
Enter the dragon on the road to a trade war - tomohawk
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/enter-the-dragon-on-the-road-to-a-trade-war/
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todipa
This article reminds me of the mini-trade war between Uruguay and Brazil in
the 1990s (I was very young so I don't remember exactly when it was). Brazil
decided to close the land border for 2 weeks. In the meantime, Uruguay's dairy
exports sat on the border waiting... The products expired, and the government
had to bail out the milk cooperative.

They still had a free-trade agreement.

Agreements don't mean anything except in the US, Canada, parts of the European
Union, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and a couple of other countries.

Non-tariff barriers are way pretty effective in slowing trade:

US could easily block any food imports until pests are no longer an issue in
Chinese food supply chain. [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/voracious-pest-
threatens-chi...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/voracious-pest-threatens-
chinas-crops-could-boost-need-for-imports.html)

US could easily block any products from factories that haven't passed US
safety inspections. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-
pharmaceuticals-ch...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-
pharmaceuticals-china/eu-officials-clash-with-chinese-firm-on-drug-factory-
inspection-idUSKCN1LS25J)

~~~
HillaryBriss
> US could easily block ...

But does the US even have enough inspectors and inspections, enough
bureaucrats, enough reliable data about all those factories and farms and
goods? The fact is that the US doesn't even know what's being imported.

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telesilla
This story is crazy. They also forgot to mention that the captain, Zhan
Qixiong, was supposedly drunk[1]. To add more ridiculousness to it.

[1]
[https://books.google.nl/books?id=tymWDwAAQBAJ&printsec=front...](https://books.google.nl/books?id=tymWDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl#v=snippet&q=captain%20was%20drunk&f=false)

~~~
riffraff
ah, that was my assumption because it seems such an obvious explanation of
trying to knock out another vessel with your own. It does remove a bit of the
"china invaded japan" feeling.

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dmix
The comment section on the linked 2010 Chinese trawler ramming into the
Japanese Coast Guard boat video is quite entertaining, nothing like
international disputes on YouTube (some of the brave ones are even claiming
the coast guard was the one who purposefully turned first!):

[https://youtu.be/1ZbsmKrjxXk](https://youtu.be/1ZbsmKrjxXk)

I love these long form stories that mix relevant history with informed
analysis. Instead of poorly masked politicized version of some current event
presented as news, which gets exhausting after a while.

I need to remind myself to read more of this type of stuff and there's plenty
around.

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29athrowaway
The US was already in a trade war with China by the time the US decided to
act.

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rajaganesh87
China is learning ways of US.

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HillaryBriss
calling these things a trade "war" is, IMHO, not all that useful. it doesn't
help us much to understand the phenomenon. in a true war, people are actively
killing other people, and violently destroying infrastructure and capturing
geographical territory. many many lives are lost quickly.

IMHO, we might better call it a tax hike, a new regulatory regime, new trade
restrictions, a rebalancing of domestic priorities, an attempt by government
to increase or reduce a trade deficit, or something else. and we may well
decide it's foolish and bad and stupid. but it's not really a war in the true
sense.

~~~
kstenerud
It's called a trade war because historically people were actively killing
other people, starting with the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th and 18th
centuries.

We've now largely abandoned the practice of actively killing over trade, but
the nomenclature remains by precedent, and is understood by all.

~~~
HillaryBriss
+1 Thanks for the informative historical comparison. I appreciate it.
Interesting. I do have a bit of trouble drawing parallels though.

I mean, the US is not requiring, say, that goods imported to US ports be
exclusively carried by US ships, as the English did. The US is not taking
possession of any of the many Chinese owned port facilities which currently
operate in a large number of US cities. The US is not demanding that only US
merchant ships be allowed to carry cargo across certain regions of the world's
oceans. And, China has not, for instance, sailed up the Potomac and stolen any
US vessels.

Most of this is playing out in terms of taxes and tariffs. It is almost
totally bureaucratic and regulatory in nature.

~~~
kstenerud
It's using whatever means to apply pressure to a foreign government in order
to make them capitulate on a trade matter. In the old days it was done with
guns, then later with overt rules set forth by dominant parties, and now via
internal policy decisions that affect outside parties. It's simply applying
the same pressure by more subtle means as time goes on. China is the only one
so far taking it to its logical conclusion: giving the outward appearance of
doing everything properly while secretly discriminating against and sabotaging
your opponent. Western democracies do this internally, but not to such a
degree internationally (yet).

And in fact they may not do it ever, because such tactics require an opaque
bureaucratic system and large-scale centralized control that Western-style
countries simply don't have.

