> But your post does a job of framing this chain of events as if China was entirely at fault.
I did say that Western countries should have proactively prevented this through trade restrictions. Free trade sucks when your trading partner doesn't care about pooping in their own yard for some short term gain. Sometimes developed western countries need to step up because the other country is being irresponsible and just can't manage to do the right thing for their own interests on their own.
Exactly. Free trade only works well if both countries are playing by the same rules. Which I guess is why trade deals take years and hundreds of diplomat hours to arrange.
There is no motivation to stop it. China doesn't want to do it because they would have to hike prices to offset the cost, thus making them less competitive. US companies don't want to change anything because they don't want to start paying for proper disposal either.
Also, free trade is freedom from regulations / tariffs, etc. I always thought it was free to compete (i.e. anti-trusts / monopoly). Silly me.
So it could be said this is a direct result of free trade in it's classical economic term.
Considering that China has now banned importing most of this kind of waste, it seems likely that the waste operators weren't operating in accordance with government policy in the first place.
Yes, but since China lacks much rule of law its not like there was any hope they would act accordingly in the first place. The only kind of regulations that really work in China are heavy handed ones (ban to-recycle-waste from entering at all, ban coal from being used at all, etc...).
I did say that Western countries should have proactively prevented this through trade restrictions. Free trade sucks when your trading partner doesn't care about pooping in their own yard for some short term gain. Sometimes developed western countries need to step up because the other country is being irresponsible and just can't manage to do the right thing for their own interests on their own.