Views on U.S. vs. China

Photo by Yiran Ding

Photo by Yiran Ding

  • Last week, Alibaba founder Jack Ma spoke at a World Trade Organization event in Geneva and said, “When trade stops, sometimes the war starts. So trade is the way to stop wars

  • "Trade is the way to build up trust … Trade is not the weapon to fight against each other …

  • "I think China and the U.S. should work together to solve this challenge, create more jobs, cure poverty, use technology to solve disease and the environment—instead of this kind of war … It’s going to destroy not only China-U.S. trade but also lots of other countries and small businesses, we should have the solution to solving the problem by not confronting each other”

  • Note: Alibaba is a Chinese technology firm valued at over $500 billion.  


  • Separately, China's ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai, during a Nation Public Radio (NPR) interview said, "We are ready to make some compromise ... but the U.S. position keeps changing all the time, so we don't know exactly what the U.S. would want as priorities."

  • Finally, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, during a speech at the Hudson Institute, said “in response to the strong stand that President Trump has taken, Beijing is pursuing a comprehensive and coordinated campaign to undermine support for the President. …

  • "To put it bluntly, President Trump's leadership is working. China wants a different American President  …

  • "[Google] should immediately end development of the 'Dragonfly' app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers.”

  • Note: Dragonfly is a censored search engine for the Chinese market which has not been deployed.


OUR TAKE

  • Regarding trade wars - With over 6,000 items (including microwaves, car seats, backpacks, baseball gloves and bicycles) targeted for a 10% tariff during 2018, (which increases to 25% in 2019), U.S. consumers will be negatively impacted.

  • Regarding Dragonfly - Interestingly as Google explore this project, Jigsaw, a sister company to Google, released Intra, an application to help prevent the suppression of information by governments. 

  • Regarding Jack Ma’s views on trade - As he points out, trade wars often affect many players and result in unexpected outcomes. Unfortunately, after the damage is done, analysis will include statements such as “mistakes were made.”