Some EU officials believe Beijing is trying to distract from what they consider to be serious problems by poking holes in the terminology.
    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OPEnglish
      13·
      6 months ago

      The whole concept of overcapacity is fundamentally nonsensical. It’s literally a case of supply and demand. China produces things the worlds needs, and countries buy these things from China because they need them. End of fucking story. Overcapacity would be if China produced things there was no demand for, and then it would be a problem for China because they would sit in warehouses collecting dust, it wouldn’t be something the west would be crying about.

      What they’re actually complaining about is that Chinese model is able to produce things cheaper and faster than western model. The whole argument for markets guiding the economy was that it would be more efficient than state planning. Yet, now we see that a planned economy is absolutely crushing market driven economies and the west is complaining how unfair it is. If your system can’t compete with alternatives then it’s up to you to do some introspection and figure out what you’re doing wrong. You don’t get to tell other people how to run things.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OPEnglish
          7·
          6 months ago

          For sure, capitalism requires artificial scarcity to keep up prices which is another reason why western industries focused on keeping production at levels where the highest profit can be extracted.

          I do think it’s funny how originally the west assumed they would be leading the renewables transition and reap the profit from it. Then as soon as it became clear that renewable energy infrastructure will be built in China, any pretense of giving a shit about the environment evaporated over night. All of a sudden all the western governments are doubling down on fossil fuels and are banning solar panels and windmills from China.

      • bobs_gunsEnglish
        5·
        6 months ago

        Producing loads of solar panels is inefficient in a certain, wrong sense, in that it doesn’t make GDP go up as much as possible compared to other activities allocated by the market economy. Pay no attention to how it crashes every 5-7 years. That’s actually efficient because it lets rich people buy more of the economy, which lets them drive competitors out of business, form a monopoly, and lay everyone off, which increases efficiency by means of social Darwinism. If you didn’t make it that’s just a skill issue.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OPEnglish
          5·
          6 months ago

          Exactly, words like efficiency require context. A lot of people just have this notion that something being more efficient is inherently positive, but you really have to ask what it’s efficient at doing and who benefits from the said efficiency.

  • bloubzEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    It’s even worse today than last year I guess, because of the US tariffs

    Edit: my bad, the article is from June 2025, the included podcast is older but they are not the same I guess