Anti capitalist conservatives......

Actually, in simple reality with foreign Chinese investment comes Chinese influence - and that includes quantifiable interference. Can't be denied, however it is assessed. Australia has the most Chinese influence in the West and proportionately we have copped most of the interference. It may be that in the US the 'xenophobes' have hijacked the issue, but the phenomenon is real.

Here we provide a detailed analysis of how China has worked to build its political influence and build dependence through trade and economic ties with each Australian state and territory. In addition, unique cross-cutting chapters review the impact of Chinese engagement with Australian universities and show how Beijing’s ‘United front’ organisation is designed to build influence. We assess the impact on Australian businesses and the constitutional challenges presented by Chinese engagement with the states and territories.

https://www.aspi.org.au/report/taking-low-road-chinas-influence-australian-states-and-territories

"New data released last month show Australia faces more pressure from Beijing than almost any other country in the world, according to Doublethink Lab, a Taipei-based research group. A months-long survey of 36 nations across nine spheres of influence found Australia topping the charts when measuring China’s role in domestic politics and the economy. It was also fourth in efforts to frame media coverage....

In 2018, Australia became the first developed country to pass sweeping laws against foreign interference,...

The following year, a former chief of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization warned that the Chinese government was working to exert influence over political, business, media and social circles in order to sway political decisions. The agency has uncovered plots by Beijing, using CCP-linked businessmen, to infiltrate or interfere with both major parties. Canberra has also toughened rules on foreign interference in universities following the harassment of Hong Kong protesters on Australian campuses in 2019..."

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...na-s-economic-influence-is-stoking-xenophobia

 

Would you agree that all investments is a form of influence?

I agree that it is influence and it is real, but not "beholden" as Mike said. Yet, influence can either be a good thing or a bad thing. Take Toyota for instance. Their new headquarters is now in Dallas. Wouldn't you say Toyota now has influence in Texas now with the truck plant in SA, their US HQ in Dallas, the number of Toyota dealerships, the number of Japanese people living in the area, etc. The US corporation can donate unlimited amounts to any campaign to get any issue squashed or passed. If Toyota decides it does not want to pay any property tax, I can guarantee you that the corporation will use all the back channels to influence that decision including the state legislature.

What we are really talking about here is a foreign direct investment (FDI). United States, China, and Japan are among the top countries when it comes to foreign direct investment giving and receiving FDI. For the United States, there is a correlation between the amount of FDI, international trade, and economic growth, generally speaking. The higher the foreign direct investment, higher our GDP growth and international trade is as well. So, is the influence more positive than negative, hard to say unless you are only interested in the economic outlook. In that case, it is generally positive.

Finally, yes, the xenophobes have hijacked the issue, but their viewpoint is like making Australia look simply as a penal colony in that comparison.

 

Its problematic because its corporate, and in the case of China at least, nationalized monopolization of resources (land). Capitalism is technically just the private ownership of resource. But when one entity owns it all, thats not demonstrably 'private' as the owner has the effective power of authoritarian dictatorship over those resources and those of us that need to use them to live and prosper. Some people call it corporatism. It is in fact the innevitable result of capitalism.

Though I do agree with you that giving all the resources to the govt to protect them from corporate monopoly sure as hell isnt the answer. Much as happenned to Rome and every fallen empire since, the govt either abuses its power over those resources, or it hires the wealthy as managers and then stops paying attention to how they use their powers of management to oppress the masses.

Theres no easy answer. But I agree with the assessment of the monopolization of resource as being an unacceptable situation.

 

Libertarians may be a smaller portion of self-identified Republicans than the social progressives I was talking about.

The Great Depression was a huge deflection point for American economic and social policies. Republicans moved left to survive and the old laissez-faire thinking was reduced to a minority in the party. Even today, Medicare and Social Security have 80% voter support.

 

Shifting Goalposts? No, you made up an argument for me, something I didn't say, and then argued against that made-up argument. The two arguments you originally falsified are:

1) That private companies are owned by the government, and

2) the people who run these companies are fanatically loyal to the CCP. Since I never said either of those things, you are really arguing with yourself, so no surprise that you find yourself winning your own imaginary argument.


To that we can add a third: Small businesses. I never mentioned them and nothing in this thread was about mom and pop shops.

You're really bad at this aren't you? It's one of the most common "debate" techniques from the left on this forum is to restate your opponents argument into something that person never said and then "win" that argument.

Now that you've shown who you are, I know how seriously to take your comments.

 

Sure.

There can be differences in deciding what is high and what is low, though. China's ability to have a longer term economic view means that they don't necessarily come up with the same analysis. In the USA, corporations tend to need to be responsive to shareholders in a shorter period of time.

 

Please note that I asked about your concern, not about private corporations.

 

The 'Best and Brightest' in Japan probably felt the same way when they decided to buy Rockefeller Center.

 

Way too simplistic Mike. I'm sorry. What you are basically saying is that companies like Matthews should be tried for treason for investing in the Chinese communist government.

https://www.matthewsasia.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjw3K2XBhAzEiwAmmgrAuYoWbhiaQZ6ghq04860JWN-
iJi50pL9pviyXRwAl4LuNsneuOizoRoCs2gQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.matthewsasia.com/funds/mutual-funds/asia-growth/china-fund/?FundClassType=MCHFX1

You are saying that every Chinese company=CCP so any American holder of Chinese stocks is a traitor?

 

There is a regular nightly commentator on Fox named Victor Davis Hanson, he is from the Hoover institute.

An older guy and a history professor he is smart and usually makes good comments even if I do not totally agree.

He made a comment once on Hannity's show which represents the ignorance and stupidity of this issue.

He said Bill Gates was an "early investor in China!"

I'm not sure what that means but he said it as if it was a crime. I'm guessing that Gates who was not always worth billions wanted to sell his DOS OS with computers sold in china(Duh). So? So IBM, HP, Compaq and others who used the Microsoft OS wanted to access the 1.4 billion people market. Again duh.

Conservatives should not be making comments like that. Defenders of capitalism and enterprise should not be making dumb comments like that.

 

We will never have a hot war with China because of trade and enterprise. That is why freedom works.

China sells a trillion dollars a year in stuff to North America and Europe. Europe and North America sell half a trillion dollars worth of stuff every year to China. Why would they want to imperil that?

 

You're being very ridiculous today. I assume you don't feel the argument is going your way.

 

So you do support an absolute ban on business and enterprise with Chinese companies? They cannot be trusted. Your conclusions buddy.

 

Absolute ban, immediately? No, but I do support gradually disengaging economically with China. Transferring our manufacturing to China is one of the worst policy decisions that our "experts" ever made, and has more or less doomed our country to second class status. We're not going to fix that, but we can stop making it worse by gradually increasing tariffs with China and discouraging American companies from investing there. Allowing that to happen was a mistake of monumental proportions.

 

Fascists are on the left.

 

Who told you that lie.
As evidanced they seem to be finding a home with Trump supporters, masquerading as conservatives.

 

Mussolini

It seems as though Trump has found more free rent in another leftist's head.

 

My Tuscan vineyard, I'm supposed to be there now.

 

You're confused with the adjective libertarian and the noun Libertarian. For example, my dad had (right) libertarian views but always considered himself a member of the GOP.

The adjective libertarian refers to the unwillingness to foist one's own ideology on others...This is not you since you're more than willing to foist.
The adjective libertarian refers to a reverence to democracy. You on the other hand, care more about rule of law than democracy when it comes to the 2020 election, for example.

 

Mussolini was a lefty economically who hated the totalitarianism of communism, for example, so fascists can't all be righties economically. All fascists are authoritarian. All fascist governments are totalitarian.

 

In the case of neocon neo-authoritarian and neo-fascist, the neo refers to a redefined definition and the redefinition is the opposite of the classical definition

 

Canada cannot threaten the US.

 

A declared enemy of the US who can match the military might of the US is attempting to obtain farmland in the US (from which US crops are grown).

 

We are a huge exporter of agricultural products.

Over the long haul, I suspect we are not likely to grow our economy with manufacturing or agriculture.

Going forward, a growing percent of the good paying jobs will require more education, high tech, clean energy, information, etc. And, our nation is STARTLINGLY uninterested in education. In fact, there is a significant segment of our society that has NO respect for those who are experts in their field of study, as well as those who see our higher education as an evil. And, that includes congressmen as well as private citizens.

Today, China leads in all aspects of clean energy - design, patents, manufacturing, exports, installation... China has designed the world's fastest supercomputer. Etc. And, their rate of GDP growth over the last 20 years has been startling.

So, where is our growth going to come from? Where are the new economic sectors that will help preserve our standard of living?

In my opinion, THAT is what the issue has to be.