SumSam
October 10th, 2008, 09:04 AM
How China could wreck the US economy (http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/oct/06bcrisis1.htm)
An interesting take from a third party perspective.
October 06, 2008
Countries that hold large US dollar denominated forex reserves have a powerful tool in their arsenal -- they could wreck American financial markets at a mere click of a mouse by selling their dollar holdings. Imagine China with a holding nearly $2 trillion worth of treasury bonds seceding to sell the same overnight.
It may be noted that the Chinese, unlike the others, have always questioned the global order with the US at the helm of affairs. And the Chinese accumulation of forex reserves is surely a strategy that perhaps has an ominous side to it.
All this is not pure economics as it is made out to be. Rather, it was and remains a well-planned economic, political and military strategy of the Chinese. And in a way it is the mirror image of the Star Wars programme that the then US President Reagan unleashed on the erstwhile USSR in the early eighties that eventually bankrupted the later within a few years as it engaged in competitive arms build-up with the former.
Statecraft is all about engaging other countries at one's own terms, pace, time and cost. This is what the US did to the USSR in the eighties and succeeded in dynamiting that country. And that is what China could do to a vulnerable US in the coming months. Crucially, if it doesn't, from the Chinese perspective it might well rue this moment forever.
The US till date was depending on the Chinese for imports and to finance them as well for such imports. Now they will have to be considerably dependent on the Chinese to protect their currency as well as to ensure liquidity in their money markets. And that completely alters the existing global order.
Wow...imagine a Chinese financial "Star Wars" attack on the USA. China being a totalitarian state, they wouldn't care about their economy and people suffering for a few years, if the outcome was the meltdown of the US economy.
An interesting take from a third party perspective.
October 06, 2008
Countries that hold large US dollar denominated forex reserves have a powerful tool in their arsenal -- they could wreck American financial markets at a mere click of a mouse by selling their dollar holdings. Imagine China with a holding nearly $2 trillion worth of treasury bonds seceding to sell the same overnight.
It may be noted that the Chinese, unlike the others, have always questioned the global order with the US at the helm of affairs. And the Chinese accumulation of forex reserves is surely a strategy that perhaps has an ominous side to it.
All this is not pure economics as it is made out to be. Rather, it was and remains a well-planned economic, political and military strategy of the Chinese. And in a way it is the mirror image of the Star Wars programme that the then US President Reagan unleashed on the erstwhile USSR in the early eighties that eventually bankrupted the later within a few years as it engaged in competitive arms build-up with the former.
Statecraft is all about engaging other countries at one's own terms, pace, time and cost. This is what the US did to the USSR in the eighties and succeeded in dynamiting that country. And that is what China could do to a vulnerable US in the coming months. Crucially, if it doesn't, from the Chinese perspective it might well rue this moment forever.
The US till date was depending on the Chinese for imports and to finance them as well for such imports. Now they will have to be considerably dependent on the Chinese to protect their currency as well as to ensure liquidity in their money markets. And that completely alters the existing global order.
Wow...imagine a Chinese financial "Star Wars" attack on the USA. China being a totalitarian state, they wouldn't care about their economy and people suffering for a few years, if the outcome was the meltdown of the US economy.