Some Guy TT posted:

https://twitter.com/GarlandNixon/status/1666237965813575687

Antonymous posted:

KomradeX posted:

The compass and chattel slavery, Europes contribution to world history

Ardennes posted:

I guess people forgot the near-east was a thing as well...

90s Solo Cup posted:

A lot of you goons are gonna be disappointed as gently caress as time goes on. All Great Powers are Bastards.

Some Guy TT posted:

https://twitter.com/GarlandNixon/status/1666237965813575687

In Training posted:

Joe Biden ftw. Blows up critical infrastructure like a boss.

In Training posted:

Joe Biden ftw. Blows up critical infrastructure like a boss.

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/qin_duke/status/1666387413806006274?t=QaU09pWsfInIBM8dYHhuKw&s=19

Antonymous posted:

if you ever went to sanlitun you'd know they are extremely not staged

Some Guy TT posted:

https://twitter.com/GarlandNixon/status/1666237965813575687

Weka posted:

TBF, a great deal of the blue is arctic and sub-arctic, which is not only a shithole but smaller than it appears on the map. It's important not to get map brain.

I don't think Europeans invented chattel slavery. Particularly silly thing to post directly after this though

indigi posted:

I think it's an uphill battle to make middle aged men dating younger women into a specifically liberal/western/capitalist trait

fart simpson posted:

i dont think gradenk_2000 is the guy in the twitter post

fart simpson posted:

if he blew it up it wasnt that critical was it

fart simpson posted:

i dont think gradenk_2000 is the guy in the twitter post

Weka posted:

Wrong. Gradenko is both the tweeter and the cheating party member.

Weka posted:

Wrong. Gradenko is both the tweeter and the cheating party member.

stephenthinkpad posted:

White House was asked about the spontaneous fire started in miltiple TSMC plants the previous night.

https://twitter.com/IrisTaoTV/status/1666137274562621450?t=K4YajlM-RpYLNaDEvbp7tQ&s=19

Weka posted:

Not to him but he's probably only got 5 more years to live.

Wrong. Gradenko is both the tweeter and the cheating party member.

quote:

China rocked the auto world twice this year. First, its electric vehicles stunned Western rivals at the Shanghai auto show with their quality, features and price. Then came reports that in the first quarter of 2023 it dethroned Japan as the world’s largest auto exporter.

How is China in contention to lead the world’s most lucrative and prestigious consumer goods market, one long dominated by American, European, Japanese and South Korean nameplates? The answer is a unique combination of industrial policy, protectionism and homegrown competitive dynamism. Western policy makers and business leaders are better prepared for the first two than the third.

Start with industrial policy—the use of government resources to help favored sectors. China has practiced industrial policy for decades. While it’s finding increased favor even in the U.S., the concept remains controversial. Governments have a poor record of identifying winning technologies and often end up subsidizing inferior and wasteful capacity, including in China.


When it comes to powering electric vehicles, China’s dominance is clear. The U.S. lags behind in most steps of the battery-making process. Illustration: Michael Tabb
But in the case of EVs, Chinese industrial policy had a couple of things going for it. First, governments around the world saw climate change as an enduring threat that would require decadelong interventions to transition away from fossil fuels. China bet correctly that in transportation, the transition would favor electric vehicles.

In 2009, China started handing out generous subsidies to buyers of EVs. Public procurement of taxis and buses was targeted to electric vehicles, rechargers were subsidized, and provincial governments stumped up capital for lithium mining and refining for EV batteries. In 2020 NIO, at the time an aspiring challenger to Tesla, avoided bankruptcy thanks to a government-led bailout.

While industrial policy guaranteed a demand for EVs, protectionism ensured those EVs would be made in China, by Chinese companies. To qualify for subsidies, cars had to be domestically made, although foreign brands did qualify. They also had to have batteries made by Chinese companies, giving Chinese national champions like Contemporary Amperex Technology and BYD an advantage over then-market leaders from Japan and South Korea.

To sell in China, foreign automakers had to abide by conditions intended to upgrade the local industry’s skills. State-owned Guangzhou Automobile Group developed the manufacturing know-how necessary to become a player in EVs thanks to joint ventures with Toyota and Honda, said Gregor Sebastian, an analyst at Germany’s Mercator Institute for China Studies.

Despite all that government support, sales of EVs remained weak until 2019, when China let Tesla open a wholly owned factory in Shanghai. “It took this catalyst…to boost interest and increase the level of competitiveness of the local Chinese makers,” said Tu Le, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, a research service specializing in the Chinese auto industry.

Back in 2011 Pony Ma, the founder of Tencent, explained what set Chinese capitalism apart from its American counterpart. “In America, when you bring an idea to market you usually have several months before competition pops up, allowing you to capture significant market share,” he said, according to Fast Company, a technology magazine. “In China, you can have hundreds of competitors within the first hours of going live. Ideas are not important in China—execution is.”

Thanks to that competition and focus on execution, the EV industry went from a niche industrial-policy project to a sprawling ecosystem of predominantly private companies. Much of this happened below the Western radar while China was cut off from the world because of Covid-19 restrictions.

When Western auto executives flew in for April’s Shanghai auto show, “they saw a sea of green plates, a sea of Chinese brands,” said Le, referring to the green license plates assigned to clean-energy vehicles in China. “They hear the sounds of the door closing, sit inside and look at the quality of the materials, the fabric or the plastic on the console, that’s the other holy s— moment—they’ve caught up to us.”

Manufacturers of gasoline cars are product-oriented, whereas EV manufacturers, like tech companies, are user-oriented, Le said. Chinese EVs feature at least two, often three, display screens, one suitable for watching movies from the back seat, multiple lidars (laser-based sensors) for driver assistance, and even a microphone for karaoke (quickly copied by Tesla). Meanwhile, Chinese suppliers such as CATL have gone from laggard to leader.

Chinese dominance of EVs isn’t preordained. The low barriers to entry exploited by Chinese brands also open the door to future non-Chinese competitors. Nor does China’s success in EVs necessarily translate to other sectors where industrial policy matters less and creativity, privacy and deeply woven technological capability—such as software, cloud computing and semiconductors—matter more.

Still, the threat to Western auto market share posed by Chinese EVs is one for which Western policy makers have no obvious answer. “You can shut off your own market and to a certain extent that will shield production for your domestic needs,” said Sebastian. “The question really is, what are you going to do for the global south, countries that are still very happily trading with China?”

Western companies themselves are likely to respond by deepening their presence in China—not to sell cars, but for proximity to the most sophisticated customers and suppliers. Jörg Wuttke, the past president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, calls China a “fitness center.” Even as conditions there become steadily more difficult, Western multinationals “have to be there. It keeps you fit.”

fits my needs posted:

lol wsj uses real names for the comments

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1666643734459568130?s=20

gradenko_2000 posted:

it's hard to break through the propaganda that Chinese cars are subpar

Geely and MG seem nice. I wouldn't mind driving one

gradenko_2000 posted:

it's hard to break through the propaganda that Chinese cars are subpar

Geely and MG seem nice. I wouldn't mind driving one

Some Guy TT posted:

https://twitter.com/GarlandNixon/status/1666237965813575687

KomradeX posted:

Is hard to break through any of the propaganda about China, just today on a podcast someone made a joke about Finn not being on Chinese posters for Star Wars

Mantis42 posted:

The number one movie at the box office in China is the black Spider-Man movie and yet the news is running with stories about the black Little Mermaid bombing there because of racism.

KomradeX posted:

Didn't it bomb everywhere because those live action movies aren't good and no one askee for it

Mantis42 posted:

It underperformed, which is a bit surprising after The Lion King made like a billion dollars. Like obviously it looked bad but I'm used to these Disney movies doing well regardless. It's induced demand.

Mantis42 posted:

It underperformed, which is a bit surprising after The Lion King made like a billion dollars. Like obviously it looked bad but I'm used to these Disney movies doing well regardless. It's induced demand.