China’s next shock is coming – and Britain and Europe are sitting ducks

12 comments

1. God forbid China have to reduce production due to less demand.. of only there were some trade mechanism that would almost balance itself out

2. “China has already wiped out the EU’s solar industry, first by copying the technology and then flooding the market. It is following the same script with wind turbines. Electrolysers are next. It will happen with EVs soon because Chinese carmakers can make a much fatter profit per car overseas.”

3. Tariffs will made goods more expensive, and will slowdown process slightly, but I doubt it will resolve the root cause.

   Why EU and USA cannot beat china on market? Why fully automated manufacturing still not existing? Why they are not making products that are cheaper than any Chinese made?

   I believe nobody in EU would consider Chinese made things if local would be of at least same quality and price, and for sure even Chinese will buy EU products of lower price than local.

   Or EU and US became to build post industrial economy too early?

4. “American and European companies could tap China’s vast reserve army of labour and play off Chinese wages against wages at home via “labour arbitrage”.

   This plus immigration and effects on workers in the UK was a big factor behind Brexit. UK governments for the past 40 years have been happy to ‘grow’ GDP this way instead of investing in skills and training.

   Brexit was, of course, a wider political mistake but the anger behind it is part of this whole picture.

5. I try and boycott items from china if I can, they see us as an enemy why would I willing fund that.

6. Michel (EU) and Gutless (UN) will just congratulate China for making them squirm in delight. It’s so over for the civilized society when Putler marches in with his new Chinese military toys.

7. Am I the only one looking down on europeans buying Chinese cars? When I see a scandinavian in a hongqi, I get a sudden urge to crash into the fucker. Maybe a good old trade war is what we need to bring back our production, which for most instances is fully automated anyway. No need for slave wages and sweatshoops. Those orange robot arms can work as good in europe as in China.

8. Europe should invest in its own industries, a bit like Macron pleaded for.

   That starts with breaking down (internal) administrative and regulatory borders in Europe to profit from its own market and scale.

   I would start by creating a pan-European business entity (an EU Ltd) registered with one EU institute to do business across the whole of the EU, including a way to go bankrupt without too much personal damage. I would also start improving the access to capital for young and ambitious companies, while accepting that some of your old giants have lost the battle and will gradually make place.

   Europe has amazing universities and R&D, but somehow it’s always US companies that commercialize the knowledge. And I think that has everything to do with how difficult starting a business in Europe is, and how difficult it is to fund innovative companies.

   And no, I definitely don’t mean an EU/government-lead investment fund ran by our politicians.

9. EU industry died when it lost access to Russian resources. How can you make cheaper products than China when both your labour and materials are more expensive.

10. The headline got my attention, then I saw it was the Telegraph and realised it would be garbage.

11. As long as the VW ID4 costs as much as the zeekr 001 there is little chance for European EV.

12. Liberal free market capitalism has brought incredible prosperity, but it can never compete against targeted subsidized industries by definition. Let’s not pretend the west didn’t use this simple reality to its advantage either, we did. But now it’s done by a hostile foreign power, specifically aimed at weakening us. You don’t just produce goods purely for producing them, it’s bad business even for them. We need to reconsider our commitment to the free liberal market that we have profited from for so long. We have seen first hand what bolstering foreign hostile power through economic co-operation leads to, nothing short but filling up their warchests and empowering them to