Shangri-La Dialogue: Fundamental problem between US and China is 'mutual lack of strategic trust', says PM Lee The problem is that China's economy will suffer greatly if the CCP agrees to the concessions the US is demanding. China survives on the theft of trade secrets, patents, and copyrights. This is how China "innovates." Giving up this money stream would permanently reduce China to a sub First World status. It would also likely trigger a recession which is likely to be existential for the CCP. China cannot survive US tariffs at the current levels. China cannot survive if it cuts its sales of products or natural resources to the US. China can only hope that the bluff it is now playing will pan out, Trump will blink, rescind the tariffs, and let the Chinese go back to theft as innovation. The CCP is the subject of the tariff war. Trump has placed the CCP in the tariff crosshairs and seems intent in chopping the legs out from under the CCP. The economists who drumbeat "trade at all costs" are foolishly misunderstanding that they are taking the position of Nevile Chamberlain in Munich in 1938. The Nevile Chamberlains among us are all atwitter about the Trump belligerence, but the choices are few, either we tolerate theft as the Chinese way of business, or we don't. Obama tolerated this behavior and earned the unrest we see in the South China Sea due to the emboldened CCP's expansion of power into this region. It also spawned the Belt and Road initiative which China has used to its advantage but not the advantage of the partner nations. Munich_Agreement Trump is trying to box in the CCP so it will not go, rogue, as Hitler did back in the middle of the 20th century. While a trade war is an ugly thing, and it could devolve into something worse, WWII was not triggered by trade war; it was triggered by appeasement just as the Nevile Chamberlain's of today are attempting. The issues are much more fraught than the appeasement cabal admit. I am much less comfortable with appeasement than I am with Trump's current tactics. I know how appeasement has worked out in the past. Spoiler alert: it triggered one of the most deadly and destructive wars in human history.
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