Germany has undergone significant political transformations throughout its history. It was unified as a nation in 1871, followed by a constitutional monarchy from 1871 to 1919. From 1919 to 1933, it experienced the democratic governance of the Weimar Republic, which was later replaced by Hitler’s totalitarian rule from 1933 to 1945. After World War II, from 1945 to 1949, Germany was under the control of the four Allied powers before transitioning to democratic constitutional governance from 1949 to the present day. This history of over a century serves as a testament that democracy is not necessarily straight forward; there is always the possibility of a shift towards dictatorship. Every citizen in a democratic society must cherish and uphold their rights, ensuring that those in power do not inflate their authority without limits.

Today, as Trump has become the President of the United States in less than a month, he has already demonstrated his determination to use his power as the leader of the world’s most powerful nation to reshape the global order. Every country is directly or indirectly affected by the policies he implements under the slogan “Make America Great Again.” For Australia, the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on global steel imports—while considering exemptions for Australia due to their special relationship—has influenced the Australian government’s response to America’s dominating stance and its treatment of other nations and their people.

Without consulting the will of the Palestinian people, the United States plans to rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip while barring Palestinians from returning—an act that clearly constitutes a policy of ethnic cleansing. However, Prime Minister Albanese has merely reiterated Australia’s continued support for the United Nations’ long-standing two-state solution, without explicitly opposing Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to strip millions of people of their right to live on this land. This kind of unprincipled “political pragmatism” is deeply disheartening. In essence, it is no different from the “appeasement policy” implemented by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain before World War II.

At the time when the democratic Weimar Republic in Germany elected a totalitarian leader like Hitler, the world’s tolerance of authoritarian rulers ultimately led to World War II. Today, Donald Trump, backed by popular support for his vision to “revive America,” has made bold proposals, such as reclaiming control of the Panama Canal, openly yelling to force on the purchase of resource-rich yet sparsely populated strategic territories like Greenland, and even suggesting that Canada should become the 51st state of the United States. Furthermore, he views the war-torn Gaza Strip, far away in Palestine, as land for American-led redevelopment—considering it a necessary step to achieve “America First.”. Such actions not only fuel the fanaticism of nationalists but also pose a direct threat to global peace.

As a mediocre nation in the Pacific, it is indeed soul-searching on how should Australia navigate China’s rise, America’s assertive dominance, and the growing ambitions of other nations?  While we lack the ability to change the course of global events, our ability to reduce direct conflicts between nations—and avoid being drawn into them—depends on the vision and ability of our political leaders.

With the upcoming federal election, will the leaders we choose offer us hope? One can only pray that God will raise the right leaders for Australia.

Mr. Raymond Chow, Publisher of Sameway Magazine

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a presidential executive order on February 1 that imposed additional tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, Canada, and China, specifying that small-dollar imports of less than 800 U.S. dollars would also be included in the scope of the tax. The move is believed to target Chinese e-commerce companies such as Temu and Shein, which have taken advantage of the duty-free policy on small-value imports to rapidly expand their share of the U.S. market. The latest news is that Trump has signed another executive order temporarily freezing tariffs on low-cost packages from China so that specific arrangements can be made. The White House did not specify how long the administration plans to delay the tariffs.

Fast Fashion Brand SHEIN Dominates Overseas Markets with Low Prices

Chinese e-commerce is pervasive

Temu has been expanding overseas since September 2020, and ECDB (e-commerce database) figures show an exponential increase in web traffic and app downloads in May 2023 compared to April. Not only Temu, but also Shein, Aliexpress, and JD have taken their domestic competition to the global market, creating a wave of Chinese e-commerce platform shopping around the world. In the midst of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the inflationary impact of the new Covid-19 pandemic in Europe and the United States, low-cost products have become more attractive to European and American consumers, and have even relieved them of their tight wallets.

In the U.S., Temu bills itself as a 2022 Boston-based, Delaware-registered business that ships products directly from manufacturers and suppliers. According to industry analysis, Temu’s primary operator is its Chinese parent company, Pinduoduo, which was founded in Guangdong in 2019. Leveraging Pinduoduo’s experience in grabbing the market with low prices in China, Temu has not only rapidly built up its user base in Europe and the U.S. through extensive advertising and referrals from friends, but has even attracted consumers who boycotted Amazon because they thought it was a monopoly e-commerce company. On the other hand, Shein is a cross-border B2C Internet enterprise focusing on women’s fast fashion, which was founded in October 2008 with the goal of “enjoying the beauty of fashion for everyone”. Shein’s business focuses on women’s fast fashion, and it has entered major markets such as North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and South America, and directly serves consumers in more than 150 countries around the world, with an APP that covers more than 50 languages globally, and owns 11 private labels. 2020, during the outbreak of the New Crown epidemic, the apparel industry was hit hard, and Zara announced that its revenue had been cut by half in February-April, and it decided to close 1,200 stores. Zara announced that its revenues would be almost halved from February to April and decided to close 1,200 stores. At the same time, Shein’s sales exceeded $40 billion in the first half of 2020, and with a total valuation of more than $15 billion in E-round financing, it has become the apparel brand that is most likely to challenge Zara’s leading position.

One of the secrets of these e-commerce companies’ “pie in the sky” approach to overseas markets is their ability to understand and take advantage of local laws. The costs of cross-border e-commerce include marketing, customer acquisition, cost of goods, and transportation. Currently, Temu and Shein are taking advantage of the Universal Postal Agreement to utilize free parcel post and tariff exemptions to significantly reduce costs. In the U.S., for example, if the value of imported goods is less than $800, duty-free measures apply (the De Minimis rule); the De Minimis rule has been used by Temu, Shein, and other Chinese low-cost e-commerce companies that have been growing rapidly in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years. These companies deliver goods directly from Chinese factories and warehouses to U.S. consumers through air transportation and other means, realizing non-taxable sales and thus suppressing prices. Compared with U.S. e-commerce companies such as Amazon, which have built warehouses and logistics networks within the U.S., Chinese e-commerce companies have stronger price competitiveness. Trump’s latest tariff policy has changed the status quo.

Building warehouses in the U.S., in addition to increased customs declaration fees and tariffs, but also additional transportation costs, and inventory and management logistics costs, it is clear that operating costs will increase significantly.

Seeking survival in the midst of uncertainty

Trump’s policy is a bit like the wolf coming to the rescue. Today he says he will levy taxes, but tomorrow he says he will not do so for the time being. Just when the media are clamoring that cross-border e-commerce overnight, the U.S. tariff policy has changed again – Trump signed an executive order that will continue to allow low-cost product parcels from China to enter the U.S. tariff-free for the time being. The U.S. will continue to provide “de minimis” tariff exemptions for goods from China until the Department of Commerce “establishes adequate systems to fully and expeditiously process and collect tariff revenues”. This change is a win for Chinese e-commerce platforms such as Temu and Shein, which ship directly to the U.S. and are very popular with cost-conscious shoppers, and a relief for U.S.-based consumers, who face higher costs on retail goods shipped from China.

According to statistics, approximately 4 million small-dollar packages valued at less than $800 are shipped from China to the U.S. every day. While this may not be a “big deal” in the huge volume of U.S.-China economic and trade transactions, the pain of eliminating the small-dollar exemption could easily and quickly be transmitted to the nerve endings of U.S. society, given that most of these packages consist of items that American citizens and businesses need on a daily basis, such as low-priced apparel, toys, and electronics, as well as production necessities such as screws and valves, and so on. Perhaps this immediate impact on people’s livelihoods is the main reason behind the policy’s hasty braking.

Nevertheless, Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies such as Temu and Shein are still trembling in fear of Trump’s unpredictable style of governance. In the future, in the face of unpredictable tariff policy changes, cross-border e-commerce large enterprises will choose to enter local warehouses to reduce tariffs, but a group of cross-border e-commerce ordinary sellers are complaining that because of the lack of ability to large-volume warehousing, it will be even more affected in the future. In particular, if the United States takes the lead, will Europe and Japan follow suit? There is a trend in the European Union to remove the exemption for goods under 150 euros, and Japan has a tax-free policy for parcels under 1,000 yen in value. If the whole world adjusts the tax exemption policy for small parcels, the future days of ordinary cross-border e-commerce sellers in China will definitely not be as good as before. In response to the uncertainty of U.S. trade policy, Shein and Temu have opened distribution centers in the U.S. that allow sellers to ship their goods to the U.S. and store them in local warehouses, from which they are shipped to U.S. consumers. As they have become the largest and most monopolized supply platforms, these changes will of course drive up the price of goods, but in the absence of strong competition, it is believed that these companies are still quite capable of facing new challengers.

Who pays the price?

With the slogan “Shop like a Billionaire”, Temu is using an extremely low pricing strategy that is killing it in overseas markets. Against the backdrop of shipping overseas, Temu sells sneakers for RMB 45, glasses for RMB 13, sunglasses for RMB 8, cell phone holders for RMB 9, drones for RMB 110, and handheld vacuum cleaners for RMB 40, which is an unbelievably low price. In fact, this comes from the plight of China’s foreign trade since 2022: due to the dynamic zero and “de-risking” of China’s foreign trade suffered a super-expected decline, domestic enterprises have a large amount of inventory backlog. This backlog of inventory is better than rotting in warehouses, no matter how low the price is, as long as the payback cycle is fast. This, coupled with high inflationary pressures in Western societies after 2023, has led to a huge increase in consumer demand for cheaper goods. Against this backdrop, Temu has become the world’s second largest e-commerce company after Amazon, and behind its glittering results are dealers who are crying out for help. Shein, the same fast-fashion brand as Temu, also offers ridiculously cheap clothing. In this supply chain, a large number of laborers working in textile factories in Panyu, Guangzhou, are being squeezed – companies are squeezing social justice and the rule of law to keep costs down, and leaving all the costs to suppliers and employees.

The emergence of this phenomenon was very similar to the oppression of workers’ rights by capitalists after the Industrial Revolution. Workers migrated from the countryside to the cities, leaving the land that provided the basic living conditions, and had to rely on their labor to earn a living, without the ability to bargain with the capitalists. Eventually, social instability evolved over a long period of time, resulting in a slight improvement for workers in developed countries through the enactment of labor protection legislation by the government. Cross-border e-commerce like Temu and Shein, where the benefits go to the company and the costs are passed on to the suppliers and workers, is very unlikely to happen in developed countries. However, the same cannot be said for populous countries such as China or India.

Product Quality and Intellectual Property

Consumers may order from these Chinese e-commerce platforms to save money, but product quality is a growing concern in many countries. In addition, counterfeiting is another issue that has been cited as a major market disruptor for low-cost products in China – the protection of anonymity and low thresholds for use on the internet have made e-commerce platforms the best place to sell counterfeits, and Shein’s history of plagiarism is legion, with international brands such as Ralph Lauren, Levi’s, and Zara, as well as Chinese Taobao, being some of the best sellers. Shein has a history of copying everything from international brands such as Ralph Lauren, Levi’s, and Zara to popular clothing on Taobao in China, and has even been accused by the Mexican Ministry of Culture of directly copying the workmanship and patterns of the traditional Mexican embroidery, Huipil. In the face of these lawsuits, Shein seems to be unaffected by the controversy, claiming that the infringing goods were designed independently by the merchants, and that the liability and compensation are borne by the merchants, not by Shein, and that Shein’s huge profits are shared by the entire community.

Personal data becomes a commodity

What’s more, the security of personal data is a matter of great concern. Not many people are aware that when a person makes a purchase on an online platform or uses a service (such as enjoying a TikTok video or one of China’s most popular dramas), the user not only receives the service, but also becomes part of the collective data collected by the platform. These data can be used to analyze various human behaviors, and to know and predict their activities and reactions in other areas. The platforms can also use the feedback to change the services they provide to the users or the products they recommend, thus controlling the users to stay on the platforms. Therefore, if these cross-border e-commerce companies become significant suppliers of shopping to people in other countries, it can be argued that they also become a way for China to influence other countries.

For example, Temu collects more information than is necessary for online shopping, including personal biometrics (such as fingerprints) and other data. The difference between China and the West in terms of data ownership is that the West uses data through accountability systems, but Chinese companies and governments are very vague about how they will use consumer data, and you don’t know how the data you leave behind will be used.

Conclusion

Temu and Shein are two cross-border platforms that have long been under the scrutiny of Western governments due to their “over-success” in penetrating Western societies and their enormous potential to influence society. Plus, they have long been criticized for labor exploitation in their supply chains, prompting investigations into their ethical sourcing practices. Ironically, while countries like Europe and the United States are pointing fingers and blaming China for its human rights situation, their people are consuming and enjoying products produced by forced labor and low wages; especially at a time of rampant inflation, consumers in the Western world will “vote with their feet” and make their own choices whether to boycott or to comply.

Trump’s order to cancel the tariff exemption for small packages today has attracted global attention as to how much it will affect these companies, and whether it will lead to a new direction of development in the globalization of cross-border e-commerce, so let’s wait and see.

Article/Editorial Department Sameway Magazine

Photo/Internet

Dictators Elected by Democracy

Before and after World War I, countries around the world that had been governed by authoritarian empires moved towards becoming constitutional monarchies or democratic republics, recognizing that the power to govern came from the people and was returned to the people in the form of democracy. The Czar of Russia, the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire all disappeared from history. However, more than a hundred years later, in the name of democracy, there are still a lot of dictators in the world who rule their countries according to their own personal preferences, and also influence the peace and development of the world under the banner of national security or hegemony. Hitler and Mussolini, who led to the Second World War, were both national leaders elected by the people of their countries on a one-person-one-vote basis. It can be said that people can democratically elect dictators and rule them with totalitarian power.

Today, after Trump’s strong governance of the United States from 2017 to 2020, he has become the president of the United States again, and it seems that he has used the power given to him by the Americans without any reservation, both at home and abroad, and he has shown his true colours of a great dictator.

Given Trump’s ambition and temperament, he would like to be a “dictator”, and he is envious of those powerful political figures in the world who are in control of their power and who are not subject to any rule, but it is a pity that America’s “democratic system”, “separation of powers”, and “historical tradition” have made it difficult for him to fulfill his ambitions. However, he always wants to try to break through the barriers and have a good time. For example, a few days ago, Trump claimed that he planned to allow the US to “take over” and “own” Gaza and resettle its residents in the process. Instead of being silenced by the outcry, Trump once again said he was “committed to buying and owning Gaza” and said he might hand over parts of the territory to other countries in the Middle East to rebuild. No matter how absurd Trump’s statements are, they still have repercussions and political consequences because Trump is the President of the United States – the most powerful man in the world.

There is no doubt that the U.S. Constitution gives the President enormous power to make executive orders to govern the internal affairs of the United States. But the use of these executive orders also allows the US president to exert great influence over the rest of the world. Trump’s claims before his inauguration that he would “take back” the Panama Canal in order to protect the security of the United States, that he would “buy” Greenland from a disagreeing Denmark, or that he would demand or “invite” Canada to become the 51st state of the United States by way of tariffs, have surprised the world, and Trump’s mindset seems to be that he has the power to rule over any country in the world.

Trump’s latest astonishing statement is that the century-old endless dispute between Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East over land sovereignty can be permanently resolved by the US “taking over and rebuilding” the crumbling Gaza Strip, which he is convinced the Palestinians want. Such fantasies emphasize Trump’s inner egotist.

/Trump’s Comprehensive Victory and Return

Potential for more chaos

In recent days, the international community has criticized President Donald Trump’s recent comments that the U.S. would “take over” the Gaza Strip, and has objected to the relocation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries. Hamas (Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement) called his remarks “absurd and reflective of his profound ignorance of Palestine and the region”; and its Politburo member Izzat Rashek condemned Trump’s remarks about “buying and owning” the Gaza Strip, stating that the Gaza Strip is “not real estate to be bought and sold” but is an integral part of Palestine, and that it is not appropriate to deal with the Gaza Strip with the mentality of a real estate developer, but with the mentality of an American real estate developer, who has been in charge of the Gaza Strip. It is an integral part of Palestine, and approaching it with a real estate developer’s mentality will only lead to failure.

Many Palestinians in Gaza might consider leaving if given the chance, but even if a million left, as many as 1.2 million would remain. Obviously, the United States – the new owner of what Trump has called “the Riviera of the Middle East” – will have to use force to expel them. This idea is also expected to cause a backlash within the US after its disastrous intervention in Iraq in 2003. Moreover, it would put an end to any lingering hope for a two-state solution. That hope is that the century-long conflict could end with the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. In the past, Israel’s Netanyahu government was adamantly opposed to this idea, and over the years of failed peace negotiations, “two states for two peoples” became an empty slogan.

One high-level Arab source even told the media that in the short term, Trump’s surprise announcement could weaken Gaza’s fragile ceasefire. This is because the lack of a plan for the future governance of Gaza has become a fault line in the agreement. Many Palestinians already believe that Israel is using its war on Hamas to destroy Gaza and expel its inhabitants. This is part of their charge that Israel is committing genocide – and now that Trump has offered a plan, they may think that Trump is adding bullets to Israel’s plan. Undoubtedly, Trump’s plan creates enormous uncertainty, injecting more instability into one of the world’s most volatile regions.

A Major Shock to the International Order

Unlike traditional dictators, today’s dictators usually rise in democratic political environments. The United States is not naturally immune to dictators. During World War II, dictatorship was fashionable among the American elite. Eleanor Roosevelt once suggested to her husband that the country might need a “benevolent dictator” to lead it out of the Great Depression. This was not quelled until after Pearl Harbor. Robert Kagan, who has served as a foreign policy adviser to a number of Republicans, has written for the Washington Post that there is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and that path is getting shorter every day. Given Trump’s intuition, past behavior, and control of the Republican Party, his second term in office is barely a month old and has already shown the world that he is further weakening democracy.

By proposing to ‘own’ the Gaza Strip and carry out so-called ‘redevelopment’ after ‘permanently’ relocating the Palestinians, Trump has once again demonstrated his alarming global hegemonic stance. Behind this statement is not only indifference to the fate of the people of Gaza and further oppression of the Palestinian people, but also a new manifestation of U.S. global hegemony and a naked challenge to the international order and regional stability. Trump’s use of US power to establish an “American-style” order on Palestinian land will undoubtedly exacerbate the already complicated political situation in the Middle East, and will further demonstrate his ambitions.

The Gaza Strip is a scenic area on the Mediterranean coast, and Trump apparently believes that if he can move its inhabitants out, he can rebuild the region to America’s advantage. The point is not whether the idea is feasible, but that Trump’s America, as the world’s current superpower, thinks so and wants to incorporate into the United States any place that is profitable, be it Canada, Greenland, Gaza, or Panama. The United Nations has been gradually weakened over the last two decades and if Trump moves forward in this manner, there will be nothing left but an empty shell in this period. The same fate may befall international law and treaties as a human legacy.

The Long fight between Democracy and Dictatorship

Democracy, which gives power to the people, aligns the interests of the rulers and the ruled, and brings freedom, justice and equality, is considered by many to be a political panacea. Many people believe that democracy is a political panacea. Regrettably, ever since the birth of democracy, there have been endless doubts about it, the most typical one being “Hitler was also elected by the German people one vote at a time”. Democracy is by no means indestructible. The defeat of democracy in the ancient Greek city-state of Athens by the authoritarian regime of Sparta notwithstanding, the third wave of democratization has seen a return to authoritarianism. Some important countries have seen the emergence of powerful political figures with authoritarian overtones in their democracies. Apart from Vladimir Putin, there are also the likes of Modi in India, Erdogan in Turkey, and Orban in Hungary, who have been re-elected several times and practiced authoritarian rule internally. Some other countries have simply staged coups to overthrow their elected governments and practiced military dictatorship, such as Myanmar. In recent years, in developed countries such as Europe, a number of far-right regimes have come to power.

Since the Obama years, the two-party politics in the United States have gradually become polarized and torn internally. In the four years of Trump and Biden, this phenomenon has become more and more obvious, and has gradually become an extreme confrontation, and the dysfunction and disorder of the American democracy has worsened. The New York Review of Books has published an article pointing out that the United States is already a “nation of two”, with the Republican Party and the Democratic Party leading two sharply opposed national groups, each forming a federal government, and the United States of America has become a “divided nation of the United States of America”.

Due opposition is, of course, part of a democratic system of government, and only in this way can the ruling party be checked and balanced. However, opposition for the sake of opposition often paralyzes government operations and prevents effective policy agendas from moving forward. This is the dilemma of American democracy today, and it is also the common dilemma of human beings who have yet to find a viable path in the development of civilization. Donald Trump has once again won the presidential election, and the Republican Party is still dominant in the House of Representatives and the Senate. With no congressional constraints and no pressure to be re-elected, Trump has undoubtedly created a perfect opportunity for his “one voice”.

In the evolution of human civilization, “democracy” is relatively the least bad system, and history has also shown us that “democracy” can also elect “dictatorial” leaders, and has brought about global disasters in history, as in the case of Germany, where the Nazi Party was elected as the ruling party by popular vote. In recent years, from the UK’s referendum to leave the European Union, to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, to the rise of the far-right in Germany after the election ……, the biggest crisis in the world today may not be the financial crisis or global warming, but rather the hearts and minds of the people – the world’s growing desperation for the seemingly unsustainable model of capitalism, and with it, their loss of faith in the “voting” system of democracy. After all, the effectiveness of democracy is based on its ability to work. After all, the effectiveness of democracy is based on the rationality of the electorate, but the absurdity is that expecting the electorate to vote on the basis of their rational decisions is a near-impossible task. Now we have come to a fork in the road – the hard-earned foundations of America’s founding fathers may prevent Trump from turning the United States into a dictatorship, but with Trump’s consistent disregard for the norms of democracy, it is undeniable that America’s democracy will be jeopardized, and the world will become a much more dangerous place. Probably the only lesson mankind has learned from history is that it is impossible to learn any lessons from history.

Article/Editorial Department, Sameway Magazine

Photo/Internet