Trade Dominance
Me two years ago:
I surveyed the last ten China new articles in the Post and NYT. … Top US newspapers are in full fledged China bashing mode. (more)
I expect similar results today. Often, hostility to foreigners appears as opposition to letting locals buy stuff from foreigners. Yet sometimes it also appears as opposition to letting locals sell stuff to foreigners:
As China moves to invest billions in businesses around the world, one major industrial nation has so far soaked up very little of the cash: the United States. … Chinese business owners who want to invest in the United States say they often have a difficult time obtaining a U.S. visa to be able to travel and see projects. …
In 2005, the Chinese oil company CNOOC dropped its $18.5 billion bid for the U.S. oil firm Unocal, after some members of Congress expressed security concerns and asked whether CNOOC had unfair access to cheap financing. In early 2011, China’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, Huawei Technologies, withdrew its bid for the assets of the American company 3Leaf after a review by a U.S. government panel on foreign investment raised concerns about Huawei having links to China’s People’s Liberation Army, which the firm denies. “After that, Chinese investors are kind of lost and bewildered; they don’t know what they can invest and what they can’t.” (more)
Presumably this stupidity is due to some sort of psychology, but what? Why object to both buying and selling to foreigners? Can people really think both sides are hurt by a trade?
My guess: because firms are larger than customers and employees, we see the firm as dominant in both firm-customer and firm-employee relations. So buying into ownership of a firm is buying into a position of dominance. Thus people object both to locals buying stuff from foreign firms, and to foreigners buying into local firms, because they object to locals being submissive to foreigners.
"Stupidity" is a foolish word choice by Robin, based on the examples in the article he cites. Robin says he's talking about trade, but he's really just talking about the special situation of trade with a would-be hegemon.
Even if we accept the idea that trading with a country means not just selling and buying goods but also companies, the CNOOC and Huawei deals are categorically different from most international trade deals. Give us examples about US refusals to sell companies to Mexicans or Germans or Canadians. And give us examples of China selling important Chinese companies to non-Chinese owners.
CNOOC is a branch of the Chinese government that wants to accomplish the Chinese government's goal of controlling more sources of energy for China. Huawei is an enormous telecom company that cannot operate and succeed without the continuing favor of the Chinese government. These have very little to do with Apple using Foxconn to build hundreds of millions of ipads, or Chinese parts suppliers making parts for Korean cars sold in the US.
CFIUS may or may not be the best thing for US citizens, but you need to address CFIUS and concerns that are specific to China. You've spoken before about how China is different and may very well come to dominate the world as the US did before. If the US thinks that CNOOC and Huawei's bids were a part of that effort, can you tell me why we're better off just going along with it? Can/should we require that China be willing to sell Chinese companies to non-US companies?
Robin, you need to explain why the best US strategy with China is to have no limits at all on China's purchase of any goods or companies anywhere.
I think you are correct. The opposition against the buying and the opposition against the selling need not be the same groups.