[onlyrealcuzzo]

If China reverse-sanctioned the US, a significant portion of the Chinese population would fall into extreme poverty and starve. The Yuan would likely plummet, China would almost certainly face a national default, and it would risk a revolt against the current regime.

Meanwhile, within months, the US would have all its cheap shit imported from Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico--even Japan and Korea. We have enough retail reserves that aside from slight price increases on some inessential goods for a few months, likely nothing else would happen.

[zht]

How can the rest of the world just pick up China's manufacturing capacity in a few months?

[evgen]

Because a large portion of the important and high-value stuff is not actually made in China, is is just assembled there. Your iPhone might be "made in China", but most of the parts that make it an iPhone are made in other countries. If you were to consider the things that we think of as being essential then the fraction of things that are made in China becomes even smaller. Yes, we would need to do without cheap bras and Levis for a short while, and the strategic plastic shit stockpile would dwindle, but the nation would somehow get through these dark days.

China, OTOH, would likely never recover from having all of its revenue generating export goods evaporate to other countries in SE Asia and elsewhere.