budaatum:


But this is precisely why China is doing so well. They don't stupidly spend the resource they have preparing for war I don't think, or they'd be poor like North Korea.

That's not to say they don't spend any, mind, but I think just enough to stop being attacked. And I think they know the weapons of the next war would be economical bullets and not the armaments the west are piling up.

pansophist:


I strongly believe that China's GDP in absolute terms has overtaken the US.

The evidence speaks for itself. For decades, China has deliberately kept its currency devalued, to make its exports cheaper. If China lets its currency float to its true market value, then overnight, it will become the world's largest economy. Now it's second in GDP, but first in PPP.

Also, China's economic makeup is something real, such as production and manufacturing, while the US is virtual, mostly in finance, the service sector, and Wall Street.

You also have to look at the simple fact that China has over 1.4B people, while the US has over 300M, [b] but there are almost no homeless or hungry people in China, meanwhile, in the US, millions are homeless, and even more millions are just one paycheck away from being homeless [b].

The US has no free healthcare, or free education, and divided citizens who classify themselves by race, color, job title, and zipcode. Meanwhile, China united all its ethnic groups to make them a stronger whole.

China has the largest reserve in the world, standing at 3.22T USD, that's money they don't even know what to do with it, and mostly invest it through their BRI project.

When I study China's strategy, I can't help but point every one of their moves to the legendary book titled ''the Art of War. The Chinese planned their destiny well and won without firing a single bullet.

And if you want to fight them, they will beat you to a stupor. They are that silent kid in the block, that you shouldn't mess with. The real abroad right now is no longer the West, the 21st century belongs to Asia.

lastkingsman:


What you wrote is also obtainable in China.

Why I agree with that China has made significant progress, they haven't overtake the United States as of today.

The last frontier is semiconductor and advanced military tech which US still controls. When Trump wins in November, the full US leverage will be used for America people, "America First" policy.

China think they can ban Amazon, Facebook and other Western tech companies but US will allow tik tok ba? The orange man is coming with full scale trade war and "drill baby, drill" for oil

The threat of China’s electric vehicles

Robinson Meyer Contributing Writer ROBINSON MEYER is the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on climate change. · Feb 29, 2024

BYD alone is building new factories in Brazil, Thailand, Hungary and Uzbekistan. America’s Big Three should be worried.

It happened very quickly, so fast that you might not have noticed it. Over the past few months, America’s Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the oddly named company that owns Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep — landed in big trouble.

I realize this may sound silly. Ford, General Motors and Stellantis made billions in profit last year, even after a lengthy strike by autoworkers, and all three companies are forecasting a big 2024. But recently, the Big Three found themselves outmaneuvered and missing their goals for electric vehicle sales at the same time that a crop of new affordable, electrified foreign cars appeared, ready to flood the global market.

About a decade ago, America bailed out the Big Three and swore it wouldn’t do it again. But the federal government is going to have to help the Big Three — and the rest of the U.S. car market — again very soon. And it has to do it in the right way — now — to avoid the next auto bailout.

The biggest threat to the Big Three comes from a new crop of Chinese automakers, especially BYD, which specialize in producing plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles. BYD’s growth is astounding: It sold three million electrified vehicles last year, more than any other company, and it now has enough production capacity in China to manufacture four million cars a year. But that isn’t enough: It’s building new factories in Brazil, Thailand, Hungary and Uzbekistan, which will produce even more cars, and it may soon add Indonesia and Mexico to that list. A deluge of electric vehicles is coming.

BYD’s cars deliver great value at prices that beat anything coming out of the West. Earlier this month, BYD unveiled a plug-in hybrid that gets decent all-electric range and will retail for just over $11,000. How can it do that? Like other Chinese manufacturers, BYD benefits from its home country’s lower labor costs, but this explains only some of its success. The fact is that BYD — and Chinese automakers like Geely, which owns Volvo Cars and Polestar brands — are very good at making cars. They have leveraged China’s dominance of the battery industry and automated production lines to create a juggernaut.

The Chinese automakers, especially BYD, represent something new in the world. They signal that China’s decadeslong accretion of economic complexity is almost complete: Whereas the country once made toys and clothes and then made electronics and batteries, now it makes cars and airplanes. What’s more, BYD and other Chinese automakers are becoming virtually global car companies, capable of manufacturing electric cars that can compete directly with gas-burning cars on cost.

That is, on the surface, a good thing. Electric cars need to get cheaper and more abundant if we are to have any hope of meeting our global climate goals. But it poses some immediate and thorny problems for American policymakers. After BYD announced its $11,000 plug-in hybrid, it posted on the Chinese social media platform Weibo that “the price will make petrol car assemblers tremble.” The problem is many of those gasoline carmakers are American.

Ford and GM plotted an ambitious E.V. transition three years ago. But it didn’t take long for them to stumble. Last year, Ford lost more than $64,000 on every E.V. that it sold. Since October, it has delayed the opening of one of its new E.V. battery plants, and GM has fumbled the start of its new Ultium battery platform, which is meant to be the foundation for all of its future electric vehicles. Ford and GM have notched some wins here (the Mustang Mach-E and Chevrolet Bolt are modest hits), but they aren’t competing at the level of Tesla and Hyundai — companies that operate factories in less union-friendly states in the Sun Belt.

Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive, recently disclosed that the company had a secret development team building a cheap, affordable electric car to compete with Tesla and BYD. But producing electric vehicles profitably is an organizational skill, and like any skill, it takes time, effort and money to develop. Even if Ford and GM now bust out innovative new designs, they will lag their competition at executing them well.

The other looming problem for Ford and General Motors is that their balance sheets, while superficially robust, conceal a structural vulnerability. While the two companies have done generally well in recent years, their billions in profits have overwhelmingly flowed from selling a relatively small number of vehicles to a small group of people. Specifically, Ford and GM’s earnings rest primarily on selling pickup trucks, S.U.V.s and crossovers to affluent North Americans.
In other words, if Americans’ appetite for trucks and S.U.V.s falters, then Ford and GM will be in real trouble. That creates a strategic quandary for them. In the coming years, these companies must cross a bridge from one business model to another: They must use their robust truck and S.U.V. earnings to subsidize their growing electric vehicle business and learn how to make E.V.s profitably. If they can make it across this bridge quickly, they will survive. But if their S.U.V. profits crumble before their E.V. business is ready, they will fall into the chasm and perish.

That’s why the flood of cheap Chinese electric vehicles poses such a big problem: It could wash away Ford and GM’s bridge before they have finished building it. Even a wave of competitive electric cars from the Sun Belt automakers — like Kia’s EV9, a three-row S.U.V. — could eat away at their S.U.V. profits before they’re ready.

Perhaps the Big Three deserve destruction; after all, they hooked us on S.U.V.s in the first place and then fell behind in the E.V. race. But letting them die is not a tenable political option for the Biden administration. One goal of Mr. Biden’s presidency is to show not only that decarbonization can work for the American economy but also that it can revive moribund fossil-fuel-dependent communities in the Rust Belt. Mr. Biden has also fought for and won the endorsement of the United Auto Workers, which just cemented a generous new contract with the Big Three and now needs them to thrive.

He has reason, in other words, to help the Big Three even before you get to the harsh electoral realities: The legacy auto industry employs more people in Michigan than any other state, and Mr. Biden’s path to re-election all but requires him to win Michigan in November. (Recall that Donald Trump won Michigan by just under 11,000 votes in 2016.) Mr. Biden cannot allow the possibility of another China shock to hit the Midwest’s auto economy. So what should he do?

The good news is that Congress has already done some of the work for him. You may have heard about the Inflation Reduction Act’s generous subsidies for domestic electric car production. Can it help? It can, and it will, but the act alone is not nearly big enough to insulate these companies from the threat posed by Chinese E.V.s. The Chinese automaker Geely is preparing to sell the small, all-electric Volvo EX30 S.U.V. in the United States for $35,000. That price — which seemingly includes the cost of a 25 percent tariff, first imposed by the Trump administration — rivals what American automakers are capable of doing today, even with the Inflation Reduction Act’s subsidies.
Subsidies likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose new trade restrictions. But here’s where it gets messy. The case for protecting the American auto market from Chinese E.V.s is obvious and politically essential but also highly troublesome. In the short term, American automakers — even the homegrown electric-only carmakers like Tesla and Rivian — must be shielded from a wave of cheap cars. But in the long term, Mr. Biden must be careful not to cordon off the American car market from the rest of the world, turning the United States into an automotive backwater of bloated, expensive, gas-guzzling vehicles. The Chinese carmakers are the first real competition that the global car industry has faced in decades, and American companies must be exposed to some of that threat, for their own good. That means they must feel the chill of death on their necks and be forced to rise and face this challenge.

This could be done in a number of ways. One is by suggesting to American companies that any import restrictions imposed on Chinese cars in the next few years won’t necessarily be permanent. That might encourage American companies to learn everything they can from their new Chinese competition, getting over their hubris and recognizing that Chinese companies now understand aspects of E.V. manufacturing better than their American counterparts. That means that Republican lawmakers, in particular, must recognize that climate-friendly technologies are the future of global industry. Mr. Trump is threatening that, if elected, he would gut the Inflation Reduction Act, even though it’s full of policies meant to help America compete with Chinese E.V.s. There would be no faster way to destroy the U.S. car industry as a global force.
What the United States is trying to do is really hard. We want to preserve the economic geography and institutions of our old fossil-powered economy while retooling it to work in a new zero-carbon world. There’s no small amount of irony in the fact that all those involved in America — Democrats, Republicans, major automakers — resent China for achieving what was once a goal of, well, hippies and environmentalists: making electric cars popular and cheap. But if they’ve done it, America can do it too. It will take grit and good-faith effort. Americans should assume that Ford and General Motors will be competing with BYD and Geely for decades to come, and we should relish that fight.

Gugu for source.

Gerrard59:
Pansophist,

A question that has been of interest is me is what would the West do as she loses her hegemony? How or would what Western treat or do to non-Western and its allies' citizens residing in Western countries? I am curious. Anyone can chip in as well.

That said, Niger forced the US to vacate the military base tells me the West is gradually leaving or have left the Sahel region. I offer hats to Nigerian elites. Never thought it would happen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/us/politics/us-niger-military-withdrawal.html

budaatum:


https://theconversation.com/electric-cars-pile-up-at-european-ports-as-chinese-firms-struggle-to-find-buyers-228473

Gerrard59:


I read the conversation on the Financial Times. In summary, the Chinese carmakers have an issue with the company handling logistics and also, Telsa had signed a deal ensuring truck drivers only work with it (Tesla). So, gridlock till they solve the problem. The percentage of Chinese EVs being sold in Europe, although slowly growing, isn't that high sef. Western media just like blowing things out of proportion.

budaatum:


I do believe the bold would be illegal in Europe.

Source please.

Gerrard59:


https://www.ft.com/content/496f3bfa-9f0c-4145-9024-188572a280fd

Imported vehicles are piling up at European ports, turning them into “car parks” as automakers and distributors struggle with a slowdown in sales and logistical bottlenecks including the lack of truck drivers.

Port and car industry executives have pointed to a pile-up of Chinese electric cars as one of the leading causes of the problem, with some companies booking shipping delivery slots without ordering onward transportation. In other instances, carmakers in general are struggling to order trucks because of the lack of drivers and equipment to move the vehicles on.

“Car distributors are increasingly using the port’s car parks as a depot. Instead of stocking the cars at the dealers, they are collected at the car terminal,” said the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, whose port at Zeebrugge is Europe’s busiest port for car imports. “All major car ports” were struggling with congestion, the port added, without specifying the origin of the vehicles.

Some car industry executives said Chinese carmakers were not selling their vehicles in Europe as fast as they expected, which was a big contributor to the glut at the region’s ports.

“Chinese EV makers are using ports like car parks,” said one car supply chain manager.

Some Chinese brand EVs had been sitting in European ports for up to 18 months, while some ports had asked importers to provide proof of onward transport, according to industry executives. One car logistics expert said many of the unloaded vehicles were simply staying in the ports until they were sold to distributors or end users.

“It’s chaos,” said another person who had been briefed on the situation.

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, said that “inland shipping in European markets is difficult [for Chinese EV brands]”.

Emphasising that brands needed to improve their “after sale” services, he added: “[We need to] change the guerrilla warlike car exports, which will throw ourselves into an unfavourable situation.”

BLG Logistics, the company that operates the car-handling terminal at the German port of Bremerhaven, Europe’s second-busiest port for vehicles, said it had experienced longer dwell times at its facilities after Germany’s federal government stopped subsidising purchases of EVs in December last year.

The clogging-up of car terminals comes as many of China’s carmakers, such as BYD, Great Wall, Chery and SAIC, are planning an export push to Europe, both to keep their factories in China running and to capitalise on the region’s appetite for electric cars.

https://www.ft.com/content/496f3bfa-9f0c-4145-9024-188572a280fd

Almost a fifth (19.5%) of electric vehicles sold in Europe last year were made in China and this is on track to reach a quarter (25%) in 2024, according to new analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E). The forecast comes as the EU is considering import tariffs to counter subsidies for China’s EV industry. T&E said ramping up production of mass-market electric cars and investing in the European battery supply chain is the only way for EU carmakers to compete with Chinese brands, but tariffs would also help localise EV manufacturing.

While Chinese imports into Europe have largely been Tesla, Dacia and BMW cars produced there, T&E projects that Chinese brands could reach 11% of the European EV market in 2024 and 20% in 2027. The conservative projection assumes a linear growth in Chinese OEM market share based on the last two years, though BYD alone is targeting 5% of the European electric car market by 2025.

https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/one-in-four-evs-sold-in-europe-this-year-will-be-made-in-china-analysis/

pansophist:
Gerrard59,

One angle of current geopolitical trends, especially in the Ukraine-Russian war that is deliberately blurred out is the Chinese perspective. It is impossible to have a non-biased position without listening to the perspective of the Chinese, through Chinese mouth as well.

For that, I introduce you to this new channel I am listening to on Youtube, which translates and introduces lots of intellects from the Chinese space to the mainstream, check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/@WindSpiritZ

LordAdam16:
Kenya becomes a Major Non-NATO Ally.
Joining a quite enviable pack comprising Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia.

Like clockwork, dividends already pouring in.
Microsoft + G42 with a billion-dollar investment. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/microsoft-g42-announce-1-billion-geothermal-data-center-in-kenya
Alphabet to connect Kenya to another MNNA Australia. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-23/google-builds-first-subsea-cable-connecting-africa-to-australia

NSA is breaking ground and needs to have its tentacles firmly attached before other sectors gain attention. Multipolarism has compelled the Hegemony to designate an MNNA in sub-Saharan Africa.

I hope Kenya leverages the opportunity to level up and get on track to an OECD membership.

Gerrard59:


Happy for Kenya. The bold is what I have been preaching for - how we benefit from multipolarism, largely as a result of China's rise. At the same time, Kenya should remain open to Chinese investment and funds regardless of this new membership.

OECD is more about economics than politics. If any country in sub-Saharan Africa should be an OECD member, that should be South Africa.

LordAdam16:
Kenya becomes a Major Non-NATO Ally.
Joining a quite enviable pack comprising Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand and Tunisia.

Like clockwork, dividends already pouring in.
Microsoft + G42 with a billion-dollar investment. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/microsoft-g42-announce-1-billion-geothermal-data-center-in-kenya
Alphabet to connect Kenya to another MNNA Australia. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-23/google-builds-first-subsea-cable-connecting-africa-to-australia

NSA is breaking ground and needs to have its tentacles firmly attached before other sectors gain attention.
Multipolarism has compelled the Hegemony to designate an MNNA in sub-Saharan Africa.
Iran becoming a hotshot in the region and the Arabs turning East has forced them to find another outpost in the region.

I hope Kenya leverages the opportunity to level up and get on track to an OECD membership.

-Lord

pansophist:


Are there any precedence that could be use to potentially guage the benefits kenya will enjoy in MNNA? In Africa for example, Tunisia and Egypt are in MNNA, what have they benefitted?

Reading the benefits of MNNA in wikipedia, the emphasis was more on military corporation, loan to procure equipments, trainings, contract biddings, etc, but I do not see how this translate to pure economic benefits.

Besides, the above are just theoritical, but in practice, there are lots of politics going on there, and the benefits might not even tickle down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_non-NATO_ally#Benefits

I do know that regardless of the benefit Kenya will get in this, the US will achieve its own ten folds. E.g, Nato members have to contribute at least 2 percent of their GDP for nato defence, all the money that goes into the US MIC.

The interoperability of nato defence network, uniformity of trainings, equipments, command structure etc are all funnels that keeps the US war economy alive. Nato countries bear most of the pain in this.

Nato is one hell of a cash out industry for the US. With an additional cost of dictating and unifying members state foreign policy regardless of national differences.

For example, Nato secetary is advocating that Ukraine can strike deep into Russia with weapon supplied to Kyiv, but Italy rebuked it, and some members state, but it doesnt matter, since individual member state dont really have much power.

I cant see the situations of MNNA to be more favourable than the gains of Nato itself.

Besides, Ruto seems like a hypocrite to me. All the noise in 2022 when Russia just invaded Ukraine, about dumping USD and talking like he is in the side of the global south seems like play.

And for the white house to invite him after all those alteracations, just seems to me that something fishy is going on. Time will tell

LordAdam16:


You can nudge someone in the right direction, but you can't push them all the way.

Egypt was one of the 5 OG MNNAs. Granted, the 4 others MNNAs selected in 1987--Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea--were already industrialized at the time. However, if you compare the sociopolitical history and trajectory since, only one sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tunisia is not any better. In 2012, 2014, and 2016, the US offered 100% loan guarantees for a cumulative $1.5B. In other words, if they are unable to pay, the US will make creditors whole up to 100% of principal. The sort of sweetheart deals offered by the IMF and a colloquium of Western partners over the years to Tunisia mirror those made to Argentina (another MNNA) and stands in contrast to the painful SAP-linked millstones they offer to other countries on average.

If Ruto attempts to unconstitutionally extend his rule and that triggers a national crisis or a fossil like Buhari worms his way into power, it wouldn't be fair to pin the blame on the US. It is one thing to provide an opportunity, it is another for the beneficiary to leverage the opportunity.



That goes without saying.
The US already started reaping benefits before the designation.

America convinced Kenya to deploy troops to Haiti.
Like Ukraine, Kenyans will expend blood and may even tack on some avoidable expense to do America's bidding in America's backyard.



It cuts both ways.
Russia, Iran, China, North Korea have spent far more on defense when measured as % of GDP than many Western nations.
Sure, the US is a giant blackhole that extracts excess productivity from the rest of the West, and indeed the world; but a lot of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are unproductive shells propped up by financial engineering. All of which is backed by America's military prowess.

How the Bleep are countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal flexing on the planet? Western Canada is one giant property bubble. Take out London and the North East, and England should be a middle-income country. These are the big wigs. Slovenia has a GDP per capita of $34K. A local government of 2m people has the exact same per capita labor productivity as Japan. Make that make sense.

Now you know why the likes of Estonia and Lithuania will keep barking at the top of their lungs. Most of their population would be subsistence farmers without the American-led NATO/EU Hegemony.

If you want your 4-day work week, one month of vacation, world-leading QOL, and less than 2% in peacetime defense spending (https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/3/pdf/210316-pr-2020-30-en.pdf); you can't really be talking about "pain". Because you're freeloading off the rest of the planet.

Kenya gets to choose how they want to play it.
Do they want to be a Poland / Germany / Netherlands or do they want to become one of the Southern hollow giants or one of the Central/East European chihuahuas. Their choice.



That's how it goes at the Big Boys table.

If India, Brazil, and Indonesia can attempt to have their cake and eat it, so should Kenya.

In the emerging multipolar world, it is best to think of geopolitical relations as a buffet. Pick what you want from whomever is offering and play the game astutely. The Kenya-China compact is still in effect. To illustrate, from 2010 to 2020, Chinese firms were awarded approximately 70% of large public sector infrastructure projects in Kenya. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210308005442/en/Kenya-Construction-Industry-Report-2020---ResearchAndMarkets.com
I expect China to retain a commanding lead this decade.

The wild card remains the Kenyan elite. Can they pull off the high-stakes, high-reward maneuvers necessary to bring this home? 🤷‍♂️

-Lord

Regex:


I must point out something to you. Having worked with Kenyans and observed their attitude. They come off to me as two faced. They always like to ass lick the reigning boss or bosses. I do not actually trust them. They are filled with jealousy and I understand where Pansophist is coming from.

LordAdam16:


Do we really want to enumerate ugly traits by nationality.

Because the way I dey see this house wen we dey inside so, b lyk say na glass dem use build am.

-Lord

Regex:


😂 😂 I don use brick patch my own...😂 😂

LordAdam16:


You can nudge someone in the right direction, but you can't push them all the way.

Egypt was one of the 5 OG MNNAs. Granted, the 4 others MNNAs selected in 1987--Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea--were already industrialized at the time. However, if you compare the sociopolitical history and trajectory since, only one sticks out like a sore thumb.


If you want your 4-day work week, one month of vacation, world-leading QOL, and less than 2% in peacetime defense spending (https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2021/3/pdf/210316-pr-2020-30-en.pdf); you can't really be talking about "pain". Because you're freeloading off the rest of the planet.

Kenya gets to choose how they want to play it.
Do they want to be a Poland / Germany / Netherlands or do they want to become one of the Southern hollow giants or one of the Central/East European chihuahuas. Their choice.
The wild card remains the Kenyan elite. Can they pull off the high-stakes, high-reward maneuvers necessary to bring this home? 🤷‍♂️

-Lord

Gerrard59:


Honestly, this is more than brilliant! The bold and last statement summarises it all: I will rather be a Netherlands than Belarus. You also in a way explained the benefits of aligning with the US. I do read wordings similar to yours from White Americans, but as na Nigerian write am, it resonates or would I say, I understand it better. The ball is in the court of Kenyan elites.

Once again, well done!

pansophist:


Lets not forget that the US sacrifices its ''allies'' where its convenient.

The about Japan is now a reality. He called Japan a flower garden. It looks beautiful and smells nice, but when the gardener comes to pluck it off, then it becomes a barren land.

Look at Japan in the '60s and now, then tell me that it pays to be a US ally. Japan has never and cant recover from the damages of the Plaza accord.

LordAdam16:
@pansophist

What just happened in the EU? I'll like a frontline assessment.
It feels like a political nuke just dropped. Crazy night for the right across the Old Continent.

It could have been worse. Is this 2016 all over again? How does the Establishment drop the ball so badly?
I guess they'll have to fortify their elections and commence lawfare against right-wing candidates going forward.

-Lord

pansophist:


You are speaking in parables bro. What exactly are you talking about?