1/31/2026

Rupee falling, Yuan rising. Yuan can appreciate more as China is pricing its goods too cheaply

The Indian rupee is in deep shit. While other global currencies are strengthening against the US$, India's rupee is going in the opposite direction. Unless India can become an industrial powerbase like China, with an export-oriented economy, a weak currency is detrimental, especially having to pay, for example, for energy imports.

There are of course pros and cons regarding currency strengths and weaknesses. China as a net exporter of goods cannot allow the Yuan to appreciate too strongly that will make its exports more expensive for others. China is today the biggest exporter of goods, being the factory of the world, and showing a US$1.2 trillion trade surplus. China would prefer to keep a weaker Yuan, which the USA is not happy about. In fact, the Chinese Yuan is very much undervalued than what it is officially today and the USA has long complained about China keeping the Yuan too weak.

For countries like USA (and also India), which does not depend on massive exports of goods, with its manufacturing base already outsourced to other countries, this is one reason it suffered such a huge deficit against China, and a weak currency makes no sense, besides making imports more expensive. For the USA, tariffs are nevertheless already curtailing imports which may make the current position of a weak currency tenable for the time being. But the problem of the USA is that such curtailment forces businesses like retailers finding it impossible to do business going forward without relying on cheap imports.

The USA is in an era of the Government undoubtedly and unknowingly using 'scorch earth' tactics against its own farmers resulting from its trade war against China, retailers getting gutted by tariffs and other entities in the USA providing research, education and businesses getting starved of foreign talents that serves them well in the past.


Anonymous

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are so many things that China now dominates which we normally do not bother about other than what we see and what the West is demonizing China about like EVs, shipbuilding, batteries, solar panels and wind turbines.

According to Kevin Walmsley on his site 'Inside China Business' China is moving into dominating the global market for high-rise elevators. China is also moving quietly into the space capsule home business, making small homes that can be disassembled and put together in days and exporting them worldwide. Such small mobile homes are so cheap it will put others out of business.

I honestly cannot see what else China is going to export and dominate in years to come besides EVs. Probably the higher end semiconductor business and its related hardware and machines that are now dominated by ASML, TSMC, Samsung and other USA tech giants are going to fall into the hands of China as well. Who knows?

Anonymous said...

China is also big in transportation trucks, in pleasure boats and outboard motors, in electric motorcycles, in port cranes, in tunneling machine, in farming and construction machinery, still waiting to capture the professional and DSLR camera market, but already dominated the mobile phone camera market....

Anonymous said...

Eleven years of India under Modi saw little to improve the Indian living conditions. Just when the Indians are getting clobbered by the wrong end of the stick from Trump, here comes the EU to save India.

I think the EU is the only avenue left for India to turn to, now that India's best friend, the USA, is throwing India under the bus. But then, the EU itself is struggling to find ways to get out of its own dilemma, the hollowing out of its industrial base over expensive energy. It is two stray dogs trying to comfort each other.

India's relation with Russia is already frayed, no longer close and strategic, over energy payments and India's on and off stance not knowing which boat to hang on. Russia's trust in India is no longer unbreakable.

Of course, the Chinese knew all about trusting India, so China is out of the equation.