Miscellaneous News

Boltzmann said:

Their high nominal GDP reflects their technological advantage. That is how they set the global rules in the first place. Aside from the major exception of China, the overwhelming majority of trade conducted by developed countries is with other developed countries, not with the global south.

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Boltzmann said:

The global south has 80% of the worlds population and encompasses 3 entire continents with over a hundred countries and literal thousands of unique cultures and languages. China will not be 'uniting' the global south, or creating a new world by doing so, nor are these actually its aims.

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Boltzmann said:

It is seeking to cultivate a large alternative export market, both to give it bargaining power in trade negotiations with the west, and to simply grow its economy in general. In this comparably modest respect it is doing quite well.

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Boltzmann said:

The crux of China's development and economic vitality is and will always be what is going on inside the country. The demand contained within China's domestic market vastly exceeds that of the export market even in a good year, and this demand on its own is sufficient to support the construction of a comprehensive modern industrial network, and the development of world-leading technological capabilities. While this means that China has a unique ability to hold its development trajectory in its own hands, it also means that it is fully responsible for any failures therein.

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Boltzmann said:

The foreign market and the outside world in general is just the wrong thing to focus on if you want to get a good understanding of what will determine China's strength and success going forward, and I would recommend getting out of that mindset as quickly as possible.

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tamsen_ikard said:

Trade wars can be bad for Europe but its also bad for China as well. Especially now, When China is no longer contract manufacturer but active brand builder.

Chinese brands will be the primary driver of China's future growth. So, Chinese branded Cars, Tvs, Computers, Phones, Apps such as Tiktok and Temu. These Chinese branded products will have much bigger profit if they have access to US, EU and other western allied markets.

But the way the new cold war is going, I feel the west will never allow Chinese branded products to have market share in the west. Just like how they killed Huawei's market access in the west, they will ban all Chinese branded products with the accusation of Spying, hacking and whatever excuse they can find.


The west has 55 billion in nominal GDP which is more than 50% of world nominal GDP. This is the biggest buying power. So, if Chinese brands are forced to just rely on Chinese market and the global south, then they will survive ofcourse but they will not have all the revenues and profits they could get. This will in turn slow down China's GDP growth rate. Over the long term, having two different tech ecosystem of China and the West is not good for China's future wealth and prosperity.

So, right now China will do anything, even kowtow if they have to stop US and EU from sanctioning Chinese branded products and apps. That's why you see Tiktok bending the knee just to maintain market access.

Europe and US are already rich and can afford to attack China. But China is still poor and wants to be rich. So, it has no choice but to make concessions just to have the opportunity to become rich. Thats why China was forced to do the trade deal with Trump. They essentially bent the knee because they were in a weaker position.

China will have to play a very delicate diplomatic game so that US and Europe do not become too hostile to ban everything Chinese. And this is what they are doing. When US attacks with sanctions and bans, China does not retaliate proportionally. They do a symbolic retaliation but keep asking for peace and for a deal. This is how they want to reduce US and western animosity towards China and continue to gain wealth.

This is China's biggest long term crisis, How to keep US and EU market for Chinese products over the long term.

So far I think its hopeless. The trend is extremely negative.

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FairAndUnbiased said:

What is buying power? You are thinking about this in the wrong way. Money is just a number. Don't believe me? Try eating it when you're in a desert. You can burn the cash portion ineffectively to stay warm when cold. You can melt down the coins for tools.

But wouldn't it be nice to exchange it for food, fuel and tools? But what if someone refuses to accept your particular money for food, fuel and tools because its perceived as - or mandated to be - worthless?

It's not China that has to worry about its brands being banned. If China simply asks "no USD please" what do you think happens? It's like the threat of banning China from SWIFT. What is more important, being warm, fed and clothed or rigidly insisting on using a particular bank payment tool and absolutely 100% refusing to use another to the death?

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tamsen_ikard said:

Trade wars can be bad for Europe but its also bad for China as well. Especially now, When China is no longer contract manufacturer but active brand builder.

Chinese brands will be the primary driver of China's future growth. So, Chinese branded Cars, Tvs, Computers, Phones, Apps such as Tiktok and Temu. These Chinese branded products will have much bigger profit if they have access to US, EU and other western allied markets.

But the way the new cold war is going, I feel the west will never allow Chinese branded products to have market share in the west. Just like how they killed Huawei's market access in the west, they will ban all Chinese branded products with the accusation of Spying, hacking and whatever excuse they can find.


The west has 55 billion in nominal GDP which is more than 50% of world nominal GDP. This is the biggest buying power. So, if Chinese brands are forced to just rely on Chinese market and the global south, then they will survive ofcourse but they will not have all the revenues and profits they could get. This will in turn slow down China's GDP growth rate. Over the long term, having two different tech ecosystem of China and the West is not good for China's future wealth and prosperity.

So, right now China will do anything, even kowtow if they have to stop US and EU from sanctioning Chinese branded products and apps. That's why you see Tiktok bending the knee just to maintain market access.

Europe and US are already rich and can afford to attack China. But China is still poor and wants to be rich. So, it has no choice but to make concessions just to have the opportunity to become rich. Thats why China was forced to do the trade deal with Trump. They essentially bent the knee because they were in a weaker position.

China will have to play a very delicate diplomatic game so that US and Europe do not become too hostile to ban everything Chinese. And this is what they are doing. When US attacks with sanctions and bans, China does not retaliate proportionally. They do a symbolic retaliation but keep asking for peace and for a deal. This is how they want to reduce US and western animosity towards China and continue to gain wealth.

This is China's biggest long term crisis, How to keep US and EU market for Chinese products over the long term.

So far I think its hopeless. The trend is extremely negative.

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Biscuits said:

Yes, with the caveat that US would need to prove it can actually present a response justifying threat in anything other than military first.

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Biscuits said:

Why should China change up its strategy and take on more risks when every day widens the gap in the status quo?

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GZDRefugee said:

things like median income is an order of magnitude (ie. 10*CN = US) in difference.

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GZDRefugee said:

Cultural, media, informational control and influence are not threats? The US exports ideology while China does not. For many Chinese, neoliberalism is the drug of choice.

By the vast majority of metrics we statists use to measure a country's development, the US is neck at neck with or ahead of China. China is doing the catching up, not the US. You can cherry pick things like the Nature Index for the good feelings all you want. However in reality, things like median income is an order of magnitude (ie. 10*CN = US) in difference. Hence the reason why many Chinese still emigrate to the US despite the "climate".

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Biscuits said:

China is not likely to get the same per capita income as US in a long time. But thinking China needs the same income in order to dominate US is also deluded. US has 330 million people. If even 330 million inside China has the same income as the other 330 million US (and they do), they will already have signficant edge in terms of national power.

Most US "per capita" income is heavily skewed because of wealth distribution. Chinese don't need to be richer than US oligarchs to outpace them, just be richer than the average US worker.

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(Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt)

“But the other aspect of this is what we are doing systematically to reduce Russia's future energy revenue. Just last week, for instance, we leveled new sanctions against a project in the Arctic, Arctic LNG 2, which is Novatech's flagship LNG project, which Novatech set in motion with the aspiration of developing Russia as the largest LNG exporter in the world. Our objective is to kill that project. And we're doing that through our sanctions working with our partners in the G7 and beyond.

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“I think the other aspect of this, and it goes back to Senator Shaheen’s point about the Black Sea, is how we work with the countries that have historically depended on Russia and on Russian energy and have been paying into the Kremlin's resources. We have done that quite successfully in Europe. We need to keep focusing on the on the Asian front. We do that through the price cap coalition.

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