Prominent Republicans and numerous analysts are calling for a complete overhaul of China-US relations. This is understandable, especially given the fact that China has not provided accurate and timely information about COVID-19. It’s difficult to tell if this pandemic could have been avoided entirely. Still, the world could have avoided much of the human and economic costs if China has been forthright about its experience with the coronavirus early on. However, the ongoing crisis points to problems that have existed for years. Readers of this blog should be very familiar with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China started opening its economy almost a half-century\nago. Its leaders have embraced a form of quasi-capitalism ever since, but the\nstate remains firmly in charge. Beijing owns part or all of many Chinese\ncompanies, limits foreign access to many of its industries, and frequently\nmanipulates the value of its currency. But China hasn\u2019t grown because it has\nfound a magical middle ground between socialism and free enterprise. China has\ngrown rapidly because it\u2019s better to incorporate some principles of free\nenterprise than reject all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Trump deserves credit for addressing important\ntrade issues with China. Previous presidents talked a good game, but he wasn\u2019t\nafraid to act. His efforts have been hampered by Democrats who oppose anything\nhe favors and some Republicans who interpreted the tough stance with China as a\nretreat from free trade. COVID-19 has changed the landscape, however. Some\nDemocrats seem to accept the need for a unified response. At the same time,\nmost Republican free-traders have come to accept the notion that (1) free trade\nrequires shared goodwill on all sides, and (2) there are some instances where\nnational security interests outweigh the economic benefits of free trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I welcome the enthusiasm from those calling for an\noverhaul of US-China relations. Going forward, we should never depend on a\nforeign country for supplies critical to the health or defense of our nation.\nHowever, it\u2019s not fair to blame another country because they don\u2019t sell us\neverything we need during a crisis. Some of the problems we need to fix are of\nour own making. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We shouldn\u2019t overreact, however. For the most part, the\nUS has a problem with the Chinese government and its ideology, not with the\nChinese people. We can address our issues with China without severing cultural\nand economic ties. China\u2019s \u201cpartial opening\u201d has also introduced many of its\ncitizens to western ideas of economic and political freedom. The process is\nslow, but we can pursue bold change while continuing to have a positive\ninfluence on Chinese culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prominent Republicans and numerous analysts are calling for a complete overhaul of China-US relations. This is understandable, especially given the fact that China has not provided accurate and timely information about COVID-19. It’s difficult to tell if this pandemic could have been avoided entirely. Still, the world could have avoided much of the human and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1331,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions\/1331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}