In China ‘Free’ Trade Means Steal What You Want

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Optionpro007, Jun 21, 2018.

  1. In China ‘Free’ Trade Means Steal What You Want
    June 21, 2018, 12:05 am

    Why won’t it play by the rules?
    What can Democrat Chuck Schumer, Republican Marco Rubio, and President Trump agree on? Almost nothing, but they agree China is robbing America blind and has to be stopped. When the President slapped a punishing 25% tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods starting July 6, his least likely GOP ally, Senator Marco Rubio (FL) applauded the tariffs as a “theft tax.” Senator Schumer backed them too, warning that allowing China’s massive stealing to continue will cause “long-term real damage to America.”

    Within hours of Trump’s announcement, China retaliated with $50 billion in tariffs on U.S. imports. Trump shot back with tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese goods. China accuses Trump of “provoking the trade war.” Provoking? China’s been fighting dirty against American business for years. China steals $225 billion to $600 billion worth of fashion designs, pharmaceutical formulas, and new technologies from U.S. companies every year, according to the Commission on Theft of American Intellectual Property. Previous U.S. presidents did nothing but negotiate. That’s like watching a burglar strip your house and asking him “can we talk?” At last, an American president picked up a weapon — tariffs — to fight back.

    Not a minute too soon. The stealing is getting worse. Politicians naively said admitting China to the World Trade Organization in 2001 would push it toward a free market economy observing the rule of law. Magical thinking.

    From the start, China violated WTO rules, knocking off American products and selling them as the real deal. A staggering 88% of counterfeit goods seized are from China and Hong Kong, according to Homeland Security. Like the Chinese thought “free” market meant steal what you want.


    Steal it or extort it. American companies doing business in China are pressured to transfer proprietary technology to a local partner. China promised to stop that arm twisting but broke its word.

    Now China is abandoning any pretense of respecting intellectual property. President Xi Jinping’s official economic policy, called Made in China 2025, elevates technology theft to official status. The government politely calls it “the assimilation and absorption of imported technology.” China plans to steal its way to economic dominance and end dependence on foreign suppliers.

    American companies can’t thrive under this threat. Our advantage in world markets isn’t cheap labor or cheap materials. It’s ideas.

    American Superconductor Corporation was almost put out of business, its stock value driven down 96%, when a Chinese wind turbine maker stole its technology and flooded the Chinese market with copies.

    Tariffs are the U.S. response to “forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft by the Chinese,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Monday.

    Industries profiting from the status quo are nervous.

    General Motors sells more vehicles in China than in the U.S. Multi-national companies look at China’s middle class — now the world’s largest — and see huge sales ahead.

    But if Beijing’s plan proceeds, these U.S companies will be shut out of China in a decade, and will have to compete in the rest of the world against Chinese companies that stole their technology and enjoy low cost financing from Chinese state banks. Nice work if you can get it.

    Are tariffs the best weapon against this plan? Trump is threatening a third tranche, bringing the total to $450 billion. China only imports $130 billion worth of American goods, and won’t be able to keep up tit for tat. Advantage U.S.

    Critics claim tariffs raise consumer prices, clobbering American households. That’s exaggerated. You might have to pay slightly more for a laptop or cell phone. But a whopping 88.5% of goods and services consumers buy are domestically produced, according to the Federal Reserve of San Francisco. This criticism also disregards the uncalculated price Americans are paying for Chinese intellectual property theft.


    The real question is whether anything can make China stop stealing its way to the top. Trump may win concessions, only to see China shamelessly pursue other criminal ploys. In China “free” market means steal what you want.
     
  2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

    The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property is an independent and bipartisan initiative of leading Americans from the private sector, public service in national security and foreign affairs, academia, and politics. The members are listed in the section About the Commissioners. The three purposes of the Commission are as follows: 1. Document and assess the causes, scale, and other major dimensions of international intellectual property (IP) theft as they affect the United States. 2. Document and assess the role of China and other infringers in international IP theft. 3. Propose appropriate U.S. policy responses that would mitigate ongoing and future damage and obtain greater enforcement of IP rights (IPR) by China and other infringers. IP theft pervades international trade in goods and services due to lack of legal enforcement and national industrial policies that encourage IP theft by public, quasi-private, and private entities. While some indicators show that the problem may have improved marginally, the theft of IP remains a grave threat to the United States. Since 2013, at the release of the IP Commission Report, U.S. policy mechanisms have been markedly enhanced but gone largely unused. We estimate that the annual cost to the U.S. economy continues to exceed $225 billion in counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets and could be as high as $600 billion. 1 It is important to note that both the low- and high-end figures do not incorporate the full cost of patent infringement—an area sorely in need of greater research. We have found no evidence that casts doubt on the estimate provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in November 2015 that economic espionage through hacking costs $400 billion per year.2 At this rate, the United States has suffered over $1.2 trillion in economic damage since the publication of the original IP Commission Report more than three years ago.

    http://ipcommission.org/report/IP_Commission_Report_Update_2017.pdf
     
    gwb-trading likes this.
  3. China

    China, whose industrial output now exceeds that of the United States, remains the world’s principal IP infringer. China is deeply committed to industrial policies that include maximizing the acquisition of foreign technology and information, policies that have contributed to greater IP theft. IP theft by thousands of Chinese actors continues to be rampant, and the United States constantly buys its own and other states’ inventions from Chinese infringers. China (including Hong Kong) accounts for 87% of counterfeit goods seized coming into the United States.10 China continues to obtain American IP from U.S. companies operating inside China, from entities elsewhere in the world, and of course from the United States directly through conventional as well as cyber means. These include coercive activities by the state designed to force outright IP transfer or give Chinese entities a better position from which to acquire or steal American IP.
     
  4. Can't wait for the liberals in this forum to jump in to defend China's 'business' practices...
     
  5. Just to put this into perspective, we are talking about people will knowingly sell counterfeit antibiotics, fully appreciating the ramifications.

    They understand one thing only, the boot on the neck. Trump has a big foot.
     
    Optionpro007 likes this.
  6. Agreed. The problem is that XI (and Kim on NK deals) is set to outlive Trump politically. In order to get anything done, Trump might need to secure a second term.
     
  7. U.S. Plans Curbs on Chinese Investment, Citing Security Risks
    By
    Saleha Mohsin
    and
    Jenny Leonard
    June 24, 2018, 6:52 PM EDT Updated on June 24, 2018, 9:32 PM EDT

    • Tough stance said to have reluctant support from Mnuchin

    • Possible approach would be two-track CFIUS review process


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    U.S.-China Economic Game of Chicken





    The U.S. and China enter a critical two-week period of tariff deadlines. Bloomberg’s Stephen Engle reports.

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    The Treasury Department is planning to heighten scrutiny of Chinese investments in sensitive U.S. industries under an emergency law, putting Washington’s trade war with Beijing on a potentially irreversible course.



    Under the plan, the White House would use one of the most significant legal measures available to declare China’s investment in U.S. companies involved in technologies such as new-energy vehicles, robotics and aerospace a threat to economic and national security, according to eight people familiar with the plans.



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    Steven Mnuchin

    Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
    Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in a report scheduled to be released on June 29, will suggest administering that law through an inter-agency government panel called the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S., or CFIUS, the people said, requesting anonymity to discuss the plans.



    A Treasury spokesman did not immediately reply to a request for comment.



    One concept under review would be to create a two-tracked CFIUS process to review investments, with one specifically for China, two of the people said.

    "It is now clear that Trump’s policy is not about the trade deficit," said Raymond Yeung, chief greater China economist for Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Hong Kong. "Security risks can be applied to every aspect in a bilateral relationship, investment restrictions in particular."

    China’s Ministry of Commerce didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s inquiry about the report of planned investment curbs from the U.S.

    Mnuchin has been working on the plans since as early as December, though he’s argued for taking a less aggressive approach, the people said. In the end, he’s been persuaded by other members of the Cabinet and the president to use blunt tools to address growing national security risks from Chinese investments, the people said.