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.
The EU Wants Chinese car factories to operate locally.
Chinese EV maker BYD welcome to open factory in France, French finance minister says
European nations compete for Chinese EV factories, jobs even as EU weighs tariffs
China’s Dongfeng in pole position to build an auto plant in Italy - Italian sources
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.
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.
economics is far from a simple competition… things like game theory lead to monopolies being bad for everyone, and that’s what china wants in a lot of cases. the chinese government subsidises some of its industries dramatically so they can take over a global market and then slowly backs off the subsidies when they’ve killed their competition
it’s similar to microsoft’s embrace, extend, extinguish strategy
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.
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.
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.
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
So they’re now outsourcing production to the West? We’ve really come full circle.
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).
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.
“it’s just supplemental” would have initially worked to describe us industry shifting out
investment is finite, so if you have the choice between a and b, investing more money in a is by definition investing in a at the expense of b
This problem only occurs in capitalist economies where finance capital directs development. Meanwhile, all the critical economy in China is state owned. In fact, the share of private industry in China has been shrinking. https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/chinas-private-sector-has-lost-ground-state-sector-has-gained-share-among
“it’s just supplemental” would have initially worked to describe us industry shifting out
The difference being that China is not neoliberal. This does not coincide with deindustriakization, crushing unions, maximizing “free markets”, etc. It also does not correspond to anything like the regimes the US used to make offshoring in its own interests, namely to force imbalanced export economies on other countries premised on unequal exchange and a dollar-heavy (im)balance of payments. Worst case scenario of success is that other countries, particularly in Africa, develop industry, infrastructure, and good jobs while China gains trading partners and stays heavily industrialized, as they care for their real economy.
investment is finite, so if you have the choice between a and b, investing more money in a is by definition investing in a at the expense of b
At the level of entire countries this logic can break down. For example, third world countries have to figure out what to do with all these dollars they receive from their imbalanced export economies. You can’t just spend it on anything, yiur country needs to function and you can’t buy everything from everyone at fair prices this way.
It’d be really funny if China building factories in Mexico causes NAFTA to collapse.
