Tsundere moment.
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Global South strategic cooperation
- Thread starter Strangelove
- Start date
Geopolitics is always a complex game. And there's probably abit of jostling for influence in CA between China and Russia. I doubt however China will invest alot of time and effort to go against Russia in this region. They know who the real enemy, they know where the ultimate great power game is at and do not want to get distracted.
Heck China has first hand experience to see how US were trying to Feck up China from early 2000s but later lose focus and got distracted in a disaster campaign elsewhere.. The Hainan spy plane incident could have blew up and accelerated US move to contain China. But fortuitously for China 9/11 happened. US war machine got distracted and pulled away from China containment to instead a long useless expensive war on terror in another part of the globe.
then that valuable window allowed China to develop rapidly so that it became much harder for US to contain China now and in future that window most likely will even totally shut close.
So imo, China know this, and do not wish to get distracted with influence jostle in CA especially at sensitive time now for the Russia, China and US triangle relationship. China not gonna lose the big pie for some food scraps.
Heck China has first hand experience to see how US were trying to Feck up China from early 2000s but later lose focus and got distracted in a disaster campaign elsewhere.. The Hainan spy plane incident could have blew up and accelerated US move to contain China. But fortuitously for China 9/11 happened. US war machine got distracted and pulled away from China containment to instead a long useless expensive war on terror in another part of the globe.
then that valuable window allowed China to develop rapidly so that it became much harder for US to contain China now and in future that window most likely will even totally shut close.
So imo, China know this, and do not wish to get distracted with influence jostle in CA especially at sensitive time now for the Russia, China and US triangle relationship. China not gonna lose the big pie for some food scraps.
??? Russia adopted the western model as advocated by neoliberal economists after the dissolution of the USSR, and it led to the greatest peacetime decrease in standard of living ever recorded. I highly doubt any sane Russian has good things to say about the western model. Contrast this to China's embracement of gradual reform over western calls for shock therapy, which led to the greatest economic growth ever recorded. If I was Russian I would be absolutely seething at the fact that my country got Gorbachev while China got Deng.
Sorry, and I know this is already a week ago, but dollars are NOT "created ... in the middle of the transactions", whatever that means. A bank creates money when it makes a loan. The Fed creates money when it sells a Treasury bond. Foreign exchange transactions do not create or destroy money.
On the matter of trade (in goods, not FX) The buyer of the merchandise (say, a Malaysian importer) first buys a letter of credit from a bank which is also represented in China. If trade is in dollars, this is an American bank. The letter of credit basically establishes that the bank holds x amount of money -- the agreed amount between importer and exporter, and that it will pay it to the importer when the buyer receives the goods, or whenever specified by the two counterparts.
If the transaction is in dollars, the money sits in an American bank for the duration. The total amount of money tied up in this way is huge, and the number that comes to mind is 13 trillion dollars. So American banks have most of this money availiable to invest and profit from, after leaving some aside to hedge against risks.
Meanwhile, if this money is not tied up, it will be chasing after goods, and driving prices up if there isn't an equivalent additional amount of goods produced. This is what @taxiya is talking about.
Gorbachev sold his country out for the privilege of appearing on a Pizza Hut commercial.
Even on his own ad, people made fun of Gorbachev.
Gorbachev was so bad, Pizza Hut itself tanked after letting him represent them.
Everything Gorby touched, it disintegrated. The anti-Midas.
The US is known for crippling the weak to serve as an example to scare larger countries. They could easily sanction Kazakhstan using the excuse of its "authoritarian crackdown" on the rioters earlier this year. So Kazakhstan is self sanctioning to avoid getting cut off from the western financial system. The benefit is clear. They'll be safe from US pressure for now and all they're losing is the opportunity of the Russian market.
China should provide more comprehensive banking services to SCO members so they're not scared to trade with each other
So this kind of stuff keeps coming up in Western media. Generally speaking, I would much prefer that they spread the narrative that BRI is failing rather than BRI is a debt trap for other country. If the narrative becomes China is making stupid loans and wasting money, it's actually probably a better thing China.
At the basic level, I think people generally do not understand what BRI is really about. It is China's way of pushing all world's economic activity through China. All the railway/ports that are built are designed to make it easier for China to be part of every economic transaction. All of which not only provides employment for Chinese construction companies but also make China's industries and supply chain the most powerful in the world.
I actually saw someone reference to the WSJ article and say that CKU doesn't make any sense. It's like people don't understand the importance of Western China have rail access into Afghanistan or making rail freight to Europe cheaper/fast or accessing Indian Ocean or providing additional traffic to the ports of Gwadar/Karachi.
It is true that a lot of projects have not brought back positive return on investment. Some projects have just appear to be a waste of money so far. But you are not going to hit on every project. People are also not factoring in supply chain security or SLOC security from having over the land transportation. People are also not factoring in how this has allowed China to get commodities cheaply and de-industrialize Western countries.
I find it quite funny that people think China is wasting a $1 trillion here, but forget that America now spend close to $1 trillion a year on military spending. The investment that China has put into its industries cannot be easily measured. It would be hard for China to get this much bang on the buck on its military expenditure if its domestic industries weren't so efficient. How does China have such a large commercial fleet if it wasn't managing ports around the world? How would China have such a strong naval shipbuilding program if it did not have the largest shipbuilding industry in the world (with domestic orders playing a large part)? How can China ensure that it's the future of lithium battery production unless it builds infrastructure around getting lithium from lithium producers to China really efficiently? How can China continue to dominate commerce in Southeast Asia and Central Asia unless it builds all the ports and railway needed to easily facilitate transportation and trade?
there are some investments that are taking longer to bear fruition. CPEC is often mentioned. I do think there are cases of investment where more investment are needed to show results. Is it a good thing for there to be greater scrutiny for some of the projects? Sure. Especially when we are in the middle of a global recession and energy crisis. But there is no way China will stop infrastructure around the world even if it is no longer called BRI.
At the basic level, I think people generally do not understand what BRI is really about. It is China's way of pushing all world's economic activity through China. All the railway/ports that are built are designed to make it easier for China to be part of every economic transaction. All of which not only provides employment for Chinese construction companies but also make China's industries and supply chain the most powerful in the world.
I actually saw someone reference to the WSJ article and say that CKU doesn't make any sense. It's like people don't understand the importance of Western China have rail access into Afghanistan or making rail freight to Europe cheaper/fast or accessing Indian Ocean or providing additional traffic to the ports of Gwadar/Karachi.
It is true that a lot of projects have not brought back positive return on investment. Some projects have just appear to be a waste of money so far. But you are not going to hit on every project. People are also not factoring in supply chain security or SLOC security from having over the land transportation. People are also not factoring in how this has allowed China to get commodities cheaply and de-industrialize Western countries.
I find it quite funny that people think China is wasting a $1 trillion here, but forget that America now spend close to $1 trillion a year on military spending. The investment that China has put into its industries cannot be easily measured. It would be hard for China to get this much bang on the buck on its military expenditure if its domestic industries weren't so efficient. How does China have such a large commercial fleet if it wasn't managing ports around the world? How would China have such a strong naval shipbuilding program if it did not have the largest shipbuilding industry in the world (with domestic orders playing a large part)? How can China ensure that it's the future of lithium battery production unless it builds infrastructure around getting lithium from lithium producers to China really efficiently? How can China continue to dominate commerce in Southeast Asia and Central Asia unless it builds all the ports and railway needed to easily facilitate transportation and trade?
there are some investments that are taking longer to bear fruition. CPEC is often mentioned. I do think there are cases of investment where more investment are needed to show results. Is it a good thing for there to be greater scrutiny for some of the projects? Sure. Especially when we are in the middle of a global recession and energy crisis. But there is no way China will stop infrastructure around the world even if it is no longer called BRI.
Agreed. The purpose of the BRI to me isn't to generate immediate returns, its a long term investment. Even ignoreing the natural resources, Africa has lots of countries with economic potential. While the BRI won't boast Africa's development to western or Chinese levels, just developing some of the poorer African contries to the level of some of the more developed ones will result in big new markets for China. Africa is only growing while Europe and North America are shrinking.
What's the alternative? Buying up western assets and bonds which will just be seized in a few years.
CPEC is being slowed due to Pakistani politics and bureaucracy. China is very much willing to accelerate it but if the other party only cares about bribes and making coups by US command then there isn't much that China can do