Sanctions, sanctions and more sanctions. The one trick ponies in Washington can't think of anything else but sanctions. It was effective when the Americans were ruling the world and no one dared to violate their sanctions. North Korea and Cuba had been under the cruel sanctions of the evil Americans for more than 70 years. But they are surviving and finding ways out of the sanctions. And with the rise of China as the factory of the world, these countries can go direct to China, bypassing the American sanctions, to get what they need. This is also applicable to all the countries in the Global South.
There is no more need to buy Americans when they could get all they want from China, cheaper and better. Thus there is no more need for the use of the American dollar. The Americans can sanction all they want. The ultimate effect is isolation of themselves from the rest of the world.
The economic sanctions of Russia, Iran, Venezuela etc etc mean that all the American allies and crony states cannot trade with these countries. This could be a death knell to the victim countries in the past. Today, the void was immediately filled by China. China could sell all the goods needed by these countries, and in return they could sell all their oil and resources to China. A perfect match made in heaven.
The biggest beneficiary of these sanctions is China's new energy vehicles, EVs. Russia, Iran, Venezueala and many countries are now open to China like a monopoly, without competition from the Americans and the West. Chinese EVs are given a big boost in a crucial time like this, to make a mark in these sanctioned countries, to gain market share and user confidence. It is boom time for Chinese EVs. And EVs are not the only product that China is selling to these countries. It is the entire scope of goods and services, now fully supplied by China. Huawei's 5G, the entire mobile phone industry of China, and military hardware, weapons, once the monopoly of the Americans and the West, now become the major exports of China.
China has the goons in Washington to thank for. They vacated and paved the way for the dominance of Chinese goods in these countries. Once time tested, the reputation and reliability of China's products would gain loyal customers and put an end to their reliance on American and western products.
Japan car industry is the biggest casualty, unable to sell in these countries. Japanese automobiles have already been sinking with sales declining by a huge margin. Also thanks to their stubbornness not to move into EVs in full force. Now their consolation is to pretend that hybrids are better than EVs, but for how long can this self deception holds?
2 comments:
The EV boom and dominance by China was entirely made by the west, who created 'renewable energy' as a means to reduce pollution and global warming. China seized that opportunity, planned way ahead, did what others thought was ridiculous, and ended up dominating the world in renewable energy and also cut its pollution.
Everything the west threw at China, it benefitted and left the west green with envy and unable to compete. So it's now using sanctions and tariffs as their only weapon. These have been proven not to work and backfiring, hurting the sanctioner and provided the impetus for the sanctioned to advance to levels no man has been before. China and the sanctioned should give a big thank you to the west.
China saw the opportunity probably 20 years ago, cornering the raw materials like rare earth, bauxite ores for aluminum and gallium, lithium ores for batteries, copper and iron ores for EVs, wind turbines and solar panels, and now even stock piling gold and silver.
Not only did China foresee the demand for clean energy materials, but it also set up the whole processing chain catering to the clean energy industry, that was to give China the overall advantage.
Today, twenty years later, the USA and the West were caught flat-footed. They had little total control over raw materials, they lack the processing logistics, they are in a dilemma going forward, debating whether or not to set up those logistics that could be white elephants in the face of China's processing capacity, that could put them out of business.
Now the USA and the West are talking about China's stockpiling of gold, not knowing for sure what purpose or objective, other than knowing that China is trying to stay away from USA treasuries and not investing the excess reserves in USA and Western assets. Supporting a new BRICS currency or alternative currency is the other factor that is posing a dilemma for the US$ hegemony.
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