While there is common ground for the US and the EU to pressure China; I think it's quite obvious this is not going to happen any time soon. First of all, there are huge issues with the USA-EU relation because of the current presidency. This has clearly made the EU feel its on its own. Secondly, the EU has a huge array of internal issues. I currently see no easy way how we can solve it. Aside from Brexit, what most crises in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Greece show is an appalling lack of unity in the believe of EU values and the EU in general.
Moreover, the mere fact that China can sow divisiveness between EUMS by just *promising* money shows how fragmented the EU is (see Hungary). The gap between western, richer EUMS and easter & souther, poorer EUMS is huge.
A first, more obvious solution is for Germany / France to take up a similar role as China. Invest heavily in Eastern Europe, not only through the EU (where there are already a lot of grand-scale funding projects on-going such as Horizon 2020 and the EU Infrastructure Fund), but also through national investment and infrastructure funds.
These investments rounds should be accompanied by heavy publicity, marketing, and PR events. For what it's worth, the countries that are railing against EU the heaviest, are some of the biggest beneficiaries from these funds. Most people just don't know how much they're benefiting from the EU-model. One thing that we could learn from is the OBOR publictly, which is the largest over-hyped project and the biggest attempt to sell hot-air in human history (I like talking in hyperbole).
"Answering the China-question" first requires some inward reflection and solving internal issues before trying to formulate a coherent China-policy.
PS: most EU countries don't even have a national China-policy... If the EUMS can't even get their act together on a national level, how do we want to address the larger issues that undermine threaten the EU dream?
The question of who has a bigger amount to lose reminds me a lot of Vietnam-era body counts. It's the wrong metric to assess because its impact on each sides' political calculus is more logarithmic than linear.
The China Daily comment about job losses shows that the PRC is getting smarter about talking to US political audiences. "Job losses," for Chinese factory workers without urban hukous, are not an important political priority in China. This is a comment aimed at US political audiences only.
The NYT quotes the White House as saying China has more to lose than the USA in a trade/tariff fight. I am not an expert, so would love to hear whether people agree with that assessment. But it seems to me it's a moot point. Both sides will lose, and a position based on whether the other side has a greater risk or not seems to neglect the cost of one's own casualties. As well, to me it's not just which side is the biggest loser, but who in particular are the losers. Middle Class Chinese who can no longer afford American cars and wine, or American farmers who vote.
Agree which side has more to lose is a moot point. Obviously China has more to lose since it exports so much more than imports and bigger portion of economy relies on exports. However, the more important question is which side has more tolerence to pain: generally, it's the more democratic side, since they are less likely to withstand the backlash from its people and the more communist part is easier to play the nationalism card, but even that might not be the case this time. By constantly yelling his point of view on trade and China via twitter and elsewhere, I think Trump has hyped up enough anti-china setiment from his base that buys him more time and room for pain tolenrence. just my 2 cents.
exactly. a moot point. if anything, the admission that the merit of this war is merely that China has more to lose is telling. I am amazed that everyone in the market is asleep. so an American economic pyrrhic victory is what the world has got to look forward to. great. thanks.
While there is common ground for the US and the EU to pressure China; I think it's quite obvious this is not going to happen any time soon. First of all, there are huge issues with the USA-EU relation because of the current presidency. This has clearly made the EU feel its on its own. Secondly, the EU has a huge array of internal issues. I currently see no easy way how we can solve it. Aside from Brexit, what most crises in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Greece show is an appalling lack of unity in the believe of EU values and the EU in general.
Moreover, the mere fact that China can sow divisiveness between EUMS by just *promising* money shows how fragmented the EU is (see Hungary). The gap between western, richer EUMS and easter & souther, poorer EUMS is huge.
A first, more obvious solution is for Germany / France to take up a similar role as China. Invest heavily in Eastern Europe, not only through the EU (where there are already a lot of grand-scale funding projects on-going such as Horizon 2020 and the EU Infrastructure Fund), but also through national investment and infrastructure funds.
These investments rounds should be accompanied by heavy publicity, marketing, and PR events. For what it's worth, the countries that are railing against EU the heaviest, are some of the biggest beneficiaries from these funds. Most people just don't know how much they're benefiting from the EU-model. One thing that we could learn from is the OBOR publictly, which is the largest over-hyped project and the biggest attempt to sell hot-air in human history (I like talking in hyperbole).
"Answering the China-question" first requires some inward reflection and solving internal issues before trying to formulate a coherent China-policy.
PS: most EU countries don't even have a national China-policy... If the EUMS can't even get their act together on a national level, how do we want to address the larger issues that undermine threaten the EU dream?
The question of who has a bigger amount to lose reminds me a lot of Vietnam-era body counts. It's the wrong metric to assess because its impact on each sides' political calculus is more logarithmic than linear.
it sure feels like both sides are heading towards the cliff and there is no one near the brakes.
The China Daily comment about job losses shows that the PRC is getting smarter about talking to US political audiences. "Job losses," for Chinese factory workers without urban hukous, are not an important political priority in China. This is a comment aimed at US political audiences only.
The NYT quotes the White House as saying China has more to lose than the USA in a trade/tariff fight. I am not an expert, so would love to hear whether people agree with that assessment. But it seems to me it's a moot point. Both sides will lose, and a position based on whether the other side has a greater risk or not seems to neglect the cost of one's own casualties. As well, to me it's not just which side is the biggest loser, but who in particular are the losers. Middle Class Chinese who can no longer afford American cars and wine, or American farmers who vote.
Agree which side has more to lose is a moot point. Obviously China has more to lose since it exports so much more than imports and bigger portion of economy relies on exports. However, the more important question is which side has more tolerence to pain: generally, it's the more democratic side, since they are less likely to withstand the backlash from its people and the more communist part is easier to play the nationalism card, but even that might not be the case this time. By constantly yelling his point of view on trade and China via twitter and elsewhere, I think Trump has hyped up enough anti-china setiment from his base that buys him more time and room for pain tolenrence. just my 2 cents.
And was the WH calculation made when the tariffs were on 50, 100, 250 or 450 billion? It seems the number doubles by the hour..
exactly. a moot point. if anything, the admission that the merit of this war is merely that China has more to lose is telling. I am amazed that everyone in the market is asleep. so an American economic pyrrhic victory is what the world has got to look forward to. great. thanks.