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China Opens Door For Tesla and Other Foreign Automakers To Produce Electric Vehicles (electrek.co)
Despite its strong protectionism laws in place that require any automaker wanting to establish production capacity in the country to partner and share its technology with a local manufacturer, China is proposing to relax laws. In an attempt to accelerate electric vehicle production in the country and fight its air pollution problem, China is now proposing to relax those laws for what they call "new energy vehicles," a.k.a. electric vehicles, in order to attract more foreign investments. From a report: The new rules are expected to open the door to Tesla and other automakers who recently expressed desires to establish manufacturing capacity in China to produce electric vehicles. The National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce released the new policy last week, and it is seeking public comment until next month. The new rules could go into effect soon after.
China wants free IP, and even next quarter myopic CEOs no longer falling for "partner and share" scam.
Have they seriously tried anything as far as legislative remedies? You'd think a totalitarian government could force people to comply with whatever regulations it wants.
California had a terrible smog problem in the 1970s and early 1980s. The entire Los Angeles area (including Disneyland, for example) had air that was smothered with a visible brown haze. Even the Bay Area was getting bad. We passed a bunch of laws, force people to comply with them e.g. by requiring catalytic converters in all new vehicles and refusing to register vehicles that haven't had their emissions checked. Today the air quality has improved immensely.
If any government can do the same, it's China. They just lack the will. Moreover, it may turn out that vehicles aren't even their biggest problem -- their crony-capitalist industries may be just as much to blame, and who wants to regulate them?
No, this move is far more likely to be about getting their hands on the technology so they can steal it.
Breakfast served all day!
Protectionism works just fine - the 90 million chinese workers employed in industry as a testament to that.
Free trade only raises the standard of living of all parties if everyone is playing by the same rules - asymmetrical trade relationships don't work.
If Telsa or anyone else is naive enough to go through with this type of deal, what is Trump supposed to do about it?
Trump's plans are (1) to end the asymmetrical trade deals that the last 4 four presidents have given us and (2) push to eliminate the existing tax code provisions that make it more economical to move manufacturing offshore and then import back in to the US. The US is pretty much alone in having such an inverted tax structure.