By Allan Rios - Cartoonist and Community Blogger
Rewind the clock to 10 years ago and for those of us working class who are old enough to remember the financial crisis, reliving the uncertainty of the those times is an experience most of us would rather forget. With 10% unemployment and real state foreclosures reaching records highs money for the average person was hard to come by and the future of this country looked about as clear as the outcome of this trade war.
Out of all the chaotic uncertainty the one thing that did seem to be certain in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s was that the People’s Republic of China was modernizing at warp speed and was just a matter of time until it’s economy would surpass the US. With some financial advisors like Forbes’ Mike Patton predicting that China’s contribution to the global GDP would surpass the US by 2018.
Well, here we are in 2019 and China’s official GDP accounted for about 16% of the global GDP while the US still accounts for about 25% of total GDP output. With people continuing to question the legitimacy of the economic data released by Beijing due to their closed system and lack of transparency. That prediction wasn’t as crystal clear as much of us though and it isn’t actually a bad thing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/chi...t-that-will-include-companies-and-people.html
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-86-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/
POWER PARITY:
With an economic Trade War looming over everyone’s head for almost 2 years now, news of a possible phase one deal announced on October 11th by the Trump Administration, verified by Beijing’s Liu He October 21st, came as much of a surprise to me as it did for anyone who’d being following the events of the trade war as closely as I have since the very beginning.
That is because this “Phase one” announcement had come just 4 days after Washington had added 28 Chinese companies to a US blacklist blocking those companies from buying American products. And it came 2 weeks after news reports were released on September 27th that Washington was considering possibly de-listing Chinese companies from US stock exchanges. Keyword “possibly”.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/...chinese-entities-over-abuses-in-xinjiang.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...om-u-s-stock-markets-could-mean-idUSKBN1WF17S
Before the phase one trade deal was announced CNBC’s Jim Cramer jokingly said that the trump administration was “torpedoing trade talks” by blacklisting 28 Chinese companies days before trade talks were scheduled to begin.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/cramer-trump-torpedoing-trade-talks-by-blacklisting-china-tech.html
The companies blacklisted were in addition to the more than 140 Chinese companies already in the US trade blacklist. More prominently in this blacklist is Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, “China‘s national champion“. Which was put on the US blacklist in May 2019 citing “national security reasons”. Shortly after that in May 31, following a policy of tit-for-tat, Beijing announced that the Chinese government would be introducing an "unreliable foreign entity list of companies or individuals that boycott or cut off supplies to Chinese companies for non-commercial purposes and causing serious damages to Chinese companies”.
Practically forgotten now, so serious and credible was this “unreliable entity list” announcement taken at the time that all mayor news networks reported on it for weeks following.
Trade negotiations would practically enter hiatus for the next few months after that. With Huawei, now uncertain about it’s access to US technology and services such as Google apps, declaring virtual “technological independence from the US“ in the meantime.
The day phase one deal was announced by Washington, I immediately remembered the Forbes article below from September by Panos Mourdoukoutas, arguing that “economic interdependence between The US and China had given elites in Beijing the false impression that they had reached power parity with the US“.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosm...makes-in-fighting-the-trade-war/#74df275352e6
After searching the article again and reading it a second time, it read to me as foretelling a month before what would occur in October. And that indeed, at least not yet, China hasn’t reached power parity with the US.
Because one would think that following the US blacklisting another 28 Chinese companies and possibly even delisting some more from stock exchanges would have being the perfect time for Beijing to release this “unreliable foreign entity list” demonstrating to the world it’s tit-for-tat power parity. Not the time to be making concessions to the US like committing to purchase agriculture products nor asking to discuss Huawei’s access to US made tech and services. In exchange for what concessions from Washington?
Delaying tariffs set to go into effect on October 15th while keeping in place tariffs set for December 15th?
That didn’t seem like much of a concession from the US side to me.
Was the US telling China “we’ll stop the pain, let‘s make a deal” or was Beijing asking the US to “stop the pain let‘s make a deal“? Because pain was apparent and this was the moment that Beijing’s pain threshold seemed severely less-tolerant than Washington’s pain threshold. And the moment Washington’s arsenal to inflict that economic pain began looking a lot bigger and a lot more diverse than what Beijing could retaliate with without inflicting even greater damage to it’s economy than what Washington was already doing and could possible do with it‘s now dangerous looking arsenal. Like releasing that serious sounding unreliable foreign entity list that could possible cripple foreign investment in China even further. It seemed like the beginning of the end of the trade war to me.
TRADE WAR A GOOD THING:
The ongoing trade war between the US and China seems like a good thing for the US and an even better thing for China.
After experiencing an unprecedented and virtually unopposed modernization and economic prosperity for 20-30 years because of various circumstances and policies from different countries and organizations around the world favoring Beijing, it seems China became “over-confident” about it’s rise being “a promised destiny to be fulfilled in just a matter of time“. A confidence not missed by Chinese government’s propaganda to the outside world. That’s the problem when you begin to believe your own hype and exaggerations.
China seems to have also underestimated America’s response and tolerance to a new peer-competitor. Not imagining living in a world where China could not have access to US capital markets and access to US dollars being limited. Still by far the most important world currency. In other words China had gotten “cocky“.
“This is a refreshing healthy dose of reality check for Chinese leaders in Beijing.” Nothing is promised. Nothing is destined. China’s rise was facilitated and China was smart and competent enough the make the best of an already good thing.
But now that the US has determined China to be at best a “peer-competitor” at worst “an enemy” and China’s access to crucial US technology deeply in question, it will be time for China to stand in it’s own two feet, not simply appear be a great responsible rising power but to become one. A lot more light is shinning on China nowadays, between Hong Kong, Uighur Muslim re-education camps, it’s economy and most importantly it’s technological independence being part of everyday news now.
Will the world continue to turn a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses in order to appease the new top dog in Charge of world economic affairs? Or will China have to make serious substantial, verified changes to it’s internal politics?
Will China’s national champions be able to compete toe-to-toe with foreign companies without subsidizing them in a “truly open Chinese market”? Not just in a market that appears open.
IP theft, forced tech transfers and trade secrets have become recognizable language to most average people. It doesn’t leave much room for China to acquire technology without indigenous innovation.
Now will be time to show the word China can innovate independently and compete in a level playing field.
THE US:
Never having a peer-competitor race so close so fast in it’s history a new peer-competitor is another “fresh dose of reality check” to the US to up it’s game. With the myth of China’s destined invincibility now shattered, most Americans see a second chance to retain it’s status in the world. Just as China, no-one promised the US would remain the world’s dominant super-power indefinitely.
“The US does not tolerate peer-competitors, look at what happened to Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. What does that tell you?” argues Michael Marshier a renowned political realists.
Michael Marshie
Famous historian Niall Ferguson states “We’ve entered a new tech war (that) will be an arms race for everything, from Artificial Intelligence to Quantum computing more than Nuclear weapons and rockets to the moon.” The next 10 years will be very different than the last 10 years” (for humanity).
Niall Ferguson
Indeed the US has already recognized the urgent need to up it’s game and begin to compete with China in fields China has already gotten a head start. In December 2018 “The National Quantum Initiative Act” was signed in to law. A plan allocating over 1.2 billion USD over 5 years in R & D for advancing Quantum technology. Just one of multiple initiatives by the US to continue to excell globally.
https://www.aip.org/fyi/2019/national-quantum-initiative-signed-law
FOR HUMANITY:
Indeed innovation is sparked from competition, the last cold war sparked an unprecedented level of creativity that placed humanity into space for the first time in our history. Breaking new ground in unexplored territories. This new tech war promises to take us beyond that. That is as long as the new arms race doesn’t get out of control, like the new Hypersonic Weapons already developed by Russia and China just now being developed by the US military.
In some other aspects the new tech war is much less threatening. Such as the recent news that Space X offered their new Spaceship Rocket to the US military to transport equipment and personal overseas.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a29539494/space-x-us-army-starship/
Fully autonomous vehicles driving you to and from work, sanctioned artificial intelligent new life forms assisting you at convenience stores, space tourism with travel itineraries to Mars all becoming realities in the next 10 years no longer seems so far fetched. And we may all have Washington and Beijing’s new rivalry to thank for it. As long as cool heads prevail on both sides as much as in the last cold war.
By Allan Rios - Cartoonist and Community Blogger
Rewind the clock to 10 years ago and for those of us working class who are old enough to remember the financial crisis, reliving the uncertainty of the those times is an experience most of us would rather forget. With 10% unemployment and real state foreclosures reaching records highs money for the average person was hard to come by and the future of this country looked about as clear as the outcome of this trade war.
Out of all the chaotic uncertainty the one thing that did seem to be certain in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s was that the People’s Republic of China was modernizing at warp speed and was just a matter of time until it’s economy would surpass the US. With some financial advisors like Forbes’ Mike Patton predicting that China’s contribution to the global GDP would surpass the US by 2018.
Well, here we are in 2019 and China’s official GDP accounted for about 16% of the global GDP while the US still accounts for about 25% of total GDP output. With people continuing to question the legitimacy of the economic data released by Beijing due to their closed system and lack of transparency. That prediction wasn’t as crystal clear as much of us though and it isn’t actually a bad thing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/chi...t-that-will-include-companies-and-people.html
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-86-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/
POWER PARITY:
With an economic Trade War looming over everyone’s head for almost 2 years now, news of a possible phase one deal announced on October 11th by the Trump Administration, verified by Beijing’s Liu He October 21st, came as much of a surprise to me as it did for anyone who’d being following the events of the trade war as closely as I have since the very beginning.
That is because this “Phase one” announcement had come just 4 days after Washington had added 28 Chinese companies to a US blacklist blocking those companies from buying American products. And it came 2 weeks after news reports were released on September 27th that Washington was considering possibly de-listing Chinese companies from US stock exchanges. Keyword “possibly”.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/...chinese-entities-over-abuses-in-xinjiang.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...om-u-s-stock-markets-could-mean-idUSKBN1WF17S
Before the phase one trade deal was announced CNBC’s Jim Cramer jokingly said that the trump administration was “torpedoing trade talks” by blacklisting 28 Chinese companies days before trade talks were scheduled to begin.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/cramer-trump-torpedoing-trade-talks-by-blacklisting-china-tech.html
The companies blacklisted were in addition to the more than 140 Chinese companies already in the US trade blacklist. More prominently in this blacklist is Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, “China‘s national champion“. Which was put on the US blacklist in May 2019 citing “national security reasons”. Shortly after that in May 31, following a policy of tit-for-tat, Beijing announced that the Chinese government would be introducing an "unreliable foreign entity list of companies or individuals that boycott or cut off supplies to Chinese companies for non-commercial purposes and causing serious damages to Chinese companies”.
Practically forgotten now, so serious and credible was this “unreliable entity list” announcement taken at the time that all mayor news networks reported on it for weeks following.
Trade negotiations would practically enter hiatus for the next few months after that. With Huawei, now uncertain about it’s access to US technology and services such as Google apps, declaring virtual “technological independence from the US“ in the meantime.
The day phase one deal was announced by Washington, I immediately remembered the Forbes article below from September by Panos Mourdoukoutas, arguing that “economic interdependence between The US and China had given elites in Beijing the false impression that they had reached power parity with the US“.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosm...makes-in-fighting-the-trade-war/#74df275352e6
After searching the article again and reading it a second time, it read to me as foretelling a month before what would occur in October. And that indeed, at least not yet, China hasn’t reached power parity with the US.
Because one would think that following the US blacklisting another 28 Chinese companies and possibly even delisting some more from stock exchanges would have being the perfect time for Beijing to release this “unreliable foreign entity list” demonstrating to the world it’s tit-for-tat power parity. Not the time to be making concessions to the US like committing to purchase agriculture products nor asking to discuss Huawei’s access to US made tech and services. In exchange for what concessions from Washington?
Delaying tariffs set to go into effect on October 15th while keeping in place tariffs set for December 15th?
That didn’t seem like much of a concession from the US side to me.
Was the US telling China “we’ll stop the pain, let‘s make a deal” or was Beijing asking the US to “stop the pain let‘s make a deal“? Because pain was apparent and this was the moment that Beijing’s pain threshold seemed severely less-tolerant than Washington’s pain threshold. And the moment Washington’s arsenal to inflict that economic pain began looking a lot bigger and a lot more diverse than what Beijing could retaliate with without inflicting even greater damage to it’s economy than what Washington was already doing and could possible do with it‘s now dangerous looking arsenal. Like releasing that serious sounding unreliable foreign entity list that could possible cripple foreign investment in China even further. It seemed like the beginning of the end of the trade war to me.
TRADE WAR A GOOD THING:
The ongoing trade war between the US and China seems like a good thing for the US and an even better thing for China.
After experiencing an unprecedented and virtually unopposed modernization and economic prosperity for 20-30 years because of various circumstances and policies from different countries and organizations around the world favoring Beijing, it seems China became “over-confident” about it’s rise being “a promised destiny to be fulfilled in just a matter of time“. A confidence not missed by Chinese government’s propaganda to the outside world. That’s the problem when you begin to believe your own hype and exaggerations.
China seems to have also underestimated America’s response and tolerance to a new peer-competitor. Not imagining living in a world where China could not have access to US capital markets and access to US dollars being limited. Still by far the most important world currency. In other words China had gotten “cocky“.
“This is a refreshing healthy dose of reality check for Chinese leaders in Beijing.” Nothing is promised. Nothing is destined. China’s rise was facilitated and China was smart and competent enough the make the best of an already good thing.
But now that the US has determined China to be at best a “peer-competitor” at worst “an enemy” and China’s access to crucial US technology deeply in question, it will be time for China to stand in it’s own two feet, not simply appear be a great responsible rising power but to become one. A lot more light is shinning on China nowadays, between Hong Kong, Uighur Muslim re-education camps, it’s economy and most importantly it’s technological independence being part of everyday news now.
Will the world continue to turn a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses in order to appease the new top dog in Charge of world economic affairs? Or will China have to make serious substantial, verified changes to it’s internal politics?
Will China’s national champions be able to compete toe-to-toe with foreign companies without subsidizing them in a “truly open Chinese market”? Not just in a market that appears open.
IP theft, forced tech transfers and trade secrets have become recognizable language to most average people. It doesn’t leave much room for China to acquire technology without indigenous innovation.
Now will be time to show the word China can innovate independently and compete in a level playing field.
THE US:
Never having a peer-competitor race so close so fast in it’s history a new peer-competitor is another “fresh dose of reality check” to the US to up it’s game. With the myth of China’s destined invincibility now shattered, most Americans see a second chance to retain it’s status in the world. Just as China, no-one promised the US would remain the world’s dominant super-power indefinitely.
“The US does not tolerate peer-competitors, look at what happened to Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. What does that tell you?” argues Michael Marshier a renowned political realists.
Michael Marshie
Famous historian Niall Ferguson states “We’ve entered a new tech war (that) will be an arms race for everything, from Artificial Intelligence to Quantum computing more than Nuclear weapons and rockets to the moon.” The next 10 years will be very different than the last 10 years” (for humanity).
Niall Ferguson
Indeed the US has already recognized the urgent need to up it’s game and begin to compete with China in fields China has already gotten a head start. In December 2018 “The National Quantum Initiative Act” was signed in to law. A plan allocating over 1.2 billion USD over 5 years in R & D for advancing Quantum technology. Just one of multiple initiatives by the US to continue to excell globally.
https://www.aip.org/fyi/2019/national-quantum-initiative-signed-law
FOR HUMANITY:
Indeed innovation is sparked from competition, the last cold war sparked an unprecedented level of creativity that placed humanity into space for the first time in our history. Breaking new ground in unexplored territories. This new tech war promises to take us beyond that. That is as long as the new arms race doesn’t get out of control, like the new Hypersonic Weapons already developed by Russia and China just now being developed by the US military.
In some other aspects the new tech war is much less threatening. Such as the recent news that Space X offered their new Spaceship Rocket to the US military to transport equipment and personal overseas.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a29539494/space-x-us-army-starship/
Fully autonomous vehicles driving you to and from work, sanctioned artificial intelligent new life forms assisting you at convenience stores, space tourism with travel itineraries to Mars all becoming realities in the next 10 years no longer seems so far fetched. And we may all have Washington and Beijing’s new rivalry to thank for it. As long as cool heads prevail on both sides as much as in the last cold war.
By Allan Rios - Cartoonist and Community Blogger