China can control its market without serious reprisal because there aren't any serious reprisals available that are palettable.
As an individual country, blocking or tarrifing imports from China isn't very effective because it hurts consumers and industry that rely on importing products and raw materials/commodities/industrial inputs from China more than it hurts China who can often export to other countries instead.
Blocking exports to China is tricky because one the one hand, China doesn't import too many things, but on the other hand, for those things they do import, they're a large portion of the global market, so a country that cuts off those exports will leave their exporters will a large surplus, often of perishable goods, that will be difficult to deal with.
So, trade controls are tricky. Most western countries don't have much in the way of laws that could restrict foreign ownership of land or businesses except in exceptional cases. And military intervention would be wholy inappropriate and probably disasterous. Really just not a lot of options.
> As an individual country, blocking or tarrifing imports from China isn't very effective because it hurts consumers and industry that rely on importing products and raw materials/commodities/industrial inputs from China more than it hurts China who can often export to other countries instead.
This isn't really true. If there is a tariff on importing iPhones from China, in the short term iPhones become more expensive by the amount of the tariff, but also the US taxpayer pays lower taxes for the same level of government services because the tariff money is going to the US government. So to US citizens in the short term it's net-zero.
In the longer term, Apple builds an iPhone factory in India or Mexico. The US iPhone customer doesn't even really notice the difference from this, but China obviously does.
> Blocking exports to China is tricky because one the one hand, China doesn't import too many things, but on the other hand, for those things they do import, they're a large portion of the global market, so a country that cuts off those exports will leave their exporters will a large surplus, often of perishable goods, that will be difficult to deal with.
Nobody really even wants to block exports to China. Gaining fair access to the Chinese market is kind of the point, and for things like soybeans or something like that, "fair access" mostly just means they're buying your products.
It's more complicated when you start talking about tech companies and censorship, because then it's about more than just "they're buying it from you."
Moreover, where export restrictions hurt isn't necessarily for things where they're paying a lot of money. It's for things they can't get elsewhere.
> Most western countries don't have much in the way of laws that could restrict foreign ownership of land or businesses except in exceptional cases.
That wouldn't be that hard to change. Especially for ownership of land, the change would be locally popular because it would make housing more affordable, and the foreign interests who would have to sell their holdings don't get a vote in US elections.
As an individual country, blocking or tarrifing imports from China isn't very effective because it hurts consumers and industry that rely on importing products and raw materials/commodities/industrial inputs from China more than it hurts China who can often export to other countries instead.
Blocking exports to China is tricky because one the one hand, China doesn't import too many things, but on the other hand, for those things they do import, they're a large portion of the global market, so a country that cuts off those exports will leave their exporters will a large surplus, often of perishable goods, that will be difficult to deal with.
So, trade controls are tricky. Most western countries don't have much in the way of laws that could restrict foreign ownership of land or businesses except in exceptional cases. And military intervention would be wholy inappropriate and probably disasterous. Really just not a lot of options.