China has many laws but many of those laws are ignored and unenforced. China doesn't have "rule of law" so much as it has "rule of context", which makes it difficult to judge Chinese businesses using western standards. It makes it especially difficult for western companies to operate in China, as they really can't follow the same "gray" path as their Chinese competitors.
Different scales! One has third-world law enforcement issues, the other has first-world law enforcement issues. At any rate, the US doesn't put out so many laws (at least at the federal level) that it knows it can't enforce because enforcement would destroy the economy, while China has no problem doing that. Heck, China has an entire "constitution" that guarantees many rights unequivocally (freedom of speech, assembly, all the good stuff), which is then unilaterally ignored. Say what you want about the US, but the supreme court isn't that horrible or ineffective (yet).
> The same goes for the US, just to a different degree in different contexts.
Yep. It is never black and white, just a very dark gray vs. a much lighter shade of gray.
Different scales! One has third-world law enforcement issues, the other has first-world law enforcement issues.
Exactly what is the difference? Is it what you refer to below?
At any rate, the US doesn't put out so many laws (at least at the federal level) that it knows it can't enforce because enforcement would destroy the economy, while China has no problem doing that.
Funny, but the rhetoric from the political right in the US would have one believe this is happening. (There is undoubtedly some self interested bias at work there.) I did have some experience with export regulations when ordering a piece of industrial equipment from Guangdong province in China. (A knock off of a J-Cut laser cutter.) The Chinese company was surprisingly diligent in their technical support. However, they cheerfully agreed summarily then ignored my requests for the proper paperwork. The expediter I worked with on the US end explained that the US regulations that came up in response to 9-11 were basically unenforceable, so everyone exporting from China just ignored them.
Heck, China has an entire "constitution" that guarantees many rights unequivocally (freedom of speech, assembly, all the good stuff), which is then unilaterally ignored. Say what you want about the US, but the supreme court isn't that horrible or ineffective (yet).
The supreme court might work, but the US isn't perfect either. The US doesn't have "innocent until proven guity" enshrined directly in the constitution, though it's taken as being implied by other parts of the law. However, local governments do abrogate this principle on statistical grounds.
Yep. It is never black and white, just a very dark gray vs. a much lighter shade of gray.
I suspect the 5 downvotes were from people with rather black and white viewpoints.
> The supreme court might work, but the US isn't perfect either.
Of course the US isn't perfect! No one is. I don't see how that is relevant to "doing business in China" and "how business works in China". This isn't a face/pissing contest.
Did I say that it was, or did you imagine it to be? I think it's instructive for people in the US to realize that our system has the same kind of flaws, and that the difference is just one of degree. In fact, I think it's dangerous for people in the US to be ignorant of these facts.
Degrees matter since none of these things are binary. Basically, your point is that the US (and every other country out there) should realize that it has badness, even if it isn't as bad as China. It seems obvious to me, I don't see how it is relevant.
Basically, your point is that the US (and every other country out there) should realize that it has badness, even if it isn't as bad as China. It seems obvious to me, I don't see how it is relevant.
It seems to me that in many such discussions, some participants regard the US as something like a workable approximation of perfect. The sentences are often written this way: it suffices to say that China does this or that. That's like talking about an outbreak of E.Coli and not understanding that just about any creature with a colon contains a bunch of E.Coli. The significant idea is that the bacteria gets to places it shouldn't. In this analogy, it's not conveying the complete picture just to say there are bacteria. Since I pressed people in these threads, people specified exactly in what contexts with regards to business and IP that China's approach to law made a difference. Just to say that China selectively enforces laws 1) conveys the false picture that the US doesn't do this and 2) doesn't specify the exact problems and can be reduced to, "China primitive and bad."
I probably wouldn't disagree with anything you had to say on this matter, but I want substantive discussion and think it often stops short.
The fact that I could point such facts out, and people would react so strongly to them because of the possibility they represent "the other side" is another interesting data point.
No, I/we have plenty of beefs with the US. There is plenty to gripe about there. But doing business is not one of them.
I was talking about my own observations working in China, how we couldn't do the same things that the local companies could. It is not just "China primitive bad", it is "things work differently in China, don't you know?" as any Chinese would tell you on your first day of work!
Its like we were having a conversation about a bad pollution day in Beijing, say 600 2.5 PPM, and you pointed out that LA was currently at 90, so the Americans living in Beijing had no right to complain about this.
You can say that, but I don't see many wealthy Americans parking their money made in the US in China, whereas there are a multitude of Chinese citizens investing in the North America/Europe as a means of safeguarding their capital.
I think that's somewhat telling in terms of which legal system is trusted more.
Granted... but they're not parking it in China are they? So in terms of places you put your money being sure you'll get it back, China is not very high on that list for a number of reasons.
Asset prices in China are grossly inflated because of 1) capital controls and 2) China has been running large trade surpluses for about 2 decades.
It would make sound financial sense for any rich person to move as many assets as they could out of the country, regardless of whether the nation's institutions were trustworthy.
You transformed a factual "The same sorts of things happen. (severity unspecified)" to "It's just as bad in the US as China!" Congrats on reading things into someone else's text and displaying your biases.
I guess I read it that way because merely stating "The same sorts of things happen. (severity unspecified)" is pretty pointless when the severity and its effects on doing business are the only really relevant thing that matters in this conversation?
I think it's plenty relevant that the US has the same kinds of flaws in its system, and that the differences are really differences in degree and not kind. (As large as those differences in degree might be in certain places.) I think that's a very important bit of perspective.
I think you're falsely equivocating the British-inspired American Common Law system with a fundamentally, institutionally different Chinese concept.
Even French and other European nations which use Civil Law instead of Common Law systems operate a good bit differently than the Anglo law systems. In fact, Chinese Law is kind of a Civil Law system mixed with Soviet Socialist Law and Traditional Chinese Law, so you'd have much more luck comparing German Law with Chinese Law.
But to then equivocate between US and Chinese law, calling them basically the same, it ignores larges differences and for seemingly no benefit.
If you wanted to say Hong Kong law system and US/UK law systems were so similar that the differences in this conversation aren't worth discussing, that's one thing.
But Mainland Chinese law, the Socialist Law system, is very different. Their Western Civil Law + Soviet Socialist Law + Traditional Chinese Law system is different, especially the Traditional Chinese legal influences, which is the topic of discussion here: how native Chinese companies can often navigate traditional law while foreign companies are held to a more strict western-influenced civil law standard.
I think you're falsely equivocating the British-inspired American Common Law system with a fundamentally, institutionally different Chinese concept.
No. I'm just observing a few factual items, like the New Hampshire law that defines a brothel as 5 or more unmarried women living together under the same roof. There are also many more laws in the US than are enforced in practice. Our Supreme Court does get around to invalidating some of them, and they arise from a very differently structured system, but the US clearly has these too.
The "false equivalence" was only in your mind, not in my text. It was only in how you imagined my motivations must have been to write such a comment, not any content of the comment itself.
>The "false equivalence" was only in your mind, not in my text. It was only in how you imagined my motivations must have been to write such a comment, not any content of the comment itself.
It's sad that you bristled so indignantly at my words that you were unable to think them through and form a good understanding.
In your haste to screech that I put words in your mouth, you in turn became the very object of your scorn and put words in my mouth.
Let's be frank:
Silly archaic laws like NH's brothel law are wholly unrelated to Business, and if a business in NH or America formed to take advantage of archaic laws they would be smacked down aggressively by a court or legislature.
That is a wholly false analogy to the Chinese Traditional and Socialist Law systems, which have precedent and are aggressively used, today, in today's world, by natives and native businesses.
We're discussing a complicated 3 headed legal system where natives have a different experience than foreigners. Your NH brothel law, and American law in general, DO NOT OPERATE THIS WAY. It's not three headed, it's one headed. It's not an amalgamation of 3 disparate world concepts, it's an evolution of 1 concept.
It's sad that you bristled so indignantly at my words...In your haste to screech that I put words in your mouth
Really now. You speculate on my motivations/intentions in black and white right here: "I think you're falsely equivocating the British-inspired American Common Law system with a fundamentally, institutionally different Chinese concept."
Silly archaic laws like NH's brothel law are wholly unrelated to Business, and if a business in NH or America formed to take advantage of archaic laws they would be smacked down aggressively by a court or legislature.
I never said otherwise. However, thanks for writing the above sentence, that cuts to the heart of the matter. I find this useful and informative.
We're discussing a complicated 3 headed legal system where natives have a different experience than foreigners.
And I deny this, where? Please look back at the comments. I'm not saying any of the things you say I'm saying. Rather you infer those things and run with them. Provide a quote that shows otherwise. In any case, thanks again for clarifying what the effective difference is.
Ah yes the cliche practice of making a loose blanket counter claim based on false assumptions to suggest that any critical view of China is inherently flawed due to the bias of being American.
I wonder if you even live in North America, the difference is night and day.
If I was in China and a company violates my IP and trademark, what punitive measures are enforced to ensure that my brand is not damaged as a result of knock-off products that ultimately turns out to be unsafe?
What if you bought an iPhone only to discover it was a fake and customers are uploading burning batteries with the Apple logo on WeChat and Weibo?
Clearly such practices are not allowed in North America or Europe and I can rest assured that there's very little chance of that continuing. There's no middle ground, it's
A) did you use their trademark?
B) If yes, you broke the law.
C) Enforcement of the consequences.
D) Scares everyone else to follow the law
What possible context do you need here to justify trademark violation? Does China understand the value and role trademarks play? Without a clear authenticity, you can't control the quality, and the consumer and the producer lose. The economic loss as a result of not enforcing is great enough in the long term that the Western nations have long adhered to it.
Being fair to China, it's still a growing economy and it's learning all these pieces. I feel like the future Chinese economy will be very similar to the US, and only then, will it truly shine. Unfortunately with a communist themed leadership where a central government is controlling everything, such maturity will not come in time and it will ultimately be it's undoing.
The rule of law is interpreted as it is. Context should never be used as an excuse to say that the law doesn't work. Clearly, in the US or Canada, any trademark violation is enforced swiftly.
Are you seriously trying to suggest that is the case in China?
Ah yes the cliche practice of making a loose blanket counter claim based on false assumptions to suggest that any critical view of China is inherently flawed due to the bias of being American.
Ah yes, the knee-jerk reaction to simple factual statements that reveal the biases of the commenter, through how they imagine the other comment was motivated. No, sorry, but the statement is factual. Both the US and China have laws that are selectively enforced.
I wonder if you even live in North America, the difference is night and day.
No one said anything about relative severity. That part is entirely in your own head. If you disagree, please provide a quote. Also ask yourself, why do you imagine such motivations, and react so strongly? I think that would be most instructive.
I was born in and have lived in the US all my life. I have an Ivy league education and lots of life experience at all levels of the socioeconomic ladder. I think I have a good sense of this society's biases. (From both the political left and the right.)
The rule of law is interpreted as it is. Context should never be used as an excuse to say that the law doesn't work.
In the US, context is used to abrogate principles as fundamental as "innocent until proven guilty." That's simply fact. I never said the US was just as bad at protecting intellectual property. I merely stated that both the US and China bend the rule of law based on context. I didn't specify the contexts. You imagined contexts that you could get incensed about, apparently.
What evidence is there to support the US is a pre-ww2 imperial power? Please explain.
Why in heck would you ask that? Where did I ever say the US is a pre-ww2 imperial power? Congrats: another ham-fisted attempt to put words in my mouth.
Where do you live?
The Bay Area.
What Ivy league did you attend?
Dartmouth.
Which country has better enforced laws for businesses and the economy without violating human rights and freedom of speech?
I've always maintained the US is great in these regards. However, the US also violates human rights and while quite good, isn't perfect when it comes to freedom of speech. Please provide a quote where you had evidence I ever thought otherwise.
You claimed "United States of America is an imperial power" by "US Imperialism".
How can a former colony be now a colonizer? The pre-ww2 colonialism simply doesn't exist. It's not in America's interest to strip a country of their resources causing regional unstability. America's vision is to put everybody on their trading platform eventually in order to instill global prosperity and maintain their hegemony status. There's more benefits of being a US ally than joining China or Russia at this point and we've seen even countries like Vietnam, put away their differences and gravitate towards the US, their arch nemesis because the idea of Chinese regional hegemony scares them.
So you graduated from a lower tier Ivy League school do you seriously think you will send your offspring to Beijing University while their elite are sending their offsprings to attend US Ivy League instead of BU? Obviously, China has not managed to attract the world's elite to move their for the Chinese dream, it has managed to chase away all of their wealthy class with it's draconian policies and human rights violations money can't buy.
Please help me understand how US is equally violating of human rights and freedom of speech on the level China & Russia is getting away with. I'm genuinely curious to hear what an Ivy Leaguer has to say.
Again my question, if you seriously believe that the US is equal in terms of quality of life to China, what is preventing you from chasing the Chinese dream instead of the American dream?
By becoming a major power, getting in wars with colonial powers, and stealing their colonies directly, as well as establishing it's own sphere of influence through hard and soft power by other means.
The US set the stage on this with the Monroe Doctrine, but the Spanish-American War made it a lot more concrete. And, more recently, there's the whole history of Cold War interventionism, and the post-Cold-War action in the Balkans and the Middle East and North Africa.
> It's not in America's interest to strip a country of their resources causing regional unstability
And yet officials of the last US administration cited exactly such resource concerns when describing why the similar rhetoric on Iraq and North Korea manifested such dissimilar substantive policy. It may not be in the US's real interests (however you define and assess that) to do that, be it has time and again been manifestly central to the interest actually pursued by US leadership.
becoming all of those things does not make them a pre-ww2 colonial power, the cold war spawned a new style of colonialism one based on common ideologies and none of the fighting done by the "colonial powers".
The US did not crush dissent with tanks like USSR did in Czech and satellite nations.
The US did not invade countries as a means to their resources but to counter USSR imperialism.
The USSR was an imperial colonizer directly taking over countries with force to further their borders, the US have always reacted to USSR aggression: ex. Cuban missile crisis, Afghanistan & backing of Taliban.
The differences are day and night, the US actively trying to suppress Soviet nuclear proliferation and communist expansionism that is the same as colonialism from pre-WW2 days.
Do you really want Iraq, North Korea, Iran to be nuclear armed? The US knows these countries are too unstable to be responsible enough to control their nuclear weapons. This is why the US tolerates Pakistan because downright distabilizing it is against their interests and national security.
What do you think is in North Korea? There's absolutely no resource worth going to war over. The US doesn't even need Iraq's oil, why do you think they went to war in the 90s? It was to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to stop further destabilization.
Destabilizing = Increased probability of nuclear weapons falling to terrorist and unfriendly groups = Nightmare scenario for US security interests & allies = Breakdown of economic trade & diplomacy = global chaos.
The US simply is not the traditional colonial power but does the absolute minimum to protect it's interests in regions where if things went south, it would affect global trade = less action for IMF & World Bank = reduced control over the variables that threaten the economic infrastructure that was born out of Nixon's era by going off the gold standard = US dollar is the de facto commodity in which all other currencies are pegged against = economic hegemony.
I hope that makes it clear, the US has no interest in invading Mexico to impose ethnocentric views and usurp all of it's wealth using military power. Even Russia is unable to escape the sting of US led sanctions. Pressure is mounting on China to float their Yuan which would crush it's value against the USD sending it to a major recession.
The US practices economic warfare to keep countries in line, it is not an imperial power in the traditional sense which would require direction action to achieve their economic goals.
They figured out long time ago it's easier to catch bees with honey than vinegar, this is why I believe the American "empire" will last for a very long time as long as the economic incentives are there in countries where structural oppression of the masses is automatically produced as a result of having a democratic and capitalist markets.
Instead of losing your palaces you keep them and your offsprings are sent to a great US school where they will learn to be American and impose American values back in their countries where they become leaders.
Even in relatively poor countries like China and Russia where the wealth is almost directly usurped by it's elite class, they must also be able to buy US dollars to spend on materialistic ambitions, essentially unwittingly doing their part in solidifying the status quo in which the US continues to maintain it's hegemony status with it's old enemies trying to find their place to keep their elite class well fed and spoiled.
The people now suffer in the hands of their own leaders as a result of having their monetary incentives aligned with the US led global economy. Essentially countries are colonizing itself due to economic incentives the US presents to individuals who vote with their taste for luxury.
It's the perfect "empire" one that exploits our innate desire to chase after rare goods (US dollar) which benefits the individual but makes their country dependent on the US and surrounding countries, there by greatly increasing the cost of breaking bad and attempting to usurp neighbour countrie's resources. Ex. Just like how Saddam like previous dictators, tried to escape the system created by the US in which the US will use military power to keep countries in line and play nice with each other.
I'm not saying America is perfect but the world has become a lot more stable as a result of their status. American leadership is not only desired but necessary to maintain peace and further quality of life for countries that play the the game well. The downside is the game is rigged and the US will always win as a result of the world using greenback as underlying value for the world's currency.
