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You asked - "Who would win a trade war between China and America?"This is a very delicate and sensitive question to ask in an obviously 'Cold War' polarised, if not paralysed, world, where we are all, whatever nationality or political affiliation or spirituality we belong to, subconsciously entrenched in our respective 'worldly reality' which is in fact our own personal subjective paradigm, where we are subsumed within the perspective wrought upon us by our societal, cultural, philosophical and spiritual (or religious) values in the environment that we were born into and grown up with. Making a paradigm shift to transcend to the higher level of immutable absolute universal scientific truths or principles is like teaching a fish to walk on water.So, I shall come straight to the point that if this question is predicated on judgement based on universal principles or immutable truths, on who is right or wrong, then there can never be an absolute answer. For any human answer or judgment will by definition be personally subjective. Speaking in the abstract however the inconceivable answer in truth will inherently and inevitable arise or follow as a self-evident consequence. For East or West or North or South, whatever the cardinal points, whatever the language or the spiritual (or religious) expression, the indiscriminant and non-discriminatory Law of the Harvest or the Immutable Law of Karma will apply. Thou shall reap what you sow! Every action will have its corresponding karmic weighted reaction.But before I move away from universal principles or immutable truths I like to point out another truth or universal reality. It might lend to a greater geopolitical understanding of the world if people were to accept the obvious truth or principle that we do not actually live in a homogenous world of humanity with one singular immutable hegemonist set of universal values but rather that we live in a heterogenous world of multicultural, multi-religious and multilingual humanity with multifarious multilateral and multitudinal values, mindset and psyche and mores and norms.And so I shall treat this question here with total equanimity, like a bookie or probably as someone giving a 'form' guide on the betting odds in a two horse race or the NBL championship. I shall leave it to each individual based on my 'form' guide as to who might win. Each reader is entitled to make up his or her own mind. After all the loyal supporters of the respective horses or basketball teams are never going to barrack for the other. But however from the sideline (or even illegal) activity of 'betting' you are somehow or somewhat just interested in the gambling 'odds'. And whatever horse or team you support, i.e. the 'politics' aside, you will bet in such a way that you base it not on emotional or patriotic fervour but on calculated 'odds' based on the 'form' of the horses or players and the track or playing 'conditions'.And please note that in this gambling whether you win on your wager on the 'odds' has nothing to do with which horse or team actually wins or loses or claims so. For here there is no umpire or arbitrator and no definitive rules for the race or game. I need to say this from this start so that you appreciate, depending on the wager, you as a gambler might win even if China loses by 1 miserable point to America at the end in this NBL. Or, in simple quirky terms China might also be the winner by just putting up a good fight, or by reaching a stalemate or even just tying down America to a a hundred year race or game, for it might turn out to be a protracted test of mental or physical or even stoic if not economic resilience and stamina and endurance. Also we are yet to firm up on what the track or playing conditions might be. These are simply put 'at large'! It depends on how stubborn, incalcitrant, intransigent or even how fanatical, maniacal and demented the team managers of the horses or teams might be. Also the scoring are subjectively discretionary, and on the relative merits. I will give you a hint or illustration from history. China already won at the point it stopped America at the 38th Parallel in Korea and the 18th Parallel in Vietnam. See Footnote*1Although I shall do my best to objectively and without bias put everything down to the differential paradigm of 'form' and 'conditions' (as metaphors), I must declare that I am Chinese but I am Westernised in the sense that I am a Western trained lawyer, accountant and economist, that I have worked both in the public sector and the private sector, and that particularly as a banker I have a working knowledge about trade. I have a traditional Chinese upbringing and on Quora my major contribution is as a writer on Taoism, Confucianism and Zen Buddhism. I am like, for want of a good analogy, Amy Chua, the Yale Law Professor who wrote 'Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother'. In short I can think, as I choose, as I prefer, as and when, like an Oriental or an Occidental. I am mentally and intellectually ambidextrous and flexible and dexterous!Ideally, we should be taking a 'helicopter' view of the forest battlefield. If we were to do so we would then realise that there are many concurrent battlefronts, the main being 'ideology' (in which I would include 'culture' and 'philosophy', 'military' and 'trade'). So, even though we are talking 'trade wars' please see it merely as a convenient expression to identify that we just happen to be standing in the part of the forest in front of trees of the species called 'trade'. The other trees like 'ideology' and 'military' are elsewhere in the jungle. But it does not really matter where the raging fire is in the forest. If not managed and controlled, any fire or fires (ideology, military or trade etc.) will destroy the entire forest.Form Guide - Ideology of AmericaI have discreetly earlier on given a strong hint as to a particular 'form' that America has. Did you pick it up? If you train only in 'Western boxing' when the actual style of boxing in the ring today is 'Thai boxing' then you are at a paradigm or set of values that is/are further away from the universal principle or ultimate reality then you think applies. America sees itself as the World Sheriff, the bastion or bulwark of democracy or the 'free world' in its assuming that Western style 'democracy' is more than a paradigm, that it is in fact a universal truth! And that to be 'free' is synonymous with 'democracy'.At this point, in terms of 'form', as a betting man, we will have to consider whether we should prefer or not prefer the 'blinkered' horse in or that is America. Why? Let me explain. America has no homegrown indigenous intellectual or spiritual philosophical thought. 'Democracy' is sort of loosely borrowed from the ancient Greeks, the Athenians in fact. But of course the ancient Greeks are long extinct! The Greeks today are more European statis (as in Thucydides) republican like ancient Sparta was than ancient Athens was, and they are orthodox Christians rather than practising Greek philosophy or worshipping Greek Gods. America despite the 'democracy' banner that it flies is actually more an Anglophile or is Anglospheric then Greek, more White Anglo-Saxon Protestant than anything else that it pretends to be. Despite its Constitution, America actually believes in an abstract aegis form of law that transcends any written law, whether it is in the constitution or otherwise, and that is the absolute freedom or entitlement of the individual to live in his own self-reliant world, free to rule and protect his roost or turf or private land, free even to choose his own ruler in fact, the 'king' or 'ruler' is just the first amongst equals. It is the British way or should I say the ancient Anglo-Saxon way, a mutual covenant set and established by independent spirited and minded tribal people in village tribal councils long before the invasion by William the Conqueror from Normandy in 1066A.D - simply called in the abstract - 'English Common Law' or 'the unspoken Law that commonly binds the people'!In other words, in Anglosphere, it is everyman for himself, the world is your oyster, you make your own destiny. Unless America is being attacked the Government should stay away from an individual's life, and therefore taxes and everything else by the Government should be kept to the bare minimum (and thus the raison d'être for the Boston Tea Party and the American War of Independence) unless the whole nation of the American people is being threatened, and America needs to raise an army. Otherwise everyman for himself, to feed, clothe and support and protect his own welfare and wellbeing, and thus the personal right to bear arms.It is always the paradigm of the paramountcy of individual rights before communal or societal rights. And when you try to interpret American democracy as representing 'the Government of the people, by the people, for the people' in a Greek sort of way, of the term 'people' as meaning a social 'collective' when in America it actually means 'individuals' (the liberty and freedom of an individual, everyman is his own castle) you are 'blinkered'! And you are found wearing double blinkers when you realise that the freedom of an 'individual' in the WASP sense in America now extends by legal fiction to a 'corporation', even though a 'corporation' cannot vote or bear arms in defend of the Anglosphere 'village', and not just simple corporations mind you, but American multinational corporations, who as 'individuals' as legal fiction can donate to or fund political candidates and election campaigns. Of course behind the American 'multinationals' you have the same ubiquitous 'Illuminati' - the 1% exalted and elite private individuals who owns 90% of America. America is accordingly in practical terms, now ruled by a 'Government of the individuals called multinationals, by the individuals called multinationals, for the individuals called multinationals'. American 'democracy' revealed as the 'Illuminati' is meretricious and not meritorious. It is more insidious than 'communism' because one can plainly see the possible 'devil' in the panoply of 'communism' but when the 'Illuminati' is seductively disguised as the outwardly 'angel' in 'democracy' you are being deceivingly blinded by a false sense of safety and security, and are thus potentially vulnerable to its life-sucking scourge. I trust you are getting a proper picture of the 'hidden' traduced ideological 'form' of America due to it having being sabotaged or usurped by the 'faceless' saboteurs in the Illuminati.More so than anything else the two teams or horses here are fighting an ideological warfare. The 'trade wars' are just a consequential skirmish in this ideological warfare. But take this important note down. Forget all the diatribe about China being responsible for America's huge deficit and must therefore remedy the situation, as the malfeasant party. For that is obviously a case of America being the prosecutor judge and jury, changing and shifting the goalposts in the middle of the game because it is losing! The simple fact is the American multinationals are American only in name but are not for the American people, who are not part of the Illuminati - the ordinary people of America, the workers of America. America as the Illuminati is not a democracy of the people or a government for the people, it is only there for and to look after profits for and the shareholders of the American multinationals. It is a faceless State of its own, exclusive of and from the political State of America. To the Illuminati it is the responsibility of the political State of America, the federal government to look after the American workers, the American capital debt and trade deficit and the factories and the public infrastructure. So China did not in fact force anyone or coerce anyone, let alone the powerful political State of America but it was the American multinationals who voluntarily without any concern for the welfare or employment of the individual workers of America, shipped the factories that they owned, shipped the requisite technical management expertise and the technological expertise and intellectual property and investment capital, in other words, American industrial productive capacity over to China.The huge trade American trade deficit is the consequence of American goods made in China by American multinationals consumed by the now mainly resultant unemployed American workers and other individuals for the major profit of the American multinationals and their Illuminati shareholders who also at the same time in Anglosphere benefit from their control of the American governmental process of low taxes for the rich, minimal spending by the government on public infrastructure, social welfare and wellbeing, for it is everyman for himself.So forget about the misdescription of America being a 'people' democracy. It is simply a plutocratic capitalistic state where capitalism is supreme because even the American Government is controlled by the capitalists - the American multinationals! Unlike, as we shall now turn to compare and contrast, China which has its own Chinese version of 'common law' called Confucianism where the social 'family' is the basic unit of society and the Government is controlled by or is the 'Emperor' who thus provides a check on China's equivalent of the Chinese Illuminati - its Capitalists in its Capitalist Private Sector.Form Guide - Ideology of ChinaCompared with a young Turk of a few hundred years old America, China in sharp contrast is a living 5000+ years of a continuing antiquity of a people civilisation or culture as a State. Until the Manchu Qing Dynasty was overthrown on 1/10/1912 and the Republic of China formed, and later replaced after the Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists by the Communist People's Republic of China on 10/10/1949, China had always been ruled by an autocratic or totalitarian Emperor.For the present discussion it makes better sense to treat China as still being ruled by an Emperor except that the 'Emperor' is now in the abstract sense - the Communist Party. But like in the past, the government or administration is still in the hands of a 'Confucian Mandarin' class of bureaucracy based on meritocracy. [For the record Mao Tse Tung was not just a Communist instigator - he was in fact an erudite classical Mandarin Confucian Scholar].Strictly speaking, China or the Chinese People see themselves as an abstract called the 'Middle Kingdom', to which they belong. In this insular, parochial and introverted sense you cannot be 'Chinese' even though you are a Chinese citizen because you are a resident in geographical Chinese territory! Just like in an ultra-Orthodox sense you cannot convert to a Jew, you can only be a Jew if your mother is a Jewess. If it were not for the fact that the China and the Chinese were conquered and ruled by foreigners - the Jurchens in the Jin Dynasty, the Mongols in the Yuan Dynasty and the Manchus in the Qing Dynasty, the abstract 'Middle Kingdom' of the Chinese would not now include areas inherited from the foreign conquerors - like West and South Tibet, Sinkiang, Inner Mongolia and of course Manchuria. But China as a geographical State in the modern sense is however keeping these 'inherited' areas as 'reparations' for years of oppression and exploitation by its foreign conquerors. Imagine America being conquered by the Whiteman and somehow the conquerors assimilated and became Native Indigenous Americans. That is how you have to picture the Chinese.So the Chinese personal sense of feeing superior is akin to that of the Jews in that it does not extend beyond a personal or private sense of self-esteem, self-worth and dignity and of belonging to a special class or breed of your own. You cannot add or subtract from what is 'territorially' in the abstract the 'Middle Kingdom'. And the Chinese belong to the 'Middle Kingdom' rather than the 'Middle Kingdom' belongs to the Chinese!Contrast this with the Western or American sense of superiority or supremacy, of being a hegemone, that you want others to be subservient to you, that your values and judgement are paramount and universal, and that others who are inferior belong to you or are subject to your dictates and demands, you want others to be a clone or a replicate of you.Do not be blinded or misled that China or the Chinese are Communists or Capitalists in ideology! China and the Chinese are neither (and because they are neither they can appear to be synonymously Communists and Capitalists) and have always been what they have been and still are - animists, atheists, shamanistic etc or whatever you would describe or ascribe ancients tribes as or to. But the Chinese have fine-tuned these ancient spiritual beliefs or philosophy into an ideology that they called the Three Pillars of Chinese Society. The Chinese like to talk descriptively and figuratively like that e.g 'let a hundred flowers bloom'! The Three Pillars are - Taoism, Confucianism and Chan (Zen) Buddhism. For our purposes here in terms of ideology we are mainly interested in Confucianism which is a humanistic philosophy and the foundation of Chinese society and public administration.Taoism is spiritual occult like philosophy based on Mother Nature but it impacts on the Chinese mindset and psyche and decision making in the way that it views the duality and the 'cycle' of life in the 'yin and yang' and 'qi' flow in all things.Zen Buddhism is a transcendental or metaphysical or esoteric spiritual philosophy but it impacts greatly on the Chinese mindset and psyche and decision making as well because it stresses on the retribution of the immutable law of karma and teaches one not to fear death but to take it positively as a gateway to good karmic rebirth and better still, on never ever rebirthing again. Two salient features of what Zen Buddhism is about are (1) focusing on being 'selfless' because the 'self' is subjective and therefore what the 'ego of a self' clings or attaches to or makes judgement on is only a 'paradigm' (in Buddhist terms - an illusion) and also (2) in focusing on one's self journey through life, that you cannot compel others how to walk the Snakes and Ladders of Life - to each his own karma, you just mind your own karma or business. We have alluded to this at the beginning as to what is the difference between a 'principle' and a 'paradigm'.However the humanistic philosophy of Confucianism is the mainstay ideology of Chinese society. It dictates how one can be an exemplary or epitome of an ideal human being in the various human relationships beginning from the basic unit of society which is the 'family'. Thus it is about the human relationships of parent/child, teacher/student, employer/employee, official (Mandarin)/subject, Emperor/Populace etc. So the primary focus is on the mutual duties, obligations and responsibilities of an exemplary human being within a particular human relationship. Individual human rights therefore weigh nothing at all or are secondary, in the sense that they are relegated to a private personal matter or level or domain. In the public domain for all to expect and to see is how you, and the expectations of you to, conduct yourself as the exemplary human being. In a broad brush sense it is about attending and learning in the public school of or called life. There are no individual rights as such or at school as such. It is about being disciplined and orderly and compliant or even obeisant behaving in a certain way and so that you can avoid detention!The training starts from birth and obviously the training ground is the unconditional loving-kindness of parents for their children. In a Chinese sense the greatest love of all is the 'selfless' love of a mother for her newborn child! Duties, obligations and responsibilities are predicated on this altruistic qualities of being 'selfless' to another that one is bound to by duty. The epitome of 'selflessness' in Confucian thought and culture is 'filial piety' to one's parents. And by extension therefore the Chinese respect their elders and have reverence or 'worship' their ancestors. This filial or familial relationship and the mutual duties, obligations and responsibilities that it engenders and enjoins at its pinnacle of a mutual covenant between official (Mandarin)/subject or Emperor/Populace is termed the 'Mandate of Heaven'.At this pinnacle level we can see that China is neither Communist nor Capitalist, despite the appearances, in a strict sense. It is a totalitarian meritocracy as it has always been since the Zhou Warring Period. The Communist Party is now the new 'Emperor'. And the mutual covenant of the Mandate of Heaven and the Confucian filial piety family relationship as the basic unit of society - father/son, teacher/pupil, ruler/subject etc still applies - that is mutual duties, obligations and responsibilities before private individual rights. It is about 'freedom from' public insecurity, poverty, homelessness, unemployment before or rather than 'freedom to' individually publicly say, do and think, which are private freedoms like sex - to be confined within one's house.Like any paradigm it is not a judgement of what is right or wrong! Different ideologies are predicated on different priorities. With China with its population size and its hundreds if not thousands of different ethnic dialectical and cultural groups, if individuals were given free rein to do what they want before or ahead of their societal duties obligations and responsibilities China would self-implode!So, the underlying foundation of Chinese Confucian humanistic philosophy sees as its end or objective a peaceful and harmonious and virtuous society or simply put - peaceful co-existence. All else are subordinate and peripheral if not irrelevant. China's foreign policy ideology to this day is founded or expressed in the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” or Panchsheel, which were originally conceived by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and China’s first premier, Zhou Enlai, in 1954.The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence are:1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.2. Mutual non-aggression.3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.4. Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit.5. Peaceful co-existence.China discovered and realised during the Opium Wars instigated by the Western Colonial Powers that with its Three Pillars of Chinese it was not quite keeping with modern times. That the West did not accept its insularity and introverted-ness and reclusivity. In fact the Western Colonial Powers treated it as weak feeble and impotent! So, this ancient or ailing old man China in its endeavour to stay alive in these changing modern times had to inject or vaccinate itself with moderated or bespoked versions of Occidental (or Soviet) Communism and also Occidental Capitalism but suitably tailored appropriately and accordingly with Chinese characteristics so that there is no 'organ rejection', so as to evolve, to rejuvenate, to survive in modernity. In 'form' terms, China today is old China rejuvenated!Imagine how rejuvenated old China might feel with a hegemonistic young spritely America with a presumed God-ordained right to exhort - you cannot just choose to partially evolve as you so wish, you have to fully evolve to be an exact replicate of me, be an exact clone of the American democracy! What audacity! What arrogance! If that were to be the case, there will no longer be a living continuing antiquity that is China then! The Chinese will all become 'bananas', excuse the jocular!In the future therefore China would have to continue to metamorphosise with suitable 'genetic engineering' likewise with Occidental Democracy and other foreign ideologies, to get the best features out of them that suits and befits China, like it did so with Occidental Communism and Occidental Capitalism.You will note that in China unlike America, the Capitalists in the Private Sector do not control or cajole the Government - the Mandarins and the Emperor - the Communist Party. In fact in the Taoist 'yin and yang' sense the Communist Mandarins and Emperor are the countervailing power which controls the Chinese Illuminati in the Chinese capitalist private sector. The Chinese people must come first before the Chinese individuals, whether it be the Emperor, the Chinese Illuminati or otherwise. The Chinese people must come first before the interests of the Chinese corporations, Chinese multinationals and their shareholders! Because the Mandate of Heaven requires that the Emperor meets its duties, obligations and responsibilities to the Populace!One important point that Chinese Capitalism is not quite Western Capitalism is that in China urban and unclassified land is owned by the State and agricultural land is owned by rural collectives or farming communes. There is no private ownership of land in China. There is only registered or granted usage (usufructuary rights) of land for a term of tenure (up to 70 years). Land is the major source of acquisition and accretion of wealth (mainly through windfall through inflation and scarcity of land) to individuals in a Western Capitalist Democratic society like the Anglosphere. In China the wealth arising from the intrinsic land value belongs to the People!Also any proprietary right to do business or economic activity is subject to operational or occupational or professional licensing by the State. This is to curtail the exploitation of private ownership to benefit only the individuals given the licence to operate an economic activity without benefiting the rest of society. This goes back to the Taoist principle of duality and 'yin and yang' and the Confucian tenet of mutual duties, obligations and responsibilities. Even in the Zen Buddhism tenet of mutual interdependence you are taught that what you are is because of what others are or have been!You would not have the situation like in America where the corporation has the rights of an individual when in China individual rights are secondary to societal duties, obligations and responsibilities. You will not have the situation where the multinational is like its own State outside the State of the People.The same logic applies to human rights or privacy. Once you step into the public realm or terrain all is public or subject to State knowledge. Any human rights or privacy are restricted to and within the confines of your four walls at home. In China with the latest facial, genetic recognition technology, you can just walk into any bank, present your national identity card containing all your bio data, and withdraw money etc. You do not need cash or a credit card or all sorts of other documentary evidence. Why am I stating all these? It is important when we are comparing 'form' between the two horses or teams, that we know that China knows everything about its Chinese multinational corporations or their shareholders or Illuminati, that it is in full control of them and not like in America where the the Illuminati has background control of the political State of America instead.With China the Emperor is in control and more than 90% of the people are happy with the State performance whereas with America the people are divided. A nation divided does not look good on the 'form'. And the Chinese are also a very homogenous society, like the Koreans and the Japanese. Like an army of worker ants they all basically move in synchrony and rhythm.You cannot put Chinese and American nationalism at the same level. The Chinese citizens or netizens will take their own self-initiative to defend the country when it or its honour is under attack. This is another facet of Confucian ideology. This is the inexplicable Chinese Confucian concept of shame or humiliation or 'face' that cannot be fully explained or translated into Western terms. It is like we cannot explain why Muslim zealots resort to suicide bombing. Chinese netizens on their own accord would put out a clarion call to stop buying or consuming Japanese or Korean products etc. They will be tempted to do the same if required in this trade war with America. This willingness to make a personal sacrifice to put the country first before one's individual needs is an important consideration when it comes to 'form'.Last but not least in terms of Confucian ideology of work ethics and frugality in spending and conversely saving for the future and contingencies means that in terms of 'form', the Chinese work horse might not technically be a good premium Arabian steed horse when compared with the American racehorse but it is nonetheless a reliable and trusted tough assiduous and enduring resilient mule that can survive with meagre feed and spartan conditions. The Chinese cockroach against an American honey bee might be an appropriate analogy!And the Chinese working and studying twice as hard or more aside, I need not explain that whilst the Chinese save 30% or more the Americans in sharp contrast spend more than they have. The Americans spend first and pay later and thus are enslaved by the very same American multinationals that export American factories, employment, capital and technology to China. These same American multinationals 'screw' the American workers both ways - first by exporting their future livelihood and then when importing the American goods made in China back to America, then prey on the American working class to lend to them to spend on credit and oppress them usuriously like Shylock.The trade deficit is just a common syndrome of a sickness of spending more than you earn by a nation. In this case it is also because (1) the American multinationals and the Illuminati are disinclined or allergic to paying taxes or people welfare and wellbeing, on the Angloshere principle of self-help and self-initiative and self-incentive, and they are also hoarding profits and evading tax in off-shore tax havens and (2) the American Government is spending scarce capital resources on military expenditure instead of civil public infrastructure - being high tech it does not employ a huge pool of workers and also in fighting wars you are burning away money; but guess what? Defence spending is making huge profits for the American multinationals and the Illuminati behind them! What an irony!The Chinese ideology is manifesting itself in 'construction' as in OBOR/BRI, expanding infrastructure to facilitate further trading and new markets and accelerating trade logistics - all towards enhancing the volume and turnover of international or global trade but the American ideology of hegemony is manifesting itself in wanton 'destruction' and killing.Alas, it appears that I have bitten more than I can chew, I have to start writing in bullet points or this might end up as a book!Form Guide - Trump's tariff tacticsThis part is mainly for those punters who knows a bit about trade economics. America cannot negotiate away trade deficits by simply raising tariffs to protect against and reduce imports from China. Economics are not simple like that! All previous instances of raising of tariffs and the gearing up to a protectionist trade policy and forsaking freer global trade have failed. Take the failure of the raising of tariffs on China tyres by President Obama which resulted in a loss in chicken exports in retaliation.Also the result will just be a tit for tat volley exchange of ping pong. Trade wars would be internecine (mutually destructive). In this tit for tat volley America's working class consumers will suffer. Equally the American multinationals manufacturing contractors (or subcontractors as the main contractor would normally be a subsidiary in Taiwan - and so in many ways Taiwan, although politically apart, is already intricately interwoven into the 'economic' entity that is China) in China will suffer as the producers. But note that with China's peculiar intra-provincial migratory laws, most of the retrenched workers can go back to their homes and farms in the inland rural provinces. For most migrants working in the Eastern Seaboard cities is just for acquiring wealth above their subsistence or basic farm income in their home provinces. They would not be impoverished nor homeless! There is no such thing as a rural homeless man in China! That is the salvation that Communism brings. Contrast with America - where can the retrenched factory workers there go?Any housewife fighting with her neighbour as to whose sponge cake should be given preference at the local school fete knows that the solution is not to reduce the volume of trade but to increase and widen the volume and the range of cakes for sale. If A is making money from B then widen the NBL and have more teams and more games and fixtures and more spectators and reduce entrance fees and so B can be making money from C and C is making money from A. The aim is to have a bigger cake so that more people can have a slice!In any case, as I hinted above, the trade deficit starts off as an investment/savings imbalance in America. The American people as well as its Government are not saving enough and not living within their means. Trump's tariffs will put the working poor into greater debt or suffering because the same basic consumer goods that they now buy at the low non-premium non-luxurious end of the market will in the near future cost much much more, because a tariff works like a tax, and since this level of basic consumer goods are never ever going to be ever made in America - what is the point in making the working class poor suffer more? And it feeds inflation obviously! A double whammy against the working class!Also America instead of building new productive capacity that would provide new employment like spending on public infrastructure, job retraining programmes or public work schemes like building low cost housing, beautifying parks and gardens and restoring heritage sites or increasing the number of domiciliary or primary health care positions with funding from a higher tax on the American multinationals and the Illuminati, there is this wistful forlorn thought that raising tariffs will magically bring back the factories and the capital and the technology that the American multinationals exported out to China in the first place!No, it won't happen! It is all water under the bridge! The American multinationals will just shift their Offshore Productive Capacity in China to the nearby ASEAN countries and repeat there what they did in China.And when we take as an example that China makes $25 from a $850 Smartphone, not forgetting these clever American multinationals are absolutely brilliant in creatively spreading out cost and charging centres all over Korea, Taiwan, Japan etc for the different components as well as intangibles like management services or IP rights through creative accounting and tax avoidance and tax evasion, it is truly a laugh and a joke that the landed cost for customs declaration of $850 of a Smartphone is all charged against China's account. Get it! China makes $25 and the Balance of Trade docos which are neither commercial or tax accounting show China as making $850! Simply ridiculous!And guess what? You do not know whether to laugh anymore when you hear of the double jeopardy. The American multinationals then sell tons of branded goods including Smartphones to China (just go to China and see for yourself how the American multinationals are laughing at Trump for his 'ignoramus') but again because of the creative complicated web of tax avoidance and tax evasion cost and charge centres these sales to China are chalked up as sales through their intermediary subsidiaries in Korea, Singapore, HK, Taiwan and Japan. So they appear as exports to countries other than to China!So, if there were proper trade accounting China's export to America would be less than 20% of its exports, and when you contra for the counter trade in services and intangibles through cross-intermediary countries the trade deficit is perhaps a quarter of what it is. Refer back to the anecdote about increasing the range and extent and scope of the NBL. That is why when China studied the value-added to China's GDP from exports to America it was only 3%! And this ties in with economic statistics that China is its own economic engine with its homegrown boom in infrastructure stimulus and domestic consumption and the resultant shift of factories and non-financial sectors to the inland provinces. Chengdu in Sichuan Province is poised to be the new manufacturing capital of ChinaAnd with the inherent power of the Chinese government to shift direction and focus of economic activity, quite aside from market supply and demand forces, retrenched workers can just be transplanted to OBOR/BRI projects. And exports previously headed for America can now be redirected down the fenceline that is OBOR/BRI. This include a plan to shift factories now on the Eastern seaboard to the Western border regions so that they are closer logistically to land exports to Eurasia and Europe and from there to Africa via the Middle East and thus circumventing the Straits of Malacca and the Indian Ocean. This is true economic power in terms of 'moving and shaking'! America cannot say that it has this power except in shifting its overseas armed forces around the globe, which is a money spending and not a money making enterprise! What a miss of opportunity? Why not join the OBOR/BRI and make it a more enhanced OBOR/BRI?Form Guide - Other Considerations"Made in China 2025.” This refers to the Strategic Economic Plan that China released in 2015 listing 10 industries that China wants to develop: (1) advanced information technology; (2) robotics and automated machine tools; (3) aviation and aerospace equipment; (4) marine engineering equipment, (5) modern rail transportation equipment; (6) electric and other new energy vehicles; (7) electrical generation and transmission equipment; (8) agricultural machinery and equipment; (9) new materials; (10) biopharmaceutics and other advanced medical devices.So it appears that Trump's tantrum is not about trade wars after all but about an Artificial Intelligence War. Accordingly, Trump’s rhetoric complaining that China had forced its American multinationals to give up their IT and AI technology in the past to get to their current productive export capacity and ruining America, is getting nowhere with anyone with a legal background. Come on! These American multinationals can afford better lawyers than Trump and are properly wealthier than the political State of America! Let them sue their China subcontractor for breach of contract or breach of good faith or even sue China for breach of fair trading with the WTO. I suspect the tariffs is just a ruse to come up with a ban of American IT and AI exports by the American multinationals to China and also bar China or Chinese multinationals from acquiring IT and AI companies in America.In that case call a spade a spade and not obfuscate and be mendacious about the trade deficit. Refer - Trump’s Trade War Isn’t About Trade. It’s About Technology. - MacroPoloBut the China bull has bolted! China has been the world leader in new patents in IT and AI and high tech the last few years. The disciple is now one of the masters. But the real master is still the American multinationals and the Illuminati. That is why there has been a ban in China on many of the global sites. All I will say is remember Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.America owes lots of money to China! China currently holds or owns about 19% of foreign held U.S. Treasury notes or simply put U.S.$ of about $1.17 trillion at the end of January 2018. Its main use currently is for China is to facilitate conversion from Yuan to U.S.$ for the Yuan is not yet a world fiat currency like the U.S.$. But when it comes to the crunch and a fight to the death, if China were to sell its U.S.$ holding there will be another global depression that the America will never fully recover from. It will be like a bank going bankrupt. It will never be the same bank again! Refer - How Much Does the U.S. Owe China?Speaking of global fiat or reserve currency China last week launched a yuan-denominated crude oil futures market. The new “petro-yuan” will be convertible into physical gold at the Shanghai and Hong Kong gold exchanges. Imagine how enticing it is for nations who are sick and tired of the bullying by America that petroleum can only be globally traded in U.S.$. Gaddafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq tried to sell petroleum in gold or equivalent (the U.S.$ is no longer convertible or fully backed by gold) and got killed! At long last! Crude oil futures contracts priced in yuan fully convertible into gold. Just imagine! It is God-sent for petroleum producers like Russia, Iran and Venezuela. In fact it is God-sent to any part of the world that wants no dealing with America. Just imagine Trump causing inflation by raising tariffs followed by such countries asking to redeem their U.S.$ holdings. This two pincer approach will result in hyper inflation that will bring the American economy crashing down. Refer - China taking the long road to solve the petro-yuan puzzleJust as an aside India and China and the Middle Eastern countries, or should I say its peoples, have a tradition of hoarding gold and gold jewellery. It is a common dowry item in a marriage. So China does not have to rely on itself to buy gold. the Chinese people themselves have a tradition to buy gold. This is an important element or point to remember about the facility that 'petro-yuan' provides convertibility into gold and indeed U.S.$ because China has all three - Yuan, gold and U.S.$.Sorry to have to cut in short in the latter half, as it was getting too long for an answer to a simple short question.But you, the reader, can make up your own mind on this form guide of mine, as to who you think will win this trade war. Whoever wins, in my opinion, it will be a Pyrrhic victory.As to other nations I would say, stand back and just watch and study and work out the arbitrage in the differential relative tariff rates and then move in for the kill. Make money out of both China and America. Be like the American multinationals and its Illuminati - weave your way through a cobweb of intermediary countries - make a monkey out of the WTO because there is no standard trade accounting regime that matches and synchronises with public listed company tax accounting. Go on, have a hundred sets of books and fiddle the books and practise creative accounting and tax avoidance and tax evasion. Join the Anglosphere! Everyman for himself!The real enemy is not America, Russia or China or the ordinary working man in these countries. It is the faceless Illuminati behind the multinationals - the State san frontier!Footnote*1Try to imagine America and China as 'Apple' and 'Orange'. They have different psyche and mindset. I shall illustrate it by way of Chinese 'wei-qi' v American or Western 'chess'. Wei-Qi is the same game as Gomaku in Japanese and Baduk in Korean. It is played by two players like in Chess. But instead of the medieval chess pieces of soldiers, knights, bishops, castles and King and Queen, in Wei-Qi all you have are stone pebbles in black and white. One player has black and the other white pebbles.In Chess you win when you get the other player's King. In Chess it is a game of fight till you win or when both side are stalemated as in both are as equally as good as dead with all the pieces gone.In Wei-Qi, you take alternate turns to insert your respective black or white stones across the grid, in a manner where you acquire or 'fence' in as much territory as you can. Nobody gets 'killed'. All pebbles are the same worth. In war and strategy, every pebble counts, whether King or soldier, you are of equal worth. In Chinese thought if Kings fight wars then victory can only depend on the quality of the King. But if wars are fought on the basis of a people v another people, no 'people' can ever lose! For all 'people's have their entitlement under the sun. The failure to understand this tenet is why the West or America will continue to lose in a foreign place or the home of a particular 'people' like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Iran. The Western Chess mentality is a stratagem of doom and failure!The issue in Wei-Qi is simply only who has more territory relative to the other. It is not about winning or losing but about win-win, except one win is relatively speaking a better win than the other. But both still win in anycase. It has always to be win-win. Because one type of people have to peacefully co-exist with other people. Unless one thinks in the absurd hegemonistic sense that the world can only be of exclusively white stones or exclusively black stones. That is why Sun-Tzu in his 'Art of War' stresses that victory is no victory if you do not allow the defeated to lose honourably - that he can be allowed to go back to his own territory leaving you in peace, and the victor also leaving the defeated in peace. It is not a virtuous or honourable victory if you do not respect life or honour the dead of both protagonists, of both peoples. All people are families. They have parents and children. They have two eyes, a nose, two ears, a mouth and a need to live!And so, America sees victory only when it wins 'totally'. If China were America, it would not have bombed Nagasaki or Hiroshima. America would still have won WWII and in fact had defeated the Japanese at the time that America decided to test out its atomic bomb on the Japanese. Anyway, this question is not about WWII.So, both in Korea and Vietnam, the Chinese were playing Wei-Qi but the Americans were playing Western Chess.Vincent Cheok @ https://whirlwindrambler.com/

Just to expand on Wray Rives’s answer there are other taxes you might pay if you own and operate a business. Here are some of the other statewide taxes and fees. The information was taken from the Comptroller’s website. Some are multi taxes, like the various 911 fees, insurance taxes, various tobacco taxes, others are like the boat and motor tax you don’t see them asked about on Quora very often. The “SOB tax” at the bottom is one that causes a lot of grumbling. So here you go…Texas Taxes and Fees9-1-1 Fees and SurchargeAutomotive Oil Sales FeeBattery Sales FeeThose who sell, store, use or consume new or used lead-acid batteries (not for resale)Boat and Boat MotorIf you bought a boat in Texas, you'll owe sales tax. If you brought a boat into Texas from outside the state, you'll owe use tax. The purchaser of a taxable boat or boat motor in Texas is responsible for paying the boat and boat motor sales tax.RATE: 6 1/4 (.0625) percent of sales price minus any trade-in allowance of another taxable boat or boat motor.Cement ProductionAnyone who manufactures or produces cement in Texas, or imports cement into Texas; and distributes or sells the cement in intrastate commerce or uses the cement in Texas.Coastal ProtectionEvery person who owns crude oil or condensate in a vessel must pay the Coastal Protection Fee when the crude oil or condensate is transferred to or from a marine terminal in Texas.Coin-Operated Machines TaxCrude OilThe first purchaser of crude oil in Texas must pay tax based on crude oil’s market value.FranchiseThe Texas franchise tax is a privilege tax imposed on each taxable entity formed or organized in Texas or doing business in Texas.HotelHotel owners, operators or managers must collect state hotel occupancy tax from their guests who rent a room or space in a hotel costing $15 or more each day. The tax applies not only to hotels and motels, but also to bed and breakfasts, condominiums, apartments and houses.Insurance Taxes, Assessments and FeesLoan Administration FeeManufactured HousingManufacturers of industrialized housing and manufactured homes collect manufactured housing sales tax upon the first sale of a new manufactured home in Texas.Miscellaneous Gross ReceiptsA utility company, including a retail electric provider (REP), must pay this tax if it is doing business within an incorporated city or town having a population greater than 1,000 according to the last federal census.Mixed Beverage TaxesBoth mixed beverage gross receipts tax and mixed beverage sales tax apply to sales of alcoholic beverages (beer, wine and distilled spirits) by a mixed beverage permittee. A sales tax permit is also required, whether or not the permittee sells nonalcoholic beverages, food or other items. Motor Fuels and IFTAMotor Vehicle TaxesNatural GasNatural gas taxes are primarily paid by a producer.Oil and Gas Well Servicing (“242 Tax”)· own, control, or furnish the tools, instruments and equipment used in providing well service; or· use any chemical, electrical or mechanical process in providing service at any oil or gas well during the drilling and completion, or reworking or reconditioning, of the oil or gas well.Oyster Sales FeeThe first certified shellfish dealer who harvests, purchases, handles, stores, packs, labels, unloads at dockside or holds oysters taken from Texas waters must pay the fee.Pari-MutuelThe racetrack pays tax on the amount of money wagered on horse and greyhound racing (includes simulcast).Property Tax· Texas has no state property tax, only locals.Public Utility Gross Receipts AssessmentRetail Charge Agreement Delinquency FeeSales and UseSexually Oriented Business Fee (“SOB Tax”)Sexually oriented businesses that provide live nude entertainment or live nude performances and authorize on-premises consumption of alcoholic beverages, regardless of whether the business is required to hold a license or permit under the Alcoholic Beverage Code, must pay this fee.Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) - Off Road Heavy Duty Diesel Equipment Surchargeapplies to the sale, use, lease or rental of off-road, heavy-duty diesel equipment and is based on the sale, lease or rental amount.Tobacco Taxes and Fees