Not saying that punitive actions can’t be effective, but the US is still vulnerable to some forms of retaliation, especially if get initial action is as sudden and dramatic as the ones you describe.
You just listed every thing what The New Axis has done in the previous decade.
China tariff: they’d devalue the yuan. They already have capital controls that keep money from leaving the country. Regime would be fine.
At the end of the day, might as well trade with them for our own benefit.
Pivot to whom? China needs a large population of consumers. Besides the US they have their choice of countries full of young poor people, countries full of thrifty old people, and countries with consumers that are too small. They could drop the US if they’re willing to have a massive financial contraction. The US holds the ultimate trump card too, we need them less and less, and we can remove all shipping security guarantees for Chinese goods and watch their international trade collapse. It’s hard to fund influence campaigns when your economic house of cards crumbles around you.
And the whole point of the Belt and Road initiative and their aircraft carrier program is to remove dependence on the US backed shipping security apparatus.
Not for long. The Chinese population is aging incredibly rapidly. Younger Chinese who could contribute to a stable consumer base will instead be crushed attempting to support the accelerating number in older generations retiring.
On average people consume less and save more as they age. After retirement saving dries up and consumption takes a dive. After people turn 80 their activity falls off a cliff and they hardly spend anything. Their major costs are healthcare related but that’s a financial burden not a consumption boost for most societies including China.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1101677/population-distr...
Additionally, they have a different retirement system that doesn't dry up for individuals the same way. If it's important for China that older citizens continue being consumers, they'll make that happen.
War might work, if at least some larger part of the population wants change, like in Iraq. Sanctions didn't ever work.
We actually buy a very small amount these days. US is a net exporter.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...
Most international trade is denominated in USD, often even when trade is between two non-US companies.
Although that is true, the US imports less and less oil from Saudi. In fact, it’s been dropping steeply since shale oil became cheaper in 2014 and we haven’t imported less from Saudi since the oil glut of the mid-1980s.[1] I don’t think the US stopping Saudi oil imports is going to worry them as China is their major market now and China is another repressive regime. We should stop protecting their shipping though as we do for the entire globe still.
1: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...
Iran is still a brutal repressive regime. Sanctions make it more difficult for Iran to gain and project power but don’t stop them from committing horrific crimes against minorities and generally innocent Iranians.
Whatever it is now, it has been brought in to existence by US (CIA) intervention
Most Iranians would depose the current leadership if they had free elections, so it’s not as if the population wants them, but like China, and North Korea only one party can have legitimate candidates and they have the guns.
I wonder which agency played a role in stopping an elected government from assuming power. Its reeks double standards if its ok for USA/CIA to obstruct democracy but if somebody else does it -- oh the horror and injustice.
As long as fountainheads of brutal regimes, be it Shah of Iran or the crown prince of SA, are 'our' guy -- totally kosher.
The US and the UK are the primary reasons why there aren't any meaningful elections in Iran anymore.
* selling them US debt, aka they fund the deficits (national and private).
* selling them weapons and financial services
* habit, traditions etc Where else will we keep our aircraft carriers?
* they're a defacto ally of Israel and they generally help on our special projects in the middle east.
I don't like that we support them. I think Iran is a much better choice in the region. But that's why we keep doing it...
The worry for the US is if oil becomes priced in yuan and sold in yuan. It undermines the purchasing power of the US dollar while at the same time diminishing the effectiveness of US sanctions.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3128103/c...
Here are some things that can be done:
- Stop exporting weapons and military and police equipment.
- Support women and them starting their own businesses, so they'll make money and get more influence in society. Women are, when looking at large numbers of people, more often altruistic minded (compared to men) and less likely to be psychopaths.
- Education, provide for free over the Internet.
- Support pro democracy organizations. But I guess one would need to be careful, if doing this, so people won't just start protesting on the street and get shot down, for example see in Iran recently (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-gasoline-protests-id...).
this reminds me of another country, takes pride in its democracy, where citizens love marijuana, government don’t.
different places, different basis for prosecution.
Unfortunately there are no cheap and efficient options for removing someone permanently from society right now outside of death penalty.
Outlawing people may work, but for various reasons it is non starter. You cannot lift protection from the law nowadays from someone.
If you go to Saudi Arabia you will see that Arabia is made of hundreds of different loosely integrated ethnic groups, Saudis are just one of them that took the power in the country.
Removing the Saudis from power is extremely simple, they can just support other ethnic groups. The problem is that you never know if what is created is much worse than what it is there today, just like what happened in Egypt choosing the Muslim Brotherhood or in Libya, unstabilizing all the north of Africa.
China is a totally different thing. China is a gigantic country, almost a continent with more than 1200 million people, a big army,powerful industry, natural defenses and ethnically dominated by Han people.
Not really. While China improved its “natural defenses” by very unnaturally invading and subjugating Tibet it is still ringed by hostile countries or, in the case of Russia and North Korea, highly temperamental countries with very few natural barriers apart from the Himalayas which only covers one side. This is the reason the Great Wall was built.
The opposite is true here.
Saudi Arabia just gets a free pass because their collaboration is important to America's strategic interests.
Embargo them to the neck, like Japan before WW2.