More evidence China preparing to attack Japan

[smokingman]

While our economy does in fact heavily depend on China...an argument can be made that China's economy depends more on us than ours on them.

"Mutually assured economic destruction"

I do not think China is nearly as reliant on the USA as you think.150 million Chinese are now considered middle class.How Omni-Channel Banking Fuels the Rise of China?s Middle Class


The EU is by far the largest trade partner China has for exports.
Even small countries like South Korea are huge trade partners at 162.7 billion in imports,compared to the USA at 122 billion in imports to China.

Total imports and exports between China and the USA account for 9.9% of Chinese trade.We only just tie with Australia who also has 9.9%.

We are much more dependent on them than they us.

China Balance of Trade | 1983-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast

 

[T.Lex]

Indeed, also consider that China has been aggressive in cultivating African markets for exports, in exchange for natural resources. Taking the longer view, China's economy has better upward potential than ours. IMHO.

 

[JollyMon]

Taking the longer view, China's economy has better upward potential than ours. IMHO.

Its also because in China you can build something (aka a highway) without hundreds of interest groups protesting that you are destroying the habitat of the indigenous non-endangered gray squirrel.

 

[KLB]

Its also because in China you can build something (aka a highway) without hundreds of interest groups protesting that you are destroying the habitat of the indigenous non-endangered gray squirrel.

I'll take the hundreds of interests groups over a totalitarian government any day.

 

[KLB]

I do not think China is nearly as reliant on the USA as you think.150 million Chinese are now considered middle class.How Omni-Channel Banking Fuels the Rise of China?s Middle Class


The EU is by far the largest trade partner China has for exports.
Even small countries like South Korea are huge trade partners at 162.7 billion in imports,compared to the USA at 122 billion in imports to China.

Total imports and exports between China and the USA account for 9.9% of Chinese trade.We only just tie with Australia who also has 9.9%.

We are much more dependent on them than they us.

China Balance of Trade | 1983-2015 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast

How does 10% of their population being middle class relate to this? I would think it would be a negative for China if anything. That means that 10% of their people now have a taste of nicer things and won't be happy if they lost them because of a war for some islands.

What products do we import from China that make us dependent upon them?

The US is China's largest trading partner. They may not import as much from us as they do from others, but they get a lot of cash from their exports to us.

How do you figure that we tie Australia in trade? The US and China account for $521 Billion in trade. Australia and China only $136.37 Billion. You have to combine the EU together to get a larger total in trade than we have with China.

I would bet that China is more dependent upon the cash they get from us than we are on the electronics we get from them.

 

[OakRiver]

TIL Japan is not a NATO member.

Interesting. As an ally, however, do you think America would get involved?

Worked out well for Ukraine, didn't it

 

[OakRiver]

Indeed, also consider that China has been aggressive in cultivating African markets for exports, in exchange for natural resources. Taking the longer view, China's economy has better upward potential than ours. IMHO.

That's because many Western nations have made the mistake of tying trade to aid. China doesn't worry about that. It wants materials, will pay for it, and doesn't care how the labour is treated.

 

[smokingman]

How does 10% of their population being middle class relate to this? I would think it would be a negative for China if anything. That means that 10% of their people now have a taste of nicer things and won't be happy if they lost them because of a war for some islands.

What products do we import from China that make us dependent upon the
The US is China's largest trading partner. They may not import as much from us as they do from others, but they get a lot of cash from their exports to us.

How do you figure that we tie Australia in trade? The US and China account for $521 Billion in trade. Australia and China only $136.37 Billion. You have to combine the EU together to get a larger total in trade than we have with China.

I would bet that China is more dependent upon the cash they get from us than we are on the electronics we get from them.

Imports from China
1. Electronic equipment: $120.4 billion
2. Machines, engines, pumps: $103.3 billion

3. Furniture, lighting, signs: $26.6 billion

4. Toys, games: $22.8 billion

5. Footwear: $17.7 billion

6. Knit or crochet clothing: $16.2 billion

7. Clothing (not knit or crochet): $15.5 billion

8. Plastics: $14 billion

9. Vehicles: $10.5 billion

10. Medical, technical equipment: $9.8 billion




Dangerous dependence: US increasingly beholden to imported raw material
In recent years, the United States has become dangerously dependent on imports of raw materials that are needed to keep our economy moving. U.S. manufacturers are now more than 40 percent dependent on imports of many commodity and rare earth metals. For example, import reliance on gallium is at 94 percent, cobalt and titanium 81 percent, chromium 56 percent, silicon 44 percent and nickel 43 percent. These minerals are critical for defense and energy technologies and many high-tech consumer products.

Few of us are familiar with rare earth minerals, such as neodymium, samarium and dysprosium, but they are crucial in the manufacture of jet fighter engines, antimissile defense systems, night vision goggles and smart bombs, among other advanced military systems. And they have many other high-tech applications — computers, cell phones and flat-panel televisions, for example. Additionally, they are essential to petroleum refining, automotive catalytic converters, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

This foreign dependency presents a conundrum for policymakers, because unlike the 12-member multinational OPEC cartel that supplies much of our oil, the foreign production of rare earth minerals is concentrated almost entirely in a single country with its own rising industrial demand: China.

Without China we could not build most of our military equipment.

The EU is China's largest trading partner.Australia exports the same amount in dollar terms as the USA to China,at 9.9% of all Chinese import.

The USA has 18 trillion in debt,China has 3.9 Trillion in reserves(in US Dollar terms).They do not need our cash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-exchange_reserves

 

[Mgderf]

My prediction is if they do go to war, Obama will go to the golf course

Yeah, that would be "par for the course".

 

[The Bubba Effect]

If China invades Japan, it will be because we gave them the "go ahead".

Japan occasionally gripes about our presence in Okinawa, but they know good and well that the only reason in the whole world China has not displaced them is because of the good old USA. The Chinese people have a long history and a long memory.

China has a self image issue. They remember being technologically behind the west and they remember being brutalized and humiliated by Japan. I don't figure they will feel like a world power until they get even with Japan and by "get even" I mean "occupy and reeducate".

That said, unless it is time for WWIII, China will not risk war with the USA over Japan. China is winning the peace, why would they risk losing a war?

 

[zippy23]

China better do it in the next 2 years while obama is in office, since he'll do nothing but make a speech about it. Japan's economy is in the tank, and getting worse, in fact, i think they are a litmus test for whats going to happen here.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Worked out well for Ukraine, didn't it

I think there's a HUGE difference between the assurances made to the Ukraine, and that made to Japan.

Panetta tells China that Senkakus under Japan-U.S. Security Treaty - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

 

[phylodog]

China should just buy the islands, isn't like they can't afford them.

 

[D-Ric902]

My prediction: those islands will belong to China within 2 years.

does that include Taiwan?

 

[cobber]

China has its own internal problems of uneven development. While beating the PR war drum against the US or Japan helps shut down the opposition, China isn't about to launch any international adventures.

Aside from business expansion into SE Asia and Africa, and perhaps South America. But their field reps won't be wearing Che Guevara t-shirts...

does that include Taiwan?

The irony being one totalitarian government, albeit western in outlook, was forced into exile by another totalitarian government. The KMT wasn't that great a US ally, unless they could pose themselves as common enemies of someone we hated. First the Japanese and later the Communists. I still remember being a university student in the 70s hearing about Taiwanese secret police on university campuses keeping tabs of the students abroad. And South Korea also wasn't so cuddly until relatively recently.

 

[T.Lex]

does that include Taiwan?

Doesn't need to. Taiwan already "belongs" to China.

Again, taking ownership of the Senkakus does not depend on invading the Home Islands.

 

[CathyInBlue]

What this country needs is a good war with China. Of course, that's not gonna happen.

For reasons already mentioned, Obama's a milquetoast, China needs to launch any attack to take the Senkakus before he's out of office.

Also for reasons already mentioned, they can't do so in such a short time frame.

Yes, China's been aggressively courting, in Africa, export markets for their goods and raw materials markets for their industries. No, they are not remotely ready to **** directly into America's corn flakes. For China, war now would mean massive economic upheaval, even if, and I can't believe no one's mentioned this, the oil reserves under the Senkakus meant that China could cut themselves off from any influence of OPEC and other oil exporting markets. And economic upheaval is the one thing that China's Central Committee fears right now more than anything. All of those figures on international trade up-thread says one thing. China's own political economy is what hangs in the balance. China may not have elections as we know them in the west, but they do keep their fingers on the pulse of their people's sentiments. The margin between a generally satisfied populace willing to let those in charge do what they want, and a generally dissatisfied populace ripe for revolution has never been thinner in China, and the Central Committee knows it. If they lost just Australia's trade, nevermind America's and Europe's, with a nice spot of war for conquest, at least right now, that Chinese middle class would swiftly find themselves dispossessed, and the Central Committee would swiftly find themselves up against a wall.

Am I the only one who remembers the Chinese ghost cities? This is a system teetering on the point of a pin, not the edge of a knife. Saudi's fire sale on crude has helped them as much as it has helped us, but it has just as much destabilized everything as well. If Saudi chose to cut production and send prices back above US$100/bbl, the shockwaves caused would be more likely to swamp China's boat than ours.

 

[CathyInBlue]

[video=youtube;AiMjT_GNg_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiMjT_GNg_I[/video]