Tariff hike is in effect.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t...SKCN1SG08X
The next few days should be interesting.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t...SKCN1SG08X
The next few days should be interesting.
Quote: (05-10-2019 12:13 AM)Fortis Wrote:As a Chinese client recently told me, Trump is the 无赖 (scumbag) that America needs to handle China.
I think these tariffs need to happen to get China to cooperate with the rest of the world. You cannot play that typical diplomacy game with them. You have to bring them to their knees forcefully and then give them permission to stand. Equality is a foreign concept to the Chinese. Things are a zero-sum game. Winners and losers.
Quote: (05-09-2019 11:38 PM)Fortis Wrote:
China is feeling these tariffs, but these also came at the most inopportune time ever. China has had a MASSIVE pig flu that is destroying their pig population AND they're also getting smashed by the global soybean price hikes.
I've read in some places that they've had to slaughter upwards of 200m pigs. I'm not sure if this is making mainstream news yet but it's quite scary.
I think Brazil was the main place that would have been able to sell soy to China but they're dealing with a soy blight or something.
This leaves China in a position where they need to get their pigs and soy from the USA. Very unfortunate shit.
Not sure what this will do in the long-term but they aren't just shrugging this off so easily.
Quote:[url=https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1123681518881210376%3Fref_src%3Dtwsrc%255Etfw%257Ctwcamp%255Etweetembed%257Ctwterm%255E1123681%E2%80%8B518881210376%26ref_url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.rooshvforum.network%252Fthread-55800-page-62.html][/url]
Quote: (05-10-2019 03:42 AM)Fortis Wrote:
Tiger, mind explaining that? I do not get that at all.
Quote: (05-10-2019 12:46 AM)Lunostrelki Wrote:
China is a lot weaker than many people think. Having a predatory political overclass and crappy rule of law, plus a regime that prides itself on its history of genocidal tyranny doesn't make for sound economic development. The 6.5% growth figure in particular is almost certainly fake, as is pretty much all other data that comes out of China. When you look at the numbers they put out, nothing adds up. If they censor the central statistics, analysts go for the provincial statistics and find massive discrepancies. Then the Party censors those too and you have to look at other secondary data (before they're also redacted).
You can easily replace the Chinese with the Soviets. The Kremlin also ran great propaganda and had Westerners fooled about its supposedly awesome military strength up until the very end. From what I know, it's safe to say 2019 will be a repeat of 1989 (barring some craziness obviously).
Quote: (05-10-2019 12:13 AM)Fortis Wrote:As a Chinese client recently told me, Trump is the 无赖 (scumbag) that America needs to handle China.
I think these tariffs need to happen to get China to cooperate with the rest of the world. You cannot play that typical diplomacy game with them. You have to bring them to their knees forcefully and then give them permission to stand. Equality is a foreign concept to the Chinese. Things are a zero-sum game. Winners and losers.
Quote: (05-10-2019 08:08 AM)Aquarius Wrote:I broadly agree with your post.
If you really think that China will collapse in the next year or 2, I gotta say that your sorely mistaken. While China and the USSR are both run by Communist governments and both are notoriously opaque, the similarities end there.
...
What I can say is that China will definitely emerge from this upcoming recession as a different country. Don't count on it being Democrat at all. The best case scenario of perfectly executed reforms and a restrained but not passive geopolitical stance might as well cement China as a proper superpower of the 21st century. In the worst case scenario, it becomes a much more autocratic country, with the associated repression, closing of doors to expats, and decoupling from the global economy.
Quote: (05-10-2019 12:13 AM)Fortis Wrote:
To give you guys some more context, American businesses are dropping off China like fleas off a dog. I'm friends with a few American businessmen who have moved operations to Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico and other spots because The Chinese authorities are becoming a bit too draconian with their regulations.
One might even be able to say that the American tariffs are inadvertently protecting American intellectual property since all these businesses are fleeing China.
We're definitely in for some interesting times.
Despite what China would have you think they're still very much in the "assimilate and improve" phase of their technological dominance. There are a few Chinese brands that are great but they haven't really come out with anything that is truly ground-breaking that they can put their stamp on. Most of their best stuff is just reverse-engineered technology from other countries. They can only create good shit when someone else creates better shit.
I think these tariffs need to happen to get China to cooperate with the rest of the world. You cannot play that typical diplomacy game with them. You have to bring them to their knees forcefully and then give them permission to stand. Equality is a foreign concept to the Chinese. Things are a zero-sum game. Winners and losers.
Quote: (05-10-2019 03:50 PM)911 Wrote:
The problem with our guys in China is that they lack historic perspective, they've been to China in the last decade or two, as opposed to back when you were considered well off if you had a new Flying Pigeon bike and running water in your studio.
This is Beijing in 1980:
Beijing, Shanghai, today:
The fact is, this generation of Chinese is so incredibly better off than the preceding one, and the next one will be even better off, as will the one after that. China's GDP per capita is 1/6th the US', and will more than triple in the next few decades, as the country will surge ahead of the US as the economic world leader.
And contrary to the growing wealth gap and Brazilification of western economies, this surge in wealth, the greatest ever recorded in the entire history of humanity, is very widely spread, with over half a billion Chinese lifted out of poverty into middle classdom.
So you can make a very solid argument about their leaders looking out for the welfare of their people, overseeing their country's stunning economic growth and laying out their future welfare with trillions in infrastructure investments and shrewd trade deals across the world, while the US has been borrowing trillions, bleeding its taxpayers and soldiers in useless mideast wars, and scrapping their industrial base for better returns on their capital.
Our oligarchs hate us, their leaders are delivering for their people. They promote nationalism through great historic series, ban baizuo (((cultural marxism))) and avoid wars while still building up their military. Our leaders are hell bent on destroying us demographically, on demoralizing us and subverting us through degenerate mass culture and academia, and on crushing us with debt from endless wars, six figure college debt and trillion dollar bankster giveaways.
This is the kind of perspective you need to keep when talking about "the US" or "China" in the context of global policy.
Quote:[url=https://twitter.com/xinwenxiaojie/status/1126770241449512960][/url]
Quote: (05-09-2019 10:02 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:
Just some things China has been through in its history:
- massive social upheavals
- civil wars
- devastating earthquakes
- brutal dynasty rivalries
- starvation
- communism
Pretty sure they can handle some bogus-ass tariffs. The Chinese are hardened motherfuckers.
Quote:Quote:
Three gunmen have stormed a five-star hotel in the restive Pakistani province of Balochistan, killing at least one person, officials say.
The attack targeted the Zaver Pearl-Continental Hotel in the strategic port city of Gwadar, the centrepiece of a multi-billion-dollar Chinese project.
A hotel spokesman said there were no guests and few staff due to Ramadan.
The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army said it had carried out the attack to target Chinese and other investors.
"Expect more attacks China and Pakistan," said a Twitter account that claimed to be linked to the group.
Militants in Balochistan oppose Chinese investment, saying it is of little benefit to local people.
What do we know about the attack?
The gunmen stormed the hotel, usually popular with top government officials and foreign visitors, at around 16:50 local time (11:50 GMT), killing one security guard who tried to stop them at the entrance.
Security forces entered the hotel and took part in a gun battle with the militants.
Due to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the hotel had no guests and a very limited number of staff, a Zaver Pearl-Continental spokesperson told the BBC.
However, earlier reports suggested that hotel guests had been evacuated safely.
The hotel sits on a hilltop overlooking the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, which is being developed by China as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a network of roads, railway and pipelines between the two countries.
On Twitter, the Chinese embassy in Pakistan condemned the attack, which comes just weeks after gunmen killed 14 people, including 11 military personnel, in the region.
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A worrying breach of security
Gwadar is a city with a heavy military presence. It is viewed by both Chinese and Pakistani officials as the lynchpin of the CPEC, aiming to connect western China with the Arabian Sea.
When I visited the port city in late 2017 with other international journalists, we travelled in convoys guarded by armed escorts, and stayed in the same hotel that was targeted.
This attack will therefore be seen as a worrying breach of security, and it is not the first time Chinese interests have been targeted by this militant group. Last year the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) carried out an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi.
After that attack, both Pakistani and Chinese officials stressed that violence would not derail their close co-operation. But militant activity in Balochistan remains one of the major concerns about the viability of the CPEC project.
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What is the situation in Balochistan?
Home to a long-running insurgency, Balochistan is Pakistan's poorest and least developed province.
It shares a large, porous border with Afghanistan and Iran.
Its economy is dominated by natural resources, particularly natural gas, and is being transformed by major Chinese infrastructure projects on the CPEC, part of the ambitious Belt and Road initiative.
Several militant groups operate in the region, including the Pakistani Taliban, the BLA and the Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Quote:[url=https://twitter.com/LouDobbs/status/1127004257029361664][/url]