[rrggrr]

Not a trade war. The Trump administration goal is nothing short of regime change in China; and it's a goal the next President (Trump, Warren, etc.) will likely continue. By 'regime' I mean an end to Chinese 'destiny' based policy, even if it requires a change in CCP leadership. That's not to say the CCP will be displaced, rather the balance of power internally may change.

HN readers are hip to the reasons why this needs to happen. Internally, China is destroying its people's savings, purchasing power, environment and health to achieve China's 'great destiny'. Externally, China has created all manner of artificial economic inefficiencies. This includes debt enslavement of African and central Asian nations, dumping of goods, and theft of IP at a monolithic scale.

It's true that the full case has yet to be made to the American people. It's also true the US cannot do this alone and the EU (China's largest trading partner) may have to join the fight. And, it is the case that a 'trade deal' may be reached between Trump and China that falls short. None of this is going to alter the larger national (global) security objective of 'helping' China compete for resources in a less zero sum manner.

[resters]

If someone had made this comment 10-15 years ago and used it to caution the US about why it was foolish to invest $3.6 Trillion into destroying middle eastern infrastructure, it would have made coherent sense to consider.

But it's simply too late. The policies you describe are benefitting most Chinese people and are broadly supported domestically in China. Your characterization of China's dealings in Africa borders on absurd, and the IP theft claim (even if true) would not justify any of what you suggest is necessary.

> It's true that the full case has yet to be made to the American people.

Nor will it be. There is no definition of US national interest that is utilized in policy discussions. Leaders stick to painting foreign leaders as despots and the American people happily pay for all the warmaking.

What is different about China is that most Americans broadly support what China is doing and respect President Xi's leadership.

The US spent $3.6T on a useless war that had supremely negative ROI and now China is right behind us ready to attain first world status and beat us at 5G, etc. China didn't cheat us, our leaders did by wasting $3.6T in the middle east. The US middle eastern wars are the biggest financial fraud in the history of the world.

By simply doing infrastructure improvement and focusing on domestic issues, China has nearly overtaken the US, and the US response is supremely outdated and fails to recognize that it was US mismanagement that closed the gap, not Chinese cheating.

[theseadroid]

>Internally, China is destroying its people's savings, purchasing power, environment and health to achieve China's 'great destiny'.

More reference is needed. As a Mandarin Chinese my impression so far is otherwise.

[rrggrr]

RMB declining in open market against USD.

China issues much debt in USD and pays interest in USD. What should be 1 unit of debt is 6 or 7 units of debt because of currency differential & risk premium.

China purchases many imports in USD.

To keep RMB well under USD, China must sell USD and buy RMB in open market. This has happened for many years.

In sum, as long as China subsidizes domestic market the effect of all of this is not felt to most Chinese. However, this becomes very, very, very, very costly. Look at food prices in China as one example.

When there is a rebalance / reconciliation the RMB savings will be hurt.

China hopes to prevent this by gold purchase and Belt & Road growth.

Very difficult situation. Bad management of economy.

[theseadroid]

I'm more interested in what average Chinese experiences than the macro currency/debt figures. Yes food price has been going up. But salary has been going up in the past decades or so as well. I feel purchasing power has been flatlining now than before. Environment wise it's getting better actually. I agree with the growth of salary and food price, people's savings are destroyed. But other than that I wont use the word destroyed for other aspects. I personally think if it's not because of the economic achievement of the Chinese government, you wont see as much nationalism from there today.