Ramble on: More on Chinese and Stuff.

Response to a friend post on Facebook, slightly edited. 

AFTER the trade pact of 2000, U.S. corporations got comfortable sitting on beds of dollars as the “super inexpensive” albeit massive 24/7 Chinese labor force (over 700 million that time) manufactured stuff for them as Americans consumers kept on buying. 

       Anyhow, while billionaires' total wealth fell by 6 percent from 2000 to 2010 as a result of the Great Recession, it shot up by 160 percent ($2.57 trillion) from 2010 to March 2021. Somewhere from 2001 to 2010, the all-time record for number of U.S. billionaires was 1,125. As of 2023, there are a mere 735 billionaires in the U.S. Part of the reason is the Chinese got richer as well (969 billionaires as of 2023!) as did the Arabs, South Koreans, Russians, Japanese, Germans, Indians etcetera. 

And so American business wealth decreased although U.S. millionaires are more plentiful—almost 22 million. In 1990, there were “only” 63,642 millionaires in the United States. 

MEANWHILE, gradually, the Chinese knew what products Americans loved to spend most on, such as drugs/pharmaceuticals, cars, and electronics. Hence, the Chinese got better knowledge of the raw materials or pertinent ingredients/minerals for those stuff, which the Chinese mainland had plenty of. (BRICS partners Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa got a lot of those, too.)

       So quietly as the Chinese got richer, they put time and money (re)studying those raw materials and as the U.S. craved for more (trade deficit continued to spike), Chinese upped their cost–while they dangled the new, rehashed and repurposed raw materials/APIs as in the global market. Through the years, the Chinese got better knowledge of U.S./Western-styled capitalism (and consumer mojo) and so now they spread out globally. They bought hectares and acres of land to build factories in other countries where they could use those raw materials to their liking and control prices, of course.

       Take note: Most Chinese corporations (except big tech but including banks) are state-owned. 

SURE, if others like U.S. giants want more raw materials, they are more expensive now compared with a few years after 2000, or after the defining U.S./China trade pact signed by Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin. Example: Silicon. Smart as they are, they sold most of the silicon to Taiwan, a people who are essentially their kin in business but (probably still) a rival in politics. (Usually, for the Chinese per se, trade wins.) 

       Now the U.S. is pissed. Instead of sitting down to haggle or negotiate costs with the Chinese, they goad a war to shake things up. (Historically, refer to late-19th century’s Boxer Rebellion in China or Commodore Matthew Perry’s “gunboat diplomacy” vs old Japan in 1853.) Also, Washington failed to convince others that the Chinese stole intellectual property of many products when the fact is, the Chinese reworked the raw materials to make better products for the global market per WTO. Example is silicon wafer from quartz, mica, and talc. Blahblahblah. 

      History keeps on repeating itself. Though a reset is needed? I don’t think so. But that’d be another subject to ponder and discuss. 🇨🇳🤌🇺🇸