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Comment by cohnnton | Hacker News Reader

This is a typical China behavior: lie to WTO about how open its economy is, then openly disregard the repriprocity with other countries and block foreign companies from competing.

Thank goodness other countries are waking up:

"The United States, European Union and Japan vowed on Tuesday to work together to fight market-distorting trade practices and policies that have fueled excess production capacity, naming several key features of China’s economic system."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-wto/u-s-eu-japan-sl...

"US formally opposes China market economy status at WTO"

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/us-formally-opposes-china-ma...

"TRUMP STARTS NEW WAR AGAINST CHINA OVER 'ECONOMIC AGGRESSION'"

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-starts-new-war-against-china-o...

View on HN

This type of negative opinion on China is shared all too often on HN, and it's really irritating.

It's also untrue.

For example, lets go to the WTO itself and see the list of current disputes, which is helpfully grouped by country: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_by_countr...

- China is currently responding to 39 complaints.

- The USA is responding to 132. Which is more than the entire EU (84) and more than any other country.

It's really tiring to see the "China is a protectionist market" narrative trotted out again and again, unchallenged, and is probably second only to the "China is encroaching on the South China sea" narrative in terms of how hypocritical both views are, especially when espoused by Americans.

I'm not sure I understand.. are you saying that China is NOT a protectionist market? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

It's true that such a view doesn't disregard the often equally protectionist approaches of countries like the US, yes, but the former can't be denied just because of the latter.

This is textbook "whataboutism" which has been used to deflect criticism since Soviet times. It is wrong when China does it, and it is also wrong when the US does it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

No it isn't. It's responding to the claim that China is a terrible protectionist place and the US has to make them stop, which implies that the US has the moral high ground here.

Citing WTO numbers is essentially lying.

A successful WTO claim against America is tantamount to fiscal settlement. The same is far from true for China. They routinely rip off foreign companies. Google "Nortel China hack" and come back to me about something equivalent that the Americans have done. The Americans aren't angels, but they aren't demons either and China does not respect international norms or laws.

I agree with your general sentiment and how China's gaming the system. I'd also be very cautious about assuming the 'system' (WTO) even pretending to be fair or democratic or not conducting economic wars of aggression against poorer members on a daily basis such as the wiping out of agricultural markets in Central America via US farming subsidies etc.

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