"Don't Antagonize China?" Topic

Open discussion of how U.S. forces could deter Chinese ships and aircraft could unnecessarily antagonize one of America's largest trading partners, the Navy's top admiral said during an address at the U.S. Naval War College on Tuesday…

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The chinese are making overtures to India in anticipation of just such a disruption in trade with the US …which means they have already decided that a limited conflict with the US is a acceptable risk to getting what they want from Japan and the others…Mikey

You really think the Chinese see trade with India as a replacement for US business? I think its about 2% of the value of the trade with US, UK, Canada and Australia (Five Eyes nations tend to act together on the big stuff, hence the collection).

I think the reverse is more true, that the US is currently economically dependent on China. Policymakers had best consider what a one-month disruption in our imports from China would cost our own economy in the long run.

I spoke to a Chinese industrialist about Chinese investment in the third world. He said that the Chinese government expected the US to block Chinese imports at some point. So they offered free foreign reserves for existing Chinese companies to make factories in third countries. $15 USD million was easy to obtain. Someone in the local intelligence service said my industrialist friend had strong Chinese government connections.

You still need a large market to buy those things. The third world isn't that market. China has a vast array of very serious challenges facing it in the next 20 years. The more freedom and quality of life the average Chinese gets the less likely that the present government survives and that Militarism remains a viable tactic.

China can use its output to improve quality of life for its own population. It is a myth that they have to take our false promises to repay our debts.

They can trade for raw materials and sell finished goods. How much of our trade fits that picture?

I suspect not doing that will be very difficult, given reports of late.

As Chortle implies, China is already pivoting to an economy based on internal consumption rather than production for export only. Their major needs going forward are energy, raw materials and food, and most of their investments, including their African ones, reflect that. They will be their own market, and investments in Africa are mostly about resources.

For the moment they are happy to obtain these resources the old-fashioned way, by buying them. If they could not buy them for any reason, they would have to look at other options – as would any power that was short of vital raw materials and food.

China's internal market is far from absorbing what it exports to the US and the west. Yes, they're moving in that direction, but their dependence on our markets is going to remain the rule for a awful long time to come.

That is not what articles in the Economist magazine has implied in the past.

There are 1.4 billion people in China. They only need to be individually 20 – 25% as prosperous as Americans to create a market equivalent to the USA. They are nearing that now (depending on what measure you are using), and the pivot to an internal market means wages are rising quite rapidly so the process will snowball.
Whatever happens, be it economic or political factors, China will have to get used to selling proportionally less to the USA, and they are planning for that eventuality now.