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Property rights and such are secondary. The primary issue is: who has the power? Right now the answer to that question is "US", but since China is catching up o

by 988747 4y ago

Property rights and such are secondary. The primary issue is: who has the power? Right now the answer to that question is "US", but since China is catching up on GDP, and, unlike US, actually manufactures things. If China decides that they want payments for all the goods that they export to be in RMB then there's nothing the rest of the world can do about it, except stop all the imports from China (which would take decades, because they have to learn to manufacture all those goods themselves). Once most of your imports come from China instead of the US it does make sense to use Chinese currency as the reserve currency, since you are going to need a lot of RMB to pay for your imports anyway.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
Saudi Arabia (to pick a major oil exporter) imports about 20% of its goods from China. But it also imports vastly more from regional partners and the US and Europe, not to mention that it depends on the US to secure all of its oil exports to China across thousands of miles of vulnerable ocean routes.
ethbr0 4y ago
China can't tank imports until they finish pivoting to their own internal, consumptive middle class. And probably not even then. The plan the international community hoped for is actually somewhat working, the timeline for China's giant population to metabolize it was just wrong. Large Chinese middle class = power = political risk to disrupting the economy = incentive not to rock the international trade boat's status quo. The CCP is already seeing with the anger over zero-COVID that {middle class life} >> {good of the Party} for most of the population. Unfortunately, China probably also learned from the USSR that the entire charade only collapses when you blink and refrain from using the military to crush civilian dissent. Which doesn't bode well for Chinese citizens...
- FpUser 4y ago
  >"Unfortunately, China probably also learned from the USSR that the entire charade only collapses when you blink and refrain from using the military to crush civilian dissent." Baloney. USSR did not crush because of "civilian dissent". All the changes were driven from the top.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    The Berlin Wall fell because the East German authorities and the USSR declined to shoot civilians. And the fact that order wasn't given was mostly due to bureaucratic ineptitude and delay, rather than intent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall#Crowding_of_the_border https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall#Crow... It could have easily been Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Georgia 1989 instead. Progress trends towards freedom, but it can walk over a lot of corpses on its way there. :(
    - FpUser 4y ago
      Berlin Wall did not cause the collapse of the USSR, it was one of the results of generally declining empire and change of it policies that again came from the top. Gorby and Reagan had decided to be "friends"

by 988747 4y ago

matthewdgreen 4y ago

Saudi Arabia (to pick a major oil exporter) imports about 20% of its goods from China. But it also imports vastly more from regional partners and the US and Europe, not to mention that it depends on the US to secure all of its oil exports to China across thousands of miles of vulnerable ocean routes.

ethbr0 4y ago

China can't tank imports until they finish pivoting to their own internal, consumptive middle class. And probably not even then. The plan the international community hoped for is actually somewhat working, the timeline for China's giant population to metabolize it was just wrong. Large Chinese middle class = power = political risk to disrupting the economy = incentive not to rock the international trade boat's status quo. The CCP is already seeing with the anger over zero-COVID that {middle class life} >> {good of the Party} for most of the population. Unfortunately, China probably also learned from the USSR that the entire charade only collapses when you blink and refrain from using the military to crush civilian dissent. Which doesn't bode well for Chinese citizens...

FpUser 4y ago
>"Unfortunately, China probably also learned from the USSR that the entire charade only collapses when you blink and refrain from using the military to crush civilian dissent." Baloney. USSR did not crush because of "civilian dissent". All the changes were driven from the top.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The Berlin Wall fell because the East German authorities and the USSR declined to shoot civilians. And the fact that order wasn't given was mostly due to bureaucratic ineptitude and delay, rather than intent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall#Crowding_of_the_border https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall#Crow... It could have easily been Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Georgia 1989 instead. Progress trends towards freedom, but it can walk over a lot of corpses on its way there. :(
  - FpUser 4y ago
    Berlin Wall did not cause the collapse of the USSR, it was one of the results of generally declining empire and change of it policies that again came from the top. Gorby and Reagan had decided to be "friends"