Economic disaster or a fresh approach

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...mpire-building

China is seeking to forge a new empire based on the communist adage "we will sell the last capitalist the rope to hang himself". Xi didn't say this but the strategy is obvious and if they have to take a route that passes through a few non capitalist countries, ah well.. What this says to us is we missed the boat and China will forge those ties we would like to have but they will do it with honey, not guns and they will do it by putting their money where their mouth is, no wait, your money.

Now I like the idea of a $12,000 SUV better than a $50,000 SUV, You could afford to buy a new one every year, look out Detroit, you are being consigned to history.

Over here, in the deep south, we will keep digging iron and coal out of the ground to make it happen. You see, without saying so, Xi is going to make China great again

A communist capitalist... who woulda thunk it? They are certainly intent on capitalizing on Western hesitation. We will just have to see what the ROI will be. What? You think they are doing this for free?

I don't think so.

No Tal obviously they want to make money and keep their high rate of growth, but they are really out capitalising the capitalists because they are creating jobs and opportunity, they have the real stakeholders in mind, not just greedy stockholders

bwaaahaaahaaaaa. Their people cannot afford to buy the products they make ...and forget the idea of imports with the trade barriers they construct . Their own model is undermining them . Their cities are big massive hulls of vacant buildings . Their economy is a Potemkin Village . You know and I know that they cannot sustain the rate of growth they had ;and when the bubble bursts ,so will the social contract they formed with the people . Your description of their economy matches the reign of Deng Xiaoping . But that was 20 years ago .Xi is not going to liberalize their markets . He is more into the state planned and controlled economy of Mao .He is more likely to double down on state intervention in his second term than to reveal himself as a true reformer . He does not believe in markets . Yes I suppose that foreign raw material suppliers and heavy equipment makers will benefit for a while . But it is crashing down on the Chinese ,and I believe you will see the solid proof of that this year . Its economy can’t continue to run on a diet of industrial policy stimulus. Cheap currency and wage inflation is going to make their products less attractive in the world market . What you think they are going to dump SUVs on the market at a loss ? There is no way their SUVs will sell for $12,000 ;and who would buy it if they did ? Go buy one if you really have a death wish . As for his One Belt ,One Road policy that you call the new Silk Road ...it is a one way street . The 3rd world nations that China plans to dump products in are already in trade deficit with China . If they can't export their goods to China ,they will find trading with China much less attractive regardless of the infrastructure spending China is doing in those countries . All it is is colonialism and mercantilism by another name.

Of course it is, and the braggart in the White House didn't think of it first because he was looking inward, playing to the Home crowd, while Xi, the inscrutable oriental, gathered a group of Asian leaders and sold the dream, sure it's a dream, but at least he has one. Yes, those nations will buy Chinese goods and become indebted, but they also have something to exchange, minerals, oil and gas. There will be infrastructure, but much of it already exists. The trans-siberian railway already exists so they will just connect up and improve and that rail access goes right across Europe, so the market they are after is not the peasants of Asia but affulent Europe. You americans hate rail, you have no use for it, but the Chinese and the Russians use it as a life line, they understand. The companies who are going to do the manufacturing are not state owned corporations but someone who has a focus on quality. TaTa has built cheap cars in India and the Chinese can do it too. And we will take what we can while we can because we are not in China's face. I have been in China, Tom, I have seen their new towns and their massive infrastructure projects. This is not a boast, that someone goes cap in hand to a recalicant government that is bankrupt anyway. These people have the money, they have a long term view, they are not controlled by a two year electoral cycle

And you can watch as we recruit China into a different form of football, one where they actually kick the ball, because we know how to get the crowd with you

ummm Tata is an Indian multinational ;not a Chinese pseudo state owned entity . They make their autos in many countries and have partnerships with such auto companies as Fiat-Chrysler and Hitachi . It makes the Jaguar Land Rover so you know already they make a quality product .

We move plenty of freight by rail. What we don't like is high speed passenger rail to nowhere .


Here is their new towns :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo0tvY_4PlM

You forget though Clete, that the Chinese can barely afford the cheap stuff they make, or can afford to live in those grand cities that they built, so their own billions remain under served, so have no choice but to seek out those they can serve.

People with MONEY to spend on their stuff. This global dumping scheme sounds good on paper to some but from a purely economic standpoint, does very little to open up markets that raise wages for workers, not even in China.

Raising wages is a GLOBAL problem that has yet to be solved by communist and capitalist alike so what we really have is the globalization of the 1%. That doesn't work in any consumer driven economy on Earth, even though some will get VERY rich.

The chinese economy works for the chinese, I didn't see any starving people there or any dero's in the streets and yes they have empty buildings because they built for the future and high speed rail is there for a country that hasn't invested in internal airlines.
You want to call their economic output global dumping but not every economy operates at the high end. Walk down a chinese mall you could be anywhere in the world, all the big names are there in every city, you forget they have cities that are the size of countries in population

I Hope you noticed Tom who prepared that report and who is helping China build and we could hope some of it rubs off at home

Forget it . The nations along the " One Belt ,One Road "way will forever be in massive debt to the Chinese. Their SOP in places like Africa is to identify a money source ;fence it off, bribe whatever political leader runs the area ; bring in their own workforce and security forces ;pick the assets clean ,and leave a toxic clean up behind when they are finished. They are like locusts .
The one good thing about their plan is their "Silk Road " crosses many Muslim dominated nations . This could draw them into the quagmire . Let's see them defend thousands of miles of land routes .Why do you think the Europeans became attracted to sea routes in the 1st place ? Land routes extend your supply line too much . They would do better to continue to develop and extend their' string of pearls '.Besides ,the freight capacity of rail transport is minuscule compared to a huge ship .

Yes they have the ability to exploit and their methodology is different to capitalism, they don't want cheap labour, they want employment for their people, but along the way they build infrastructure, ports, railways, airstrips, roads and buildings. They can't take those home with them. What they have already achieved is to secure Africa while the US has been asleep to this. The Chinese don't care that the populations want to migrate to Europe, sooner or later, they will construct colonies.

The US has wanted to pivot to Asia but they should have pivoted to Africa

agree ,but still their land route is doomed to failure .It will be fun watching the Chinese and Russians competing for control of the 'stans ' .

The land route only goes through one "stan" most of it goes through Russia,

Looks great on paper, but implementation may be a beach.

Don't think there are many beaches tal

Sure there are Clete, and everyone can be one.