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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

#91

Post by bakuninsbart »

kevingadd wrote: post #67
cbilson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the CCP were so concerned with COVID why did they have a victory concert in August 2020[1]? Obviously the virus is still deadly, but it seems at least inconsistent for CCP COVID policy to be “we did it!” in August 2020, then lock downs in 2022. Regarding “lifting people out of poverty”, did hundreds of millions of people’s hard work have anything to do with lifting _themselves_ out of poverty or does the CCP get a…

I can understand this being hard to comprehend, but if China actually effectively deployed a zero covid policy initially - it's up to you whether you think the reports to this effect are true or not - then a mask-less concert is in fact pretty safe as long as you're not allowing foreigners to bring COVID into the country. Of course the moment you let Americans in to your country, you've given up your battle against C…

> if China actually effectively deployed a zero covid policy initially - it's up to you whether you think the reports to this effect are true or not - then a mask-less concert is in fact pretty safe as long as you're not allowing foreigners to bring COVID into the country.

I mean it is not actually a matter of belief. We know how infectious COVID was, and we know life in China pretty much resumed as normal by August 2020, except for hard lockdowns wherever a case popped up. You cannot hide exponential growth of infections, it is simply impossible.

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

#92

Post by ethbr0 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #73
superchroma wrote: post #22

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…

> Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. Wow, you make it sound like it was some devious Chinese plan where they intentionally made their people work for American manufacturers and lured them in with bribes. The reality was that American corporations willingly went over to China because number must go up and paying their own people living factory…

> America did it to itself.

Corporations outsourced manufacturing to China, because American corporations are independent from the US government and profit-motivated.

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

#93

Post by jacquesm »

jongjong wrote: post #90
Spooky23 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> The smartest thing the west can do from now on is dump fiat currencies, switch to crypto

Seriously? WTF?

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

#94

Post by paganel »

veqq wrote: 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…

> Similar to Eurodollars in the past yielding outsized interest rates, increasing demand and thus dollar outflows

Genuinely curious, do you happen to have a link about that? When did it happen? The ‘70s, the ‘80s? I’m on my (small-screen) phone and I’m also a little lazy to try and search for it right now.

More generally, I feel that the outside investments that bring in lots of money for those involved is not a topic that has been given too much attention, all the focus is on stuff such as trade deficits and the like.

The British Empire managed to partially thrive on that kind of investment philosophy for much of the 19th century, the French, too, from a certain point on (even though 1917 and the Bolsheviks getting to power did them a good one).

I suspect the same thing has been happening to the US for a long time now (from just after WW2? I couldn’t tell), they’re not balancing their trade deficits based on “money printing” alone.

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

#95

Post by stephen_g »

superchroma wrote: post #22
veqq wrote: 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…

So they do… basically all the things that the West used to do over the last few hundred years (some of them far more recently) to get ourselves into the position of economic and political power in the world we are in?

I mean, not to say they aren’t bad but we need to have more acknowledgement of the things our countries did in the past and why they were wrong, and looking to make reparations where possible, and not just hypocritically pretending that we didn’t do them while accusing other emerging powers of the things we did…

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

#96

Post by surgical_fire »

FreshStart wrote: post #55

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…

> overall been quite friendly an empire.

Yes they friendly helped install military dictatorships in Latin American countries. They friendly invaded Iraq under false pretenses. They friendly waged wars and used economic sanctions against countries that for on reason or another didn't conform to their dominant position.

Don't misunderstand me. The US has the power to oppress, and is an opressor. It is business as usual. Just cut the crap of calling it "friendly".

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

#97

Post by paganel »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #87
veqq wrote: 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 us…

You’re saying that building roads and bridges is not beneficial to countries which deeply lack roads and bridges?

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

#98

Post by ImHereToVote »

ethbr0 wrote: post #92
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economically, they're an adversary; they undercut western manufacturing and all our manufacturing went there. Wow, you make it sound like it was some devious Chinese plan where they intentionally made their people work for American manufacturers and lured them in with bribes. The reality was that American corporations willingly went over to China because number must go up and paying their own people living factory…

> America did it to itself. Corporations outsourced manufacturing to China, because American corporations are independent from the US government and profit-motivated.

[flagged]

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

#99

Post by ethbr0 »

jongjong wrote: post #90
Spooky23 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> then [the US and other western countries] monopolized 'the internet' with their own government-anointed unprofitable big tech monopolies

How did the government anoint Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook?

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

#100

Post by biosboiii »

superchroma wrote: post #22
veqq wrote: 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…

> They're seeking to upset the global money standard.

The disturb the global standard, which happens to benefit the US greatly while hurting the rest of the world (especially the global south). Terrible!

> They use (basically) slave labor,

While it is true that China has a lot of manual labor and less worker rights than most western states, China isnt the sweatshop it used to be anymore.

Nearly every "simple" labor intensive industry, like textile industry, has moved to countries like Bangladesh, while strangely no one seems to care about their slave labor.

Also, wasn't the "slave labor" the reason why the US cooperated with China, essentially making them what they are today? [1]

> They manipulate their currency.

How dare they? https://brrr.money

> They entrap other nations with predatory loans for infrastructure.

I could write a book about this but whatcha doin' over there? [2]

> they happily pollute the earth as if tomorrow isn't a concern.

China is ranking 48 in Co2 emissions per capita, the US in ranking 14 (2021) [3]

Also they are investing more into renewable energy than every other country, by far [4]

> They are scraping the ocean clean to feed their people.

China fished 11.7 million metric tons in 2020, the US fished 4.23 million metric tons, China fishes approx. three times as much as the US. [5]

But China has 1.4 billion citizens, while the US has 331 million citizens, so China has over 4 times the citizens.

Also the average Chinese eats 40.3kg of fish every year, while average American eats 22.2kg of fish every year. [6]

So to sum up: China fishes three times as much as the US, while having 4 times the population that eats nearly twice as much fish as a US citizen does.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimerica

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme

[3] https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-china-the-main-climate-c...

[4] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-invests-546...

[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/240225/leading-fishing-n...

[6] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fish-and-seafood-consumpt...

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