This is a great short thread and encapsulates the problem perfectly for the US. If we take as a given China wants to make the world more authoritarian how do we respond without becoming more like them? Allow me a short thread with a couple of examples 1/n
A couple of years ago I wrote about China that negotiating with them was pointless because they weren't going to change so taking that as a given the game theory path forward was imposing costs upon their behavior. We cannot persuade them to change their behavior so we must 2/n
Make their behavior expensive or costly in a variety of ways. The first thing this supposes is some type of action to either impose costs upon China or accept cost imposition upon us. Too many people still write about persuading China or complaining about the costs 3/n
Associated with challenging China but that is the reality. Second, any realistic debate about action upon China will only focus on the cost of any action relative to another cost imposition policy. To take a simple example from trade economics, is it better to utilize a 4/n
Tariff or voluntary export restraint. There are different second order effects but as their first order impact both are trade restriction. They will impact producers and consumers differently but both restrict trade. To me the only debate worth having on China is a debate 5/n
about how best to deal with the relative costs or second order effects of cost imposition strategies. Any other debate, is simply pointless. So let's take two simple examples of where US policy has actually been targeted and restrained while still imposing costs on China 6/n
First, blocking graduate students in STEM linked to the PLA. The panic and racial brigade screamed about this but it is actually solid policy. It does not block all Chinese students it does not block them from all programs. It is narrow, it is targeted. We must recognize 7/n
The PLA as a massive intelligence and security threat. It was needed to codify for US regulations so a class of individual could be blocked and to send a message. This is a reasonable and measured policy. Second, changing registration and visa requirements on Chinese 8/n
state media and then all Chinese journalists. Again, many decried this as racist and censoring. Nothing was said about the ideas, and no move was made to block anything Chinese state media says. Chinese state media and really all media produce what the government wants 9/n
Said even if they are not officially owned by the government. State media is just owned by the state and answerable to Xi. In fact US regulations are still enormously more lenient that Chinese regulations on foreign journalists. Many many more are allowed into the US 10/n
They can report on anything they want and criticize the US government without fear of reprisals. What no journalist or woke person came up with was anything that would impose a material cost on China for their continued crack down on foreign media inside China. None. 11/n
Absent some meaningful proposal to impose cost on China for their behavior, I cannot take you seriously. Otherwise, the only decision being made is to let China engage in its behavior with no cost and in fact continually rewarded. We need to work very hard to make sure 12/n
US behavior is not racial or unthinking but we absolutely have to impose costs on continually on China for the bad behavior otherwise our values are nothing more than cheap words. Done.
