Biden To Sign Order Curbing US Tech Investments in China by Mid-August (bloomberg.com) 33
President Joe Biden is planning to sign an executive order to limit critical US technology investments in China by mid-August, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the internal deliberations. From the report: The order focuses on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It won't affect any existing investments and will only prohibit certain transactions. Other deals will have to be disclosed to the government. The timing for the order, slated for the second week of August, has slipped many times before, and there is no guarantee it won't be delayed again. But internal discussions have already shifted from the substance of the measures to rolling out the order and accompanying rule, said the people familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity. The restrictions won't take effect until next year, and their scope will be laid out in a rulemaking process, involving a comment period so stakeholders can weigh in on the final version.
Re:retail retail retail (Score:4, Insightful)
"What's not to love" is a massive disruption of both America's, China's and also the world's global economy in a massively shortsighed move that makes all of those countries poorer and more subsceptible to conflict.
The continued fairly strong trade relationship and the US being the #1 importer of goods made in China is actually the largest stabilizier of relations and the thing that probably keeps peace in the region. If the US does this cut-off then China has every reason to invade Taiwan, and Taiwan is the country we would lean on the hardest to make up that product supply.
On a lot of those things like elctronics and other goods China has a large comparative advantage in the skillset to manufacturing those items. If we did a total cuttoff it would take over a decade for the US and other nations to build that capacity, even if they could in the end. Comparative advantage is usually a good thing and the US has it on a lot of goods too.
This type of short sided isolationism is very 19th century, it's fantastical.
Re:retail retail retail (Score:5, Insightful)
only 6-months build-out would be required for USA production to meet all USA needs.
This is pant's on head crazy. The US imports ~$600B in products from China, that's no 6-month job, we don't even have nearly the amount of workers needed to make that happen, unemployment is already at historic lows.
HP & IBM finally re-do something useful
Neither of these companies have built consumer goods in the US for decades. That ship has sailed amigo.
Unemployment drops to 0.5%
This is actually very economically destructive. There are econ courses online for free, please take one.
Do stop what you're talking about (Score:3, Insightful)
I say you need these things because this is all run of the mill trade spats between two equal nations (more or less, the US army could destroy China and frankly Russia too, at the same time, that's not be boasting, that's what are military's core doctrine is: "Be able to take on our two biggest foes at the same time").
The reason you're seeing this now i
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I never said "no more trade wars". There's always some give and take tensions between large trading blocks, even when they are idealogically aligned (US and EU and Japan all still have their problems. The US still has the "chicken tax" where Japan can't import trucks into the US for example) to say nothing of countries that are opposed in many respects.
What I am opposed to is this wildly fantastical concept of the US cutting all or even most trade off with China, the largest manufacturing nation in the wo
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Nah, China is on the rise but so long as we're not really really stupid again (ok, maybe theres a chance) the US will remain the top superpower. It's the US's to lose, especially with the Ukraine war and the Biden admin in general putting us on good standing with international allies again.
Thing with disruption on the scale of nation-state economies is it's a gamble. In the past when countries start to feel cornered they tend to get more authoritarian and aggressive than less. What keeps China from being
We're not cutting off all trade (Score:2)
Now is the time to start reigning
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Trade with Russia in 2021 was $27B imported from Russia and $7B exported compared to $530B and $151B comparatively with China. Now with the EU and Russia that is a lot higher to be fair but also despite being both authoritarian China and Russia act in very different manners. Putin has a long history of incursion into former Soviet states. China is a lot more measures and outside of Taiwan doesn't really have the same aggression towards neighbors. Also the CCCP is a lot more organized and careful than Pu
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As we have increased trade with China, they have become more authoritarian, not less.
Conflict over Taiwan does seem likely. Conflict in general seems much more likely than at any time I can recall.
And we fund that via trade.
China demands more and more.
China was supposed to administer Hong Kong as a special region with some self government.
That fell apart pretty quick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The order focuses on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It won't affect any existing investments and will only prohibit certain transactions.
It seems like it is designed not to disrupt "existing investments."
If the US does this cut-off then China has every reason to invade Taiwan
So if the US doesn't agree to hand-over money and technology, China will invade Taiwan? You make it sound like Biden is doing the right thing, but a little too late.
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Was I responging to the article or a particular user post? I think It was pretty clear the latter...
So if the US doesn't agree to hand-over money and technology, China will invade Taiwan? You make it sound like Biden is doing the right thing, but a little too late.
That is the most bad-faith, twisting my words way to interpret my statement. I think Biden is handling China very well actually.
Fact is though that with a large, broad trade ambargo China has way, way less to lose in an invasion whereas now that large scale embargo is probably one of the risks they have to contend with the idea to invade Taiwain. Is that better? Make more sense?
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Yes and he was right to do that, but that's saber rattling and diplomacy. China is well aware an invasion of Taiwan is going to involve many regional nations and likely the US and other nations as well. They've always know that's part of the risk and if they weren't thinking about taking that risk they would have ceded claims and just put the issue to rest by now. I have no reason to think China is unwilling to risk the lives of thousands of their troops and materials. The Taiwan problem is not new, it's
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"Are they as willing to risk that considering how much it's given them and will continue to give them?"
Then why do they continue to push the issue? They could let it be for a while, nothing changes, Taiwan is still a question mark.
I dont expect them to have success in convincing the Taiwanese to merge peacefully, but as you note, it has been an issue for a long time now.
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I think you are pushing a lot of weird hyperbole. It doesn't follow that limiting "critical US technology investments in China" disrupts the world economy somehow.
The US will still import goods from China. Meanwhile the US won't transfer technology related to semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing to China. This makes a lot of sense as a national interest, and it sure doesn't give China "every reason to invade Taiwan".
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I don't agree with isolationism or protectionism. But we need a collective realization that we shouldn't be providing additional capabilities to an enemy state. Economic investment and cooperation HAS NOT WORKED to help bring China any closer to democratic ideals. If anything, they've grown more belligerent and authoritarian as they've become more prosperous. It's a failed experiment - we just need to wake up and admit it. Why in are they still granted Most Favored Nation status? It's insanity. They
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The continued fairly strong trade relationship and the US being the #1 importer of goods made in China is actually the largest stabilizier of relations and the thing that probably keeps peace in the region.
Same bullshit greedy business leaders have been telling us for decades as they sell us out and make China more and more powerful and aggressive.
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The continued fairly strong trade relationship and the US being the #1 importer of goods made in China is actually the largest stabilizier of relations and the thing that probably keeps peace in the region.
Same bullshit greedy business leaders have been telling us for decades as they sell us out and make China more and more powerful and aggressive.
Even though it is self-serving, it probably also has some merit. There are a few examples of corrupt, repressive countries that have gradually gotten "better" that were helped by normalized trade and political relations with "the West". Unfortunately there are also a number of examples where actions of "the West" have enabled or encouraged the corruption and repression, both indirectly (and worse) directly. On balance I tend to think that engagement is generally better than isolation, but clearly we have no
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Who cares about "In principle" when it's had such a spectacularly negative actual effect in this case?
Engagement with China has created a superpower that's entirely opposed to democratic values and has moved entirely towards a North Korea style government. This is the perfect example of why greedy, blind engagement should never be used with a hostile government!
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What I am saying is that it is difficult to figure out what strategy to adopt, and when to pivot to a different one. I have at least SOME sympathy for policymakers. "In practice", the West has had some success in some places with these types of policies, so this isn't just an "in principle" situation.
But yeah, this seems not to have worked as desired, and I would be happy with a policy of "we don't play with people unless they do these things, and we will quit playing if you start doing those things" and th
Taiwan isn't a country, Sherlock (Score:1)
No one thinks Taiwan is an independent nation. Not the UN, not the US, UK, Australia, and especially the people on the island itself, who recently voted overwhelmingly for a party committed to the One China policy.
Imagine that China (or Russia) spent billions to support the secessionist movement in Puerto Rico while putting billions of weapons on the island. Well, not that much imagination required, as we can look to the Turkish Missile Crisis in how the US responded to weapons be
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Taiwan and the US seem to consider Taiwan an independent nation.
I think you mischaracterize this commitment to "One China".
If Taiwan really wanted unification with Mainland China, they could have it.
The US' stance is opposed to unification by force or coercion.
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False [state.gov] and false. [theatlantic.com] Not only does the Taiwan constitution claim to be the "real" government of China, but other countries like Mongolia as well.
The US has been working overtime to repeat with China and Taiwan what it's been doing to Russia with Ukraine, for the same imperialist reasons.
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"Not only does the Taiwan constitution claim to be the "real" government of China, but other countries like Mongolia as well."
Taiwan's constitution claims to be the real government of all of China, to be sure. Im not clear on how that invalidates my position.
Functionally, Taiwan is an independent nation. They have their own government and armed forces.
They used to be recognized by many other nations until the PRC started their bullying campaign.
"The US has been working overtime to repeat with China and Ta
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America is trading with an entity that has said and shown time after time that they are hostile to America.
The relationship is not stable due to this hostility, and all the trade in the world is not going to do anything other than give China more resources to act on their hostility.
Peace in the region would be easy to achieve if China would stop attempting to take everything from everyone in the region.
There is a reason that the Philippines and many others in the region are aligning with the US.
The Goa'uld (Score:2)
Biden planning (Score:2)
President Joe Biden is planning...
Biden is not planning anything. It's sad, really.
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