alt Hacker NewsIf you believe in some kind of competition-free objective set of market morals, then yes, this is a strange contradiction.
If you believe that humans are locked in a productive struggle against each other at the organizational level, and that the knife-edge balance is a feature, not a bug, then it's not so weird to think about.
It is simultaneously true that it is in my best interest for prices to sink (as a consumer), for US companies to succeed (as a US citizen), and for my company to win over competitors regardless of whether those competitors are from US, EU, China, or Antarctica.
Oh I don't think it's either of those things, I think it's good old fashioned Racism/Xenophobia. We did the same shit to Japan and Korea when they were coming up out of their respective post-war periods, and we still do, to a degree. With China's ruling party also being "communist" (in massive, massive air-quotes) it also lets political actors dust off the McCarthyism to boot.
This is, to be clear, not meant as a ringing endorsement of China, China's policies, or to absolve China of it's wrongdoings, of which there are MANY. It's just to say that it's remarkable to watch the pearl clutching of the privateer capitalist class as state-sponsored capitalism levels their own game up against them and starts taking them to the cleaners instead.
A real Godzilla "let them fight" situation as far as I'm concerned.