(Thanks, J. :)

Reader J. writes:

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Re: war with China

Hobie,

Everyday there is more talk of war. The Pentagon say they are preparing for war with China. Trump and Biden in the debates both say they will face China head on. Xi just announced that he has instructed the PLA to prepare for war with the US.

The Trump administration has already started a trade war with China for the last 2 1/2 years. It has accused China of unfair trading, selling a lot more than it buys, hacking and IP theft, high tariffs, subsidizing industries, and currency manipulation. China, in turn, accuse the US of bullying, lies about China on IP theft and technology transfer, currency manipulation (called quantitative easing by the Feds), spying and hacking, and subsidizing industries like autos, Boeing, and agriculture.

So what is the real story? There is a new article out that did research on this topic. The results will not be popular with the American public. But for the sake of objectivity and to cool things down, I do hope that you will post my comments.

The article says,

1. The US accusation of unfair trading by China (selling a lot more to the US than it buys from the US) is not reasonable. China has a trade deficit with Germany because China buys a lot of German technology that China wants, while Germany does not need so much Chinese plastic stuff. On the other hand, the US wants a lot of low cost goods from China while China mainly wants to buy agriculture and high tech goods. For Trump to force China to buy from the US about the same amount that China sells to the US is not reasonable.

2. The US accuses China of hacking and IP theft (intellectual property theft) to the tune of hundreds of billions every year. Yet, the US does not provide any evidence. The article displays the US government's own chart showing that hacking is not a significant loss among US companies.

3. Forced technology from US companies to Chinese companies. The US accuses China of forcing American companies to give up their technology to Chinese companies. The article says that there is no such law in China that allows this. China claims that technology transfers are voluntary, companies don't have to do business in China if they don't want to share their technology.

4. The US accuses China of unduly high tariffs, typically 10 times that of the US tariffs. The article shows a chart of the world's tariffs by country. It shows that the average tariffs by China is around twice that of the US tariffs.

5. The US accuses China of unfairly subsidizing its industries. China does not deny this, but says it is implementing laws to correct this market distortion. On the Other hand, the US does not address its own subsidizing and continues to heavily subsidize industries, particularly agriculture.

6. The article, for the first time anywhere, estimates the actual hacking numbers on the US government and US companies by Chinese hackers. Very interesting.

So it appears that the trade war includes a lot of exaggeration and propaganda. The whole article can be read at:

MASS DISINFORMATION IN THE TRADE WAR LEADS TO A GUILTY WITHOUT EVIDENCE TREND
https://silkscreen9.blogspot.com/2020/09/new-blog.html

Please post!

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