The issue USA has with China might be because China is starting to work, and as Napoleon intoned, "shall shake the world".
The USA has done nothing but encourage and enable China's growth since the mid 1970s... only the more as China was "starting to work" in emerging from a long period of not working at all. That gave China a long open path on which to improve, as China got out of China's own way... and rejoined the world economy. Now, however, China is choosing to go back on deals made, continues to not play by the rules it agreed to, and certainly is not acting in good faith, as it reverses course on prior choices. Doing that, thinking others won't notice, or cannot react if they do notice, to change their own choices ? Thinking others choices don't matter, now, for some reason ? And, that change made while thinking it doesn't matter... is because prior success enabled by prior choices... is now deemed inevitable and irresistible in itself, as future success is assured based on momentum alone, even as the effort made now, under changed choices, alters from cooperation to confrontation ? I know of no planet on which that will work.
Unless the goal is confrontation.
That China, internally, has adapted to change in choices with submission... does not mean others will.
Choices do matter... in China, exactly as they do everywhere else. The only thing in question is the mode of recognition in the impact of change made. Change imposed, cannot be ignored as if it has no effect... or as if one change made prevents, rather than requires, others ? And, China's choices, as others... will have the impact they do... as others respond to the change in China's choices, either directly, or in consequence of the impacts that change has... including changes occurring in result of reversing policy, not just in choices, but relationships.
That's not unique... It is not different than seeing how Biden benefits now from a legacy in Trump's economic successes... as Xi does Deng's... which does not mean the U.S. will inevitably continue to prosper under Biden's desired for changes. However, even if they've not yet been advanced... no one is saying those changes Biden intends... won't matter ? Economies always continue to do more of what they have done recently... no matter the change imposed ?
China's primary new policy choice is... choices don't matter... or change anything ?
China's core advantage, over the period from the opening of the economy until now, has been in cheap labor. That was always going to be an advantage that remained... only until China's reintegration with the rest of the world economy re-attained its proper balance. That point, at which costs of labor are in balance with the rest of the world, must include both the costs of labor in other places, and the other non-labor costs of doing business in China, or other places... which other costs have mattered far less recently, as cheaper labor in China made up for the other costs, in part.
As labor cost parity is attained... competition necessarily shifts to larger consideration of other factors.
With labor cost parity, the other costs of doing business with China grow in importance. And, it is in that context of labor cost parity now enabling customers in making other choices, only on a cost basis, that China's recent choices matter. With parity, changes entrained begin to alter others perceptions of the already extant non-labor costs of doing business, along with the rapidly growing risks that changed choices impose, when considering doing business with China. At the same time labor cost parity is achieved, China's reversals mean China is choosing to become less competitive, and less reliable as a partner.
What happened in Alaska was that China notified the USA that China does not care what the USA thinks.
Hardly a viable basis for sustaining a business... to visit your largest customer and aggressively insult them as they share concerns about your having changed priorities... and changed choices ?
Choosing to "not care"... as others notice change... doesn't alter reality that the changed choices do matter.
Easy enough to predict, from that, an outcome in which China's changing choices, together with "not caring" can only result in accelerations continuing to alter the flow of business...
"Not caring"... hardly a viable basis for sustaining a relationship ? The question is... given that is the nature of the choice China has made... what follows that decision ? China's changed choices... now China's temper tantrum... insisting change doesn't matter... obviously a dead end. China controls China's choices... but China doesn't control others choices ?
I see nothing new in this. China's choices, as a part of the changes made, are now apparently being made in a bubble... in which China believes choices made have no consequences... or should have no consequences. That seems it is the constant theme in relation to choices made... only, now, with two different contexts in which to consider that... The context in which choices made will naturally alter the future as those choices have impact and force change in others choices... And the context in which choices made lead from natural consequences... to deliberate conflict.
I often-enough read in Foreign Affairs and in many journals about how China due to systemic issues shall fail, to which I think, well, if that is so sure, than no reason for the writer to worry about China.
|
