I would support a wholesale ban on Chinese acquisitions of American companies until American companies are allowed to acquire Chinese companies (or otherwise operate in China).
These ridiculous double standards from China are not free trade, and we should stop pretending it is.
Most people probably realize it. What we need is for the American CEOs, financial elite, members of government that have investments in China to invest in their own country rather than in a lop-sided trade economy that doesn't allow free flow of money back to the US.
What incentive do they have on their side to do that? Ignoring the moral argument, which I agree with, there isn't much financial benefit that comes from that, and very few people who make it that high up the chain seem to be influenced by moral arguments.
Your argument veers unreasonably so into nationalism; there's no reason they shouldn't instead start investing money in Europe, or one of the dozens of other countries that could use US funds well in Asia.
If they are only incentivized by financial benefit why exactly should they be left in charge? That's like staffing your (historical physical) treasury exclusively with greedy people in the naive belief that they'll all keep an eye on each other.
They shouldn't be left in charge, but they are. No successful attempt has been made to change this in the long run, and no successful attempt has been made to change this in the short run without massive revolution in countries that don't have half the military or mass surveillance structure that the United States does. Capitalism rewards these types, and so does politics, the military, Hollywood, basically everywhere where power structures exist.
When Marvin Liao, a former Yahoo executive who is now a partner at 500 Startups, a venture-capital firm, considered his preparations, he decided that his caches of water and food were not enough. “What if someone comes and takes this?” he asked me. To protect his wife and daughter, he said, “I don’t have guns, but I have a lot of other weaponry. I took classes in archery.”
...
In private Facebook groups, wealthy survivalists swap tips on gas masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change. One member, the head of an investment firm, told me, “I keep a helicopter gassed up all the time, and I have an underground bunker with an air-filtration system.” He said that his preparations probably put him at the “extreme” end among his peers. But he added, “A lot of my friends do the guns and the motorcycles and the gold coins. That’s not too rare anymore.”
...
Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently. “Without them, I’m fucked.”
Huffman, who lives in San Francisco, has large blue eyes, thick, sandy hair, and an air of restless curiosity; at the University of Virginia, he was a competitive ballroom dancer, who hacked his roommate’s Web site as a prank. He is less focussed on a specific threat—a quake on the San Andreas, a pandemic, a dirty bomb—than he is on the aftermath, “the temporary collapse of our government and structures,” as he puts it. “I own a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.”
Huffman has been a frequent attendee at Burning Man, the annual, clothing-optional festival in the Nevada desert, where artists mingle with moguls. He fell in love with one of its core principles, “radical self-reliance,” which he takes to mean “happy to help others, but not wanting to require others.” (Among survivalists, or “preppers,” as some call themselves, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, stands for “Foolishly Expecting Meaningful Aid.”) Huffman has calculated that, in the event of a disaster, he would seek out some form of community: “Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove.”
...
Why would they care if people were pissed off when they can afford not to care? Especially with enough Chinese and Saudi blood money that they could blow their noses with tissues made of hundred-dollar bills? They're above your problems, they're above everyone else's.
You are pointing at irrelevant people who don't belong to actual power structures. Ex-yahoo exec seriously? How can you even compare the Reddit CEO to Louis XIV. SV people have an overinflated sense of their importance in actual Power Hierarchies.
As if the helicopter pilot isn't gonna just kick the guy off and get his own friends and family to the bunker instead.
EDIT: Not to mention whoever built the bunker knows where it is. "Ownership" isn't going to be a real thing in the circumstances where a bunker is necessary.
"Both sides" have anti-globalists, and both have globalists, and despite an interesting few years globalism is still the establishment norm for most mainline parties in liberal democracies.
I was not trying to imply globalism was one thing. I also pointed out that it is the norm for "liberal democracies", as a way to not paint with too broad of a brush. I very much agree with you.
I would much rather see the financial elite in America expropriated so that corporate leaders are less likely to buckle to China for short-term profit.
American companies can and do buy Chinese companies. Foreign ownership restrictions have been relaxed or dropped entirely in most sectors in China over the last two decades.
Complaining that American companies can't invest in China is strange, given that until fairly recently, the flow of investment was almost 100% in that direction. It's only in the last few years that Chinese companies have begun investing significantly in American companies.
As for "operat[ing] in China," American companies have a massive presence in China. Where are you getting the idea that American (or foreign) companies can't operate in China? It's the most important market for all sorts of Western companies. The restrictions on tech companies, specifically, have to do with political censorship. Companies that censor have access.
What about French companies buying strategically important companies in the US? That then gets bought by a Chinese company at a later date? Is it a French company still?
Why do you care that US firms can't invest in China? Globalization proponents tell me that this sort of thing only hurts China, by limiting its access to capital - which doesn't seem to be our issue.
Or are you claiming that foreign investment into local companies hurts local companies? If so, please justify our past three decades of policy towards Asia, Africa, South America, and the post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Foreign investment into those countries owns a lot of key businesses and infrastructure, but for some reason, very few firms originating in those countries have significant investments in the US.
If openness to foreign investment is a good thing, why do you care about making it quid-pro-quo? If it's a bad thing, why do we push so hard for it?
So are you saying that currently American companies are NOT allowed to acquire Chinese companies or operate in China?
There are a few instances where that's true (there are also a few instances where Chinese companies are not allowed to acquire U.S. companies or operate in the U.S.) but you said "I would support a wholesale ban on Chinese acquisitions of American companies". So again are you insinuating that at this moment, no American companies are allowed to acquire Chinese companies or operate in China?
Below are a few relevant figures. I see the claim repeated often that foreign companies can't operate in China. The sales figures of American companies paint a different picture.
Company - Sales in China - Share in China
Apple $44.8 billion 19.6%
Intel $14.8 billion 23.6%
Qualcomm $14.6 billion 65.4%
Boeing $11.9 billion 12.8%
Micron $10.4 billion 51.1%
Broadcom $9.4 billion 53.7%
The list goes on. S&P 500 firms had nearly $160 billion in sales in China in 2018.
A curious development I noticed: Chinese dominated parent company in the Caymans or equiv with two subsidiary "sister companies", with one in US, UK, etc, and the other in China. Besides the obvious IP leakage due to Chinese law, what problems do you see with this and how would you approach this issue?
Ha ha ha...the U.S doesn't like double standards. It must be a first. If you need examples think about human rights and international law not to mention trade.
These ridiculous double standards from China are not free trade, and we should stop pretending it is.