buying essential components from American suppliers after it violated laws banning the sale of US technology to Iran. The move prompted ZTE to cease major operating activities until Trump came to the rescue and helped engineer a settlement.

Although ZTE is now back up and running, the episode showed China just how dependent the nation is on the US for high-end know-how. It has also highlighted wider efforts to block Chinese firms from acquiring tech companies by the CFI in the United States, which reviews deals on national security grounds. All in all it amounts to "high-tech containment" of China, said Shi Yinhong, a foreign affairs adviser to the State Council and director of Renmin University's Center on American Studies in Beijing.
 
OT but kind of interesting.



@Rod1


Yeah this has been going on for a while but lots of people think that it is a one-way street.

Also the new Mexican president has vowed to make Mexico energy and agriculturally independent, which i dont see how it could happen within the framework of free trade.
 
Yeah this has been going on for a while but lots of people think that it is a one-way street.

Also the new Mexican president has vowed to make Mexico energy and agriculturally independent, which i dont see how it could happen within the framework of free trade.

Trump has been consistently gloating over how well he gets along with Lopez Obrador ("an absolute gentleman") and I don't know what to take from it aside from instinctively very little. It ultimately doesn't matter so long as re-normalized relations are worked out; it's extremely poor form to publicly blast and be in conflict with direct neighbor states.
 
Trump has been consistently gloating over how well he gets along with Lopez Obrador ("an absolute gentleman") and I don't know what to take from it aside from instinctively very little. It ultimately doesn't matter so long as re-normalized relations are worked out; it's extremely poor form to publicly blast and be in conflict with direct neighbor states.

Lopez Obrador is a superb politician though, openly he is pretty confrontational but somehow he manages to pull people to his side from all political currents.

That being said he says that there will still be an open market for energy and agriculture, so i dont see how is he going to compete with US energy and agricultura prices, i guess subsidies.
 
Here's another great article that provides some much needed nuance to the topic of China's reciprocal tariffs. An often overlooked point about China's trade retaliations is that, for all intents and purposes, they really only buy US products that they desperately need (food, energy, semi-conductors, raw building materials, etc.) and for which they lack plentiful alternative sources and/or are themselves, incapable of producing. This is not so of the US and even those products we don't produce could be geared up for domestic production or sourced elsewhere globally in just a couple of years. The net affect is that China's tariffs on US products aren't going to do much harm to US but actually will harm China.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrap...-china-soy-tariffs-brazil-trump/#78226ead2bc7

Trade War Update: China May Have Shot Self In Foot

China made a “dumb move” in targeting America’s heartland with tariffs. Soybeans are a case in point.

“I understood politically why they chose soybeans, but they made a dumb move,” says John Baize, a market analyst with the U.S. Soybean Export Council. The U.S. is the number one exporter of soybeans. Brazil is number two. No one comes close after that except for Argentina, which is the largest exporter of soymeal and soybean oil.

Soybeans don’t fall from the sky, so China has very little mega-markets outside of the U.S. Brazil is the only one, really. And now they are paying more for soy at a time when soy prices are near rock bottom thanks to record acreage and harvest sizes in Brazil and the U.S.

Soy is the number one item China buys from the U.S. and a top three item from Brazil. That alone stands as a testament to just how important that crop is to feed not only the Chinese but Chinese fish and Chinese livestock that live on the stuff.

“What’s going to happen is that if they don’t buy from the U.S. they will be short by about 20%,” estimates Baize. “This will impact feed grain and food in general, and the Chinese will pay the price for that,” he says...

The U.S. could, in theory, lose some China market share to Brazil. But as Brazil soy is not limitless and low prices have many traders holding onto what they have anyway, they will end up selling less to Europe, the world’s No. 2 soy market after China. Less Brazil beans to Europe means more American beans to Europe. As the U.S. risks losing China market share to Brazil, so Brazil risks losing European market share to the Americans.

The 25% tariff on soybeans is almost entirely priced into the price difference between U.S. soy and Brazilian soy. Brazilian soy always costs more simply because it is harder to get it out of the country. Today, soy prices in Brazil cost at least $2.60 more per bushel...

Cargill, ADM, and Bunge all have subsidiaries in Brazil. The soy exporters could sell American soy to Brazil if demand warrants. Brazilian traders said there is talk of big American soy exporters doing just that.

Normally prices ebb and flow with harvest season. This year is different. Trump sent prices higher, even though Chinese demand is not any greater than it’s been before. “It is definitely not because of Chinese demand. Chinese demand for Brazil soy is within historic norms; nothing exceptional,” says Ulian.

China may end up buying from the U.S. and paying the price.

“I’ll say this much, Trump has been a positive force for Brazilian farmers,” says Samuel Garcia Filho, a commodity broker with H.Commcor in São Paulo. “Low soy prices have been made up for by the rise in premium prices. For the Americans, we are hearing that Brazil-based exporters will buy from the U.S. cheap and sell to the Chinese high if they have to.”

“Brazil will have the most expensive soy in the world," says Aedson Pereira, a market analyst with Informa. “The higher cost will probably restructure the global soy trade. The EU, Japan, Mexico and the countries of southeast Asia will likely focus their attention on buying from the U.S. instead,” he says.

In 2017, Brazil exported 53.8 million tons of soy to China. This year, that number is expected to be around 66 million tons even though China is not really saving much by buying there. More Brazil soy to China means less soy elsewhere. The U.S. soy farmer will gladly sell where the Brazilians are not.

Other countries will see this, and perhaps ramp up their own soybean production. China has been going around, for a while, to other countries who need money, and then loaning to them to build up industry and ultimately do business with them. Wiki says Paraguay is like fifth largest soybean farmer, but is still really low levels. They probably have room for expansion in the soybean business.

And I do not understand the significance of the paragraph about USA losing market to Brazil selling more to China, less to Europe, and giving up more shares in Europe to USA. It seems like at least a break even situation.
 
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Other countries will see this, and perhaps ramp up their own soybean production. China has been going around, for a while, to other countries who need money, and then loaning to them to build up industry and ultimately do business with them. Wiki says Paraguay is like fifth largest soybean farmer, but is still really low levels. They probably have room for expansion in the soybean business.

And I do not understand the significance of the paragraph about USA losing market to Brazil selling more to China, less to Europe, and giving up more shares in Europe to USA. It seems like at least a break even situation.

The issue with soybeans is that land is a finite resource, and grains require lots of it, its not as easy to ramp up production.
 
Beijing retaliates as new US tariffs kick in on $16 billion of Chinese goods
By Huileng Tan | August 23, 2018

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A new round of U.S. tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports kicked in on Thursday, prompting Beijing to retaliate with its own levies on American goods worth the same amount.

The latest trade escalation comes as officials from the world's two largest economies meet for tariff negotiations in Washington.

At 12.01 a.m. EDT on Thursday, the U.S. began collecting additional 25 percent duties on 279 Chinese import product categories identified by U.S. Trade Representative. Key products that will be hit by the duties include semiconductors, chemicals, plastics, motorbikes and electric scooters.

Beijing retaliated with its own fresh tariffs on $16 billion worth of additional imports from the U.S. including fuel, steel products, autos and medical equipment. The levies took effect the same time that the U.S. tariffs were imposed on Thursday, state news agency Xinhua reported, citing an announcement from the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council.

China "resolutely opposes" the latest tariffs by the U.S. and will fight back against the latest duties, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in an online statement, adding that Beijing will file a complaint to the World Trade Organization against the U.S.

The latest American tariffs — which come on the back of $34 billion worth of Chinese goods that were implemented in July — have spurred U.S. importers to place additional orders to be shipped and delivered ahead.

That has already contributed to higher ocean and air freight rates, and elevated warehousing costs in America, said Henry Ko, managing director for Flexport, a U.S.-based freight forwarding company. Overall, the entire supply chain will incur additional costs, added Ko.

"If trade war actually continues, prices for products across many industries will increase," Ko told CNBC.

Little respite seen

U.S. and Chinese officials met on Wednesday in Washington for a new round of trade talks, but many are not expecting an easy compromise.

Even the U.S. president is not expecting much progress. Donald Trump told Reuters on Monday that he did not "anticipate much" from the talks led by U.S. Treasury Under Secretary David Malpass and Chinese Commerce Vice Minister Wang Shouwen.

The talks are the first formal interaction between U.S. and Chinese officials since June, when U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross unsuccessfully sought to secure major Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans and liquefied natural gas.

"I don't see this ending soon, that's for sure," said Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The gulf between the Trump administration and the Chinese is as wide as the Pacific and it looks like it's getting wider because the Trump administration thinks they are winning," Kennedy told CNBC.

"The Chinese don't look like they want to give in either. So I think the way this continues to play out is further escalation, finger-pointing and blaming, not a settling down of this anytime soon," Kennedy added.

Trump has threatened to impose duties on over $500 billion of Chinese goods exported annually to the U.S. unless China agrees to sweeping changes in its intellectual property practices, industrial subsidy programs and tariff structure.

Beijing has denied Washington's allegations that it systematically forces the unfair transfer of U.S. technology and insists it adheres to World Trade Organization rules.

"I think really if the hawks in the Trump administration get their way, where this ends is in a disengagement of the two economies, not in a settlement through the kinds of negotiations that have been going on in Washington today," said Kennedy.

Afterall, these are "two sides who still think they have the upper hand if not the ability to withstand pressure from the other side," Kennedy added, noting that the Chinese economy is still growing even though its stock markets have taken a hit recently.

Markets should expect bilateral tit-for-tat trade actions to continue for the foreseeable future as both the U.S. and China have managed to convince themselves that they wouldn't "lose out in this trade war too much," said Bo Zhuang, chief China economist at investment research firm, TS Lombard.

Beijing will allow the Chinese yuan to "passively devalue" in order to cope with the impact of the U.S. tariffs although authorities will likely blame any decline in thecurrency on the markets, Zhuang said.

"One way or the other, they have to do something. Otherwise the Chinese economy is going to tumble," Zhuang added.

 
I have friends in China and I'm not worried for them, I think China will come out of this just fine, maybe a bit worse for wear but still projected to be the top economic power in this century. Obor is still a huge project for them, they've invested over 1 trillion without any real tangible return on investment. These are the tides of growth, its natural for an economic slowdown.

The more I see American hatred of China, the more I see the US government taking measures to stunt their economy, it tells me they are on the path. Not for one second did I believe that America would just let China become the top dog without some pushback, militarily and economically. I do think the military option is on the table for the US if they can't slow them down sufficiently.

I've been to China and they don't see Americans the same way as most Americans see Chinese. People in the US openly cheer when Chinese companies shut down and people lose their jobs and livelihoods. They actively cheer for the starvation of the Chinese people. When they're economy dips, they smile, when it goes up they frown.

I don't know exactly why they hate Chinese so much, probably because its an Asian nation that has the chance to surpass them. I do notice a large uptick in anti-China rhetoric, both in the media and by regular Americans. Americans are the masters of propaganda, this tells me the public is being primed for something even bigger, maybe armed confict. First dehumanize, then the public gives you consent to do almost anything.
 
Neo Confucianism. It fucked up Japan till Perry showed up with his boats, then Japan had a sense of crisis. China had a chance of reversing the trend but they fucked up by censoring the internet. Certain ideas that make the society progress threatens the standing of the current powers, it'll take violence (in Japan's case, civil war) to fix that if those powers-may-be don't step down.

Confucianism helped China become the largest GDP nation for 1000 years, it helped South Koreans rebuild a broken nation, it helped China rebuild a wasteland, it helped Japan become an economic power.

For all its faults, confucianism is still an excellent belief system for mobilizing large groups of people into action, its also great for engaging in land wars and command structure.

If you look at Asia, the nations that adopted confucianism the most are the same ones the hold the most economic/military power.

European exceptionalism partly came about due to the beubonic plague wiping out 50% of their population, and the mongol invasions eliminating their regional competitors in the middle east.

American exceptionalism came about for many various reasons, one of primary reasons is the enormous amount of natural resources they had access to.

The North American continent is one of the richest, if not the richest lands in terms of natural resources. China and East Asia is the opposite, one of the worst areas in terms of resources on the planet. Almost no arable land, not much oil, etc.

Replace Chinas land with Americas and you might have a different history altogether. People tend to only look at factors like culture in these type of things, but fail to see the other factors.
 
@Tamudjinkhan

Are you based in Canada? I always thought you are a Korean based in the US or maybe I am thinking of a diferent poster.

Or don't tell me you're from Mangolia like your namesake lol.
 
@Tamudjinkhan

Are you based in Canada? I always thought you are a Korean based in the US or maybe I am thinking of a diferent poster.

Or don't tell me you're from Mangolia like your namesake lol.

Tbh, I don't like revealing my ethnicity because people often use it on here to attack me or my points of discussion.

It sidelines the discussion and steers it in a different direction and posters will use it as a retort.

Eg: say I was Chinese/Korean/Asian and made a point that Nuclear weapons being used on Japanese was not an act of altruism, but a heinous act. Despite the circumstances, the individual act was in itself immoral.

A poster who disagreed with me could use my ethnicity against me, "well aren't you X ethnicity? we saved your asses, etc, shouldn't you hate ___ ethnicity because your Korean/Chinese/Viet, etc."

And people often do this with East Asians, and I"ve had it done to me several times in the past when I've revealed my ethnicity. I would prefer if the discussions didn't devolve into that. Because then I would bring my own points into it and refute their arguments and it keeps going.
 
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