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Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

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181–190 of 257 posts

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#181
post #2

Well China's now the world's largest economy by PPP GDP [1] so it makes some kind of sense. I'm not sure how freely convertible the Yuan is though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

Another, maybe more significant statistic, China has equaled or surpassed US, in terms the size of retail market, as the first country ever did that in the past 100 years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/11/the-c... That is a more relevant data point of its buying power right now, and potential impact it would have on other economies, if China decides to use its market as a weapon.

Some people would say China is _already_ using its market as a weapon. It's just that China at the moment seems to be a bit more subtle in applying leverage than the US is. Even ignoring Trump, I'd say subtlety is not exactly a big feature of US international policy.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#182
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, the EU needs to do what it must to survive and that IMO means federalize. A united EU would not need an anchor for safety.

Eh, that seems to be a pretty big leap in logic. Europe doesn't need a unified nationstate, if it has strong institutions that fullfil nationstate-esque functions. We are at a good level of that on economic, monetary and judicial matters. The fiscal issues of the EU are in the process of shaking themselves out. What we are lacking is effective military cooperation. Even NATO is not very good at this, unless the US is…

If you have fiscal cooperation, a single currency, a governmental body that forces regulations and laws to its member states and in the end even a unified army (which I think will happen in the future, especially since the US is taking more and more of an isolationist approach to foreign policy) isn't that closer to a federation than it is to a simple trade union? Not all federations need to be a massive nationstate which in Europe would be impossible by definition since you can't create a new nation out of thin air in a few years when you have nations that have existed since the time the concept of a nation was created.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#183
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is cooperative among its members, but its economic policy towards the rest of the world is protectionism.

The EU is the world's largest exporter and largest importer [1]. It also the world's largest foreign investor and the world's largest recipient of foreign investment. If it were protectionist, that would hardly be possible. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/eu-position-in-world-trade/

You are going against US propaganda and the idea of American exceptionalism. Only the US is a global trade power, please retract your statements.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#184
post #125
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, maybe, compare Tianamen square with Kent state, the Chicago '68 democratic convention, and so on.

Why? These things are not even remotely on the same scale. How are you going to reconcile an event that caused ~20k some odd deaths (recent foreign consul leaks during the time) that was nearly 100% covered up by the government vs. Kent State? That's a bit ridiculous imo.

Well, one event threatened a whole regime (and the country's stability) the other was some hippie students protesting at their university.

And still, "twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds" -- killing 4 and injuring many more.

Which begs the question, if there was major potentially elite affecting / government toppling issue instead of a small scale anti-war protest at a local university, what would be the response?

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#185
post #3

A few years ago I couldn’t tell you the name of a Chinese company off the top of my head, now I can not only rattle of a list, they’re companies I’ve worked with or have significant investments in companies in the US. I also have a roster of WeChat contacts. I also work with multiple ex-pats that fled fearing for their life due to persecution based on their religion (Falung Gong), and laugh at how freaked people are…

Ah yes, a topic about China and the top comment is some American spreading the usual fud about how China is the pure evil, like it has been engrained into their brains from the day they were born. Sad to see hn is no better than reddit these days.

You should actually go to China, go to Taiwan too to compare, and talk to people who had to leave and were granted refuge status in Canada. You might have a more nuanced understanding than “American fud”.

Normally fud isn’t well documented: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#186
post #159
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China did not have the power before. Who knows how it will act when it does? It's treatment of Tibet, invaded in 1948 and still occupied, is not encouraging.

It used to have this power and it turned all the countries in its neighborhood into tributary states. Which, all things considered, was not that bad, since it was overall a peaceful and stable relationship. Hard to say how Communist China as a superpower will differ from Imperial China, though...

If you look at how Communist China treats minority populations as a blueprint, it's not encouraging.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#187
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start with informing the public, until a ballot would succeed? Most of the people being against the EU are against it because they only ever hear the bad sides? They never realize that most of the bad things "the EU" did were actually things the council did. Which actually just means that the heads of states of all EU nations agreed on it. If you end the EU, all power goes to these negotiations, and you'll only see t…

> Start off with replacing this propaganda It sounds like you just want to substitute another set of propaganda . Many people were quite happy to establish a European Common Market. Few had a direct input to moving that to Union. So first you'd need to turn the clock back 40 years and explain why anything deeper than a market is necessary.

Telling facts is not "another set of propaganda", so we can start with that part first. Then we can go to the points which are more opinion-based and present multiple sides. The first part alone should be enough to ease many fears.

That aside: It isn't undemocratic to not do a ballot. In a parliamentary democracy parliaments can decide most things themselves (even all, depending on the country). That's what they get elected for in the first place.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#188
post #115
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religious persecution doesn’t disappear just because of economic growth. Neither does discrimination against sexual preferences (+). That’s the fear expressed above. The hypocrisy of a country that props constant wars all around the globe, has bombed/invaded 3-4 countries in the last 20 years alone, and constant meddling and manipulations of other governments for its "interests", that had segregation up to the 70s,…

I agree that the United States' run as the world's biggest superpower has been far from perfect. I criticise the US a lot. And I actually consider China to be one of the few countries that is not governed by amateurs. China gets a lot of things right. The one big problem, though, is that China does not believe in freedom. At all. Censorship, no free press, no freedoms of opinion, expression, religion, etc. And they s…

>If we're going to have a superpower, I would love a China that respects freedom in that role. They would be better at it than the US. But current China is not that China.

Where I disagree is that as a superpower China has been benign. They might have their territorial issues with their neighbors (like every other country, much more an ancient one in a much changed region), but they don't impose their (internal) non-freedom or whatever on the rest of the world with any kind of crusades.

>The one big problem, though, is that China does not believe in freedom. At all. Censorship, no free press, no freedoms of opinion, expression, religion, etc. And they see nothing wrong with that.

That's for themselves to fix/decide, as it is a matter of internal politics. Heck, their majority of their people might very well be fine with it, as they have a totally different political tradition than democracy, going back to taoism and on. Are there dissenters? Sure, but the kind of Chinese people westerners tend to fraternize with are exactly those that would adopt various western values or want some regime change, but that doesn't mean they represent anywhere near a majority -- it's a selection bias.

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#189
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to have this power and it turned all the countries in its neighborhood into tributary states. Which, all things considered, was not that bad, since it was overall a peaceful and stable relationship. Hard to say how Communist China as a superpower will differ from Imperial China, though...

If you look at how Communist China treats minority populations as a blueprint, it's not encouraging.

So like blacks?

Re: Europe’s central banks are starting to replace dollar reserves with the yuan

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do they torture them, they harvest their organs (sometimes while they are alive for "freshness"). China is on a whole different level.

Got any sources for that? Many of these claims remind me far too much about stories about babies being thrown out of incubators and whatnot.

I think it's pretty believable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

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