Again, your claim is that if something isn't explicitly specified, then it's allowed. This is the difference between common law (popular in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, etc.) and civil law (used everywhere else, including most of Europe, South America, China, Russia, etc.)
The question isn't about the concept of international law, but whether international law should follow civil, common, customary principles (or even Sharia, Halakhah).
Fremont factory, Nevada Gigafactory, Texas Gigafactory, Berlin Gigafactory...
Gee, Tesla sure outsourced all production to China.
Urbanization is expected to hit 75% by 2030... This is analysis corroborated by Morgan Stanley and others, so, unironically, yes.
I'm confused. Why would policymakers want to halt the decline in real estate as contribution to GDP? GDP growth is still 5% YoY even as the real estate industry is in freefall. Big Chinese developers want kaput, and still GDP growth is projected to be 5%. Basically: who cares? Sector rotation is normal, isn't it?
This is, again, just a plainly incorrect take. Basically everyone in China is housed, yes, but a vast proportion of them still live in rural villages. The rural-to-urban transition does need to be planned for, and it's been a huge factor in China's real estate market. China's urbanization rate today is 66%, compared to 75% in Russia and 83% in the US.
Lmao if you can build a reliable car engine for $100 I'll give you a billion dollars for a car startup that will outcompete everyone else.
"Subsidized until their cars are at a better price"
What do you think subsidies are? Do you think China is paying $10k for each export sale? Do you think China is just hemorrhaging money so that they can bump sales numbers up?
China dumped billions of dollars into a domestic fast charging network that aggressively stimulated domestic demand and dumped billions of dollars into clean energy initiatives to make sure that electricity prices hover around 1RMB/kWh ($0.14/kWh). How much is electricity in Europe? How much is it in the US?
China offered $1750 in purchase-side tax incentives that have since been phased out. How much are the American purchase-side tax incentives passed by the IRA? Are they still ongoing?
Shanghai gave Tesla hundreds of millions in low-interest loans to set up a factory in Shanghai as opposed to, say, Jiangsu, in exchange for billions of dollars in investment. How much did Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory receive in subsidies?
Plus, let's take a look at who's actually exporting cars to Europe:
MG (SAIC), Volvo (Geely), Tesla, and European joint ventures (BMW, Renault, Volkswagen, etc.)
China has been subsidizing the infrastructure for EVs, absolutely, but subsidizing infrastructure is not illegal. If Europe wants to protect its domestic car manufacturers, the first thing it should look at is Tesla. There's also a reason BMW, Volkswagen, and Mercedes oppose tariffs: these risk retaliation against their currently rather unfettered access to the highly profitable, rapidly growing premium car market in China. They're seeing upwards of 10% YoY growth in their luxury car lineups.
The EU Commission is stabbing itself in the chest to save its face. von der Leyen is pursuing a personal vendetta against the best interests of German automakers, completely forgetting the fact that while 10% of Chinese car production is exported, about 70% of German car production is exported. Meanwhile, while Chinese cars predominantly target the lower end of the market, German cars for export are overwhelmingly premium and luxury vehicles. Just an insane policy that seems to be more political pandering than anything else.
It doesn't help that they're getting absolutely eaten out of the Chinese ICE market. It's a rough time to be an ICE car manufacturer.
"Dumped"?
The fuck do you think China is doing? Donating EVs to charity?
I'll tell this story in three parts:
Tesla's US subsidies
China's EV exports
China's "overcapacity"
Part 1.Tesla's US subsidies. Under the US' Inflation Reduction Act, purchases of new EVs made in the USA were given a tax incentive of $7500. Previously, states such as California has other incentives such as the $7500 incentive under CVRP. How much in subsidies has Tesla received from tax credits alone under the IRA in 2023, ignoring state-level benefits and carryover from pre-2023 benefits? 654000 sales, for a total of almost $5 billion dollars in purchase-side government subsidies. For 2023. We also know that Tesla has received billions in state-level government funding to set up factories in California, and billions more in government funding for their other various efforts. In comparison between 2009 and 2022, China handed out about $28 billion in EV subsidies, much of that at the state-level to encourage companies to set up factories. In fact, Tesla received huge subsidies to set up it's factories in Shanghai. By the end of 2022, China had phased out most purchase-side subsidies (except some lingering programs that are not set for renewal). Note that the maximum purchase-side subsidy was about $1750. China's most significant subsidy today is in it's expansion of the domestic charging network: China makes up 68% of the world's charging stations, with a huge number of them being fast chargers. Much of that expansion came out of government coffers and is a huge driver for EV adoption in China.
Part 2. China's EV exports. In 2022, China's EV exports were as follows, sorted by volume:
270k - Tesla
140k - SAIC (mostly under the British brand MG)
72k - European joint ventures
55k - BYD
(others)
So, let's be more clear about what the EU means: they don't like that foreign companies (including European ones, but mostly Tesla, and almost all European/American brands) are setting up shop in China to produce cars for export.
Part 3. China's "overcapacity". It's no secret that China has pitiful O&G reserves. Oil, notably, is needed for ICE vehicles, but not for EVs. That is, the switch to EVs is a matter of national security for China as it reduces Chinese reliance on foreign oil supplies. Indeed, a huge proportion of Chinese EV production is going to the domestic market, and exports make up only about 10% of total sales (for reference, this number is more like 70% for Toyota).
To sum it up: unlike Toyota/Japan (and others), China is consuming the vast majority of its production. Meanwhile, a huge number of it's exports are from foreign companies. It's most notable exporter is Tesla, which is notable for having received $5 billion in purchase-side tax incentives in 2023 in the US... Alone. This is compared to $28 billion between 2009 and 2022, most of which have been phased out, and for which a big proportion was to encourage setting up factories in specific provinces or to build out a domestic charging network.
Edit: to clarify, China does have more car factories than they know what to do with. This is because ICE companies are getting fucked by EV companies. All those factories dedicated to producing ICE cars? Fucked. Idling. Useless. Sales of all cars in China: Volkswagen (-0.2% YoY), Toyota (-3.8% YoY), Honda (-12.3% YoY), Nissan (-14.3% YoY). The only foreign brands that are staying alive in China are EV brands like Tesla (+20% YoY) and luxury cars like BMW (+7.8% YoY) and Audi (+11.3% YoY). These idling ICE factories are currently being closed by the government and the government is limiting licenses handed out for new factories.
Ironically, Tesla is a large part of the reason why Chinese EVs are so cheap because they started the price war... They just couldn't win it.
Basically, government officials knew that at some point they needed to aggressively overbuild real estate capacity in order to meet the urbanization demands. I think they predicted an incorrect curve: whereas they perhaps anticipated that urbanization would follow a trend more like Korea (74% at a similar stage in their urbanization trajectory), instead China is following a curve similar to Taiwan (~66%). A mistake in policy, yes, but it has localized effects.
Plus, I think you're missing a far more essential point: China doesn't give a fuck if every real estate developer goes bankrupt. That's just a cost of doing business. Instead, China's just swooping in and buying up distressed assets to turn into public housing. Homeowners aren't left holding the bag: developers are.