Comment by throwawaymaths
15 days ago
Well the result of China's 5d chess has been to install a leader in the US that is likely to escalate a trade war with china when with an impending demographic crisis they most need someone to stop the trade war. Sheer genius!
The problem with dictators of all kinds is that their personal concerns (say, appearing before the local populace as "the one who re-unified China") can and will trump over what makes sense for the country long-term.
Of course that can and does also happen in democracies, but at least most reasonable democracies have some sort of "checks and balances" that at least prevents open war from breaking out.
The world will be looking to China as a stable partner while the US voluntarily dismantles its economy and very possibly its political system.
So yeah, the US absolutely got outplayed here.
The us is currently one of the most stable economies, so there's a long way to go.
I think it's unlikely that the world will pick an economic partner that:
- builds 90% of the new coal fired plants while the rest of the world (including the US) is decarbonizing
- has 280+% debt to GDP ratio
- has capital controls on its currency (the real exchange rate could change suddenly at the drop of a hat)
Well... that stuff will be easier to overlook when the US deploys its military to deport millions of people operating the most foundational portions of its economy like agriculture and construction.
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China is building new coal plants but the their utilization rate is going down and is expected to continue to go down because of all the solar, hydro, and nuclear plants they are building.
As far as stability goes, the comment above you talked about a stable trading partner, not a stable economy. China is probably more stable as a trading partner than the US is. The US changes trade policy too often.
Ah yes, Trump famously hates china,
How well did that trade war go last time he was in office? Trick question, farmers got fucked, and rational minds agree that the US lost.
>Initiating steel and aluminium tariff actions in March 2018, Trump said "trade wars are good, and easy to win,"[54] but as the conflict continued to escalate through August 2019, Trump stated, "I never said China was going to be easy."
It doesn't matter what you claim to want to do or who you claim to "hate" if your sheer incompetence prevents you from accomplishing your desire.
Maybe putting a serial business failure in charge of a trade war isn't very effective?
Biden didn't get rid of them, because it's basically impossible to unwind a trade war, and then put some more limitations on solar panels. I don't think there is a clear answer yet on Biden's addition to the trade war. Probably will be "meh".
A trade war between the US and China is almost always going to be extremely negative sum. Both of our countries rely on each other for prosperity and nice shit.