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China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

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Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#81

The problem is that China does not want to become the US, they want to become colonial great Britain or France. The goal is classic mercantilism-all raw material have to go through them to become a product. It's barely disgused Manchester allover. The US by comparison has been quite dedicated to free trade. They abandoned there own production base, imported more culture then they exported and overall been quite frien…

> and overall been quite friendly an empire Just a few million in civilian casualties here and there. Because remember, Saddam has WMDs. When was the last time China went to war with another country on a false pretense and massacred millions?

Well they didn’t go to war with another country, but the great leap forward massacred millions of chinese citizens.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#82
post #13

These currency reserves largely represent loans China issued abroad, which have been paid off (or are in the process of being served). Similar to Eurodollars in the past yielding outsized interest rates, increasing demand and thus dollar outflows, this shows a (perhaps?) unrecognized accumulation in China, which may very well either allow them to essentially print their own dollars or mean that they already have been…

I mean it's the gigantic elephant in the room. The reported narratives have aligned over the years as if they were our enemy. Here are some: Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. They manipulate their currency. They interfere with foreign owned businesses. They steal IP. They're seeking to upset the global money standard. They entrap other nation…

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Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#83
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's the gigantic elephant in the room. The reported narratives have aligned over the years as if they were our enemy. Here are some: Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. They manipulate their currency. They interfere with foreign owned businesses. They steal IP. They're seeking to upset the global money standard. They entrap other nation…

> undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. Notice that western itself is a collective of nation but all hell breaks lose if non western got manufacturing am I rite? Having said that be thankful for ultra scaling up manufacturing in East Asia. Appliances and electronic prices keeps falling. Compare that to services or "western" exclusive manufacturing like vehicles, getting inflated like cr…

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Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and overall been quite friendly an empire Just a few million in civilian casualties here and there. Because remember, Saddam has WMDs. When was the last time China went to war with another country on a false pretense and massacred millions?

Well they didn’t go to war with another country, but the great leap forward massacred millions of chinese citizens.

If we’re going to go into history and massacring your own people, then America isn’t entirely the example you want to emulate.

Remember the whole Native American massacre thing that America has convniently forgotten about.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#85

The problem is that China does not want to become the US, they want to become colonial great Britain or France. The goal is classic mercantilism-all raw material have to go through them to become a product. It's barely disgused Manchester allover. The US by comparison has been quite dedicated to free trade. They abandoned there own production base, imported more culture then they exported and overall been quite frien…

>They abandoned there own production base, imported more culture then they exported and overall been quite friendly an empire.

As long as the others did what they want.

See multiple countries in South America and the Middle East.

Even China's lack of human rights weren't a problem until they became a real competitor.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and overall been quite friendly an empire Just a few million in civilian casualties here and there. Because remember, Saddam has WMDs. When was the last time China went to war with another country on a false pretense and massacred millions?

Well they didn’t go to war with another country, but the great leap forward massacred millions of chinese citizens.

From a outsider point of view I prefer countries that kill their own people instead of mine.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#87
post #13

These currency reserves largely represent loans China issued abroad, which have been paid off (or are in the process of being served). Similar to Eurodollars in the past yielding outsized interest rates, increasing demand and thus dollar outflows, this shows a (perhaps?) unrecognized accumulation in China, which may very well either allow them to essentially print their own dollars or mean that they already have been…

> These currency reserves largely represent loans China issued abroad, which have been paid off (or are in the process of being served).

I think you missed a crisis in Africa.

Those loans can hardly be paid off, the interest rates are too high and the borrowed loans Kuch for infrastructure projects aren't leading to any improvements / revenue.

If so, show me which have a net benefit for the country where loans are used to pay off mostly Chinese workers.

Every project by China in Africa seems to have failed and putting those countries in debt ( fyi, those projects which China introduced with big fanfare when announced have literally gone mute, business as usual it seems)

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#88
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is the point of making it a secret? It would make foreigners' companies have a harder time because the public info is wrong... But this also makes Chinese companies have a harder time as well. Not to mention, it erodes trusts for every entity that depends or trades with China...

>But what is the point of making it a secret? It makes the many exaggerated claims of Chinese economic demise that much more exaggerated and likely false, it leaves the rest of the world (read: their enemies) more complacent and more vulnerable to Chinese ambitions. If the claim being presented here is true, it doesn't really surprise me: I've been hearing for the better part of the past three decades that China's ec…

> Does China have $3 trillion dollars of secret "fuck you" money?

I don’t think that’s a useful way to think of foreign reserves.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#89

Why is this a problem? If a seller want to sell you something or buy something from you, do they need to dig thru your safe and whatever secrets you have in order to make the transactions? The only concern is USA couldnt gauge how much of economic weaponry they need to unleash on China to destroy it. Japan did that in the 70s-90s and basically economically subservient to America. Same goes with EU. Russia, China and…

Except that they're selling cash. China doesn't sell you USD, they keep the USD in their safe and give you their own currency in exchange. That hidden money is overly leveraged, ie debt, and you'll never know if tomorrow you'll get your original value back. China is the most indebted country in history. How do you know that for each $1 hiding in accounting magic is not being resold twice? We don't, because of what th…

>>> China is the most indebted country in history.

Last time I checked China was ~23T in debt vs USA’s ~32T. They also have a population almost 5 times larger.

Re: China Has $3T of ‘Hidden’ Currency Reserves, Setser Says

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's the gigantic elephant in the room. The reported narratives have aligned over the years as if they were our enemy. Here are some: Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. They manipulate their currency. They interfere with foreign owned businesses. They steal IP. They're seeking to upset the global money standard. They entrap other nation…

The biggest adversary of the United States is the United States. Those factories migrated to the US South, then to Mexico, then to China. Not because of some conspiracy, but because we run our institutions based on quarterly financials. I worked a long time ago on an effort to sue a large manufacturer whose supply chain was shipping counterfeit parts to certain customers. The Chinese partners ran a third shift with n…

I agree. The US (and other western countries) have let themselves fall victim to all sorts of corrupt ideologies; this has created short term 'limited liability' reward structures which have encouraged a short term mindset. Instead of focusing on fixing internal issues, the US decided to run their economy on the misery of others by starting wars in faraway lands, manipulating foreign governments, saddling them with debts to create artificial demand for USD to export inflation, then they monopolized 'the internet' with their own government-anointed big tech monopolies. Zero focus on creating real, profitable, value-adding businesses. Zero ethics.

China won this round fair and square... The smartest thing the west can do from now on is dump fiat currencies, switch to crypto and leave China holding the paper, but the longer the west fails to acknowledge that China beat it at its own game, the further it will fall.

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