Showing all posts tagged trade

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 1, 2018

Author SymphonyPosted on

When China cancelled a meeting in Washington, the Chinese thought they were sending a message; Washington thought they wouldn’t be sending any more messages at all. The Chinese government wants mutual respect, trade that results in equal numbers, and that countries not be bullied into taking sides in a China-US disagreement. Though China lobbed this new policy in a complaint against the US, there have yet to be steps or specific commitments on how China will hold up its side of this new policy. It will be difficult to get clarification without communication.

US tariffs are unfair. It’s so obvious that it doesn’t need to be proven. China has a right, after all—and everyone should agree—to develop itself as a nation. China’s right to have any and all resources given to it from everywhere in the world, to whatever extent is needed for development, is an entitlement China has by birth and is already universally accepted around the world. Those in the US who oppose this obvious consensus are a rogue fringe not deserving of academic mention.

But, Taiwan is being a big bully—a meanie-face. By not rebuking the US for considering a third of a billion dollar arms sale to Taiwan, the Taiwanese are spitting in Beijing’s face once again. As if that bullying wasn’t enough, Taiwan is also planning a new place to park its helicopters. Of all the audacity!

Hong Kong, however, stands no chance against the great and mighty China. By banning a pro-independence party, the Hong Kong government sure showed them! There’s no possible hope for any kind of backlash or rise in sympathy, once the rightful leaders have made their all-powerful will known in the fully self-governed special administrative region of Hong Kong.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, September 17, 2018

Author SymphonyPosted on

The US is not sending a contingency of Marines to Taiwan to protect it’s envoy. This announcement came after reports that the US had such plans. After discussing the non-existence of the plans for deployment, the State Department also discussed that it does not discuss plans for security or other strategies. Perhaps the real strategy not being discussed is that the strategy is not being discussed.

At any rate, the announcement that an announcement has not been made about the discussion of not discussing security strategy and the non-discussion about Marines who will not be deployed should make heads in Beijing spin as they try to figure out just what the US is not doing about what it’s not discussing. Fewer Marines in Taiwan would be more inviting for an invasion, if the discussion were under discussion, which it is not—reportedly.

One of the best kept secrets about the brewing trade war between the US and China is that US jobs departed to China. A trade war would move those jobs back to the US.

Consider a US company that set up shop in China. While the financial know-it-alls loose sleep over anything being less pleasant than an afternoon massage, including a US company in China being attacked hyena style as Chinese culture loves to do, the people in the US wouldn’t care about that company. That’s the company that forsook the American worker. In the mind of the average US working voter, the company that got in bed with China should stay around for the abusive marriage; so leave them to the hyenas! Any Americans who own shares in those companies would do well to keep that information secret from their working, voting neighbors.

The world doesn’t work how so-called “financial experts” think it does. The trade war will not hurt the US economy because economies flourish from jobs, not consumption. Claiming that lower consumption of off-shore goods will harm a market would be to measure a farm’s profitability based on how much the farming family eats other farmers’ food. The real issue with the trade war is a real war.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, September 10, 2018

Author SymphonyPosted on

Right or wrong, the US-China tariff war was always coming. Stupid American companies flew into the campfire of Chinese manufacturing like moths into a flame. China was smart inasmuch as they did not become dependent on the outsourced labor, which was always going to ever-only be temporary. China has wasted no time, building infrastructure, such as the highway between Hong Kong and Macau and the silk road, now gaining income by the well marketed tourist attraction.

But, this tariff war was always coming. The political situation in the Pacific indicates that it’s not about economics so much as it is about military. Pacific island nations grow more and more irritated by China. Little, small nations are speaking out, demanding China apologize for storming out of a PIF (Pacific Islands Forum) meeting when China’s diplomatic representative was told to wait to speak until after heads of state from member nations had their turn. China is not a member, only an attendee. This is not any demonstration of leadership that the region will accept, no matter how much it may have been bestowed by the territorial gods at the universe’s center, which is in China of course.

Then, there’s Taiwan. If last week was a week of firing off blanks and papers across bows, this week, cannonballs started splashing. Taiwan introduced three different bills amending existing law, stiffening restrictions and penalties concerning anything that could even remotely be construed as interference between Taiwan and China. As if that wasn’t enough, Taiwan is increasing its budget for both fighter jets and the navy. And, Taiwan’s military even moved up an annual naval exercise to rehearse an attack from China at an earlier date than usual.

In all of this, the rain continues to fall in Taiwan, now flooding different parts of the island than saw torrents over three solid weeks of cloud cover. Not to worry, though. City governments are closely monitoring just how many millimeters of water can drain away how quickly, revamping any old sewer system that can’t keep up. Taiwan just seems to have its hands full, as well as its rivers.

Then, there is the tsunami of US diplomacy. Trade wars often prelude military wars. While Taiwan’s dwindling allies flip to support China, the US is breaking ties with any country that breaks ties with Taiwan, more or less. Solidarity with Taiwan seems to have bipartisan support in US Congress. With trade alliances shifting, when war breaks out, it will be a financial calculation as a convergence of China’s revenue and US dependence on Chinese-made goods both bottom out.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 30, 2018

Author SymphonyPosted on

The “China miracle” was nothing more than smoke and mirrors as big companies of the West took advantage of Chinese people seeking a living and Western consumers seeking lower prices. Everyone lost. There was no “miracle”.

The fad for cutting costs and quick investment returns nickeled and dimed away quality, eventually pushing bean counters to fall in love with China’s underpaid labor force. When China opened for business in 1978, the shipments rolled in. Wealth wasn’t made, it was only rearranged. A large shipping freighter made a large wake, some sunbathers had to move their towels on the beach when the wave wrecked the sand castles, and the global economist footsie-frat claimed that the sea levels had permanently risen.

Perhaps the label was wishful thinking, perhaps it was a malicious deception, but it wasn’t Chinese propaganda; it was globalist propaganda. China’s “growing economy” was fueled by an exchange between a planned economy and the free markets of the world. Whatever wave came, it would lower, eventually balance out, and could never have endured any more than spilled crude oil mixes with wildlife on the beach.

The mainstream Western press kept reporting on the “Chinese miracle”, encouraging Beijing that China’s new economy was here to stay. Western globalist economists should have known better, maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, but China is paying the price of the inevitable. Eventually, either the Western economies would collapse—then the one-way flow of cash into China would stop as it did after the opium wars—or a Donald Trump would come along and stop the flow before it got that far. But, it wasn’t going to last. The biggest victim of the bean-counter coupon-clipper culture of the West is China. And, making victims reaps nothing more than ill will.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 23, 2018

Author SymphonyPosted on

Central planning has only so much room for slight of hand tricks to keep up its sleeve. When the going gets tough, everyone goes home. For China, that means devaluing its currency, a complaint Trump has long lobbed against the trade giant.

Maintaining good relations with Apple and almost achieving the manufacturing capability long held by Samsung is quite the accomplishment for the Chinese. Good job. Everyone owes them a hand. China’s BOE company hopes to be able to start manufacturing the flexible, “organic” LED displays by 2020.

Devaluing currency as a response to trade tariffs from the US, however, is likely to make those tariffs higher, considering that devaluation of its own currency was one reason Trump argued for tariffs before his election. This, and turning to Africa, means that the international bite is felt. Silicon Valley also has its eyes on Africa, meaning that Apple and China may meet again in Africa, as well as Google. But, doing more of the same things that initiated tariffs is likely to cause more tariffs than tariff problems it alleviates.

China has a hard set of choices ahead and as those choices narrow, the tiger will feel more and more like its been backed against a corner. This path doesn’t endure entirely peacefully.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 16, 2018

Author SymphonyPosted on

Global trade has become too congested and inbred. Enemies make vital weapons parts for each other—well, enemies of the US make vital weapons parts for the US, but don’t return the favor. Western companies outsourced to developing markets, then were surprised at workplace hazards, loss in consumer trust, and didn’t seem to anticipate that by sending jobs overseas they were downsizing their own customers.

The borderless fling wasn’t going to last for a myriad of reasons—cultural incohesion being an impossibility for a manufacturing industry in denial, security conflicts of interest being a concern for Western powers. Internationalization is about governments and cultures understanding each other, not forcing cooperation between peoples who haven’t yet learned to gel in the daily routines. Companies like Boeing got themselves too entangled in the scene of borderless manufacturing and are now whining and moaning because the inevitable finally happened. This indicates that their “globalist” action plan wasn’t based in foresight, but delusional hopes.

Globalism is inevitable, but it won’t take the path that the impatient hopefuls dreamed and thereby planned it would. Globalism needs cultural exchange to precede and exceed industrial integration, not vice versa. Boeing through the cart pulled its horse, banked on it, it backfired, and Boeing is now denying blame.

China and Europe, mainly Germany, are headed for the same blend of oil and water. This so-called “trade war” isn’t setting well in China’s market. Chinese people blame their government. That government doesn’t want any misreporting that could even remotely influence the people into thinking that the unrelated trade and stock market could have any kind of direct relationship. The trouble Trump is making for China isn’t demonstrated from rumors of censorship within China or its stock market, but in China’s attempt for yet another foreseeably incohesive relationship with Germany. China is being smart, Germany is not.

China is owed everything by the West, but Germany hasn’t figured this out yet. China doesn’t need to say so because no one tells the obvious. A relationship between China and Germany would rightly favor China, Beijing would have no objection, but Berlin will cry and whine just as much as Boeing, once it all lays flat on the table. And, China will have made the profit.

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