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China’s Economy Slows Sharply

nytimes.com

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Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#171

Post by joering2 »

rrggrr wrote: post #5

I continue to believe - as I've said in prior HN comments - that the Chinese leadership welcomes this slowdown and the related trade dispute as a means to rebalance the domestic economy, while placing the blame for the rebalancing on the United States. I note that at least one distinguished China watcher agrees: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/27/china-s-best-option...

The article doesn’t affirm what you are implying. I don’t think its a blame game when you have a country to feed. But long story short - USA will definitely be the first one to blink. China today is pretty much like Russia in the old days. Country was poor and in debt, their people starve or froze to death in millions and still praised their leader. This may as well happen in China today, and noone will blink. Meanwhile in USA I don’t think even average size group of people will allow the country to slide into full blown depression China-style, because some dude in White House wants to play a War game.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#172

Post by fspeech »

adventured wrote: post #167
fspeech wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese import growth over 2018 was mostly in the double digit range (averaged 14.6% Jan. through Nov.). Its imports from Europe, Japan and ASEAN grew 10% or higher. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/china/total-imports-gr...

They're not identical markets. Both Japan and the EU (Germany with the world's largest trade surplus) have larger export markets in relation to the size of their economies than the US does. That's also one reason the US runs perpetually large trade deficits with Japan and the EU. US exports to China haven't gone up meaningfully since 2013 (in fact they declined 2013 vs 2015/2016). That's not the case with the EU and…

If you look at the graph I provided and zoom out to the 5 year chart, you would see a fairly large drop in Chinese imports around 2015-16. Part of that might have been due to commodity price drops, but I suspect the correlation of US export to China with Chinese total import is higher than you gave credit for, in a normal year that is.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#174

Post by nihonde »

adventured wrote: post #169
nihonde wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. China is benefitting from an uptick in orders due to tariffs. Also, US exports are down, despite your attempt to write the dip off: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti... And that’s from back in October. It’s a loss no matter how you spin it.

Saying I'm wrong, doesn't make it so. Your claim - that US exports are "eating dirt" - is unsupported by the actual export numbers. US Exports are down a few billion dollars only vs 2017, and they're up vs 2015 and 2016. In a $20.5 trillion economy it's entirely meaningless to see a $3 or $5 billion drop in exports to China and doesn't square with your outlandish claim about dirt eating. China is benefitting from wha…

The gap is what matters, not the year over year totals. Trump’s stated objective was to lower the trade gap and he (so far) is failing. Front loading is evidence that US demand is as high as ever. US companies have no real options other than Chinese suppliers and that’s why they’re buying as much as possible ahead of Trump’s tarrifs, which only really punish US buyers and the end consumers.

The fact that China can use its currency to fight this trade war is only more evidence that the US is being outmaneuvered.

You can spin it all day long, but the US soybean farmers and steelworkers are not winning this trade war.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/g...

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#175

Post by berlinstartup »

panarky wrote: post #164
ubtual wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common pattern amongst Chinese apologist Economy: Everyone says it's been failing for 10 years -> Chinese leadership is omnipotent regarding economy -> it's just a temporary slowdown, government will print more money -> Chinese leadership planned this slowdown Human rights: look at US! -> ignore comparisons to other countries other than US -> It's not really a concentration camp, since there's no mass murde…

> slavery 300 years ago The emancipation proclamation was signed January 1, 1863, or 156 years ago.

Look at you, knowing things!

...you understand that slavery also existed 300 years ago, right?

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#176

Post by dionian »

keepsimple wrote: post #156

As a Chinese grew up in China and have been living in US in recent years, I am already used to how US media reports about China. The bottom line: I have not seen _any_ US media reporting China truthfully. NPR is usually the worst, but others not much better. What happens is that, because of untruthful reporting in US media, people in US does not know or understand what's going on in China. It seems a miracle that suc…

Democracy isnt required for prosperity, as China has shown. Prosperity doesn't give you freedom though.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#177

Post by seanmcdirmid »

keepsimple wrote: post #156

As a Chinese grew up in China and have been living in US in recent years, I am already used to how US media reports about China. The bottom line: I have not seen _any_ US media reporting China truthfully. NPR is usually the worst, but others not much better. What happens is that, because of untruthful reporting in US media, people in US does not know or understand what's going on in China. It seems a miracle that suc…

Americans and westerners who live or have lived in China are typically more critical about china than those that haven’t. We are the ones who notice the empty buildings and districts, and that mall in Beijing that is never going to attract any stores, or why the apartment buildings we live in is half empty but has a thriving ant tribe in the basement.

If anything, reporting on China by western sources doesn’t get anywhere near the actual situation in China because westeners would never believe it was that crazy. News on China by China already leaves a pretty bad impression.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#178

Post by hueving »

nihonde wrote: post #153
rrggrr wrote: post #5

I continue to believe - as I've said in prior HN comments - that the Chinese leadership welcomes this slowdown and the related trade dispute as a means to rebalance the domestic economy, while placing the blame for the rebalancing on the United States. I note that at least one distinguished China watcher agrees: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/27/china-s-best-option...

Meanwhile US exports to China are eating dirt. This trade war is not going well for America, although this slow growth headline will be used to bolster a false narrative: https://mobile.twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1073234887...

"Hug a business owner or farmer who exports to China" is the equivalent of a "think of the children" argument. It ignores how little relevance they have in the overall trade with China in order to oversize a problem.

See the sibling comment for how little the total numbers have declined.

Someone is going to get fucked in a tariff change. Tariff changes area always a question of greater good.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#179

Post by tonyedgecombe »

echevil wrote: post #18
NicoJuicy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my sincere doubts about this. China always had a requirement to grow 6% for every city. So I believe some numbers are inflated ( mostly about real estate eg. Ghost cities, ..). This doesn't give many issues, because there is actual growth. The reasoning goes that when the growth slows, the entire pyramid goes crumbling down ( debts). As weird as it is, I think it's an objective overview of everything China rel…

I think Chinese government has to welcome slowing down because it's just impossible to maintain a growth rate like that indefinitely. The GPD of China already come close to that of US. At this scale, the same growth rate is naturally becoming harder and harder to achieve and simply pursuing that number might lead to catastrophic outcome. A slow down in economy growth gives China more time to fix the structural proble…

If China did have "much better control of the macro-economy compared to free markets" the they wouldn't have the debt problem.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#180

Post by hueving »

smnrchrds wrote: post #148
ubtual wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common pattern amongst Chinese apologist Economy: Everyone says it's been failing for 10 years -> Chinese leadership is omnipotent regarding economy -> it's just a temporary slowdown, government will print more money -> Chinese leadership planned this slowdown Human rights: look at US! -> ignore comparisons to other countries other than US -> It's not really a concentration camp, since there's no mass murde…

> or slavery 300 years ago I am no apologist for any country, but wouldn't a better point be the very real, widespread, and constitutionally-protected prisoner slavery, which is happening in America today not just 300 years ago?

It's definitely true that it's a stronger argument, but you're playing right into the design of apologist propaganda. By making constant half-assed arguments against something, you get people to disagree with the crap argument then you get other people to present the strongest argument for the sake of arguing. This successfully gets people arguing both sides of an argument about a subject that wasn't part of the original criticism in the first place.

The best trolls tell something almost true to get people involved in a fight about details rather than countering the larger misdirection.

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