The exit from this seemingly illogical trade [lending money to America to buy Chinese goods] will leave China sitting atop a pile of devalued assets, but also, possessed of a world-class industrial infrastructure and having gone a long way towards hollowing out and undermining the economy of its sole strategic competitor.
They go on to note that not only has China now built a world class infrastructure, and cornered the market for numerous important commodities (in particular Earth Metals), they also have the fate of their largest competitor in their own hands – they are the arbitrators of Dollar value, at a time when the USA is dependent on borrowing or printing money. And about those Earth Metals – they are crucial materials used in the manufacture of many cutting edge hi-tech products including modern lasers, hard drives, iPods, wind turbines, navigation systems, air defence systems, filtering bacteria from water, anti-nerve gas treatments and more. According to the Telegraph China mines over 95% of the world’s rare Earth Metals, and now they’re considering placing a total ban on exports.
A draft report by Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.
At the same time the Chinese are investing heavily in Green energy technology and are stealing a march in markets across the globe –
China is running away with the green technology prize. It has conquered a third of the world market for solar cells and is on a breakneck course to build 100 gigawatts of wind turbines by 2020, doubling again the global capacity for wind power across vast stretches of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.
A glimpse of the New World Order perhaps? East Asia rising, dollar hegemony smashed, Western productive capacity hollowed out, and economic (and physical) wars over limited resources as global demand surges.
No bio, some books worth reading – The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves – Matt Ridley .
Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance -Nouriel Roubini, Stephen Mihm
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