As we discussed in the earlier article, Starbucks primarily serves a demographic from which demandis relatively priceinelastic, meaning that changes in price does not impact demand.
There are plenty of reasons that American demand for Chinese goods ispriceinelastic including, most importantly, that there are limited substitutes for those goods.
The fundamental point is that, in the presence of inelastic supply curves, demand-side subsidies face a headwind of adverse price effects, while direct public provision gets a tail wind of favorable price effects.