China is not our friend

[Huntn]

Our Corporations, Western corporations gave them trillions $$$ in trade and manufacturing to the detriment of our workers, to enrich themselves, so we could be best buddies… hardly, and China chuckled.

China targeting US voters with anti-democracy narratives in election, analysts warn

China took aim at the 2020 election too. But this time, one expert said, they've dramatically scaled their operation to undermine U.S. democracy.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Alli]

No shit?

 

[Huntn]

No shit?

It’s as if the obvious has to be pointed out to some of us.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

China loves us .....
said nobody.

 

[lizkat]

China may not love us but it's not really love that makes the world go around. It's trade, in many cases involving competitive partnerships or complementary supply chain and distribution arrangements.

The Chinese economy recovered early from the global wave of covid and the USA's exports to China in 2021 were up 43% over pre-covid (2019) figures.

China is a huge market for US agricultural commodities, primarily soybeans, corn and grain sorghum. But China does have a burgeoning middle class. They are consumers, retailers and manufacturers and they all do underwrite the importing of goods and raw materials from the West, including the USA.

The USA's imports were also up during that period due to support from the Fed and the USA's stimulus programs, both of which enabled businesses and consumers to keep the economy out of the cellar. However, the USA's increased imports were not from China but from nine other countries: Vietnam, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico and.. yeah, Russia.

Generally speaking, China's imports are from other ASEAN nations (primarily Japan, South Korea) then EU, then USA, although its imports from Latin America and Africa have increased in recent years.

2021 U.S. Exports To China Up 43% From Pre-Covid 2019, Imports At Record Level

A 43.06% surge in exports to China is one of two pronounced changes in U.S. trade in early 2021, leaving the United States a miniscule 0.05% below the 2019 pre-pandemic levels for its trade with the world, new data shows.

www.forbes.com

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service - China 2021 Export HIghlights

China Imports By Country

Trading Economics provides data for 20 million economic indicators from 196 countries including actual values, consensus figures, forecasts, historical time series and news. China Imports By Country - was last updated on Saturday, October 29, 2022.

tradingeconomics.com

 

[Scepticalscribe]

China was never your friend.

To suggest that it ever was a "friend", let alone "our friend" (the use of the possessive pronoun is instructive) is to mistake - at a fundamental level - the actual nature of this relationship.

Rather, it was a country with which you had some common interests for a time, interests which were expressed (and met) by international trade.

 

[AG_PhamD]

China was never your friend.

To suggest that it ever was a "friend", let alone "our friend" (the use of the possessive pronoun is instructive) is to mistake - at a fundamental level - the actual nature of this relationship.

Rather, it was a country with which you had some common interests for a time, interests which were expressed (and met) by international trade.

I’m under the impression China doesn’t really have any friends. All their relationships appear to be transactional.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I’m under the impression China doesn’t really have any friends. All their relationships appear to be transactional.

I agree.

And that is why I wonder why some in the US confuse what is essentially a coolly transactional relationship with the fond and sentimental notion of being "our friend"?

There is nothing wrong with a transactional relationship as long as both parties to the relationship remain content with whatever contracts, or agreements, govern the transaction.

However, please do not confuse this with friendship, please do not mistake what is essentially a trade relationship for "giving" someone trillions of dollars (in mutually advantageous trade) - you are not "giving" anyone anything, rather, you are, in fact, paying for goods that you have bought - and above all, please do not expect "gratitude" when such a relationship profits both sides, and when you have entered this relationship by choice, and not as a result of coercion.

 

[AG_PhamD]

I agree.

And that is why I wonder why some in the US confuse what is essentially a coolly transactional relationship with the fond and sentimental notion of being "our friend"?

There is nothing wrong with a transactional relationship as long as both parties to the relationship remain content with whatever contracts, or agreements, govern the transaction.

However, please do not confuse this with friendship, please do not mistake what is essentially a trade relationship for "giving" someone trillions of dollars (in mutually advantageous trade) - you are not "giving" anything, rather, you are, in fact, paying for goods that you have bought - and above all, please do not expect "gratitude" when such a relationship profits both sides, and when you have entered this relationship by choice, and not as a result of coercion.

I suppose transactional isn’t an entirely accurate term either given China’s tendency to exploit relationships whenever possible.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I suppose transactional isn’t an entirely accurate term either given China’s tendency to exploit relationships whenever possible.

And the US doesn't?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

And whatever about China not being "our friend" (it never was, this was a transactional relationship which worked perfectly well for both parties for a few decades), I would argue (strongly) that Saudi-Arabia is most emphatically not "your friend", certainly, not now.

Moreover, that is a relationship that I would recommend be subject to a severe - nay, savage - critical analysis with a view to severing it, or, at least drastically altering the nature - and underlying assumptions - of that relationship.

 

[AG_PhamD]

And the US doesn't?

Certainly every country works in its best interest. Certainly the US has a long history of exploitation. I would say we have allies and many of them are very positive relationships. We have shared historical and bonds as well as shared political ideology with other nations. We usually abide by international law. We respect other countries borders and rarely break out agreements. We don’t rely on IP theft or forced technology transfers to build our technology sector. I like to think we usually have a genuine interest in helping other countries, even if there are ulterior motives.

No country is perfect, definitely not the US, but I’d say some are better than others.

 

[Deleted member 215]

True. Saudi Arabia is our homie, though.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

I've heard China's growth has slowed down greatly. To the point they are not going to overtake USA anytime soon.

 

[lizkat]

I've heard China's growth has slowed down greatly. To the point they are not going to overtake USA anytime soon.

China got overextended inside its own borders on a real estate bubble, and externally because of practical problems with finance of its Belt and Road initiative and related development of resources in Latin America and Africa. Ambitious but overreaching, and some ill will along the way over how the debt repayment is to be managed, how employees are treated, how Chinese labor is imported at expense of local jobs, etc.

Apparently Xi is mostly concerned with cementing his hold over the party now, judging by the outcome of the recent party conclave. But, his right hand man is known to be one who favors continuation of the economic reforms that had made it possible for China's middle class to grow.

Remains to be seen if the pair of them can manage to come up with a plan --and implementations-- that walk that line between encouraging entrepreneurship and discouraging political dissent.

One sure way to mess up is to leave people with no voice AND no rice on the table. Xi got into this whole thing of refocusing China on growing its own food. A disastrous decision if he continues to enforce it.

People in the interior of China are pissed off having had to sell flower farms or the like, which had generated products for export (abroad or to other provinces in China) and to have been told by the authorities now just to grow rice or hogs etc., regardless of suitability of the land. They lost former revenue streams and they're back to doing what their grandparents left farms and worked in sweatshops in the enterprise zones to prevent the grandkids from having to do: just grow rice enough to feed their own family and if lucky a little corn for a piglet or two, only now they're to grow rice and pigs for the nation also. Untenable.