That's true, but China's overall record on cars is outstanding compared to our major allies. China decided at the turn of the century that building a protected national industry like Japan's and Korea's was not feasible. They had to build a cosmopolitan industry.
China's adjustment preparing for WTO membership in 2001 was wrenching. No Western country could ever have tolerated it. 128 small, inefficient companies were consolidated and forced to compete against the world's most powerful car companies.
Foreigners were required to have a joint venture partner, but they quickly became the dominant partners. When you drive in any major Chinese city, you are never out of sight of Buicks, VWs, Hyundais. BMWs, Mercedes and Japanese cars are also present everywhere.
China's market openness saved GM, which was circling the drain due to ongoing losses in Europe and the U.S. Profits from China made GM financially viable again. Restyling of Buick by Chinese engineers rescued Buick from going the way of Oldsmobile--a car for the over-65s.
When Jennifer Granholm was orating about how China was destroying auto employment, Charles Wolf of RAND calculated (unfortunately never published) that productivity increases should have reduced employment by more than actually happened. The positive difference was China.
GM sells 1.9 million cars per year in China, 1.9 million in the U.S., only one thousand in Japan. You almost never see a US car in Korea.
The US has plenty of things to be plenty angry about re China: IP theft, subsidies, denial of market access to our tech companies, not to mention Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea. These all deserve strong responses. The auto sector is not one of those things.
The battery sector may be one that invites foreign pushback. Chinese denial of market access to foreign companies and buildup of CATL as a world-dominant company parallels what used to be the imminent destruction of Huawei's 5G competitors by denying foreigners market access.
Unfortunately the US response to very real Chinese abuses is too often diluted by hypocrisy and dishonesty. Eg, the Trump-Biden tariffs are sold as helping US workers although net they cost huge numbers of US jobs.
Washington needs to focus on appropriate responses to the real abuses, which may include CATL, not add another layer of hypocrisy and dishonesty about cars.
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