Posted on 10/06/2018 1:56:29 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
With China still running a record trade surplus with the US, it seems premature — to say the least — to say that Trump has won his long-overdue trade war with China.
But it is not too early to conclude that, despite their threat of retaliatory tariffs, China’s Communist authorities know that they have lost.
The increased tariffs to date, combined with the threat of more, have already clipped the wings of China’s economic rise. Its stock market is down 21 percent year over year, industrial output is slowing and its currency is weakening.
Looking beyond the bluff and bluster emanating from Beijing, there is evidence that Party leader Xi Jinping is looking for a way to stand down.
Let’s read the Chinese tea leaves.
In early July Xi ordered state-media outlets to tone down their rhetoric. “Self-deception and boasting will not bring about true self-confidence and pride,” the official Communist Party newspaper dutifully editorialized.
This sudden modesty was a striking turnabout from five years of constant bragging — by none other than “Core Leader” Xi himself.
Almost from the moment he took power in 2012, the Chinese leader was so confident that his own country’s rise was unstoppable, and so certain that America was in terminal decline, that he openly boasted about the China-dominated world to come.
He even drew up a series of grandiose plans — China would dominate high tech by 2025, the Asia-Pacific region by 2035 and the world by 2049.
Xi may try to blame his propaganda flacks for overdoing it, but the Chinese people know who is responsible. In backing off the braggadocio, Xi is “slapping his own face,” as the Chinese say.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
...its... Darned Otto Kor Wrecked.
Man, there has never been a president who needed to watch his six more than Trump...
The Chinese call him, “Donald The Strong.”
For real.
They are looking for a way to save face.
Xi......
What are his young people telling him?
I suspect they want to continue their relative prosperity rather than be forced to accept probable austerity.
They are not interested in the hardship of the long march
I disagree. Just having a pro American president is a big change. Having a pro American president with balls hasn’t happened in decades.
The communist thugs who repress and lie to their people
Will be brought to terms with the free world
You can’t have one foot in either world
Capitalism and freedom will always prevail if allowed to
Only repression will subvert the human desire for greatness success and wealth
There are 800 million poor people in China. They all need to eat and have clean water
Confucius say
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.
Truth over power says
Better the leader pay attention to the needs of his own people
Than try and affect foreign lands
Hear me too Iran. The Persian people have had enough
We had to go through the EU, then on to Mexico and Canaduh to bring them along as partners and challenge China
Boom! Shaka laka....Boom!
I say we rename the group to the 'Shitty Ex-Presidents Club' as a nod to truth in labeling.
Agree that that’s what the article wants you to think.
But every action they have taken so far suggests they are in it to win it—not to back off.
f
You are right. Prez. Trump needs the best protection money can buy. I worry for him because I doubt he worries for himself..
My exact thought. Xi was not wrong to conclude this.
IMHO, it’s not the trade deal the Chinese Commie Party fears, it’s making a promise or agreement to stop transferring or stealing intelligential property.
PDJT can put more tariffs on the CCP, but the biggest hammer would be cutting Chinese students from attending STEM programs at our universities. This is where CCP gets significant intelligential property in the early stages of development. It makes the thief of IP easier if you know what to look for when research moves from development to industrial/commercial/military use.
If you have or know a student in a STEM program, I’m confident they will tell you the Chinese are the best group of cheaters on campus. There may be classes where there is a single Chinese student, but all Core classes will have a group enrolled, usually several, minimum of 3. Their goal is an education but also to get some of their group into research programs, then play nice, even contribute to research advancement if they can but primarily to be in a position to steal and transfer IP to the CCP to further their position in the Party. They may not be the best-qualified research students available but they continue to pay full tuition, they shamelessly play the diversity card and the university beats their progressive chest over the whole diversity thing.
The biggest opponents of preventing Chinese students from attending STEM programs would be the universities themselves. It’s all about money, the CCP pays full tuition.
“and the real power in China, the military, will not let Xi continue in war he cannot win for much longer. We export 5 times as much as they do, so who’s got the stronger negotiating position? They’re basically out of ammo with the last round of tarriffs, over 80%. We can continue to squeeze for months.“
Any government is three meals away from a revolution.
There’s nothing special about China with respect to manufacturing. Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand Malaysia can pick up the slack on low tech manufacturing. Taiwan, South Korea, and japan can do hi tech. China is the #1 strategic economic and military enemy of the US.
Good move. US military exports to Pac rim will go up.
China is probably more capitalist than the USA was under Obama. They have a large and growing middle class. In light of their middle class, China/CCP does not want an economic/trade war with the USA. In a similar manner, the Chinese middle class does not want a military war with the USA. The 1989 Tiananmen Square protest was the rise of the middle class. The protest took the lives of thousands, prob 10s of thousands of China’s middle class. The protest made the case for economic power that the middle class was willing to die for. IOW, the Old Guard/CCP has the political power, the middle class has the economic power and proved they are willing to die to keep the economy flowing. Their middle class does not want to return to the farms. If the Old Guard screws up and escalates a trade war that depresses, or God forbid, collapses their econ, then the Old Guard realizes this could tear the country apart with the real possibility/probability of taking down the Old Guard.
Who Is Eleven and what do you have against him?
a) Anything China produces, the US can produce (with a modicum of effort). The reverse is not true (see jet engines);
b) China is profoundly dependent on sea lanes for food, fuel, and the exports that drive its economy.
The US is the only major industrialized power that is nearly resource independent, and its economy does not depend on exports, and only to some degree on imports that can be sourced elsewhere if necessary.
In a war scenario, China could inflict a lot of damage on US naval forces close to shore, but China would be blockaded, and the rail routes through Central Asia and Siberia are too puny to carry the weight of Chinese exports and imports.
Plus all those Chinese dollar-denominated accounts would immediately become illiquid, as the US would refuse to clear any transactions involving Chinese banks and would severely penalize any third party trying to do so on China's behalf (Europe).
If push comes to shove with the US any time in the near future, China is screwed.
For those still dwelling in the 19th centuary, or even the twentieth century, those words of enlightenment will not be believed.
The truth is of course known by our President who is using those people as leverage to bring about some change.
Xi has a diversity problem. While there are infact tens of millions of those in an emerging and proaperous middle class, there are as many or more still living in poverty of the communist maoist past. The change is in process but it must be slow but persistant
(there are lots of old men that totally resist any change)
I think we need to add more gradations to the term capitalism.
America was capitalist under Obama, but it was an oligarchy, crony capitalist state that was over-regulated and over-taxed.
Trump is taking us to a better capitalism. Bring us back to the kind of capitalism that can flourish.
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