this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 week ago (3 children)

So they're now outsourcing production to the West? We've really come full circle.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (35 children)

The difference is that they're not doing it at the expense of hollowing out their domestic industry. They're supplementing their own industry by building additional industry around the world.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why do you assume the West? China often expands to other Asian countries. Or pretend to. E.g. after tariffs are applied to China you'll often see a huge increase in intra Asia trade. Followed by different Asian countries heavily increasing their exports. Usually by hiding the true origin (tariffs are applied to the origin, not some transhipment place).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Also a lot of infrastructure in Africa is being funded in China, their position there is only going to grow stronger.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

This is what happens with production revolutions. We did the same thing, as did England.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is Western liberal cope. China makes 5-year plans and publishes them. Building factories around the world is a massive planning effort. They are not reacting to tarrifs that were levied in the last 18 months. The tarrifs are a reaction.

China has been building international infrastructure, including factories, for years now. By the time a factory comes online to "avoid tarrifs" the tarrifs would have already had their maximal effect. Further, tarrif regimes can be changed in hours while factories take years to plan and execute. There is simply no way China is thinking they're going to outmaneuver recent tarrifs with factories.

It's nonsense

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago

You forgot one thing though: China bad

check mate 😏

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago

It'd be really funny if China building factories in Mexico causes NAFTA to collapse.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

And then we have mass worker revolts to seize the means of production in these countries right? Right?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (12 children)

Woulda been funny. Not just for the obvious benefit of having an uprising and potential revolution in Europe, but also to see how genuine those "red millionaires" are about socialism with Chinese characteristics

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A bit nitpicky, but the idea behind SWCC isn't that the Capialists in the PRC are "the people's Capitalists" or anything, but that the State as a DotP allows market competition in a controlled manner similar to a birdcage. As these markets form monopolist syndicates, they centralize, and socialize, by which point the CPC increases public owership. Communism is achieved by degree, not by decree. Trying to achieve Communism through fiat has historically resulted in struggles and difficulties.

I recommend reading Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism for an overview of what that entails.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I also recommend The East is Still Red - Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century by Carlos Martinez, it does a great job of dispelling common myths about China and it's economy, foreign policy, etc with solid sources through a solidly materialist lens.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I'm not sure why we care. It's just simple competition, if your opponent is able to sell a cheaper product, either lower your price or deal with it. It's basic capitalism.

While I'm for tariffs on import to at least make cost equal to minimum wage for workers (to equate for the pay wage differential) if the factories are being built in house, it means they are following country standards including wages, I don't see the issue.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Free market propaganda has never been applied under equal circumstances. It is rhetoric used by capital to reduce or destroy regulations, labor, national sovereignty, etc. Western industrialized capitalist coubtries built their industry and infrastructure using tariffs to protect it, then turned around and demanded the opposite from other countries so that they would have to buy their products and sell whatever those colonizer countries wanted (at the time, usualky raw materials).

Now that other countries are ascendant, US-based "free market" capital is gladly re-embracing protectionist logic. It has only ever been about maximizing their profits. The "theory" of free markets tails capital, it isn't a science or even a valid line of thought.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And this behavior is somehow sold to the public as a way to boost the economic wellness of the people living under the isolationist programs, but instead it enables profiteering corporations to exert more control over the artificially narrowed market space.

Locking the door with the fox(es) in the henhouse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

In some cases it has improved public welfare as industrial capital demanded infrastructure and education, though of course they also demanded as much of your day as possible for as little wage as possible. And as finance wins out it acts like a parasite on productivity while still demanding maximum time and minimal wages.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Seems like a short lived plan. Just need to change laws so that Chinese owned vehicles have a tariff, no matter where they’re made. Of course, then they just create shell companies in the states/EU and the game of cat and mouse continues.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Why do we “need” to change laws to artificially inflate the price of cars? Don’t we give enough money and government control to Ford and GM?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

capitalists have no nation

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not entirely true. There's a large difference between Nationalist Bourgeoisie and Imperialist Bourgeoisie. The Nationalists in Imperialized countries are progressive compared to the Imperialists that oppress both the Nationalist Bourgeosie and Proletarist in Imperialized countries.

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