Chinese trade wars: It's not just Trump who objects

NPR story about China stealing trade secrets/software so they could manufacture windturbans.

Sinovel was the largest customer of American Superconductor Corp. And then the Chinese company suddenly began rejecting shipments of American Superconductor's electronic components in 2011. The Massachusetts tech company learned that Sinovel was using a pirated version of the software it made in the wind turbines it installed.

The ordeal left American Superconductor in perilous financial shape, and Wall Street analysts wrote it off as dead. The U.S. Department of Justice said that the company lost more than $1 billion in shareholder equity and 700 jobs.

they note that Trumpie boy is using this as an example for why he is getting into a trade war with China.

Two comments:

One: it is an open secret that China bribes people to steal trade secrets, or steals them from companies who decide to manufacture there.

Two: Trump was right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

more HERE.

in the thrid world, they flood countries with their cheap, shoddy goods, that under price local manufacturing and make it impossible for local companies to prosper. This is helped by their artificial manipulation of their currancy.

And it's not just manufactured goods: our local onion farmers went broke when cheap chinese onions were imported (and smuggled in). I have no proof, but I suspect this was done the usual way: with the help of bribes to local politicians and officials to look the other way.

ManBul (2016):

Bongabon, Nueva Ecija — Over a thousand of onion farmers in this province marched last Friday along the main streets of this municipality, reputed as the “Onion Capital of the Philippines,” to call on government to put a stop to massive importation which is now killing the livelihood of the local farmers. Onion farmer Rodrigo Odon from Bayombong in Pangasinan who traveled together with 50 other farmers to join the rally said that importation is a burden that has caused a cut by more than 50 percent in the original price of locally-produced onions because of the competition with cheap imported onions.

Inquirer (2018) discusses "Chinese" cartel behind the onion problem:

But a succession of problems has been plaguing onion growers. In 2000, about 700 farmers in San Jose City allowed their harvest to rot because the buying price was only P2 to P3 per kilogram. Many in other towns stopped harvesting their yellow onions.

translation: The middle men wouldn't pay proper prices, so the farmers refused to sell.

Also adversely affecting the industry were the results of a Department of Justice investigating team showing that one agricultural group was given 305 of the 585 import permits issued by the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) from 2011 to 2013. The team also found that certain cooperatives sold to Chinese traders the import permits granted them by the BPI. Unreasonable importation

 On Nov. 11, onion growers in northern Luzon gathered in Cabanatuan City to stage a rally against what they described as unreasonable importation, which had affected the price of their crops.