China's Peaceful Rise

[Roman Alymov]

15 hours ago, Colin said:

Meanwhile

 

Some of China-made e-pushbikes seems to be quite reliable, at least here in Russia

 

[Strannik]

Huawei’s new smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, represents a new high-water mark in China’s technological capabilities, with an advanced chip inside that was both designed and manufactured in China despite onerous U.S. export controls intended to prevent China from making this technical jump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/02/huawei-raimondo-phone-chip-sanctions/

[Strannik]

China’s exposure to Russia’s banking sector quadrupled: since Feb 2022 the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China have increased their combined exposure to Russia from $2.2bn to $9.7bn

https://www.ft.com/content/96349a26-d868-4bd1-948f-b17f87cc5c72

[Strannik]

US Commerce Sec Raimondo warns China: "Patience is wearing thin among American business. They need and deserve a predictable environment and a level playing field".

The US and China used to be each other’s largest trade partners. The US now trades more with Canada and Mexico; China trades more with Southeast Asia‘Patience is wearing thin among American business.

 

[Strannik]

Moscow and Beijing are preparing an inter-governmental agreement on the New Russia - China Land Grain Corridor project

Russia will ship more crops to China itself and to other Asian countries using Chinese ports.  It will be worked out now in fall and presumably start mid 2024.

[Josh]

US businesses that can easily divest are. Those that have too much exposure will stay. China’s domestic policies have made it dangerous for US companies to operate there, but I suspect the majority would lose too much money to disengage. None of them care what the Whitehouse thinks, so long as they aren’t dealing in controlled technology.

[Strannik]

23 hours ago, Strannik said:

Huawei’s new smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, represents a new high-water mark in China’s technological capabilities, with an advanced chip inside that was both designed and manufactured in China despite onerous U.S. export controls intended to prevent China from making this technical jump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/02/huawei-raimondo-phone-chip-sanctions/

Confirmed 7nm chip.

 

[Strannik]

Curious article: https://heatmap.news/economy/china-economy-clean-energy-slowdown-evs?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

...China’s slowdown core problem is structural. For the past few decades, China has grown its economy by juicing production on the supply side — the construction firms, steelmakers, real-estate developers, and (more recently) manufacturing sector. It invested heavily in infrastructure projects, laying more cement in three years than the United States made in the entire 20th century.

This arrangement has suppressed worker wages and dampened consumer spending - How is that?  Quite the opposite I would think.  

China’s capital controls have also forced Chinese families to save in the places where the government wants them  to.  True.  CCP doesn't want a financial asset bubble.

Faced with such a conundrum, most Western economists would recommend that the national government offer support directly to consumers and households — much like the American government did during the pandemic. That would help families repair their finances (but would create more debt), which were damaged by the real-estate bubble, and give them the money and security to buy the products that Chinese factories manufacture. It would, in essence, continue the process of turning China into a consumer economy. ( @Josh that's your one of your beefs, is it not?)  Xi Jinping does not believe that China should provide direct fiscal support to consumers. Instead, he appears to believe that China should recover through austerity, fiscal discipline, and by increasing its support of its manufacturing and industrial sectors.

China’s leaders also don’t want to give consumers more power in their economy for fear of disempowering the Communist Party, which is able to use its power over banks to shape the domestic economy. Private consumption makes up about 60% of the average country’s GDP. (In the U.S., it’s closer to 70%.) I don't think helicopter dropping ,money on population w/o serious need is a smart policy.  Akin giving kids $ and pointing them to a candy shop.  You want to invest the limited resources into what matters.

But in China, households consume less than 40% of GDP. But according to the Journal, Xi believes “China should address ‘insufficient effective supply capacity’ — in essence, build more factories and industry — so as not to become overly dependent on ‘overseas shopping’ for goods supplied by the West.”  And that's what Xi apparently does.

 

One domestic industry that China’s leaders do like is the clean-energy industry, the hundreds of firms that make electric cars, batteries, renewables, and their constituent parts and ingredients. These companies not only generate a ton of exports — China became the world’s top car exporter this year, driven in part by the success of the electric-car maker BYD — but they are strategically useful, placing China at the center of the global energy transition while relieving it of its dependence on seaborne fossil-fuel imports.  And that is what concerns me... 

Long story short he is afraid China will be the source of all things green for Europe and the RoW (sans US, cause protection)

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Strannik

[X-Files]

Purely innocent mistakes, I'm sure

 

Chinese ‘Gate-Crashers’ Reportedly Trespassed Into U.S. Military Sites And Other Secured Facilities Multiple Times
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/09/04/chinese-gate-crashers-reportedly-trespassed-into-us-military-sites-and-other-secured-facilities-multiple-times/

[Josh]

Austerity strikes me as potentially being a fast track to deflation, and if deflation is allowed to take hold for several consecutive quarters, it might become self sustaining. That would be a much harder landing then just falling to ~3% steady growth, which I think is a very achievable goal.

I can see why Xi wants to develop all industries to make China completely independent - the Russia experience has made it clear that specific economic and military inputs can suddenly be denied by the entire collective industrialized world. It is the basically the Juche model with Chinese characteristics - the English translation being roughly “industrial security “. Russia has been attempting the same since 2014 with some success (clearly less in the tech sector). But it is move that deliberately sacrifices economic growth for security, and track record of planned economies is pretty poor. The Chinese economy is clearly far less planned than say the Soviet one, but Xi seems to be moving more in that direction after a period of several decades of a much more open market.

I think it is worth noting here that Xi seems to expect a military confrontation that would suddenly strangle China economically. He is willing to sacrifice economic growth to be able to weather an acute decoupling. That’s a disturbing development.

[Strannik]

5 minutes ago, Josh said:

Austerity strikes me as potentially being a fast track to deflation, and if deflation is allowed to take hold for several consecutive quarters, it might become self sustaining. That would be a much harder landing then just falling to ~3% steady growth, which I think is a very achievable goal.

I can see why Xi wants to develop all industries to make China completely independent - the Russia experience has made it clear that specific economic and military inputs can suddenly be denied by the entire collective industrialized world. It is the basically the Juche model with Chinese characteristics - the English translation being roughly “industrial security “. Russia has been attempting the same since 2014 with some success (clearly less in the tech sector). But it is move that deliberately sacrifices economic growth for security, and track record of planned economies is pretty poor. The Chinese economy is clearly far less planned than say the Soviet one, but Xi seems to be moving more in that direction after a period of several decades of a much more open market.

I think it is worth noting here that Xi seems to expect a military confrontation that would suddenly strangle China economically. He is willing to sacrifice economic growth to be able to weather an acute decoupling. That’s a disturbing development.

It's no secret that Xi values security over growth and the Western reaction (to RU invasion) surely made him even more determined.

BTW, so is the US with it's "decoupling/derisking", so hardly irrational. 

The course (to de-risk from the US/West) is set.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Strannik

[urbanoid]

Right, both sides are correct to decouple/de-risk, even if it's costly.

[Strannik]

China bans government officials from using Apple iPhones at work.

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-bans-iphone-use-for-government-officials-at-work-635fe2f8

[Strannik]

The Pentagon’s request for talks between Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu at the Shangri-La Dialogue Forum in Singapore next week has not been answered (due to US placing sanctions on Li)

[Colin]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:04 AM, Roman Alymov said:

Some of China-made e-pushbikes seems to be quite reliable, at least here in Russia

 

Some Chinese factories put out excellent stuff, others are junk. People in China became adept at reading factory codes so as to avoid buying stuff from factories with bad reps. I have seen some cheap Chinese junk here, but I was shocked at how much and how bad is the Chinese junk pushed into the the SE Asian market (Malaysia) was.

[Strannik]

On 9/6/2023 at 1:04 PM, Strannik said:

China bans government officials from using Apple iPhones at work.

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-bans-iphone-use-for-government-officials-at-work-635fe2f8

Incidentally after this news and Huawei chip breakthrough/Mate Pro 60 launch Apple's valuation declined by $200 blns.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Strannik

[Josh]

Would you like to rephrase that as a percentage of Apple market cap?

And wou you like to take that number and compare it to the closest Chinese competitor?

Edited September 8, 2023 by Josh

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Would you like to rephrase that as a percentage of Apple market cap?

And wou you like to take that number and compare it to the closest Chinese competitor?

Apple is still a trendsetter in the mobile tech and the most valuable company in the world.

Here, after this homage I hope your jerk reaction will ease.

Just showing to you and other fiat aficionados how fleeting these numbers are. 

[Strannik]

And just as I was pondering on the imbalance of China/US respective force stage situations the Chinese FM announced Maduro's state visit to China on Xi's invitation from September 8 to 14. 

But could be just oil of course...

Edited September 8, 2023 by Strannik

[Josh]

2 hours ago, Strannik said:

Apple is still a trendsetter in the mobile tech and the most valuable company in the world.

Here, after this homage I hope your jerk reaction will ease.

Just showing to you and other fiat aficionados how fleeting these numbers are. 

So “no”.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, Strannik said:

And just as I was pondering on the imbalance of China/US respective force stage situations the Chinese FM announced Maduro's state visit to China on Xi's invitation from September 8 to 14. 

Buy could be just oil of course...

Oh, because Venezuela matters as much as Taiwan?

[Strannik]

Just now, Josh said:

Oh, because Venezuela matters as much as Taiwan?

Because base.

[Josh]

3 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Because base.

I’m not even sure what this means.

[Josh]

Are you implying that Venezuela matters at all compared to Taiwan?

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, Josh said:

Are you implying that Venezuela matters at all compared to Taiwan?

In one thread you can't picture the Chinese being able to hunt US warships in the Atlantic because "geography", in another you are not able to understand that Venezuela could act as an important staging base for next gen Chinese assets to hunt US warships in the Atlantic, even with the clue of "base" given.