Attempting to contain China is a loser.

 TARIFF'S AND SANCTIONS NOT WORKING

CHINA IS NOT DEPENDENT ON THE U.S.

Our leaders in Washington are alarmed that China has grown into a industrial giant. We hear claims that they are cheating, overproducing or selling below costs in an effort to dominate economically.  The realty is they are already dominating in many sectors and are now self sufficient with their many partners around the world.

We cannot restrain China's advancement by attempting to limit what they can buy from us or limiting what we will buy from them. Such practices may cause a slight dip in their GDP, but will soon be meaningless, by being replaced with business in other parts of the world. We will soon find, we will be more damaged than China. 

China has at least 5x the industrial capacity compared to the United States. Its steel production is 12x the United States and now most of the world is buying Chinese steel. It is true that their standards are sometimes not up to our standards, but if demanded they can produce quality steel. 

Our first attempt at containment was an embargo on certain silicon chips, which China was very large customer of U.S. producers. China responded by investing in their own production and is now beginning to dominate in the world market. Our producers are now suffering from the loss of business and the competition. The attempt to put large tariffs on their products led to them restricting export of rare earth minerals that China has a dominant position and will have that position for another decade. 

Japan was their biggest supplier of high quality machine tools with billions in contracts. The U.S. convinced Japan to limit those sales to China and China cancelled its business with Japan and replace it with tools from Russia. Yes, Russia does produce such tools and even U.S. manufactures had to scramble to replace those supplies when we embargoed Russian machined products.

China also retaliated against U.S. grain exports, replaced it with grain from Brazil, Russia, Ukraine and Argentina. 

China has world class modern manufacturing capacity and much of the machinery was purchased from Germany, which is now suffering from massive increases in energy costs due to the embargo on Russian energy.

I could go on and on about the failure of efforts to contain China. The reality is it is not going to happen, we can not raise our stature by weakening theirs, we need to look inward and find ways to compete and become self sufficient.

We can listen to all the propaganda about how China wants to rule the world, but the reality is that China is all about business. They have mastered business, like the U.S. once did in the past.  They have invested much in improving the quality of life for their citizens and while we always claim that they earn slave wages, they have a 30% savings rate and Chinese tourists are all over the world and they are not spies subsidized by the government.

China has money to invest, earned by manufacturing everything and anything. The U.S. government sucks up most of investment money in this country by financing its massive debt, spent not on investment but on consumption. U.S. citizens save a miniscule amount of their incomes, if any.

Then there is competitiveness, we built the Northeast extension of the Pa. turnpike in 3 years in the 1950's, this runs from Philadelphia to near the northern border. Today the planning would take ten years and the project would be a decade or more. They have been improving the interchange in Hamburg for ten years and it is still not done, by the time it is done, it will need to be upgraded, a perpetual job.

We convinced Taiwan Semi conductor to build a plant in Arizona, The plant was delayed because labor issues and regulatory hurdles and when completed is having union other labor problems it does not have in Taiwan. 

Then many are alarmed at China's now big increase in Military production, much of it stimulated by U.S. generals trash talking China and predicting war by 2025. The U.S. is now infamous for big mouthed politicians and generals threatening the competition and then being alarmed when they respond by building up their military. It is time the U.S. leaders realize they can no longer intimidate others into submission, when it is unlikely such a war could be fought or won.

A new policy needs to be implemented and soon, This country needs to look inward and realize we are not the country of 40 years ago, we have lost our manufacturing capacity and willingness to be competitive, we are bogged down with bureaucracy, regulation and a declining work ethic.  

Any attempt to keep us on the top of the heap by limiting others, will be a dismal failure.