> I would like to see western governments treat Chinese censorship as non-tariff barriers to trade when negotiating trade agreements.
Considering the west censors also, the chinese would laugh in our face. Weren't there chinese tourists who got locked up and fined in germany for silly speech recently? Weren't we all celebrating the censorship of the "alt-right"? Didn't we have celebrate the attacks on russian "fake news"? At worst, the chinese would simply justify their censorship by labeling apps as spreading fake news just like we do.
> Unfortunately for the most part western governments seem to have the same problem as western countries in not wanting to be frozen out of China and thus don't overtly question NTBs.
There you go. You act like NTBs go one way. We also have non-tariff trade barriers. Not only that, we also force other countries to end business transactions with china due to "national security concerns".
> There you go. You act like NTBs go one way. We also have non-tariff trade barriers.
No you misunderstand my point. My desire is that western governments treat Chinese censorship as NTBs when negotiating trade but they currently do not for fear of being simply frozen out of that market.
I make no comment nor judgement on western NTBs nor do I have an opinion on what the Chinese government should do from their side of the negotiating table in response to what they see as imbalances or NTBs. They should obviously do what is best for them.
Considering the west censors also, the chinese would laugh in our face. Weren't there chinese tourists who got locked up and fined in germany for silly speech recently? Weren't we all celebrating the censorship of the "alt-right"? Didn't we have celebrate the attacks on russian "fake news"? At worst, the chinese would simply justify their censorship by labeling apps as spreading fake news just like we do.
> Unfortunately for the most part western governments seem to have the same problem as western countries in not wanting to be frozen out of China and thus don't overtly question NTBs.
There you go. You act like NTBs go one way. We also have non-tariff trade barriers. Not only that, we also force other countries to end business transactions with china due to "national security concerns".