China and the United States.

Chilling out at home before I head off to sleep and while doing so it is fun reading through the technology news, in particular, the whole to and fro that is happening between China and the United States (and it’s allies). I’m not going to pick sides since I’m not well versed regarding the ins and outs of all but it appears that each side is dragging out the dirty laundry of the other side. Thomas Friedman made a great point regarding what the Trump administration had done – yes, there were legitimate issues regarding China but the lack of multilateralism in terms of the US working with its partners has resulted in a disjointed and incoherent strategy between the different countries which make up the ‘western alliance’ with little in the way of a strategy of divestment and moving supply chains out of China towards countries that have a more productive working relationship.

Side note: I don’t think it is controversial to state that China has its interests so as a consequence their economic and foreign policy reflect those interests. It isn’t being conspiratorial to point out the blatantly obvious, as I and others have in the past (present and the future) that China and the West will have divergent views but that being said it is important for the West to admit that China is where it is today because of decisions that Western governments made for the sake of maximising profits in the believe that ‘rational self interest’ would never result in what the West today is accusing China of doing. When you treat China as the factory of the world then it shouldn’t be surprising that the factory decides that it wants to move beyond merely being a factory, a destination for outsourcing, in favour of making their own goods that they themselves have conjured up so that they can make higher profits and higher paid employment.