Trade War with China

Jura said:

now I read
11:56, 27-Jan-2019
Canada's ambassador to China resigns after Huawei remarks

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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Monday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's sacking of his ambassador to China was an internal Canadian affair after the envoy prompted a furor with comments about

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Meng Wanzhou.

"This is an internal affair for Canada. China will not comment," Geng told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

"It is self-evident to both the Chinese people and the international community that the extradition case of Meng is by no means a purely judicial case. There are strong political attempt and manipulation behind it," he added.

Geng reiterated China's call for Canada to "make the correct choice" and release Meng so she could return to China.

Canada's former ambassador to China

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on Friday at the request of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, abruptly ending his diplomatic career.

In a statement, the Canadian prime minister said: "Last night I asked for and accepted John McCallum's resignation as Canada's ambassador to China."

McCallum's resignation came a week after his comments on the extradition of Meng Wanzhou at a Chinese language press conference in Toronto that caused controversy in Canada.

He said he thought Meng had a good case to fight extradition to the U.S. and listed three examples that he thought could help her.

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Nutrient said:

Xi may actually concede on Made in China 2025 -- but in name only. I don't think 2025 was a real deadline, and getting it to happen that soon would have been unlikely anyhow. So Xi might change 2025 to 2030, which would be more practical anyway.

I doubt Trump could force Xi to destroy the underlying trends of technological progress in China: a huge wave of engineers and a large economy capable of supporting them.

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Gatekeeper said:

"They helped China modernize its economy to oppose the USSR but now that China itself is becoming a bigger threat they will seek to destabilize China."

I'm not sure the US helped China to modernised? It certainly wasn't their intention. The US just wanted an extra weight to balance the Soviet threat.
It seek to do this by befriended China and offered her market for low cost goods in exchange for China buying their high techs like Boeing. Etc. (Deng pointed out to carter that China had to sell millions of low cost made in China shoes to buy one Jumbo jet).
It was a simple case of trade that could benefit both parties and at the same time keep China in the west orbit and away from the Soviet. That's all. It never was US intention to "help" China to modernised!
It was China's own sweat and toiled that make China what it is today!

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Biscuits said:

@tidalwave

That seems like a continuous issue with the trade war. It is some form of economic sabotage, only they have no idea what to actually target.

Example:

- To target the revenue of Chinese companies, limiting incoming tech transfer is a good idea

- But by stopping own tech transfers at the same time, US is efffectively reimbursing the lost revenue.

The result is strengthening the Chinese economy overall, maybe not by extreme growth (although growth still hit a record this year) but by easing competition for Chinese companies. We see this with Chinese tech brands off to a historically strong start and American brands suffering damage.

From a purely economical and technological perspective, China and US are not peer opponents any more than US and Soviet were peer opponents. The fact that the PLA is held back to be “just strong enough to defend territorial integrity” due to the prevalence of doves in the leadership blinds many Americans to this fact.

And putting itself in the spotlight by shameless acts is liable to changing the composition of the leadership. It’s probably not lost on most of the party center that nearly all US moves rely on military/violent means and could be ceased by overwhelming force.

Chances are, Trump DOES get China to stop Made in China 2025, because his actions get the politicians behind it kicked out of office and replace them with pro-rearmament politicians who will funnel all the tech and funds into the military industrial complex.

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styx said:

it's time for china to enter in "preparing for world war mode" time to double every year the defense budget and initiate actions to disrupt american interests in all the world. Just like Soviet Union.

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Jura said:

... to achieve something like

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?

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Chinese investments most at risk from US sanctions against Venezuela

While crisis-torn Venezuela braces for the impact from the latest US economic sanctions, Venezuela’s trading partners are also at great risk.

On Monday, the Trump administration announced sanctions against Venezuela’s state-owned energy company Petroleos de Venezuela, better known as PDVSA. The fresh restrictions will freeze $7 billion in assets and cause more than $11 billion in lost export revenues throughout the next year.

One of the country’s biggest trade partners and creditors, China, has already opposed foreign interference in Venezuela’s affairs, saying the US will bear responsibility for sweeping sanctions it imposed.

China has provided $50 billion in loans to the Latin American country over the past decade. Through loans and outbound direct investments, Beijing has poured funding into Venezuela while many other countries backed off from doing business with the cash-strapped nation.

Caracas has been gradually paying off that debt with oil shipments, but has struggled to fulfill its commitments because of falling production. It still owes Beijing about $20 billion.

According to sources at Caracas Capital, Venezuela has not paid a sovereign bond since December 2017, and is now in default on 16 sovereign bonds and coupons totaling $1.81 billion.

Now, with a new US package of sanctions in place, China’s multi-billion dollar lending as well as investments and business ties with countries like Russia, India, Turkey and others, are all put at risk.

Despite the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, New Delhi and Caracas have been continuing their joint investments in the energy sector. India is one of the largest buyers of Venezuelan crude, with over 400,000 bpd procured by Indian companies. The firms had plans to boost crude purchases from Venezuela in the future.

Venezuela is one of the major crude exporters in Latin America and its oil revenues account for about 98 percent of export earnings, according to OPEC. However, oil output fell 33,000 barrels daily from November and hit a new low in December, with 1.15 million barrels per day produced in contrast to more than 2 million in 2017.

Russia has several joint projects with the Latin American country, including in the energy, agricultural and defense sectors, among others. Investment in Venezuela exceeds $4.1 billion, with Russian energy giant Rosneft accounting for most of it. Trade turnover between Moscow and Caracas rose 48 percent in January-February last year, compared to the same period in 2017 and reached nearly $85 million.

Venezuela’s partner in the Middle East, Turkey was also maintaining close ties with Caracas despite the sanctions and international pressure. The sides were working on a deal to ship tons of gold to refine and certify in the Turkish city of Corum this year.

Caracas has been exporting its gold to Turkey for safekeeping since the beginning of last year. Statistics show that Turkey imported $900 million in gold – about 23.6 tons – from Venezuela in the first nine months of 2018. According to Mehmet Ozkan, a former Turkish official who worked on bilateral relations with Venezuela until last year, the main objective was to refine the raw metal and create a capital inflow to Venezuela, likely in the form of services because of US sanctions that prohibit financial institutions from dealing with Venezuela in dollars.

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