Make sure the bad guys aren’t you!

Poor Hong Kong! Everybody is picking on Hong Kong. First China imposes a draconian legal code that removes the right of Hong Kong residents to protest. Then China announces much higher taxes on Chinese businesspeople working in Hong Kong:

Fears of a Hong Kong brain drain are increasing after China moved to tax its citizens’ global income, undermining the financial hub’s appeal to thousands of bankers and other white-collar workers from the mainland.

Faced with a tax rate as high as 45% — up from about 15% previously — Chinese professionals across Hong Kong are considering moving back home to avoid getting squeezed by both the new levy and sky-high living costs in the former British colony, according to interviews with workers and recruiters.

To make matters worse, the US is now piling on:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed legislation that gives his administration more power to impose sanctions on Chinese officials in retaliation for a draconian national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.

Mr Trump said the Hong Kong Autonomy Act would give the White House “powerful new tools to hold responsible the individuals and the entities involved in extinguishing Hong Kong’s freedom”. The president also signed an executive order removing special trade and economic privileges that Hong Kong has enjoyed for years.

So let me get this right. Trump is going to take away “special trade and economic privileges that Hong Kong has enjoyed for years”. And Trump is going to “hold responsible the individuals and the entities involved in extinguishing Hong Kong’s freedom.”

I’m reminded of one of my favorite movie trailers, for Machete. In the film, a powerful man hires Machete to be an assassin, only to have it backfire. The trailer said something to the effect:

“If you hire him to take out the bad guys, make sure the bad guys aren’t you!”

If Trump plans to punish the people taking away Hong Kong’s freedom, maybe he should first make sure that he’s not one of those people. Personally, I wish Trump would extend those “special trade and economic privileges” to all 1.4 billion Chinese people. Instead, we should go after the people responsible for harming Hong Kong.

To his credit, Trump does seem to be inching in that direction:

While the Trump administration last week placed sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights abuses against Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, it has not yet imposed any penalties on Chinese Communist party cadres involved in policy surrounding Hong Kong.

If we must retaliate with trade restrictions, aim them at the Chinese Mainland, not Hong Kong. Is the Trump administration really that clueless?

It’s always one step forward two steps back. The Trump administration is also thinking of banning WeChat and Tiktok. Full disclosure: The WeChat ban would hurt our family. But even beyond our family, is it really a good idea to cut off communication with 1.4 billion people?

Do you think future historians will write: “Trump’s decision to cut off communication between the Chinese people and the outside world was a turning point in world history. Nationalism declined everywhere and peace and understanding swept the world.” Or might we expect a different outcome?

The 1.4 billion Chinese people aren’t going away, and China’s not going to stop growing, regardless of our trade policies. It’s time we learned to live with them. Punish their government where appropriate, but don’t go back to the pre-Nixon policy of pretending that China doesn’t exist.

PS. At least give them credit for backing off the insane proposal to expel foreign college students. But what happens when Trump no longer faces an upcoming election?


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28 Responses to “Make sure the bad guys aren’t you!”

  1. Gravatar of Nick C Nick C
    14. July 2020 at 21:04

    Scott the biggest advocates of these measures are Hong Kong democrats themselves https://twitter.com/joshuawongcf/status/1283265599930617856?s=19

  2. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    14. July 2020 at 23:36

    https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3093185/third-coronavirus-wave-pushes-back-recovery-hong-kongs-struggling-retail

    OT but in the ballpark: HK again going back to lockdowns—and they have a small easily-policed area. They have been stutter-stepping from opening to closing all year. They cannot open upm as they still have a naive population and a novel virus.

    How on earth does anyone expect lockdowns to work in the US (where 3,000 unauthorized people a day enter from Mexico, among other factors).

    i wish the people of HK and mainland China, and Taiwan for that matter, the best.

    The NBA (the No Balls Association) wishes the Chinese Communist Party the best, and FU HK and Taiwan.

  3. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    14. July 2020 at 23:54

    For consideration?
    “Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.
    By Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal”
    https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/21/china-detaining-millions-uyghurs-problems-claims-us-ngo-researcher/

  4. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    15. July 2020 at 02:28

    Postkey:

    The CCP could put the 3-million Uighurs in concentration camps story to rest by…oh, say, by inviting several dozen Western reporters to travel freely through eastern China, armed with drones and rented helicopters, jeeps and whatever else they wanted to do. You know, like reporters do in Europe, Japan or the US. Or before, in Hong Kong.

    A lot of media coverage is planted by Beijing patsies.

  5. Gravatar of Nick C Nick C
    15. July 2020 at 04:22

    Max Blumenthal is a proper tankie.. not worth you time.

    The plenty of evidence on Uighers comes from AP journalists

  6. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    15. July 2020 at 05:39

    Scott,

    related, best piece I’ve read in a while on US China strategy:

    https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/what-should-come-after-trumps-failed-china-policy/

    Most quotable sentence:

    “Opening to China hardly made it a friend or ally of the United States, but the benefits of not having it as an enemy have endured for so long they are now largely taken for granted.”

    The whole site is a very worthwhile read. Of course it’s written by professional soldiers, strategists, and other “deep state” actors, i.e. people with a brain.

  7. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    15. July 2020 at 06:12

    ‘How on earth does anyone expect lockdowns to work in the US (where 3,000 unauthorized people a day enter from Mexico, among other factors).’

    Ahh, yes, it’s those damned illegal aliens who are to blame for states reopening too quickly and people refusing to wear masks and/or social distance!

  8. Gravatar of Cove77 Cove77
    15. July 2020 at 08:51

    Can’t believe Trump came up with brilliant idea on his own…maybe Navarro ?

    https://markets.businessinsider.com/amp/news/trump-officials-discuss-undermining-hong-kong-peg-to-the-dollar-2020-7-1029375806

  9. Gravatar of cove77 cove77
    15. July 2020 at 08:54

    Removing Hong Kong just removes one more of our competitors…next up Taiwan Semi? Samsung? Posco?

  10. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    15. July 2020 at 09:50

    Nick, So what do the people of Hong Kong favor? And was that guy asked whether he’d prefer that Trump punish HK or Mainland China?

    mbka, Thanks for the link.

    Cove77, Thankfully they’ve backed off from that.

    Tacticus, Yeah, those Mexicans also explain the recent surge in Alaska. 🙂

  11. Gravatar of Bob Bob
    15. July 2020 at 10:11

    Scott, c’mon!
    Use your head my friend.
    Are you really suggesting that HK receive special treatment even though the CCP has power over the region? Surely, you must realize that they use Hong Kong to get around tariffs and other sanctions?

    This is the problem with snowflakes. They live in this beautiful fairy tale, where everyone is so nice and wonderful.

    They don’t like you. And they want to destroy you! Once you realize that, perhaps you can contribute something more meaningful.

    Of course Trump did not want to do this. But he has no choice. The security law strips HK of all autonomy.

  12. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    15. July 2020 at 12:02

    They’re in Alaska now, too?? Good Lord, they’re fast! No wonder it’s a pandemic!

  13. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    15. July 2020 at 15:21

    Tacticus: on Monday, Hong Kong went back to shutdowns. Only a few days earlier HK had been cited (by Western moralizers) as the place that did the right thing by going to shutdowns early, and so was able to open up its economy. By the way, Hong Kong borders are sealed, and have been since March 25.

    Even in small city-states such as Hong Kong and Singapore, with borders that can be sealed, and which move aggressively to shutdowns, tracing, quarantines and other restrictive measures… Well, the virus gets out again.

    The indisputable truth is Hong Kong has gone back to shutdowns,

    In the US, shutdowns are an inevitable failure. They are the public health sector’s Vietnam. The health guys will always have the fallback position, “If we had only bombed some more.”

    Dr. Fauci is already following this course, saying that the US should have gone to a “total shutdown” to beat the virus.

    That the US has de-facto porous borders only adds to the lugubriousness of the whole situation.

  14. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    15. July 2020 at 18:17

    https://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-coronavirus-turns-corner-in-arizona.html#.Xw-3x-wxVTs

    These guys say it was political protests that led to Covid-19 spikes in Arizona, not the ending of lockdowns.

    But as Scott Sumner says, everything today is politics. So lockdowns are good unless they lockdown protests in which case they are bad and protests are bad unless they are good and so on.

  15. Gravatar of Ironman Ironman
    15. July 2020 at 20:32

    Benjamin Cole: I am afraid you have taken away an incorrect impression of our latest analysis of the coronavirus surge in Arizona. Our analysis clearly confirms an increase in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths following the lifting of the state’s lockdown on 15 May 2020, which occurs within the period the method we are using to anticipate changes in trends for each metric projects would take place given the associated increase in the incidence of exposures to the virus that would be expected.

    The data suggests the protests further contributed to the increase in infections, with the reported increases taking place within the expected window of time following the protests. The data for both new cases and hospitalizations is now signaling a reduction, which is occurring within a window of time that is consistent with the end of protests in the state. The data for deaths is still too incomplete to tell whether it will follow the same pattern. We anticipate this measure will continue to increase in the near term.

    Without the protests, we would still be observing an increase in COVID-19 infections in Arizona – just not as large as has taken place.

  16. Gravatar of Emily Emily
    15. July 2020 at 23:10

    First of all I work for google, so I know a thing or two.
    Wechat and Tiktok are dangerous apps with malware. They don’t call it malware because the company is properly registered, but in reality it is malware. Those apps are incredibly dangerous. Just to give you one example: Tiktok can listen to your conversations and use the camera without you knowing – bypassing the consent. This was also found in camscanner which is a Chinese based app. Secondly, banning those apps doesn’t cut off communication. There are many apps to communicate with China. Why can’t your family use google chat, or microsoft teams. Chinese have access to VPN and TOR. Its not hard to use western apps. And btw, if China is banning our apps – shouldn’t we return the favor? I think India made the right decision. And I think US and UK should follow. I hate TRUMPS personality, but not all his policies are bad policies. People who continually bash him are deranged. Maybe that is why NYT journalist resigned. At the very least, perhaps you should learn more about tech before commenting. Terrible post.

  17. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    16. July 2020 at 03:59

    Benjamin Cole,

    What does any of that have to do with illegal immigration?

  18. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. July 2020 at 08:22

    Ironman—thanks and i stand corrected.

    Tacitus: well, the reason for sealing borders is to prevent new infections from entering a sealed off zone, such as city of Hong Kong or the island of New Zealand or Taiwan.

    Most of the developed world nations closed their borders during the lockdown phase. So legal migration and travel was halted.

    But it makes little sense to close off legal travel or immigration if 3,000 unauthorized people a day cross the border from Mexico.

    If you believe in lockdowns and sealing borders to quash C19….well then you have to seal the border. You may not believe in the rule of law when it comes to immigration, but a quarantine is only a quarantine if it is a quarantine.

    I observe the lockdowns are futile in a diverse large country as the United States, with de facto open borders, but result in an economic catastrophe. So far, unfortunately, my observation has been right.

  19. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    16. July 2020 at 10:43

    Bob, That’s funny, I’ve spent a lot of time in China and I’ve never felt that the Chinese people want to destroy me. They are usually quite polite to me.

    And yes, call me crazy, but when China is cruel to HK I’d rather punish Mainland China than HK. But that’s just me. I guess you like to punish the victim.

    Ironman, You said:

    “Benjamin Cole: I am afraid you have taken away an incorrect impression of our latest analysis of the coronavirus surge in Arizona.”

    What!?!?! Ben misinterpreted data? He’s never done that before.

    Emily, You said:

    “First of all I work for google, so I know a thing or two. . . .
    Why can’t your family use google chat”

    I appreciate why you’d want to steer more business to the company you work for, but I’ve got a better idea. How about letting consumers decide what works best for them? My wife prefers WeChat.

    You said:

    “And btw, if China is banning our apps – shouldn’t we return the favor?”

    Because China shoots itself in the foot we should respond by shooting ourselves in the foot? What’s the logic of that? When countries put tariffs on our products should we respond with tariffs on their products?

  20. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    16. July 2020 at 14:57

    ‘well, the reason for sealing borders is to prevent new infections from entering a sealed off zone, such as city of Hong Kong or the island of New Zealand or Taiwan.’

    But, the borders of the US have never been sealed…

    ‘Most of the developed world nations closed their borders during the lockdown phase. So legal migration and travel was halted.

    But it makes little sense to close off legal travel or immigration if 3,000 unauthorized people a day cross the border from Mexico.’

    There were 241 million passengers to and from the US in 2019. 1 million ‘unauthorized people’ is, uh, 1/241, or 0.41%. It’s not very meaningful in the full amount of travel (660,000 a day versus 3,000). Where is your 3,000 number from, anyways?

    ‘If you believe in lockdowns and sealing borders to quash C19….well then you have to seal the border. You may not believe in the rule of law when it comes to immigration, but a quarantine is only a quarantine if it is a quarantine.’

    But the U.S. has never been in a full quarantine…

    ‘I observe the lockdowns are futile in a diverse large country as the United States, with de facto open borders, but result in an economic catastrophe. So far, unfortunately, my observation has been right.’

    Blaming ‘open borders’ for the spread of the virus is one of the most statistically unintelligent things I’ve read in a long time.

  21. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. July 2020 at 15:18

    Tacticus:

    You make good points… on the other hand, if a virus is highly infectious then even a small number of infected entrants can set off a che exponential chain reaction again. Remember, we still have a novel virus and a naive population situation.

    New Zealand (where evidently c-19 has been eradicated) does not say “Oh well, if 100 unauthorized people a day enter New Zealand and do not pass through any quarantines, that’s okay.”

  22. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. July 2020 at 15:52

    Tacticus: we are told that the C19 catastrophe in New York was set off by infectious Europeans arriving at that city’s airports.

    But what was the number of Europeans that arrived, or returning Americans for that matter, who were actually infectious at time of arrival? Do you have an estimate?

    Remember what C19 did to the New York economy, and possibly contributed to later social unrest. The outlook for New York is not pretty at this time.

    BTW: when China quarantined Hebei province they didn’t let anybody out. Not 3,000 people a day out.

    In China, such border closures and quarantines have worked, but they are applied with draconian thoroughness.

  23. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. July 2020 at 17:53

    Add on for Tacticus:

    The problem is when R=2,

    Do you know the fable of the simple villager who asks the king for only modest compensation for a brave deed done?

    The villager asks for a single grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, and two on the 2nd, and four grains on the 3rd and so on.

    The innumerate king agrees. I am not implying that you are innumerate.

    But…if R=2

  24. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    16. July 2020 at 23:27

    Just for fun, I looked up the old king and chessboard fable.

    So the villager asked for a single grain of rice on day 1, two grains on Day 2, four grains on Day 3, etc. until the 54 squares on the chessboard had been completed.

    The villager ends up with 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice, topping global production for decades and decades.

    So what has this to do with immigration?

    If one person enters the US with C19, and infects two people on Day One, and then those two people infect four people on Day 2, and then those four infect eight….well, with a few weeks, you have a full blown epidemic. All from one infected migrant, entering a novel virus into a naive population.

    So, the US has an estimated 3,000 people a day making unauthorized crossings from Mexico, and not quarantining, etc.

    But US policy, and evidently accepted by the public and posters on this blog, is that shutting off in-migration to the US is good anti-C19 policy. The airports are shut down.

    Personally, I think the situation is hopeless. US local, state and national policymakers are wrecking the US economy but gaining little.

  25. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    17. July 2020 at 00:03

    But the US has never had coronavirus under control, so even if one unauthorised person with the virus enters, it makes little statistical difference. There are already tens/hundreds of thousands of active cases. One additional person is a very marginal addition.

    Also, airports are not shut down? I know people who flew from NYC to Europe whilst NYC was in the midst of its worst days.

    And, again, where are you getting this estimate of 3,000 unauthorised people a day successfully crossing from Mexico?

  26. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    17. July 2020 at 02:31

    “BEIJING (Reuters) – China is stepping up its diplomatic outreach over controversial camps in its heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang, inviting more foreign diplomats to visit as it seeks to head off criticism from Muslim-majority countries and at the United Nations.”
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-xinjiang/wary-of-xinjiang-backlash-china-invites-waves-of-diplomats-to-visit-idUSKCN1QA0XX

  27. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    18. July 2020 at 02:36

    “Max Blumenthal is a proper tankie.. not worth you time.”

    Play the man, not the ball?

    This says that you are a shill for plutocrats and the M.I.C..

  28. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    18. July 2020 at 21:00

    “I’m reminded of one of my favorite movie trailers, for Machete.”

    My suspicion is that you’re quoting this line from the fake trailer (i.e. for the nonexistent film “Machete”) that shows up in the Tarantino/Rodriguez package “Grindhouse.” Then again, maybe this line was also used in some of the actual trailers for the actual film “Machete,” when it was actually made a few actual years later.

    I tried to resolve this last point with a visit to YouTube, but gave up. I did notice, or think I noticed, that the same Cheech gag shows up in both the fake trailer and at least one actual trailer.

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