How persuasive do you think these tariffs are though? The value of What they stand to lose from caving in IP is far greater I think you’d agree - and that’s even if we assume they think he’s serious about maintaining the tariffs indefinitely which no one thinks they are. This is why stuff like wto exists. If it’s slow and inefficient then fixing it would be a better priority. This is going to come up again and again as developing countries enter the fray. You can’t expect any of them to comply out of the goodness of their hearts.

This is typical bureaucratic thinking.

"If there's a problem with Germany then showing force is a horrible idea, risky, warmongering; this should be dealt with via the League of Nations. If it's slow and inefficient then fixing it would be a better priority"

That literally happened, and 70 million people died as a result.

Cheats and bad faith actors thrive and prosper in bureaucratic systems. Trying to work within them has cost trillions of dollars in wealth, needlessly soared global CO2, needlessly duplicated capital, stunted US economic growth, and enriched and armed by far the most dangerous country on Earth.

The heart of a bureaucrat is the belief that bureaucracy and models can be refined to work. Life just doesn't work like that. You lack even a fraction of the capacity needed to take everything into account. People with your worldviews have created exactly the mess we have now.

And no, it won't come up again and again. This is unique to China for a number of reasons.

They are not persuasive enough yet. Neither was negotiation or anything else. They're the opening shot, there is more to play out. The US can bring China to its knees with a bit of pain but without bringing itself down. How far along that trajectory it'll have to go to make that happen is anyone's guess.

China has been intentionally strengthening RMB and shoring up domestic demand/brands for some time. They really don’t mind a trade war right now, especially when most of the pressure will just divert trade and/or be absorbed by MNCs.

You're the one defending the bureaucratic response, you realize that right?

Trumps tariffs are a bureaucratic response. There's nothing unique about imposing sanctions as a country or as a block of countries except that in this case, the former has little chance of influencing their behavior. Everyone reading knows that the only reason you're supporting one and rejecting the other is because you're the ultimate cuck when it comes to trump.

Viability of economic sanctions aside though, you just plain can't have intellectual property rights enforced without centralized power and the corresponding bureaucracy, which is what makes your blanket dismissals so ******ed. Even the staunchest libertarians recognize the necessity of government for those purposes.

What the hell are you talking about? It already does happen all over the world. The only reason china is getting attention is because of the size of the economy and their advanced state of development.


You know what's better than firing an opening shot to scare a rival gang?

Having a group of gangs show up together and firing the warning shot. Both because they're more likely to capitulate to your demands, and because they're less likely to try and engage you causing collateral damage to both sides.

I'm legitimately laughing out loud.

I guess I really hit the mark on the bureaucratic response.

The US is the main country that China is stealing from. The US is the country that China has a hundreds of billions/year surplus with. You think the major trading partner, major source of theft, attacking these practices hard with retaliatory tariffs, has "little chance" of influencing them, whereas if we add a few more countries with a piddly amount of trade surplus in comparison - who have never been willing in the time of Bush or Obama by the way - did you miss that little detail?? - it has a chance of working?

Bureaucrats like you in charge are why trade has been an utter failure, and the US has bled wealth and knowhow.

You've legitimately lost your mind, bro.
The necessity of government for intellectual property protection has nothing to do with whether the actions of other governments can be compelled by making not respecting intellectual property a worse outcome for them, by closing our markets to goods made with stolen knowhow with targeted tariffs and putting punitive measures on top.

Besides which, you don't think the more egregious practices like forced tech transfer can be stopped? That we can't make those practices too painful for them to continue, when they currently are draining out $500 billion a year in wealth (which they need for their economy to not crash) and American companies don't really need China to keep doing well?

Forced tech transfers are happening "all over the world"? That's cute bro, but no. Only China has the size and market potential to be able to bribe/coerce companies into handing over their tech at far below market rates. Only China has the vast hacking attempts and successes.

Let's say I agree. Yet no such coalition has ever been put together, by either Bush or Obama. Why do you think such a coalition is possible?

And your gang analogy stinks (people have rough force/threat parity, trading partners do not), as does your dopey analysis. Do you have any real world common sense? Clearly not.

These countries run a surplus with China. They have nothing to gain from a trade war:



These are the countries that run a deficit with China:

Who on Earth would join us on that list? India and the Netherlands and the UK maybe? For others it makes little sense for a number of reasons.

It's completely ridiculous to suggest that someone having several countries gang up will work, while just having their largest trading partner punish them - who has > 5x the deficit of the next biggest - won't work. Not to mention, the one from which IP is stolen.

I don't know why I'm even talking to you. You've lost the plot. Come back when you have something sane to say. There are many sane ways to disagree with me; you haven't come up with one.

What are you smoking?

To say that protecting the rights has nothing to do with enforcement mechanisms is the equivalent of saying that protecting intellectual property rights within states or households has nothing to do with the federal governments ability to penalize offenders. Putting china under the purview of international authority is just scaling it up one notch.

http://www.theglobalipcenter.com/wp-...Index_2018.pdf

This is one of many studies that've tried to quantify the strength of IP protections between countries and china isn't even close to the bottom. Mexico, india, brazil... all comparable. Maybe china is the current 'worse offender' when taking scale into consideration but the idea that this is a one time thing that's completely unique and won't happen again... lol. Every developing country has that exact same incentive to ignore patents on pharmaceuticals (for instance) and develop their own home brew, and all of them have the capacity to do it.

The argument of who stands to gain/lose enough to support a collaborative effort is at least a reasonable angle to approach this. Trade/surplus of trade doesn't completely define to what extent parties are harmed though. I also think you're underestimating the willingness of countries to join on principle when the consequences are more or less neutral.

All I'm saying is that you don't need the world government you imagine you need to make countries enforce IP, and certainly not to stop them cheating at free trade rules with stuff like forced tech transfer. So your point is irrelevant and not happening anyway- international politics will continue to be anarchic for a long time. At least until China pulls ahead on robotics and AI and takes it all over.

Sure, you don't need the entire world to be member states, but scale matters. Do you want to also dismantle the federal governments ability to offer a "bureaucratic response" and leave it up to the individual states? Or maybe just say screw it entirely and leave it up to the individual owners of the patents?

I wouldn't say the situation is anarchic - the WTO has settled a long list of disputes over the years including a variety of rulings against china that've resulted in compliance. The laws are just highly unrefined because getting a large group of countries with competing interests to agree on something that might hurt them is nearly impossible. Having one world government that was built on a cohesive set of principles WOULD make things a lot easier in that respect.