
Jack Ma: 'If trade stops, war starts' - imartin2k
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/jack-ma-if-trade-stops-war-starts-2017-2
======
pjc50
I think it was the Economist that used to say "no two countries with a
McDonald's have gone to war", until the bombing of Serbia by NATO in the 90s.

It's a strong argument. Integrating supply chains across borders means that
there's a big section of the business community ready to lobby against war
that might threaten that investment. Not to mention that modern industry is
much less "capturable"; you can capture farmland and mineral resources
(especially oil!) in war, but fixed plant and creative businesses are just
obliterated, not captured.

~~~
Veen
Often suggested as one of the reasons Europe has experienced its most peaceful
period in a thousand years. The EU means we can't afford to go to war with
each other. Although some are intent on dismantling that progress, sadly.

~~~
ocschwar
My favorite factoid: the Baby Boomers are the first generation to go from
birth to retirement (and I might hope: to death) without witnessing a war
along the Rhine. The first, that is, since the death of Charlemagne.

The EU has its issues, but its core accomplishment is a singularity.

~~~
nickik
Why is everybody so certain that the EU is the reason for this?

Many other things changed in the same time England, France, Germany were no
longer the powers they were before. The US and Russia dominated. There were
nuclear weapons. The internal politics of many of these nations changed quite
a bit as well. Idiotically changes of the people and even the political elites
changed.

Also the EU has not always been the EU it has now. There were many iterations
and those that are against the EU might not be against the general idea of a
more united EU but rather against a specific iteration of these contracts.

These other visions of the EU might also have prevented war (and they might
have in the time they were active).

~~~
baq
EU was built on the ECSC which has been created with preventing war as one of
its primary goals:

> The ECSC was first proposed by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9
> May 1950 as a way to prevent further war between France and Germany. He
> declared his aim was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially
> impossible" which was to be achieved by regional integration, of which the
> ECSC was the first step. The Treaty would create a common market for coal
> and steel among its member states which served to neutralise competition
> between European nations over natural resources, particularly in the Ruhr.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community)

it is a spectacular success by this measure. there were other factors
contributing, of course, but free trade is the primary one.

~~~
mattmanser
I must have missed the history class about the wars Europe waged with the UK
in the 50s & 60s? /s

The reality is that the cold war prevented intra-EU state wars, not the EU.
Shared enemy.

If you had to point at something, isn't Nato a more likely candidate than
ECSC? In my view the EU's taking credit for other people's achievements.

------
WhiteSource1
He wasn't the first. It's the whole "Capitalist Peace" theory:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace)
proposed by Professor Erik Gartzke, that economically developed countries
(capitalist - but in this case even something like China can qualify) don't
fight with one another.

~~~
adekok
> that economically developed countries (capitalist - but in this case even
> something like China can qualify) don't fight with one another.

France and Germany? WW1 / WW2?

Japan and the US in WW2? IIRC, at the time, Japan and the US were trade
partners, and Japan imported the bulk of it's oil from the US.

Yet in both cases, they still went to war.

I think the lesson is that ideology trumps economics.

~~~
John23832
I think the word "capitalist" might have been better than "economically
developed".

One could argue that Capitalism was the reason Japan went to war against the
US. Japan was worried that the US would cut off all oil exports to Japan, so
they attempted to gain control of the pacific in order to solidify access to
oil. They needed to keep their machine going.

Idk if I would call (pre-wwII, post rise of Hitler) Germany truly "Capitalist"
though.

~~~
nickik
That seems strange to me. Its not like the west cut of oil from Japan for no
reason. Japan was fighting a war with China. They were not willing to give
that up and escalated the war.

Capitalists (as in profit seeking companies and people) seem to have very
little to do with it. That is a political decision on the highest level.

~~~
John23832
I guess. The way I viewed it Japan made a move to protect their markets. But
you could be right.

~~~
nickik
I guess they did it to protect their market and war machine. The question is
where did the pressure to do so come from, was it from the political class or
the business community.

~~~
John23832
I agree, that is the question. In capitalistic societies, business and
politics are often intertwined.

------
laurent123456
That was also Victor Hugo's idea in his description of the "United States of
Europe":

> "A day will come when the only fields of battle will be markets opening up
> to trade and minds opening up to ideas."

[http://www.ellopos.net/politics/hugo-addresses-
europe.asp](http://www.ellopos.net/politics/hugo-addresses-europe.asp)

------
bbctol
I wish I could be more sure that people in power saw that as a bad thing.

~~~
tokenizer
China stands absolutely no chance in a direct war with US and her allies.

Not only do we absolutely decimate them in nuclear and naval capabilities, our
combined allied forces would decimate them technologically, on the ground, and
through strategic embargoing, attrition, psychological warfare, etc.

We and our allies literally surround them. Not only that, look into
geopolitics, Trump getting a call from Taiwan pisses China off more than
giving them weapons. Why? Acknowledging and reaffirming our commitment to
protect them, angers them more than physical capability of defense for Taiwan.

China enslaves a portion of its citizens, jails activists, kidnaps Taiwanese,
support DPRK, among other things.

Trump is remapping Asian relations, because China isn't strong, nor are they
suicidal. Rewriting our trade relations will help us, and if they continue
being friends with us, good for them as well.

A restructuring is likely, and a war will only happen if our Asian allies or
China forces our hand. If so, we win, based on any strategic viewpoint of
might.

~~~
bryanlarsen
In any all-out war between two nuclear nations there will be no winner, just
two losers.

~~~
protomyth
Well, we better get pretty good at shooting down missiles because North Korea
has a bit of the crazy and nuclear weapons. I get the feeling that someone has
looked at the Aegis combined with XR standard missiles.

I'm not worried about China. I'm worried about the last days of a dictator.

~~~
mikeash
Shooting down one missile is a lot easier than shooting down a hundred. The US
has had the ability to defend against an attack from North Korea since the W
Bush administration. That capability would barely dent a Chinese attack.

~~~
protomyth
I wasn't talking about China, just the "any" nuclear power is hopefully
becomes a false statement given NK's instability.

Do you have a source on the "The US has had the ability to defend against an
attack from North Korea since the W Bush administration." for ballistic
missiles?

~~~
mikeash
This is the system in question:

[https://www.mda.mil/system/gmd.html](https://www.mda.mil/system/gmd.html)

The interceptors are expensive, so there aren't very many. That's why it can
defend against a country like North Korea but not China.

~~~
protomyth
Ok, but why do you keep mentioning China, I said I wasn't worried about China.
I'm worried about the crazy folks (e.g. NK) with limited launch capability.
China is pretty stable.

~~~
mikeash
Because the overall context here is China, the potential for war with China,
and the devastation that would result. I want to be clear that our defenses
would not prevent that.

~~~
protomyth
Fine, but that wasn't the parent message I was responding to and had nothing
to do with my original reply.

~~~
mikeash
Really, you think "In any all-out war between two nuclear nations there will
be no winner, just two losers" in a discussion about war with China wasn't
talking about China?

~~~
protomyth
I provided a counter-example that is much more likely and frankly a lot more
worrisome. Plus, I specifically mention what I was worried about. Comments on
HN expand out from the topic all the time, and I was pretty specific in my
response.

~~~
mikeash
Ok. I responded to what you said and tied it in to the larger conversation. I
don't get what your problem is here.

------
phantarch
It's dangerous to assume the contrapositive of this claim is actually true
(war doesn't start if trade doesn't stop). The best example of this is World
War 1 Europe. It was held as common knowledge then that a world war could
never possibly break out because of how interdependent the European economies
were becoming. Nobody was going to kill the golden goose over some silly land
dispute. We all know how that turned out, and it had nothing to do with
whether jobs were being created or destroyed.

If the contrapositive isn't true, then the original claim may not hold any
actual weight.

Dan Carlin talks about this in his Hardcore History podcast and does a great
job telling the story of WWI, definitely would recommend.

~~~
mathetic
The contrapositive is "if war doesn't start, trade doesn't stop."

~~~
phantarch
You're right, thanks.

~~~
ouid
just edit your comment to say converse instead of contrapositive. The
contrapositive of a statement is logically equivalent to the statement itself.

------
Keyframe
Jack Ma says the darnest things. What is happening now is the (almost) same
thing that happened as a prelude to Opium War(s). China want people to buy
their stuff, but the other way around only through tight control from China.
That's not how trade works. Of course, opium war had such a perverse blowback
from the English via India that it's not possible in this day and age, but who
knows. One thing is sure, something is going to happen. My bet is on (slight)
collapse of economy from within China and then opening up their economy a bit
more towards everyone else. This will happen after the currency war. I don't
see any actual combat conflict happening. But, who knows.

------
tossaway322
Ma notwithstanding, history shows that trade does not prevent war (and that
the idea that it does springs from unbridled optimism about the nature of
man). This has been much discussed:

"Can Free Trade Really Prevent War?": [https://mises.org/library/can-free-
trade-really-prevent-war](https://mises.org/library/can-free-trade-really-
prevent-war)

"Trade Can Bring War":
[http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2015/01/09/review-
tra...](http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2015/01/09/review-trade-can-
bring-war/)

------
docdeek
The old saying was ‘If goods don’t cross borders, armies will’.

------
fspeech
It is a bizarre twist to claim Jack Ma is somehow threatening US with war over
trade frictions. After all the highlight of his trip was to donate $20 million
to an Australian university (Newcastle), in return for generous help and
friendship he received as a young man over 30 years ago from an Australian
family (the Morleys).

"I am very thankful for Australia and the time I spent there in my youth. The
culture, the landscape and most importantly its people had a profound impact
on my view of the world at that time," Mr Ma said in a statement on Friday.

[http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4444710/an-
extraordinary-g...](http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4444710/an-
extraordinary-gift/)

[http://www.afr.com/leadership/innovation/alibaba-
billionaire...](http://www.afr.com/leadership/innovation/alibaba-billionaire-
founder-jack-ma-gives-26m-to-university-of-newcastle-in-memory-of-australian-
mentor-20170202-gu4fg3)

~~~
saycheese
Unclear what Ma's trip has to do with the his statement, is there a connection
to you?

~~~
fspeech
Does it feel like Jack Ma went to Australia to deliver a threat to the US? He
went there to unveil headquarters for Alibaba and to make a donation to an
Australian university. He talked about how grateful he was to Australia (as a
Western country). To read war threat into a cliche comment is too much.

------
synicalx
What exactly is old mate Jack proposing will happen here? Apple moves some of
it's manufacturing out of Shenzen death camps and into California, so China
attacks mainland USA?

China would be very silly to initiate a conflict with America in the next 20
years - they simply don't have the capacity, experience or training to fight a
very large and very sophisticated adversary. I know we all like to rag on
America, but the fact the US military is staggeringly big, well funded,
experienced, and well organised.

------
squozzer
>“Trade is about trade of values. Trade of culture,” Not sure what Mr. Ma
means here, considering the barriers the Chinese have erected against foreign
culture, e.g. The Great Firewall.

The increasing intrusiveness and paranoia of major US institutions - e.g. NSA
and Google -- suggests the US is also running a value trade deficit with
China.

------
SFJulie
China refused to trade arts, and was stopping to trade its citizens as sweat
workers in America, and boom 2 wars. Right on spot!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars)

------
antman
I think the original 19th century quote was 'If goods dont cross borders,
soldiers will.' Attributed to Bastiat, but hasn't been found in his notes.

------
rrggrr
Ma seems to be saying to the United States: Continue running trade deficits
with China, subsidizing China's ill-conceived domestic social and economic
policies, or war. If this is what Ma is saying (it essentially is) then war
with China is inevitable and better engaged in now, while the US still enjoys
a qualitative advantage.

Anyone doubting this interpretation of Ma's comments needs to read Michael
Pettis' commentary on Chinese economic policy:

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/22/chinas-currency-
manipula...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/22/chinas-currency-manipulation-
actually-enhances-the-global-role-of-the-dollar-sdr-rmb-balance-of-payments/)

[http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/66485](http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/66485)

UPDATE: Comments claiming Ma only says, "keep trading"... don't understand how
trade works between US-China (read Pettis links above), and are not paying
attention to coincidental news from China about new DF-16 ICBM's pointed at
the United States. Its almost as if China plans to negotiate trade with a gun
pointed at the Trump administration's head.

~~~
mrb
_Ma seems..._

And that's where it stops. Ma made a general observation and that's it.
Historically countries who trade less tend to be hostile toward each others,
while countries who trade in bigger volumes are friendly.

Also Ma isn't saying or implying "keep the trade deficit". He says "keep
trading. period" (a surplus or a deficit, doesn't matter in the context of his
argument.) By the way it's weird that people seem to think it's China's
problem that the US have a trade deficit with them. The deficit can be solved
by the US selling products and services to China. It's the US' problem to find
what to sell. And only the US can solve it.

~~~
gph
> It's the US' problem to find what to sell. And only the US can solve it.

Well there's the problem of China not respecting copyright or any type of
intellectual property. And that's not just a problem for the Facebooks of the
world, they are stealing our agricultural and industrial knowledge as well.
And while it's not officially sanctioned by the CCP, it's unofficially
encouraged.

~~~
izacus
This implies that the American way of looking at these things is the ONLY
right way of looking at things and that Chinese need to accept western
companies on western terms.

~~~
gph
If they are going to be part of the global economy then they need to accept
the terms of the global economy. Yea their practices are mainly harming
western countries at this point, but in the future maybe it's India or
Singapore that has the lead in these areas. Would you think it's alright for
China to do it then?

Like it or not the global capitalist economy has to be built with some form of
protection for content and IP producers. I fail to see how China's model is
the 'right way of looking at things'. In fact if we all acted like China I'm
guessing the global economy would collapse.

~~~
Juliate
"If they are going to be part of the global economy then they need to accept
the terms of the global economy."

This is an absolutely marvelous way of looking at things.

For once, it ignores that the "global economy" may profit a lot from revising
its own terms (especially regarding copyright/IP).

Or that the "global economy" is more like the interests of the few powerful
ones who say what it is.

~~~
gph
Sure there are theoretically better ways of doing things. If there are
theoretically better ways of distributing food does that mean I get to go rob
a grocery store?

You can't flaunt the rules and regulations of world trade because you disagree
with them or want to change them. Besides that's not what China wants. China
wants to eat its cake and have it too.

Edit: Wow looks like it's ok to lie, cheat, and steal because "the other guy
does it and I think the system is unjust on top of that." Really spectacular
arguments from the anti-establishment crowd.

~~~
izacus
And so does USA, EU and others. Isn't that how foreign diplomacy and trade
works? Steal, murder, take what you can, behave well only when someone forces
you to?

Because from current perspective I can't seem to find a reason why China would
back down and let their own economy be taken over by western companies, when
protectionism works well for them and their manufacturing is holding the world
world by the proverbial balls. It's the tactic USA employed mercilessly (and
still does) to get the best position - forcing everyone else to drop their
rules to trade with them. Of course, now when China does it it's suddenly a
problem, because Facebook, Google and others can't monopolize their market and
transfer money to their offshore accounts? :)

~~~
gph
>Steal, murder, take what you can, behave well only when someone forces you
to?

And the US is forcing China to. I'm not trying to hold one side up as some
kind of moral victor. Yea China's doing the same thing the US would in their
position. This isn't some kind of moral equivalency contest.

Your post is the equivalent of Trump excusing Putins behavior because the US
has done some pretty bad stuff too.

------
carsongross
If trade stops (read, if the US trade policy starts giving a shit about its
working class, trade is never going to 'stop'), it's certainly bad for Jack
Ma.

So I would take what he says with a grain of salt.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Yet somehow we have unprecedented relative peace since the rise of global
capitalism that can only be explained via the long tail of trade policies
being a disincentive to conflict and an incentive to working things out
peacefully.

Worse, Trump supporters have followed nothing but a narrative of appeasement
for Russia. Its amusing to see their hypocrisy with China. The bias here is
obvious.

> giving a shit about its working class

The idea that the Trump administration is fighting for the middle class is
asinine. From repealing Frank-Dodd, to putting in Goldman Sachs employees into
cabinet positions, putting in billionaires into cabinet positions, removing
regulations that protect workers, raising mortgages on FHA loans, etc its
obvious that the middle class worker can only lose under Trump.

~~~
gph
>via the long tail of trade policies being a disincentive to conflict and an
incentive to work things out peacefully.

Can you explain what you mean by long tail in these circumstances? I started
taking a course on stats and understand generally what a long tail is, but I
can't parse what or how you're applying the concept here.

