Economy of China:

The EU will only understand through arse whipping.

China retaliates against EU tariff hike, 07.05.2024.

Beijing will probe brandy imports from the bloc in response to duties on electric vehicles imposed by Brussels.

Beijing has announced the next stage in its investigation into EU brandy imports, in the latest tit-for-tat measure after the bloc imposed provisional duties on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs).

The EU on Thursday slapped tariffs ranging from 17.4% to 37.6% on Chinese EV imports on top of existing 10% duties, citing Beijing’s “unfair subsidization” of car manufacturers.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce responded on Friday by announcing that it will hold a hearing on July 18 to address claims that EU brandy producers are selling their goods in China below market rates.

The hearing requested by brandy houses Martell, Societe Jas Hennessy & Co., Remy Martin, and others will assess “industrial damage, cause and effect, and public interest in the anti-dumping probe of related brandy products,” according to the ministry’s statement.

The Chinese probe will look into EU-produced brandy in containers holding less than 200 liters imported between October 2022 and September 2023, the ministry added. It will also investigate the alleged damage inflicted on the Chinese brandy industry between January 2019 and September 2023.

The Chinese Chamber of Commerce to the EU condemned the bloc’s tariffs as “politically-motivated” and “protectionist,” expressing hope to resolve the dispute through dialogue.

Meanwhile, EU countries are split on the move, with Germany, whose automakers made a third of their sales in China last year, fearing the curbs will do more harm than good.

German car giant Volkswagen reportedly called the move “detrimental,” while the head of BMW said the tariff battle “leads to a dead end”.

The value of EU imports of Chinese EVs surged to $11.5 billion in 2023, from just $1.6 billion in 2020, accounting for 37% of all EV imports to the bloc, according to recent research.

Last year, the European Commission launched an investigation into claims that subsidies allowed Chinese EVs to be sold at much lower prices than ones produced in the bloc.

China has repeatedly urged the EU to cancel its EV tariffs, warning that it would “not sit back and watch” and expressed a willingness to negotiate. In January, Beijing launched a first reciprocal anti-dumping investigation into EU brandy imports and in June started a second probe into pork shipments from the bloc.

https://www.rt.com/business/600512-china-retaliation-eu-tariff-hike/

Smart factories: China crushes the US and Europe, by Javier Benítez for SputnikSpanish. 07.05.2024.

China has almost twice as many smart factories as the United States and the European Union combined. An overwhelming result that developed in just 15 years, when the Asian giant had much less quantity. This strategic situation is leaving the West exposed and in a delicate strategic situation.

Data kills story

Dramatic. This is the Western story in this section and that is demonstrated by a graphic published by the European Union Joint Research Center [JRC, for its acronym in English]. And it is that until 2014, both the United States and the Twenty-Seven club had an absolute hegemony in the number of manufacturing factories that use advanced technologies for their production processes. However, since that year, and with extraordinary speed, the tables have been turned.

Numbers speak for themselves. While China has about 20,000 manufacturing industries that use the most advanced technologies to manufacture products, the United States has 7,500 and Europe has 4,500. In other words, the sum of factories of this type that exist in these two territories is just over half of those owned by the Asian giant.

In this sense, China has experienced an overwhelming growth of 571% since 2009. Precisely, the year in which the budgetary adjustments began in Europe after the financial crisis that began in 2008.

For Dr. Enrique Refoyo, an international analyst, these "are the results of wanting to carry out an effective development policy, based on tangible goods, and not on financial economics, or incomprehensible ideological nonsense of an economic, political and intellectual elite that gets lost in its own morass of constant inventions."

"Meanwhile, those who were going to be deceived ‘like the Chinese’, it turns out that they dedicated themselves to a quiet, constant, progressive work, of growth, and of eventually becoming the largest trading partner in the world," the analyst slams.

Yandex Translate from Spanish.

https://latamnews.lat/20240705/fabricas-inteligentes-china-aplasta-a-eeuu-y-a-europa-1155949848.html

'More conflicts are possible': Europe prepares for trade war with China, says newspaper, 07.12.2024.

The European Union (EU) is preparing for a trade war with China on tariffs on electric vehicles and may apply the punitive mechanism of international public procurement, writes The Economist newspaper.

In early July, the European Commission imposed an increase in import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Beijing later said it planned to file a complaint against the EU with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and introduce countermeasures.

"Europe is preparing for a major trade war. [ ... ] Further conflicts [with Beijing] are possible, during which the EU will use new types of weapons [in trade]," the article notes.

Among the possible measures of the European Union, journalists highlight the application of the international purchasing mechanism. If China refuses to comply with Brussels' demands, the EU has the right to restrict Chinese companies' access to public tenders in Europe.

Finally, it is noted that another opponent of European officials may be Donald Trump in case of re-election to the post of President of the United States. Brussels will not leave unanswered the 10% tariffs on all imports from the EU that the American candidate promised to introduce.

Yandex Translate from Portuguese.

https://noticiabrasil.net.br/20240712/sao-possiveis-mais-conflitos-europa-prepara-se-para-guerra-comercial-com-a-china-diz-jornal-35558180.html

Among the possible measures of the European Union, journalists highlight the application of the international purchasing mechanism. If China refuses to comply with Brussels' demands, the EU has the right to restrict Chinese companies' access to public tenders in Europe.

Which could be catastrophic for western companies if China chose to respond in kind...

Finally, it is noted that another opponent of European officials may be Donald Trump in case of re-election to the post of President of the United States. Brussels will not leave unanswered the 10% tariffs on all imports from the EU that the American candidate promised to introduce.

In other words the EU wants a war on two fronts... they were always the smart ones...

If Trump gets in, he is likely to demand limits on Chinese goods increase too, so the west is really going to make electric vehicles and batteries and solar panels and a range of other products bought from China more expensive... how is that going to effect their current situation in regard to inflation etc.

We are likely not fully informed on the economic crisis in the NATzO west. The demented money printing from 2020 and before is hard to
explain as a coof response. I suspect the coof was motivated by efforts to manage a deeper economic crisis. The NATzO west is a
global scale economic parasite. The source of the nutrients it is sucking is the developing world and there has been a robust trend for
most of the world to develop at the expense of the parasite. This is reflected in the global GDP distribution with the once dominant
western countries now collectively in second place to BRICS states (and the rest of the world). The ramping of debt and mass migration
have been a GDP boost Ponzi racket for the last 30+ years. This is an indication of fundamental weakness in the parasite economies.
But even this Ponzi racket seems to be hitting diminishing returns even though migration is being amped up (e.g. Kanada is now importing
1.2 million per year when a few years ago it was around 400,000). The inflation is a measure of the decline. Of course, in Kanada and
elsewhere the official statistics are an utter lie. But look at your food bill and not the cost of various products.

We are at very high risk of global war. Economics is a central element in such wars and the NATzO west is in an existential crisis.

The West has missed its time - China will remain the leader, by Dmitry Kosyrev for RiaNovosti. 07.15.2024.

The magic of tradition is at work before our eyes, and on a global scale at that: the third plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China must be fateful, first of all from the point of view of the economy. The third is if we count it from the party congress, which in this case in the PRC was in 2022. Today, you will find in the global media space any number of references to how previously it was the third plenums that turned the economy around for years to come.

The current third plenum was expected last year - but it kept getting postponed. Then the commentators got really excited, started "appointing" its date themselves, citing their sources... But now the date has been officially announced - it starts on July 15. And a new stream of comments poured in.

What is happening and why on a global scale? There are several answers and several interested groups. Investors want to know where to put their money. Leftist ideologists, especially Russian ones, are waiting with bated breath to see which way the wheel will turn: to the right or, better yet, to the left — toward Chinese socialism.

But there is another answer: we are talking about decisions that may determine the fate of the entire planet for years to come. After all, this is the world's number one economy, which drives about a third of the world economy. In addition, we are talking about a country that has been attacked - in this case, by the United States - with the aim of at least seriously slowing down its growth. How will Beijing respond, how will it defend itself? Or - better yet - attack?

Information battles about whether China's economy is doing well or badly have been going on for several years now. Their pattern is standard: they pull out the facts and details that are needed. For example, some figures about youth unemployment or the problem of a wildly overheated construction market. They have sometimes started to cling to monthly data - why is exports falling? Beijing responds with general figures. For example, it was just calculated that foreign trade grew by 6.1 percent in six months (to almost three trillion dollars), with exports increasing by 6.9 percent.

There is also news about qualitative rather than quantitative indicators of the Chinese offensive on world markets: in the US, eight licenses for cooperation with China in the communications sector were revoked last year, and in total (since 2018, when the fight between the two economies began in earnest), 1,300 companies have lost such licenses. Meanwhile, China was the first in the world to test the 6G communications system, while the West is still fighting to ensure that no one buys 5G from its competitor. That is, it is obvious that those partners who work with China will receive clear competitive advantages over those who cooperate with the Westerners. And this particular fact says literally everything about what the battle for leadership in the entire global economy looks like now.

How serious is the West in this fight? It couldn't be more serious. For example, there is talk of a complete divorce of the world into two economies. But who will win then? "Under Biden, we have become more dependent on Chinese supplies than under any other president," the Republicans threaten at their latest conservative conference. They demand that ties be severed even more sharply, otherwise America is finished.

No one in America has announced a "third plenum" on the topic of where to steer the US economy. But the strategists of the future are arguing among themselves. Several administrations in a row have been chatting in vain about a turn to Asia, but in reality America has missed the time , got bogged down in European affairs, some say. How long can we "contain" China, others respond. Well, that is, for now, to contain the growth of the Chinese economy - yes, it is necessary, by any means necessary. But in addition to this, a clear goal should be set for decades to come - the fight against Beijing until complete victory , which requires the mobilization of resources and the restructuring of the economy of the entire West on a military footing.

This is the kind of fight, these are the stakes, and these strategists are expecting the third plenum precisely from the position of this dispute: will Beijing also mobilize its economy, transfer it to some kind of military rails to repel the threat?

When expectations from the plenum are so nervous, its result is simply doomed to disappoint. Including because the plenum's decisions may concern not so much the struggle for foreign markets as the improvement of the domestic situation. Which is understandable - in previous eras, China grew thanks to foreign trade, but now this has not been the case for several years: the key market is domestic (almost one and a half billion consumers).

In particular, experts cite a speech by the head of the Chinese government, Li Qiang, at one of the forums, where fiscal changes are described in some detail. They will concern the distribution of tax revenues between the center and the provinces, so that the regions do not restrain centralized investments in high technology with their sometimes overly risky entrepreneurial activities.

Are these serious steps? Quite. Especially if we recall the role of tax cuts in Donald Trump's economic policy (America, if not made great again, is at least noticeably richer) — and take into account what is happening in the US today in terms of taxes and money printing. Either way, with or without the plenum, China knows very well what kind of battle for leadership will be going on in the coming era, and it takes it very seriously.

https://ria.ru/20240715/kitay-1959592894.html

NATO Challenges Beijing, China Gives Surprising Response, by Dmitry Kosyrev for RiaNovosti. 07.20.2024.

If you are one of the two superpowers in the world and you receive a clear and specific challenge from the other superpower, essentially a threat to your existence, how do you respond? China did it in an unexpected and very Chinese way. It goes something like this: which of us is stronger is a question, but we are smarter and therefore we will win.

The issue is about what happened at the recent NATO summit in Washington. And about the "third plenum" of the CPC Central Committee that ended on Thursday, which was announced in advance by almost all world media as a fateful event for the entire world, not just for China.

The Westerners, we recall, first put Beijing ahead of Moscow , stating in the final declaration that the Asian power "challenges the interests, security and values ​​of NATO" and outlining several measures to remove this "threat." It is clear that the Chinese diplomats found the words to respond. But the world expert community was expecting a different answer, that is, the results of that very plenum - the third after the party congress, and traditionally dedicated to the economy. The fact is that words are words, but concrete steps are more serious.

Some people might have expected China's economy to be put on a war footing, with the nationalization of everything imaginable and a concentration of efforts on repelling the military threat, etc. But for the most part, expectations were different: what about finances, investments, etc.? The fact is that before that, an information war had been going on for months - around the idea that "China is slowing down and dying." Dying both because of the insane three-year quarantines regarding the virus, and because it was during this period that the US economic war against its global competitor escalated, with total restrictions on any high-tech exports from China to Western countries.

It should be said here that both the NATO summit and the Beijing plenum are just the latest episodes in the struggle for global leadership, and this struggle began back in 2018, with the first restrictions of the Donald Trump administration against the competitor's communication systems. And since then, the world has been watching every detail of this escalating battle. Which is understandable: the existence of almost all countries depends on it. It does not matter who is the first economy here and who is the second (the answer depends on the counting system), what is important is that each of them makes up about 18% of the world's GDP. And therefore, even seemingly purely domestic measures on the economy, in the PRC or the USA, affect literally everyone. This is important.

And what is even more important is that today each of the opposing sides is putting forward its own, already clearly established ideology of how tomorrow's world should be built. Moreover, each side is actively working to ensure that its ideology, its vision of the future, wins.

How serious are the intentions and stakes: they couldn't be more serious. The attacking side, the United States, believes that it's not about who is first or second here, but about a systemic crisis of the entire American project. And this is true, and this truth concerns not only the collapse and degradation of the political system, the confrontation between the two halves of society, and everything else. The fact is that the aforementioned 18% of global GDP is of different quality in the two countries. One of the latest examples: we recently learned that Russia entered the top ten countries that maintain a foreign trade balance with a surplus . The leader in this top ten, that is, in the world, is the country with the largest foreign trade volume, China. And the United States is not second or third here, they are also first, but in a completely different list - of countries trading with a deficit. And let's not forget who is the world's first producer (of goods, not services) and much more.

The answer to the question "what should America do" is given today, for example, by J.D. Vance, a candidate for vice president under Trump. His recipe for strategy is to rid the US of the Ukrainian crisis and European affairs, to focus on putting pressure on China, including militarily (with the help of Taiwan ), otherwise America will not be able to regain its production and technological advantage. True, Vance is just parroting what the entire Republican half of the country has been saying for years, while the Democrats, in their words and deeds, are a diluted version of the same doctrine. Such a simple doctrine: to save the US, we must put pressure on China. Economically, politically, whatever. To deploy everyone in the Western alliance for this fight, and to force even those who are not part of it to join in. This is a task for decades, requiring the full mobilization of all the forces of the nation, and not just it.

Now about the Chinese response to this challenge. Everything is subtle here and, as always, requires deciphering. Let us note that the "third plenum", closed to the public, did not make any spectacular statements at all; in its final document, it only confirmed the continuation of the course begun months ago. But even before the plenum, the Chinese expert community tried to explain the importance of the event.

First: no mobilisations and nationalizations, no military economy based on the principle of a closed camp, there will be no "back to Mao Zedong ". The course of supporting private business and reviving private initiative is confirmed. Further, from purely internal matters, the fiscal system will be changed in order to prevent provincial governments from playing around and getting into debt. But third and most importantly, the Chinese leadership confirms that it sees the ideal world for itself in exactly the opposite way than the US. And it will build it. But this is no longer their internal affairs, but ours too.

The American version of the world economy, and with it politics, implies the same besieged camp for the US and its allies. In this camp, decisions are made not based on their profitability, but with the goal of not letting China (and, of course, Russia and many others) into their markets. That is, this camp must win the competition with others, based on political and ideological expediency.

And China, like Russia, talks about the openness of the world. And here there is an ideological innovation, which is already several months old, but it was the "third plenum" that took it seriously. This idea sounds like this: China has made a historic leap from "peaceful coexistence" to a world of "common destiny". Let us add: all of us on this planet have also made such a leap, at least this is how the Chinese leadership sees the situation.

It doesn't matter who first came up with the principle of peaceful coexistence - People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin in 1922 or Mao Zedong, negotiating with India in 1954. What is important is that in the past era, it was possible to talk about two or even more economic systems that could more or less live their own lives behind a blind fence, close or open up to each other, conduct ideological discussions, compete in technology and in anything... But now the economy is not that, it can function normally only with maximum openness of markets. Because even a market of one and a half billion people (India, China) is no longer suitable for a multitude of new goods and services, it must be larger.

A world of common destiny is a world that trades openly according to the same rules for all and without sanctions, and is multipolar, that is, respecting the differences in civilizations and political systems, where no one threatens each other. In fact, this is our world, and the Chinese concept of "common destiny" is in places literally similar to Russian foreign policy documents. Which is not surprising.

And the subsequent course of events will be surprising, when the Western bloc and the rest of the world will each create their own common or private destiny. And this competition will take more than one year.

https://ria.ru/20240720/kitay-1960720600.html

Uber and BYD enter global electric vehicle partnership, 08.01.2024.

The partnership will offer drivers affordable pricing and financing for BYD's electric vehicles on Uber's platform.

Reuters. Uber Technologies and Chinese automaker BYD on Wednesday announced a global partnership involving 100,000 electric cars for the ride-hailing platform.

The partnership, which will begin in Europe and Latin America, will offer drivers affordable pricing and financing for BYD electric vehicles on Uber's platform and will expand to markets in the Middle East, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the companies said.

In Brazil, BYD has a partnership with the app transport company 99, Uber's rival.

Uber and BYD will offer drivers discounts on vehicle maintenance, charging, financing and leasing, depending on the market.

"When a driver makes the switch to an electric vehicle, they can provide up to four times more emissions benefits than an average driver simply because they're on the road longer," said Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi.

The companies added that they will work together to integrate BYD vehicles with autonomous driving technologies into the app-based transportation platform.

Yandex Translate from Portuguese.

https://www.brasil247.com/mundo/uber-e-byd-firmam-parceria-global-em-veiculos-eletricos

China... making money AND saving the planet...

Compare this to the west which is imposing sanctions and tariffs and bullying others...

"It has not only survived, it has prospered": Chinese semiconductor industry prevails over the US, 08.23.2024.

Chinese semiconductor companies managed to turn around the restrictive measures recently imposed by the United States and recorded extraordinary profits.

According to analysts told the Global Times, Chinese semiconductor companies registered a significant increase in revenues and great progress in their self-sufficiency, despite a series of restrictive rules against them promoted in the so-called Chip Law in the United States, promoted by President Joe Biden in March 2023.

"Despite the harsh US sanctions of recent years, the Chinese semiconductor industry has not only survived, but has thrived. We have witnessed a significant growth in production capacity, especially in mature processes, with an increase in exports, especially to Southeast Asian markets such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia," Ma Jihua, a veteran observer of the telecommunications industry, told Global Times on Wednesday.

As reported by the Securities Times newspaper on Wednesday, of the 68 semiconductor companies that have published their first-half financial reports, 40 have registered a revenue increase of more than 50%. According to CITIC, 157 A-share companies are listed in China's semiconductor industrial chain.

In addition, according to official data, in the first seven months of 2024, Chinese chip exports reached 89,850 million dollars, 25.8% more than in the same period last year, which is a new record.

And the future looks promising for these companies, as Wang Peng, a research associate at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the domestic semiconductor sector is expected to remain in an upward cycle until 2025, driven by multiple factors, such as technological innovation, an uptick in market demand and policy support.

The expert noted that, worried about possible US sanctions, many Chinese companies have increasingly opted for chips made in China, which has expanded the market and significantly boosted the growth of the Chinese semiconductor industry.

"In the face of pressure, the Chinese semiconductor industry has not only withstood the challenges, but has also prospered, and has a strong momentum to grow faster in the future," the expert told the Global Times.

In March 2023, Joe Biden's government declared war on China in the semiconductor market, to slow down its technological advancement and in turn has made it a priority to ensure his country's leadership around those devices.

To achieve these objectives, on the one hand, the Biden administration restricted Beijing's access to the most advanced chips and at the same time is applying subsidies so that chip manufacturing returns to the United States and is also developed in allied countries.

Yandex Translate from Spanish.

https://noticiaslatam.lat/20240822/no-solo-ha-sobrevivido-ha-prosperado-industria-china-de-semiconductores-se-impone-ante-eeuu-1157001283.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-09-02/vw-weighs-factory-closures-as-china-targets-europe-s-ev-blunders

Losing ground in the race to produce electric vehicles, German and French carmakers are heading toward a disruptive wave of factory closures

Volkswagen AG is considering factory closures in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history, parting with tradition and risking a feud with unions in a step that reflects the deep woes roiling Europe’s auto industry.

After years of ignoring overcapacity and slumping competitiveness, the German auto giant’s moves are likely to kick off a broader reckoning in the industry. The reasons are clear: Europe’s efforts to compete with Chinese rivals and Tesla Inc. in electric cars are faltering.

They have no one to blame but themselves... the Chinese and Russians have invested money in development and new technology and upgrading factories and tooling and training workers, while western companies got used to having a product that was in demand and spent their profits on shareholder bonuses and big pays for CEOs etc etc.

When times are good you don't piss away the money, you invest and upgrade and improve your competitiveness so when times are not so good at least your infrastructure isn't falling apart.

What the US needs to do is borrow borrow borrow and upgrade their roads and rail lines and air ports and bridges and buildings... get a first class infrastructure... because when they go broke at least they will have that.

Of course the construction industry in the US is more corrupt than the US MIC if that is even possible so throwing trillions at anything is just wasting money and time.