Is China's Politburo spoiling for a showdown with America?

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...h-America.html

China has suc bed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand.

Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been finessed before, but we are in a new world now with America's U6 unemployment at 16.8pc...

[RandomGuy]

Days earlier the State Council accused America of serial villainy. "In the US, civil and political rights of citizens are severely restricted and violated by the government. Workers' rights are seriously violated," it said.

"The US, with its strong military power, has pursued hegemony in the world, trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries and trespassing their human rights," it said.

"At a time when the world is suffering a serious human rights disaster caused by the US subprime crisis-induced global financial crisis, the US government revels in accusing other countries." And so forth.

Is the Politiburo smoking weed?

Overall a very good article.

Too much has been made of China's overall strength in a lot of areas.



China suffers from some rather endemic problems that will only get worse.

Pollution, and the most rapidly aging population on the planet will drag it's economy.


Imbalance of boys/girls:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ry_id=15606229

More on this (warning, the first paragraph is disturbing)
http://www.economist.com/world/inter...ry_id=15636231

As for Chinese pollution:
http://news.google.com/news?q=china+pollution

[coyotes_geek]

Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law.

Fearless prediction: The UST will conclude that our sugar daddy is not a currency manipulator.

[RandomGuy]

Came across another good article:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/15/chi...pchannellatest

The changes in China's economy and family dynamic will have huge repercussions not only for government policy but also for multinational companies' future planning in China. Companies like Foxconn, the maker of Apple's ( AAPL - news - people ) iPhone, that have come under heavy criticism for their treatment of Chinese workers, will have to invest much more to recruit and retain labor. If they don't, the supply chains of many foreign businesses will suffer. Rising labor costs will help fix the imbalance of the exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the U.S. dollar without an actual appreciation, which could destabilize the global recovery. Already China's trade surplus is going down as domestic consumption rises.

The thrust of that article is that China is moving up the value chain a bit.

This has implications for Africa, because it remains one of the last untapped cheap labor markets, and the Chinese, historically traders of a high caliber, have been making a lot of inroads into Africa, primarily for raw resources, and can use those ties to leverage future factories and so forth.

I found the interesting bit about rising labor costs in China to be the most useful bit of data tho'.

[RandomGuy]

Fearless prediction: The UST will conclude that our sugar daddy is not a currency manipulator.

I would bet on it.

[EVAY]

fearless prediction: The ust will conclude that our sugar daddy is not a currency manipulator.

+1