https://xcancel.com/davidrkadler/status/1878841904571597116 (Video)
Yesterday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum delivered her 100-day address to a PACKED Zócalo.
“We will not return to the neoliberal model. We will not return to the regime of privileges and corruption… We say: For the good of all, first the poor.”
The question is why would you need to accumulate so much trade surplus in order to achieve what you’re saying?
The surplus means money they cannot use. In fact, it means they have earned so much that they don’t know how to use them. That means Chinese workers are practically working for the West for free. The only party that truly benefits here is Western countries.
You do need some foreign reserves to maintain the stability of exchange rate if your currency is pegged to another currency (like RMB is soft-pegged to USD), but China has $3.3T reserves (!!) and they can easily slash 2 trillion of those and still be fine. China does not need more trade surplus lol, they are already accumulating so much foreign currencies that are just sitting there. They need to start raising the living standards of their workers by actually raising their wages. In fact, it makes their industries dependent on export and thus vulnerable to manipulations from Western countries that control the market.
Imagine telling your employer to pay you only 50% of your salary and switch the other 50% to bottle caps. You’re practically working your ass off for the company to collect bottle caps - collectibles that are practically worthless. The party that benefits here is the company who only have to pay half of your salary.
Imagine your employer can decide to nuke your house at any moment. That might incentivize you to accept a 50% bottle cap salary.
Cheap labor is how China has paid off the West and made itself indispensable to the market. It’s unequal exchange.
lol this is why the West was genuinely afraid of Mao but not anymore since China has opened up.
Mao used to casually taunt the US to drop their atomic bombs on China and see who lasts longer. He would constantly talk about China engaging in a “10,000 years” long war (lol!) with the Western imperialists even until the end of the world.
These days the US just crosses red lines after red lines because they know that their opponents have no appetite to truly fight back and risk a nuclear war.
You aren’t wrong, but on the other hand we haven’t had a nuclear war either. That counts for something.
Although now we’re zooming to a climate catastrophe that will make Earth just as uninhabitable so lol