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Chinese manufacturers turn inward
- simonblack 6y agoWhy put the future of your livelihood on the whims of those weird foreigners, when you can supply the much larger local markets and have a better idea what local long-term demand will be like? The whole of the West (5 eyes plus Europe) is a smaller market than just China. I know which market I'd be choosing if I was Chinese.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoLeaving the current situation aside, it has long been the view of many economists that the Chinese economy was imbalanced and too export-oriented, and that the next step of its development ought to be to develop domestic consumption. Like you say, that also has the nice benefit of potentially providing a huge cushion for Chinese companies, and that's already somewhat the case. Cynically I'd say that's also partly why the US is trying to cut Huawei's supply chain: Banning them from the US will not hurt them that much, but cutting off their supply chain will.
- simonblack 6y agoMany Americans say "Who will buy from the Chinese if the US doesn't? We have them over a barrel." That's a fallacy. The whole of the foreign export market is only about 20% of the Chinese economy. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?location... The US only makes up about 20% of those exports. So, in fact, the US purchases make up merely (20% of 20%) or roughly 4% of the Chinese economy. China could easily lose all of that without damage. Its GDP generally grows 4-6% per year. It might be slightly painful, but other growth in the economy would replace those losses within roughly 12-18 months.