INTL China economy cracking? "China Shifts Purchase Priorities From Manufacturing Materials to Food"

MinnesotaSmith

Membership Revoked
https://theconservativetreehouse.co...-manufacturing-materials-to-food/#more-168462

China Shifts Purchase Priorities From Manufacturing Materials to Food

Posted on August 17, 2019 by sundance

"An interesting article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) highlights how China is shifting their procurement priority from minerals used in manufacturing (cobalt, copper) to the acquisition of food and agriculture products.

The impact is being felt throughout Africa, where mining companies are shutting down operations because Chinese demand no longer exists.

Articles like this highlight the ancillary impacts of a weakened Chinese economy.

Despite the proclamations by Beijing about their ability to withstand the withdrawal of the U.S. as a primary customer for manufactured goods, reality shows they cannot.

There is a confluence of events all leading to radical changes just below the surface. China has been burning cash to subsidize industries impacted by U.S. tariffs. Simultaneously Beijing has lowered the value of their currency in an effort to eliminate the tariff impact in the cost of their finished goods. However, as the ideological economic conflict between the U.S. and China continues, Beijing cannot hold their position indefinitely.


[…] A decelerating construction boom in China also has led to a decline in demand for copper while Beijing’s move to raise standards for electric vehicles qualifying for subsidies is depressing the market for cobalt.

An economic slowdown in some African countries is seen as tied to China’s economic slowdown, accelerated by the tariff battle. (link)


Countries that attached their economy to purchase agreements with China over the last 20 years became dependent on those exports. As China slows or stops their purchases those dependent economies are now at risk.

[…] Martyn Davies, managing director of emerging markets and Africa at Deloitte, said China’s demand for commodities has underpinned Africa’s growth for 20 years.

“Any commodity-exporting economy’s growth model has been underpinned by China’s demand for commodities in the last generation,” Davies said.

“This in itself has resulted in complacency in many commodity exporting countries because if you had China growing at 7 or 8 per cent, you don’t need to struggle. “Unfortunately,” Davies said, “the world has changed.” (link)


And now China’s biggest weakness starts to surface. A country that cannot feed its own population even during the best of times, is now facing a downturn in economic and employment activity while the need to import food remains.

[…] analysts say that while countries that export cobalt, copper and iron ore will be hardest hit as Beijing – the major buyer of Africa’s hard commodities – diversifies the sourcing of its imports during the trade war, opportunities are opening up for exporters of soft commodities, such as agricultural products. (link)

There comes a time in the life of a panda when bamboo is no-longer taken for granted.

trump-trade-panda-impact.jpg
 

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
As I said before in other threads, China needs the USA for food and even if they boycott, some one will buy it.
 

Illini Warrior

Illini Warrior
Japan realized the game was up even before Prez Trump got sworn in - both Mexico and Canada begrudgingly took the best deal that Prez Trump ALLOWED ...

China is bound & determined to run the string out - try to depose Prez Trump and install IT'S bought & paid for puppet Biden - and get back to their rip off the US ways ....
 

Shacknasty Shagrat

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Japan realized the game was up even before Prez Trump got sworn in - both Mexico and Canada begrudgingly took the best deal that Prez Trump ALLOWED ...

China is bound & determined to run the string out - try to depose Prez Trump and install IT'S bought & paid for puppet Biden - and get back to their rip off the US ways ....

I think you well understand the game plan of the Red Chinese and their Democrat stooges
When there is enough starvation and failure, it will be time for a Chinese Dynasty reset.]
SS
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
We have hundreds of farms in the midwest that are failing on their loans because of the flooding. I predict the Chinese will pick them up if we do not do something under national security to prevent it.

I don't think we are going to have much in the way of surplus crops to sell to China this year anyway and Russia already told them not to look much to them for soybeans.
 

Mark D

Now running for Emperor.
Hmmm...

1) 40+% of the swine production lost due to the African Flu.
2) Grand Solar Minimum giving them a LOUSY growing season for Corn and Soy.
3) The Army Worm eating an appreciable portion of the early Corn crop that DID manage to grow... And, a new round of Army Worm popping up for the most recent crop.
4) REALLY bad flooding across the country in the last few months.

I think the Chinese leadership is likely trying to avoid a full-scale domestic panic. The cracks in the system are going to become very evident by years-end.
 

Squid

Veteran Member
There is something that isn’t discussed much

There is always a battle for the 2 basic resources needed for both agriculture and manufacturing,
Land and Water.
China has reduced the land available for agriculture by building empty cities, paving over for factories, and sinking big chunk by 3 gorge dams project. Sure this is some efficiencies in automation but they culturally consider farming something ignorant peasants do not the newly educated masters of the universe (hhmmm sounds like millennials here).

Now comes the other problem clean water. The runaway industrialization has turned most water unfit for any use, let alone for use with sustainable agriculture.

To save face other countries will buy US soybeans and the resell to China or sell their soybeans to China and replace theirs with exports ftom US.

The future is water and farming.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment
https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2019/usda-crop-progress-report-july-28

As of Aug 1, our soybean crops were lagging due to the late flooding. Brazil, however, has a bumper crop.

Soybean condition rated 1% very poor, 3% poor, 22% fair, 63% good, and 11% excellent. Soybeans blooming was 66%, well behind 86% last year, and the average of 83%. Thirty-four percent were setting pods, behind 49% last year and the average of 43%.
 

raven

TB Fanatic
. . .and it may also be that China understands this Global Cooling event is going to reduce availability of food
 

BornFree

Came This Far
One of the best way to check out demand for raw materials such as copper is to check on the price of a roll of Romex wire. The price is not real low, but not real high either. It is about half of what it was 3-4 years ago.
 

twobarkingdogs

Veteran Member
One of the best way to check out demand for raw materials such as copper is to check on the price of a roll of Romex wire. The price is not real low, but not real high either. It is about half of what it was 3-4 years ago.


Copper prices are also a good indicator of how much construction is ongoing because a lot of copper is used in electrical wiring.

tbd
 

Zagdid

Veteran Member
China’s belt and road cargo to Europe under scrutiny as operator admits to moving empty containers

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-...and-road-cargo-europe-under-scrutiny-operator (fair use)
Sidney Leng Published: 6:30pm, 20 Aug, 2019

Widespread waste and fraud associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been unearthed after the country’s state railway group was forced to admit this month that a significant amount of cargo containers shuttling between Chinese factories and European cities were empty.

The admission by the state-run China Railway – the sole operator of the lines – followed an investigation by the Chinese Business Journal, a newspaper supervised by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which found that in one extreme case only one of 41 containers on a particular train actually carried goods.

The belt and road plan, masterminded by President Xi Jinping, is the central government’s initiative to link economies into a China-centred trading network to grow global trade.

This led to many local governments rushing to open train services through the vast central Asian territory between China and Europe to show their support for Beijing’s geopolitical strategy, but many exporters actually transported empty containers in order to receive government subsidies.

China Railway admitted the existence of the problem in an interview with the state-run Global Times last week, but insisted that it had largely been eradicated in 2018 after new rules were introduced limiting the number of empty containers allowed to just 10 per cent per train.

The company said that of all containers heading to Europe in 2018, only 6 per cent were empty, compared to 29 per cent for eastbound trains. In the first half of 2019, they said, the ratios had fallen to 2 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.

Jonathan Hillman, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, said the problem of empty containers “is consistent with the belt and road’s emphasis on short term political gains at the expense of longer-term economic fundamentals”.

“These routes are an effective advertising device for selling the belt and road’s overland dimensions – which despite the hype, will not challenge the dominance of maritime trade,” said Hillman, who closely monitors trade flows between China and Europe.

Generous state subsidies for the cargo traffic routes, as well as praise from Chinese state media, combined to encourage the exaggeration, he added.

In 2018, China’s Ministry of Finance offered subsidies of up to 50 per cent for rail freight between China and Europe, although they were reduced to 40 per cent this year. After a cut to 30 per cent in 2020, they will be completely abolished in 2022, although the lower subsidies are already having an affect.

In Heilongjiang, China’s rust-belt province on the border of Russia, the two westbound rail services from the provincial capital of Harbin to Hamburg and Moscow did not operate last year due to the lack of subsidies, according to Zhao Quanshang from the freight department of the China Railway Harbin Group.

In addition, local governments also added their own generous incentives, with the central city of Xian offering up to US$3,000 for every container destined for Europe in 2018, according to government notices. Overall, subsidies varied from US$1,000 to US$5,000 per 40-foot container, according to a CSIS report last year.
 

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
As always, it boils down to the Chinese saving face. They will lie and cheat to accomplish that goal. Everything else is secondary.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Saving face (i.e. not being embarrassed or made to look like a fool) is more important than life itself to Asians.
 

China Connection

TB Fanatic
They meaning the Chinese Government triel to develop China's internal economy but the ordinary people save meaning don't spend.


The world is in general in recession so exports are dropping everywhere.


So China needs food more than new factories.
 

Countrymouse

Country exile in the city
Reminds me of how Reagan drove the USSR into financial ruin--thus setting the stage to BRING DOWN communism in the USSR (and today, once again, we have RUSSIA back0

Seems Trump may be following the same game-plan with China

Lord willing he will be able to accomplish the plan before China destroys the freedom movement in Hong Kong (Tienanmen Square 2.0)
 
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