China has only 10% of the world's arable land yet produces a quarter of the global grain output and leads the planet in the production of cereals, cotton, fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry, eggs, and fishery products, according to FAO. [0]
China is more than 100% self sufficient on essential food (rice and other grains). China does import a large amount of soybean for fodder. If anything, I think Chinese eat too much nowadys and become as wasteful in food as Americans. When I visit China, I don't like the fact that many families have pets (dog, cat, and etc) just like here in US.
I would encourage commenters here to pay a visit to China to see what's happening there with their own eyes. Most commenters never visit China and make some bold comments based on distorted information from MSM. A couple of months ago, I visited my hometown in China, located in one of the poorest regions of the country, and I witnessed how vibrant the local economy is. I attended a Big Data Expo held there, and I was shocked by how deep Big Data and AI are integrated in everyday life and industry over there. I think it's beneficial to know the facts in seeking truth.
Remember that "zombie economy", the bubble before the storm, doesn't mean dead local bazaars.
"Big data and AI are integrated in everyday life" should make it clear that author is either naive or shilling. Of course there's big data, with social karma and total surveillance you just must, but if you mean something people actually interact with daily... saw enough sham around it in China that without evidence I will just laugh at this. As soon as tech sector caught on that party wants AI everything instantly is labeled "AI".
I agree and I'm not sure the economic arguments along the lines of "overaccumulation crisis" have much predictive value, similar to much economic theory.
I also visited China fairly recently, China in 1983 and other culturally Chinese places like HK, Singapore, Taiwan and western areas. My take is the Chinese are a generally a hard working educated people who will do well given the chance. In 1983 the place was reduced to 1$ a day type poverty by Mao style communism. When Deng Xiaoping dropped that and allowed normally capitalism and trade the place boomed as the population started catching up with their cousins abroad.
Now Xi who is a Mao fan is rolling back some of the economic freedom such as arresting the AliBaba guy, and threatening the neighbours militarily which is causing the rest of the world to cut back on trade such as the US moving chip production away. I hope Xi doesn't go too nuts politically and start WW3 or something but otherwise I think China will do ok but not boom quite like the pre Xi period.
I believe the real reason why China is no longer the largest holder is that, China SPENDS tons of dollars she earns/holds on one-belt-one-road projects. US and western countries are super unhappy about that, as China effectively de-weaponize dollars. China is supposed to earn/hold US paper money and never to spend it. Just my 2cents.
Owning a piece of infrastructure definitely seems more valuable than owning a foreign government bond. But I don’t see how this “de-weaponizes” the US Dollar.
Isn't Chinese Yuan depreciation caused by Trump's relentless tariff, just like Mexican Peso's depreciation when Trump threatened tariff early this year?
I'm confused who is manipulating the market & currency.
And if that was the real reason, you’d expect the US to be coordinating with other countries that have the same beef with China. Instead, the US is antagonising them as well.
Trump has been very clear the tariffs are mainly about boosting US manufacturing. It’s not going to work, but that’s what he keeps saying. If it really was about the issues you list, there are plenty of ways to address them in a much more coordinated and effective manner with like minded allies. Instead the US keeps their demands very vague and keeps changing the criteria, to avoid the chance of an actual agreement.
Contrast with the renegotiation of NAFTA. Clear, specific demands in areas they knew would be open to negotiation. In the end, fairly minor updates and a workable deal.
> It’s not going to work, but that’s what he keeps saying.
So far it has worked very well for the US and China has been suffering. US has been able to create 6 million jobs with 2 million manufacturing jobs alone created since his election. China has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs and a lot of manufacturers are moving away from China and either coming back to US or moving to places like India where IP theft isn't a huge problem.
US economy is also doing very well, GDP growth has beaten all expectations and what not.
> So far it has worked very well for the US and China has been suffering. US has been able to create 6 million jobs with 2 million manufacturing jobs alone created since his election.
The main countries that the US would want to coordinate this with are the EU ones, and that's pretty much a hopeless cause. EU rules mean that any action has to be taken by the EU as a whole and they just can't agree on this because the different countries' interests diverge too much.
China is more than 100% self sufficient on essential food (rice and other grains). China does import a large amount of soybean for fodder. If anything, I think Chinese eat too much nowadys and become as wasteful in food as Americans. When I visit China, I don't like the fact that many families have pets (dog, cat, and etc) just like here in US.
[0]https://www.fao.org/china/fao-in-china/china-at-a-glance/en