Excellent point. The net beneficiaries of 'free trade' rarely have cause to question the policies that have given them great returns. The last 200 years of Chinese history is describes very clearly the impact of the imposition of free trading principles, where the freedom to say 'no' to free trade (of opium) was overturned at the barrel of a gun. To this day, China refers to the 'century of humiliation' and is hyper conscious of being the unequal trading partner of the Western world ever again.
China will no doubt have also learnt from the speed of economic development of the original Asian Tigers (S.Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan) whose post WWII protectionist policies allowed domestic manufacturers the time to grow, compete, and in some case super cede with more mature foreign businesses when the time to open up finally came. We would not have Samsung, LG, Sony or Nintendo today if those governments did not protect their own industries from German, Italian, UK and US electronics manufacturers of that era.
It seems that China is one of the few countries to apply these lessons to the internet era, and has the political control and consumer base to make it work.
Whatever the personal agendas involved, it's a fascinating experiment. Perversely, it might even lead to a greater consumer choice in the end - sign up to WeChat, use Baidu - with innovation cycling faster due to the eco-system wide competition created by the firewall
Yes, I think I would agree. I would draw a difference between protectionism vs isolationism though. Protectionism is more like a temporary ringfence of strategic industries you want to nurture - the long game is always to unleash them into the competitive free market when they are fit for that competition. Perhaps that is indeed the real reason for the firewall - a plan, ridiculously long term plan - to conquer the world with domestically cultivated innovation
China will no doubt have also learnt from the speed of economic development of the original Asian Tigers (S.Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan) whose post WWII protectionist policies allowed domestic manufacturers the time to grow, compete, and in some case super cede with more mature foreign businesses when the time to open up finally came. We would not have Samsung, LG, Sony or Nintendo today if those governments did not protect their own industries from German, Italian, UK and US electronics manufacturers of that era.
It seems that China is one of the few countries to apply these lessons to the internet era, and has the political control and consumer base to make it work.
Whatever the personal agendas involved, it's a fascinating experiment. Perversely, it might even lead to a greater consumer choice in the end - sign up to WeChat, use Baidu - with innovation cycling faster due to the eco-system wide competition created by the firewall