Hacker News Reader

Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

It is definitely the last one.

>Last, using swift as a weapon against Russia could hurt long-term American interests. America holds sway over international finance thanks to the dollar’s dominance and its pre-eminent role in global settlement systems. Further politicising swift would give China an incentive to bolster cips, its rival to swift for cross-border payments in yuan. It would also help China court any country with uneasy relations with America looking for alternatives.

I would imagine there are additional politics in play with disabling SWIFT. I dont how many countries will need to agree before shutting down SWIFT access, if it is at the will of US it would be more like a semi-nuclear option.

Although I am already surprised by CIPS, one eighth of transaction volume of SWIFT is not "well behind". From many POV this already seems like a battle the west are clearly losing.

View on HN

But if SWIFT is already in play, everyone already has a reason to diversify, and will do so.

You can't be making threats and not expect people to try to avoid the thing you're threatening.

Also you can't be hesitating on everything that seems like a one-off. Then you really don't have a lot of sticks to shake at people.

This whole thing is so embarrassing for the West. We won't let Ukraine into NATO, we won't promise not to, we won't send troops, we won't send much help at all, we won't sanction all Russian nationals (yes it's heavy handed), we won't sanction a few thousand top regime officials, we won't sanction just the oligarchs, we won't stop them living in the West, we won't even stop them sending money home.

Exactly. Alternatives to swift are already growing and will continue to do so. What’s more important, protecting Ukraine, Taiwan and anywhere else under threat, or slowing down the erosion of something already being eroded. Lives matter, swift will do just fine without Russia.

This asshole is at war with us. It’s about time we went to war back. Yes it would be costly, but it would have been a lot less costly if we’d done more than wring our hands over Crimea. The cost of dithering is going up and up, so what’s the answer? More dithering?

>What’s more important, protecting Ukraine, Taiwan and anywhere else under threat, or slowing down the erosion of something already being eroded. Lives matter, swift will do just fine without Russia.

I might be completely clueless, but Ukraine doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of strategic or economic importance that Taiwan does. As I understand it, what should have been done was for NATO to promise to not add Ukraine and keep it as a neutral zone between Russia and the US. Adding Ukraine to NATO was effectively putting US troops on Russia's doorstep and I can see why that makes Russia nervous. It seems pretty clear that Ukraine wasn't going to get NATO membership anyways.

I don't know if the promise would have given Putin the gall to invade, but the way I see it being ambiguous about it didn't help at all.

This is valuable reading, from a military historian frequently posted on HN:

https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the-...

Here's one of the many good bits:

----

Instead, the clearest understanding of Putin’s complaints about NATO is that they are reflections of his real fears, but that as diplomatic negotiating tools, they were red herrings, designed to create exactly the sort of smokescreen that some media personalities worked to create and exploit domestically. The ‘tell’ here in many ways were the initial demands, which amounted to rolling back NATO positions to pre-1997 status; such demands would be utterly unacceptable to NATO countries (like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland) who would thus be left outside NATO’s line of protection. Putin – and the Russian Foreign Ministry – knew those demands were obvious non-starters, that’s why they made them – presumably to generate that smokescreen and to try to divide NATO internally. But the demands themselves were never serious, as Putin’s actions this week prove.

----

The "promise Ukraine won't join NATO" demand was not made in good faith and conceding it would not have mattered.

I call bull.

Evidence for “the initial demands, which amounted to rolling back NATO positions to pre-1997 status;”

This is a very good and thorough article. The truth is I am clueless - it seems the writing was on the wall for a very long time for anyone who was paying attention

We already have American troops on Russia's doorstep in Alaska, is it really about proximity to Moscow? Does that even matter these days?

I’ve reflected on this argument recently but I struggle to see the real logic behind it. Putin claims he wants Ukraine as a neutral zone between russia and NATO. He then proceeds to invade Ukraine … if successful, territory under his control (whether explicitly shown or not, he could instil a puppet government) will now border NATO countries. How does that provide him with any security ?

Proximity to the Russia heartland presumably. Flight time of missiles to key military positions within Russia.

I'm no military strategist but how is this not obvious?

It's not about a neutral zone, it's about a buffer zone between more sensitive areas and where NATO can place troops, tanks, and missile systems. I mean a sea separates Alaska from north-east Russia and those places are deep into permafrost territory and then there's the entirety of Western and Central Russia between Moscow (say) and there. Russia is huge. 90% of the Russian population live in the 10% of Russia that is considered part of the European continent.

It's like nobody bothers to study geography or geopolitics before they open their mouth these days.

Russian Federation I guess will guarantee the security of Donetsk and Luhansk and liberate further Russian-speaking areas.

There are multiple NATO countries that already border Russia. If Putin takes Ukraine it will nearly double the amount of NATO countries that will border Russia.

Sure, but it makes it harder for an invasion force to reach Moscow or the industrial heart of Russia.

Nobody in NATO or the world period is invading Russia - cmon now

Putin really ran with FUD on this one

That is true now, but what about 23 years from now (23 years being how long it was between the defeat of Germany in WWI and the Germany's invasion of Russian lands)?

Putin thinks Russia's military strength will decline relative to the US, which is why he is widening Russia's buffer to invasion now even though it will probably be many years before it is needed.

This. Putin is just looking for excuses for why he wants to take Ukraine.

> This asshole is at war with us. It’s about time we went to war back.

This just shows how blind you are to the shortcomings of Western liberal cosmopolitanism, which is entirely defined by its lack of sense of responsibility for anything at all. It’s a post-modern mindset that just presumes everyone else will always play the same delusional game that it plays, simply because if they don’t then they will be forced to. So, when Putin shows that he is not going to play along, they simply have no plan. They never made a plan, not only because they never thought they needed one but primarily because they had their heads so buried up their own asses.

> What’s more important, protecting Ukraine, Taiwan and anywhere else under threat

Ukraine, Taiwan, etc are under "threat" because the West is using them as political/military pawns. If NATO/West didn't exist, there would be no invasion of ukraine. Taiwan would have unified with China already. It's going to anyways. We are just bleeding Taiwan as much as we can before china takes it back. It's silly the amount of useless weapons we are forcing taiwan to buy.

> This asshole is at war with us. It’s about time we went to war back. Yes it would be costly, but it would have been a lot less costly if we’d done more than wring our hands over Crimea.

You have it backwards. We are at war with him and he finally decided to stand up for himself. We invaded ukraine first. We broke our promises first. It's NATO expansion that is the threat to the world. Not russia.

Is it China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Venezuela, Haiti, etc the problem or is it the West? Think about it. The world has a common problem. It isn't "China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Venezuela, Haiti, etc". It's the imperial west.

Just because the US/West is in the lead of the empire game at the moment doesn't mean the other empires aren't a problem. We aren't the first empire and won't be the last. China, in particular, is in a massive expansion into Africa. If there was not competition from US/West for power, it would be moving much faster and more aggressively/violently as it had in the past.

The ideal for the common person would be no empires. If that is a fantasy, then the next best thing would be some sort of minimally violent stalemate.

This moral issue is really easily resolved - what do the people of Ukraine and Taiwan want? It's quite easy to ask them.

The answer is "not Russia" and "not China". That's why the Ukrainians are fighting for their lives now, and why the democratically elected government of Taiwan is prepared to do the same.

> This moral issue is really easily resolved - what do the people of Ukraine and Taiwan want? It's quite easy to ask them.

What did the southerners want? What did the native hawaiians want. What did the aborigines want. What did the inuits in alaska want? What did the samoans want? What did the maoris want?

The ukrainians wanted russia. They voted for a pro-russian president. In 2014, the US/EU staged a coup and forced out a democratically elected president. Funny how people forget that.

As for taiwan, 1.4 billion chinese vs 20 million chinese. You do the math. And of course nobody is interested in what the aborigines in taiwan want. Taiwan lost the civil. Just like the south lost our civil war. It's only our imperial foolishness that delayed the unification.

> That's why the Ukrainians are fighting for their lives now,

They aren't. Instead of watching propaganda all over traditional and social media, go watch some real footage on the war. It's harder to find now that most social media is propagandized, but it's there. 99.99% of ukrainians are not fighting. And miles of trucks, tanks, etc abandoned by ukrainian soldiers at the first sound of war.

Go look at footage of kiev or any other ukrainian city. Nobody ( civilians or soldiers ) is preparing for the defense of the cities. And russia is doing this not with millions of troops, just thousands.

Sounds like someone actually knows some basic history and political theory instead of just blabbering whatever the Western media is saying at any given moment.

Scott Ritter[1] talking to Richard Medhurst[2]

(Speaking of Gorbachev) “… you have to agree not only not to bring NATO troops into the eastern portion of uh of Germany but you can't bring NATO troops east of the Elbe, you can't go into Poland, you can't do do this. And uh and he was given assurances and everybody said well it's just verbal, we now find out it's in writing um that this wouldn't happen. So you know right off the bat we have an expansive NATO, now NATO says that's okay you don't be worried about an expansive NATO because we're a defensive alliance. Really? Then why did they bomb Belgrade in 1999, there was nothing defensive about that, that was offensive military action against a Slavic state. Why did they, why did NATO send a training mission to Iraq in 2004? Why did NATO members participate in the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003? Um you know they say well it's just a training mission. No, it's a training mission in an occupied state that was occupied uh you know from an illegal war of aggression so you're facilitating, you're legitimizing, an illegal war of aggression. That's what NATO did. Why did NATO go into Afghanistan what business is Afghanistan of NATO's? None. Zero. Um you know and what did NATO do to Libya? Offensive aggressive military operations but it's not just these examples it's a transatlantic organization. Why then did they start a partnership in North Africa where they were seeking to expand their sphere of influence (there's a word we're not allowed to use) in North Africa? Why did they set up offices in um in the United Arab Emirates to create a sphere of influence in the Persian Gulf? Why are they talking about a North Atlantic Treaty Organization operating in the Pacific to create a sphere of influence to counter china? They're not a defensive organization it's an offensive minded expansive organization with a proven history of carrying out regime change operations in countries they view as a threat. Who's the number one threat today per NATO's own words? Russia. So you know NATO not only has no reason to exist NATO is a suicide pill for Europe.”

A couple of comments about this.

We, in the West (I live in Western Europe), can pretend that NATO is a force for good in the world, that it is some sort of benign defensive pact but our adversaries do not see it that way. And our adversaries are correct. They do not have the luxury of pretending that NATO is something that it is not. If they were to then that would spell the end of them. The reason people in the West don't see NATO for what it is is because they see themselves as the good guys and their adversaries as the bad guys. It's that simple. Even though people throughout the West are critical of their governments domestically when it comes to matters of foreign policy even though people say they care about peace and that they care for the people of Ukraine, they don't in actual fact care about peace and they don't care about the people of Ukraine. If they did then they would have asked their governments why NATO wasn't disbanded in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Empire and with it the Warsaw Pact. NATO was created to counter the Warsaw Pact countries. When that alliance disbanded and German was reunified NATO should have been consigned to the dustbin of history as they say. But it was not. With the Soviets out of the way NATO emboldened by its success began to expand its remit, expand its sphere of influence. That's fine, but at least admit that the nature of the organisation has changed. That's fine, but don't be surprised when your sphere of influence overlaps with a nation that has its own sphere of influence is its own independent agenda. It's at times like these the the narrative that most in the Western media pump out day after day is revealed to be at odds with reality. The West, when it comes to foreign interventions, is morally compromised – it has no business telling others what they cannot do when it does those very same things year in year out and has done for decades. The hypocrisy at times like these is, frankly, nauseating.

I recommend watching that entire interview. Ritter does not varnish reality, and that's a good thing. People in the West need to wake to what is being done in their name and own the consequences of their actions. See also Max Blumenthal's analysis on the Jimmy Dore Show[3] and Russell Brand's take[4].

[1] William Scott Ritter Jr. (born July 15, 1961) is a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He later became a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, becoming according to The New York Times "the loudest and most credible skeptic of the Bush administration’s contention that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction."

[2] "NATO Too Weak to Face Russia: Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive" https://youtu.be/3GkmdCaBECs?t=1988

[3] #TheJimmyDoreShow "Truth About Ukraine/Russia NOT What You Think" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm8QfxZ3HHw

[4] #Ukraine #Russia #War "This Changes Everything" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=595Esg6Mz0U

Hmm... The interview in [2] starts out with them seemingly taking different sides, but about 6 minutes in Scott Ritter starts arguing that the invasion was a reasonable response to problems with right-wing extremists in the Ukrainian military (which I've heard is a problem in many countries, not only in Ukraine).

The interviewer appears to be a writer for RT. Is this interview some kind of good cop/bad cop routine to make the propaganda go down easier?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter

Ritter was born into a military family in 1961 in Gainesville, Florida. He graduated from Kaiserslautern American High School in Kaiserslautern, Germany in 1979, and later from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Arts in the history of the Soviet Union and departmental honors. In 1980 he served in the U.S. Army as a private. Then in May 1984 he was commissioned as an intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps. He served in this capacity for about 12 years.[2] He served as the lead analyst for the Marine Corps Rapid Deployment Force concerning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran–Iraq War. Ritter's academic work focused on the Basmachi resistance movement in Soviet Central Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, and on the Basmachi commanders Fazail Maksum and Ibrahim Bek.[3][4] During Desert Storm, he served as a ballistic missile advisor to General Norman Schwarzkopf. Ritter later worked as a security and military consultant for the Fox News network. Ritter also had "a long relationship [...] of an official nature" with the UK's foreign intelligence spy agency MI6 according to an interview he gave to Democracy Now! in 2003.

That's Scott Ritter's background. What's yours? Oh, we can't tell because you've used a throwaway account, which of course is your right. But I would suggest that if you go around insinuating about a person's character you'd better have some sort of proof or evidence to back it up. But the best you can do is:

> The interviewer appears to be a writer for RT.

So he's written op-eds for Russia Today. The way you state it without elaboration it's like we're meant to fill in the blanks. I'm sorry, are we not allowed to write for news organisations any more? Yes, we all know what you're implying, Russia Today is some kind of unAmerican news corp. Tell you what, let's bring back the House Committee on Un-American Activities and drag Scott before them.

God damn it, humans are so disappointing. As to:

> Scott Ritter starts arguing that the invasion was a reasonable response to problems with right-wing extremists in the Ukrainian military (which I've heard is a problem in many countries, not only in Ukraine).

Listening comprehension much? He never said that. He said, contrary to what the regular media is portraying there are actually neo-Nazi elements within Ukrainian military which (given the Russians history with Nazism – you know, how they more or less single-handedly beat back Nazis until the UK and USA got their shit together) explains what Putin meant in his hour long speech pre-invasion and allied to the eastward expansion of NATO shows that the Russian response while a gross violation of Ukrainian sovereignty is entirely rational, and given Putin's demands, entirely predictable.

But because we (the West) have to be the good guys – our adversaries must, by definition, be either evil or tyrannical or insane or any combo of all of these characteristics.

Heaven forbid that we might have a hand in all this, also heaven forbid that we look critically at our own part in all of this. And heaven forbid we try to imagine other people around the world as human beings like us with concerns (whether legitimate or not it doesn't really matter) about national security like us.

> But if SWIFT is already in play, everyone already has a reason to diversify, and will do so.

> You can't be making threats and not expect people to try to avoid the thing you're threatening.

> Also you can't be hesitating on everything that seems like a one-off. Then you really don't have a lot of sticks to shake at people.

Exactly. It's possible to be too reluctant to "save" a weapon for next time. You can get to the point that you wasted it because you let it gather dust until it was ineffective.

SWIFT is an interconnecting protocol, like the IP in TCP/IP. It's absurd to my mind to talk about weaponising shared/common protocols. It's not only bad because of how it might affect us, it's bad because it's bad in principle. That this way of seeing things is not a more universal way of seeing this matter is telling and disheartening but I guess ultimately not that surprising.

> This whole thing is so embarrassing for the West. We won't let Ukraine into NATO, we won't promise not to, we won't send troops, we won't send much help at all, we won't sanction all Russian nationals (yes it's heavy handed), we won't sanction a few thousand top regime officials, we won't sanction just the oligarchs, we won't stop them living in the West, we won't even stop them sending money home.

I think this is actually the idea behind "strategic ambiguity".

> You can't be making threats and not expect people to try to avoid the thing you're threatening.

You should assume reasonable people already know SWIFT was going to be used as a threat at one point or another. So I'm not sure you're saying anything new. Those people continue to use it because it's permeated all over financial world very much like the dollar is. The cost to move away from it is non-zero and the alternatives aren't subsidized enough by the likes of China to incentivize others to join them and if not enough people are joining you won't have a network effect.

"We" should just have left Ukraine well alone 10 years ago. We effectively cut checks that could never be cashed.

Yes. Western liberal “democracy” may have to come to terms with its collective ignorance much sooner than it planned to. (it never planned to)

> we won't sanction all Russian nationals

It would be nice to see a mass deportation of Russian mafia.

Why should dual citizens living in other countries suffer, especially if they've lived there for decades?

Asking for myself.

Slightly disrupt, in a pretty small way, a few thousand people connected to the regime

a bunch of Ukrainian civilians get killed, their homes destroyed, thousands of refugees, and troops on both sides die and are horribly injured.

No idea if you're connected to the regime, but it would be unfortunate to mess up your life in the west. But there's a tolerable amount of collateral damage. This goes back to hurting yourself to hurt the bad guy, it's not a western ideal to harm the innocent, but we might end up where it happens and we shouldn't be paralyzed by the possibility.

Not exactly a convincing expression of support for people's human rights, especially those of fellow citizens with dual nationality. Wouldn't exactly be a good look.

A better solution is to clean up the financial sector, especially the City of London, and to move to renewables ASAP to break the hold of all petrostates on the West.

Russians in America (dual citizen or not) have inalienable lights outlined in the Constitution.

Dual citizens should renounce Russian citizenship if they don’t support their government and tax dollars going to war.

If you aren’t willing to overthrow the shithole government of Russia, you don’t get to complain when your allegiance (especially when you have dual citizenship and can easily renounce it), makes life hard for you.

So when Russians in USA go back to visit their family they should pay for visas? I don't see how that helps the fight against Russian goverment in any non-symbolic way.

Maybe stop trying to punish ordinary people for their (effectively unelected - see how opposition in Russia can't survive) government?

Yes. Or perhaps don’t go visit a country actively murdering other people unproked and encourage your family to leave. Leave or revolt. Otherwise you are complacent.

So yes, if you maintain citizenship with Russia, there ought to be consequences.

2 things here:

1) Russians can own firearms. They can start a rebellion to overthrow the gov. Why haven’t they? There’s some level of comfort the residents are getting that they don’t want to give up.

2) Punishing residents for their govs misdeeds (it is listed as a democracy after all) is a good way to get them to comply and overthrow or vote out this gov.

People in the US pay everyday for Russian misinformation campaigns, while Russian residents sit by and do nothing. What’s that saying from BLM? If you do nothing you’re just as guilty?

It's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle

Half the world's population lives with a 2500 mile radius circle centred over the South China Sea. There's a market.

I love how this widely quoted term originated on reddit. You can get something named after you after as a layman, like Fermat's Last Theorem, just best avoid coming up with it on a reddit account with an obscene name!

I really love maps like this

But how's this related to SWIFT?

One post up. China, CIPS, strategic interests.

is proximity to the country that owns a transaction processing system relevant in a fully digital world?

Do you see India and Japan (and Vietnam and South Korea, all within the circle) joining a system controlled by China.

India has its own SWIFT alternative as a matter of fact

>> is proximity to the country that owns a transaction processing system relevant in a fully digital world?

Very much yes. Think of two people trading rice between china and the Philippians. That rice is not digital. It is traveling across a not-digital ocean on a not-digital ship. If something goes wrong with a payment they would much rather be dealing with someone in the same timezone who can address the issue before the non-digital ship gets locked down somewhere. When things go very wrong, they don't want to be shopping for a European lawfirm to help with a matter between two Asian businesses. Timezones, language and local understanding still matters for realworld trade.

One nit, many developing countries do pick overseas legal systems to resolve commercial disputes because local systems are not workable / usable. So you might be in india and philippines, but use a london bank for a letter of credit and agreements / bills of lading that are handled in London

https://www.gov.uk/courts-tribunals/commercial-court

A winning combo is a functioning, fair, nonpolitical legal system that works QUICKLY and predictably (fairness a bit secondary) and banking / finance so decisions can be enforced more easily.

> something goes wrong with a payment they would much rather be dealing with someone in the same timezone

These systems are for the banks to transfer between them..

If a payment goes wrong, it's still the bank's problem. This is opaque to the end user if I understand it correctly.

And Going by this logic would the entire world also stop using Gmail and start using Alibaba/Tencent's email service?

Countries in the proximity of other countries are more likely to have larger trade volumes between them, increasing the chances they hold each others currencies in reserves and have incentives to use a common payment network. This is why geographic proximity is relevant even in a fully digital world. At least while a significant portion of trade consists of physical goods that have to be moved across borders.

No, India will not let its financial graph be owned by China. US or EU its a different matter -- even then, as India becomes stronger economy would carve its own platform.

I had the same thought as your last point. Regardless of what happens with SWIFT now China will keep pushing hard to reduce it's US dependencies and is clearly well on their way.

Keeping your powder dry isn't so useful when it's evaporating in front of you.

China has one dependency they cannot get rid of - Americans buy tons of their stuff, and if they get rid of that, China has a big problem.

Not just Americans. If all 30 NATO nations threatened to halt trade, China would be in a tough position.

Convincing Americans to stop buy their wares is a huge task. Any political group that halts those wares from coming in would face huge upheaval. People are much more interested in their day to day comfort than something halfway across the globe (from a US perspective).

A huge task indeed but perhaps less than people think.

Chinese imports are heavily overrepresented in certain sectors (Tech for instance) but the US imports far less than most other countries. It's one of the peculiarities of the global economy.

Tech is really important. But there is also all the little things that you just interact with on daily life. Things like cutlery, soap dispensers, and so much more. Sure the US could make all this stuff but the country deeply relies on the cost imbalance to maintain the standard of living they have had for decades. Thats most people's entire lives.

I am reminded of this Purism phone that you can buy as a US made or China made version. https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ China: 799$ (now 1200$ due to rising supply chain costs) USA: 2000$

I guess we are lucky in that most of our food and infrastructure related items seems to be local.

That specific example is not as revealing as it might seem, because in addition to a difference in supply costs, there's a difference in how much a hypothetical person who doesn't care about money but cares about it being made in the US will pay on top of supply cost differences.

Yeah I guess you are right, its just that there is not many examples I can provide because they just don't exist at all. Could Apple with their supply chain experience and clout get that 2000$ price down? Yeah probably. But it helps to illustrate my main point: The West has essentially been cheating by exploiting the purchasing power differential for decades and eventually it may finally collapse on them.

In an idealized situation, every company in the world will all move to a country to make an extra $0.01/unit, if they can all make it and make it reliably.

Almost all of the lumber purchased in America is grown in China, and Chinese concrete and steel are increasingly more common, despite political half-measures intended to change that.

This is hilariously completely the opposite of true. China is a net importer of American lumber, almost no Chinese lumber is exported, especially to the USA.

Almost no concrete is ever shipped more than 150 miles or so, concrete is almost always extremely locally produced.

Only steel has any appreciable trade volume with China.

I'm just curious if this is true if you back china into a corner. I'd imagine they'd take over taiwan and south korea? Is our tech sector really immune from this kind of major conflict?

How much flash RAM etc do we produce locally etc?

Hypothetical military campaigns against Taiwan or South Korea would be much more difficult than what's going on in Ukraine right now. Russia can drive tanks into Ukraine from three sides. Taiwan and Korea would require naval battles in oceans full of submarines.

Large-scale amphibious assaults were incredibly precarious in the era before AWACS and spy satellites. Now they're probably impossible against a modern adversary.

Also - as someone else mentioned - China doesn't want to be a pariah state.

>China doesn't want to be a pariah state.

Agreed. In particular, they rely on international trade to keep the economic prospects of their young men rosy enough that they won't participate in huge riots that bring down the government, which is the historical fate of most governments of China.

> Large-scale amphibious assaults were incredibly precarious in the era before AWACS and spy satellites. Now they're probably impossible against a modern adversary.

This is quite a bit naive. Do you not think ships are capable of planning their movements around satellites? Do you know how fast a ship can leave a US port and dock up in an Asian port (ships have an unclassified, and a classified speed)? Are there no other methods of camouflage that can be employed to hide from a satellite when it is over you?

You don’t think it’s possible because how it’s done has layers upon layers of classification walls.

> Convincing Americans to stop buy their wares is a huge task.

Its actually super easy, you impose 200% tariff, and people will start buying from Korea, Indonesia, Brasil and India.

You're skipping the step where all of the US retailers must switch to new suppliers at the flip of a switch. How long does that take before their current supplies run out and customers go else where? Looking at the current supply chain conundrum, I'd suggest that would be a larger issue than you're giving it credit.

You can do it gradually (2-3 years). Trump already imposed 25% tariff on China goods, and nothing dramatic happened, and I bet many people switched to goods from other countries. One example: I am into electric guitars, and almost all manufacturers moved from China because of tariff risks.

Yeah, when you control the global economy like the USA does, it’s pretty easy to just make sure there are always starving countries to move your sweatshops to.

Another way to look at this, since you know since the US literally had nothing to do with why it’s starving, is the US is trying to help a smaller country (and gain an ally) by trading with that country.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.

Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Ukraine

Where’s the part where the US caused poverty?

I still think that the global supply chain debacle was partly due to the Trump tariffs. People were already scrambling to find new suppliers before the pandemic. The situation is a culmination of all of the stuff that happened in just a short time frame.

It has more to do with ship docks being backlogged. Then when a docks storage fills up, they turn the ship away or make it circle.

This disruption actually makes things worse for China, since once/if new supply chain components established outside China, it will be hard for them to get business back.

These items were already purchased, so the payment was in the past. OR, they buy the item from the supplier the minute it’s sold, in which case they can just return the items to the supplier.

A market that can support fair trade, carbon-neutral, organic, and gluten-free markups can support a human-rights /value-subtracted/ tariff: goods produced by slave or child labor or under authoritarian regimes can be assessed a tariff to bring their prices in-line with those produced in better countries.

Stickers marked "Three children assembled this iPhone for you." or "These sneakers were stitched by slave laborers in Xinjiang" might be as effective as the USDA's "Certified Organic" in persuading those with money and a conscience.

Sounds as likely to deter as much as cigarette packages with "Causes cancer, birth defects, etc" warnings. Majority of consumers just don't care about the package, and just care about what's in the packaging.

The sticker is to explain the price increase: why do these sneakers which cost $109 last week cost $179 now? The price increase is the deterrent, not the information.

Companies would be free to market their products as they see fit: “Nike Freedom Airs now made with 33% less slave labor.”, “IPhone 14: Apple’s first Child-Labor-Neutral phone.”

You would need to do that slowly or you'd really piss off voters. And even if you do it slowly, you'll probably piss them off enough that they'll vote in someone who will erase what you've done.

I think if things will come to 200% tariff, it would mean something serious happened already, and voters will be enraged/educated to some extent already.

But yes, it is multi-factor optimization (voters, economy, geopolitics), though it looks like there is some consensus over certain topics between politicians, e.g. Biden didn't remove Trump tariffs, and didn't stop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

That's a great way of skyrocketing inflation.

Wouldn't China just ship their wares there, change it to say "Made in (Not China)", and then ship ot to the U.S.?

I don't know how this work. I assume tariffs work on direct import from China. China can try to ship through different country with relabeling, which makes it more complicated on large scale, and that country will want cut, but it also can be tracked and penalized.

People will throw out whoever in the Whitehouse …

I agree completely. However, there are many situations where it can be reduced. For instance, I've heard chatter about people wondering about Apple's exposure to China[0] should China back Russia in the Ukraine conflict. At some point, it would be within Apple's best interest to look at reducing their dependency on a possible opponent.

[0] - Obviously we can pick any number of company and country matchups for this discussion, but China is obviously the relevant discussion point to this topic, and Apple is a huge American company, so the example is much less esoteric than others. I'm not picking on Apple here at all.

iWatches might just got sanctioned because of their glass comes from Russian company with state links. They chose to save on Corning's glass, with dire consequences for themselves.

Always nice when a company with 70% margin chooses to save a few pennies

Exactly. Like all things Apple, I have no problem with them choosing money over something else. ( May be I do but it is up to them to decide )

I have problem with them constantly lying ( or spinning ) all the the glass they use are from US Corning.

This is the difference between China and Russia.

The CCP is in power because it has promised Chinese citizens wealth. China actually really doesn't want to be a pariah.

I disagree. I think Putin actually aspires to be more like China. I think the difference between Russia and China today stems from the Soviet Union’s priorities of national independence and socialist ideals. China has played a long-term global strategy that Putin, or virtually any other country’s leaders for that matter, is bound to be jealous of. Ideology can never account for these discrepancies in potential.

So why do we do this already? The longer we way, the more money and influence they get. I don’t buy Chinese goods anymore. If I can’t confirm it didn’t come from China, I don’t buy. If we had govs onboard, and another supplier of chips, this would be easier than you think.

" If all 30 NATO nations threatened to halt trade"

That would be effectivly the same as launching nuclear missiles? Mutual destruction economically.

Why do you think that? For the major countries of NATO, China is one of many trading partners. China is only about 16% of US trade. Would it hurt? Sure. But nowhere near as much as having nearly 90% of your major trading partners disappear.

NATO coordinated economic action is extremely asymmetric. Compare these two lists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa...

> That would be effectivly the same as launching nuclear missiles? Mutual destruction economically.

No. Nuclear war potentially would kill many millions of people. Let's keep matters in perspective.

and why would that happen? 1. it's utterly, completely out of scope of NATO's purpose 2. Europe does not share America's attitude towards China

Reducing dependencies on rivals is a good idea. China is doing it because they know what they would do if they hold the dependency of a rival (like the US) firmly in hand. The US should take very serious heed of this because if we are too dependant on China for something critical it will eventually come to bite us. The supply troubles caused by the pandemic are a tiny foreshadowing of what will happen if we ever find ourselves too dependent on something important from a country like China.

This is far too logical for the United States to implement. People want cheap stuff and companies want cheap manufacturing. It took the great political shock of an unstable outsider getting elected as President of the United States who was not afraid to counter the globalists and a pandemic to alert the citizens of glaring shortages of manufacturing capacity to finally bring this issue into discussion. However, it appears this realization will not be enough to alter course and begin manufacturing more products at higher cost in the United States.

What realistic measures beyond tariffs can accomplish a shift toward a reduction of US dependency on China? A dependency which creates more risk for not only the US but the world as a whole due to the obvious potential for conflicts that will arise when China uses their manufacturing prowess to apply the screws to the many nations that depend on it.

US (and maybe Canada too?) fostering IT infrastructure plants in Central America. The whole "huge migrant forces leaving Central America for the US" (to the extent that it's a factor) could be stemmed with more infrastructure jobs there. The IT infrastructure we need to maintain independence from larger potential adversaries. Intel and others have some chip manufacturing in some Central American locations - increase that. Increase chip and other IT related manufacturing plants closer to our hemisphere. Lift up these economies closer to home - reduce shipping/transit costs.

Tax policies that favor more IT manufacturing in Central America may already be in place. If not, put in place. If there, tweak some levers to increase activity to closer to our borders and further away from countries that are gaining too much control over strategic resources.

Not sure there is enough talent in many of those countries to staff IT related manufacturing.

Migrating investment to Latin and South America is certainly a better direction from the perspective of businesses under an environment where investment in China is discouraged as they gain the protection afforded by the Monroe Doctrine. However, it still does not adequately address the weak manufacturing industry within the United States and it’s ability to produce necessary goods when global trade is impacted by a shock event like a pandemic or war.

How much do you think the GDP of China would be impacted if there was nothing left of NATO to buy their wares?

We're all dependent on each other. This retreat into isolationism just presents an illusion of non-dependency.

We need to start thinking more collectively

A lot of weapons are a lot scarier when you don't know what they are and what their impact is. You can't kick the BRICS out of SWIFT and expect the world to still take you serious.

Decades of crippling sanctions have also taught China and Russia how to bypass altogether with certain countries. Short term it will probably sting, but long term its a death sentence to SWIFTs position.

> You can't kick the BRICS out of SWIFT

Why would you need to kick BRICS out of SWIFT? India is a US ally on Quad, South Africa and Brazil aren't allied with Russia either. And at this point, no one is talking about kicking China out of SWIFT.

The Quad is threadbare pseudo-alliance specifically designed around containing China, period. India has long been friendly with Russia and is non-committal on the Ukraine situation and is apparently talking about "how to establish a rupee payment mechanism for trade with Russia to soften the blow of Western sanctions"[1]

It would be wise to assess how much the rest of the world is willing to go along with isolating Russia before we go in sanction-guns blazing and wind up isolating ourselves instead.

[1] https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1497162914586898475

Are you sure that India is an US ally wrt. Russia?

India has its own interests (of course). During the Cold War, India was part of the Non-Aligned Movement, a coalition of countries which sought a third path, supporting neither side.

https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/no...

India is far from Ukraine and so doesn't have many geopolitical interests at stake, unlike European countries and (by very close alliances and relationships) the US.

India does have at stake the rules-based international order, for which a fundamental rule is respect for national sovereignty, and respect for the legitimacy of democracies. Sharing borders with Pakistan and China, India has a special interest in those.

"rules-based international order"

Where are these rules written, do you have a link?

Does the US follow these rules in terms of action in places like Syria (almost certainly CIA providing weapons) Libya, Iraq, Vietnam etc? I'm actually kind of curious to see how the US measures up on these rules.

I thought the US had an interest in things like regime change rather than some of the stability focuses others have had.

Of course the US follows the rules, by definition.

The "Rules Based International Order" is just a euphemism for "Post War US Hegemony". And the rules are "The US state department tells you what to do, and you do it".

Anyway, a rules-based international order already exists. It's called the UN charter, but that's not what they mean.

> The "Rules Based International Order" is just a euphemism for "Post War US Hegemony". And the rules are "The US state department tells you what to do, and you do it".

Sarcasm and hyperbole are fun, but can be misleading. The US-led rules-based international order certainly doesn't always follow the rules, and the US can be a major violator, but the rules have great influence and power. Generally, the US considers it in its interest to have an internation order based on rules, not on military power. But lacking a soveriegn international government, the US's military power has underwritten those rules since WWII.

The UN charter is one part of the rules, but international law is based on many institutions and agreements. Here's a great source with leading experts (e.g., top lawyers from the State Department and White House) for anyone who wants to know about it:

https://justsecurity.org

Where are the rules? You're all over this thread taking about RBIO and you haven't cited any rules. Not a single one. Where is it written? May I read a list of your rules?

Well considering US was ready to bomb India and it was a Russian submarine that saved India, it makes sense. Also don't forget about US supplying arms and aid to Pakistan which Pakistan in turn would use to arm Talibans and Kashmiri insurgents. On top of that, US was pretty vocal about wanting sanctions on India for testing out nuclear weapons. Given the history, who would be an ally in that case?

> US was ready to bomb India and it was a Russian submarine that saved India

> Given the history, who would be an ally in that case?

If such history prevented alliances, there would be none. France and Germany are allies. India and the US are allies when their interests align - less so regarding Ukraine, more so regarding China - which depends significantly, but not completely, and especially in the long term, on their values (democracy, human rights, etc.) aligning.

Some historical context is probably needed that most non-Indians won't have. During the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, the US sent a carrier group from the Seventh fleet into the Bay of Bengal as a means to deter Indian invasion of what was then East Pakistan. The Soviet Union countered this move by sending a nuclear attack submarine into the Bay of Bengal to prevent freedom operation for the carrier group. The move apparently worked, and the carrier group backed off. India defeated Pakistan and East Pakistan became what is now the independent nation of Bangladesh. Hopefully, I have the historical facts right.

As to how the mere presence of a nuclear attack submarine can scare off an entire carrier group, I still don't understand. But then again I build web apps not submarines.

>the US sent a carrier group from the Seventh fleet into the Bay of Bengal as a means to deter Indian invasion of what was then East Pakistan The Soviet Union countered this move by sending a nuclear attack submarine into the Bay of Bengal to prevent freedom operation for the carrier group.

This isn't accurate. The carrier group was to deter any invasion of West Pakistan. India had already invaded East Pakistan and that war was already effectively over when the US decided to send the fleet. It's true that the US tried to dissuade India's intervention and armed Pakistan, but they weren't about to bomb India over East Pakistan.

The Soviet ships also did not chase away the carrier group. They stayed a few weeks after the war ended with Pakistan's surrender and India's decision not to invade West Pakistan.

That's fair and there's hardly any evidence to claim US's desire to bomb India. However, it was still noted as an bullying attempt in India. US was also acting in cohort with Pakistan at UN, which was countered by Russian votes.

I went back and refreshed my memory. It was two groups of cruisers and destroyers and a nuclear submarine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_74

I would think Wikipedia is a particularly unreliable source for something that apparently inflames partisan feelings.

You can say this about almost anything these days. I provided you with a source, if you aren't sure about it and think otherwise, I think you need to provide a link that actually backs up your claim

> As to how the mere presence of a nuclear attack submarine can scare off an entire carrier group, I still don't understand. But then again I build web apps not submarines.

Escalation concerns - USA and Russia both really want to avoid direct conflicts to avoid escalation into nuclear war (and sometimes - as in this case - use that as a shield).

Not just a war, also a genocide perpetrated by Pakistan against Bangladesh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_genocide

> General Yahya Khan is reported to have said "Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands."

> India and the US are allies when their interests align - less so regarding Ukraine, more so regarding China - which depends significantly, but not completely, and especially in the long term, on their values (democracy, human rights, etc.) aligning.

China is probably the only thing India and US agree on, especially considering Pakistan has been warming up to China now. Regarding the values, when has that stopped US ever? Only time US cares about democracy is when they the ruler is not friendly to them. US is an ally of - Saudi Arabia which is committing a genocide right now and actively sells arms to them (there goes your democracy and human rights) - Israel, again human rights go out of the window when it comes to Gaza occupation

Of note, the Indian Diaspora in the US is also becoming increasingly active in policy shaping and civics within the US. Over time, it will be interesting to see how this dynamic influences the alignment of US and Indian interests [0]

[0] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/remarkable-pol...

Indian diaspora in the U.S is extremely tiny. Less than 2% of the population. Not large enough to have any notable impact on policy shaping.

2%, well-organized, can have an impact.

> China is probably the only thing India and US agree on

India and the US work together on many things, including development in India. Why is it important to you to downplay India's good relationships?

The US's record certainly isn't perfect, but nor is the other extreme realistic. Democracy has spread to almost every corner of the globe - almost all of the Americas, for example, almost all of Europe - with the US being its strongest supporter and advocate, with money, expertise, political pressure, etc. One reason is pressure from the American public, which (for most of history) has strongly supported freedom and democracy. I know well that the US also opposed some democratic governments and, especially in the Cold War, supported right-wing dictatorships.

> ?

In 1971, the US actively supported the genocide committed in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by the Pakistani Army. When the Indian Army intervened, Nixon sent the 7th Fleet that included the USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal to intimidate India. In response, the USSR sent their own flotilla.[1][2][3][4]

[1] 1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon’s gunboat diplomacy (https://www.rbth.com/articles/2011/12/20/1971_war_how_russia...)

[2] 1971 War: How the US tried to corner India (https://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/26claude.htm)

[3] US forces had orders to target Indian Army in 1971 (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-forces-had-orde...)

[4] Bangladesh Liberation War - US and USSR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War#US_a...)

I'll just leave this right here from the time the USA told the USSR a nuclear attack on China is a nuclear attack on the USA:

https://www.scmp.com/article/714064/nixon-intervention-saved...

The events of 1971 were preceded by events such as the US admitting Pakistan into SEATO (NATO like alliance in South East Asia). India had no other alternative but to choose USSR back then.

In the past, India had good relations with the USSR and bought weapons from them, but now they are more more tied to the US economy than to Russia's. They buy from and sell to the US much more than to Russia.

When it comes to arms, Russia still takes precedence over the US for India. Russia is willing to sell their state of the art weapons to India and the deals involve significant tech transfer which helps in propping up local defense industries.

Historically India has been closer with USSR/Russia but I think in the future this will change. Obviously as other posters have noted India has stronger trade ties with America now, and there are lots of Indians in America in influential positions (like CEOs of big companies). I also see a natural coalition with anti-Islamists in America and India.

India was one of the abstain votes on the Ukraine resolution in UNSC, so we have our answer.

I am. Russia is moving towards china and so is moving away from india.

India is only loosely a US ally on issues of mutual interest. They also have fairly good relations with Russia and don't much care what happens to Ukraine.

> India is a US ally on Quad

India has a different perspective for what does that exactly entail. India has its own UPI and Rupay systems. It sure would see SWIFT falling.

Brazil is completely dependent on China for export/import. Current president is a Putin fan boy and tyrant wannabe.

Isn't the fact that the US controls it already a death sentence to it as far as Russia and China are concerned?

They don't have the power to change it, though China might eventually. And they do benefit from it - international relations are rational, not so partisan; just because a competitor is involved doesn't make it wrong. The rules-based, US-led interational order brings enormous benefits to China and Russia.

Yes.

> Decades of crippling sanctions have also taught China and Russia how to bypass altogether with certain countries.

What crippling sanctions have been imposed on China and Russia for decades? China's economy in particular has been very involved in international trade - probably more than any other.

Swift won't die until either the US Dollar dies, or the government replaces it with something newer.

EDIT:

Technically, the US Government doesn't "control" SWIFT, but through banking regulations, their influence is way bigger than it looks than their 2 board seats would suggest.

I notice this post got some downvotes. My statement is not a political one, it is a practical one.

Anyone who works with SWIFT understands that the system exists at the pleasure of the Americans. If the US decides to not allow SWIFT, then it will disappear quickly. Likewise, the US has the ability to regulate, and does regulate, the systems that are used for transferring money.

And to quote from the FFIEC [0], who regulates this stuff (well, one of the regulators at least):

  "SWIFT is used to transmit foreign exchange confirmations,
   debit and credit entry confirmations, statements,
   collections, and documentary credits."

That's a ton of US Dollars that aren't going away, so SWIFT won't either.

[0] - https://bsaaml.ffiec.gov/manual/RisksAssociatedWithMoneyLaun...

The supremacy of the US dollar is partly held up by SWIFT. If most countries move to non-SWIFT payments, the US dollar will weaken.

The Dollar may indeed weaken, but then Americans will not be able to afford to buy as much imported goods from other countries, which will hurt those exporters. China will probably lose the most.

I suspect that the semi-nuclear option will get pulled sooner rather than later. Ultimately we are seeing a world where the west is extending financial, economic, societal, and diplomatic infrastructure to countries which actively disagree with the security, co-operation, and economic principals required for those institutions to exist.

This situation is untenable in the long run.

> I suspect that the semi-nuclear option will get pulled sooner rather than later. Ultimately we are seeing a world where the west is extending financial, economic, societal, and diplomatic infrastructure to countries which actively disagree with the security, co-operation, and economic principals required for those institutions to exist.

There's another option, which is growing the rules-based international order (as it's called). It had been growing for decades, and despite a bad few years, it is bigger than ever from any perspective other than ~2010 - for example, consider it from the perspective of 1985. And growing it is incredibly beneficial economically, for security, and for freedom - a far better outcome.

The semi-nuclear option only achieves short-term survival; it does not build a world for our future.

The main obstacle to growing it is not China and Russia, but the far-right nativist, reactionary political movements in democracies, especially the Republicans in the US. They oppose it (though being reactionaries, have no solution with which to replace it).

That is a scary paragraph you put down there.

Is it feasible to throttle swift transactions to/from a country? Wonder if that could be a middle ground between full throughput and complete disconnection..

> how many countries will need to agree before shutting down SWIFT access

Its HQ is in Belgium, so technically, this can be a unilateral decision by Belgian PM De Croo. In practice, as it was the case with Iran, US and EU have to reach political agreement before De Croo would budge.

> Its HQ is in Belgium, so technically, this can be a unilateral decision by Belgian PM De Croo.

How does the Belgian PM have power over it? The United Nations is headquartered in New York, but that doesn't give anyone in the US unilateral power over it.

Presumably the PM could coerce the SWIFT staff to do some action (see the fears European countries have about the relationship between the US government and its tech companies).

This is how it worked for Iran sanctions.

The Belgian PM coerced SWIFT to sanction Iran?

I must correct myself. For Iran sanctions, SWIFT implemented EU Council decision passed on by Belgian Treasury. When I was talking about PM, I was simplifying a bit.

https://www.swift.com/insights/press-releases/swift-instruct...

Huh didn't know that there's new Belgian PM. In my mind the Belgian PM is still either di rupio or Charles Michel.

isn't it a private company? If so, it would seem they could "de=platform" anyone at any time for any reason.

It is a cooperative https://kbopub.economie.fgov.be/kbopub/toonondernemingps.htm...

Yeah, I am sure CIPS won't be used politically.

Will sanctions need to broaden to include China or other countries supporting Russia?

Sanctions only work when imposed by a stronger country on a weaker one. Ecuador, for example, cannot impose sanctions on the U.S. For this reason, it is quickly becoming unfeasible to impose sanctions on China. Imposing effective sanctions on Russia is already hard enough, and Russia's economy is much smaller than China's.

China has hinted before at imposing sanctions on the US.

It's the first country that has been able to make that threat credibly in.... ohhh, a long long time.

What would that even mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_pa...

China is heavily dependent on trade with The West, in a way that The West is not dependent upon China. And that doesn't factor in Asian economies like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam that are generally likely to side against China.

They've imposed sanctions on US weapon companies recently. Soon once their domestic airplanes are semi-competitive with Airbus, they may even sanction Boeing.

This is what I suspected would happen once the US sanctioned Russia.

That ship sailed awhile ago - as was quite clear during the Trump admin, the US can't effectively apply sanctions to China, and even moderate trade disagreements didn't actually go the way the US wanted it to.

Additionally, if you want to see a crushing economic situation, imagine if China started to raise prices during already high USD inflation.

If the EU is unwilling to stop gas shipments from Russia, so much more is the USA unwilling to stop shipment of everything from China.

Why would China be willing to stop gas shipments from Russia? USA is also not willing to stop oil shipments from Russia, although Russia is the third-biggest oil exporters to the USA.

Independent states usually don't do anything that would harm them directly, they force their colonies and vassals to harm both themselves and the enemies. In this case, it's the EU harming themselves and Russia with sanctions, while the USA and China being relatively unaffected.

The EU isn't harming itself it is protecting 70 years of peace on the continent that is now threatened by a paranoid Russian Czar.

I would argue that this is less of a problem for the US than it is for Europe. China is an American problem Russia is ours.

Isn't it far more important to ensure that they can't use dollars, than avoiding giving them more? They already have dollar reserves.

If we can make dollars worthless for them, they will have given us the gas for free from their perspective.

> Isn't it far more important to ensure that they can't use dollars...

It's in America's National Interest to maximize the usage of dollar reserves. Denying China the use of dollars would have a (relatively small) detrimental direct effect, and will set a precedent and likely accelerate the popularity of other reserve currencies.

That's like using high-velocity lead to remove an ingrown nail.

Many sanctions so far are limiting Russia's ability to use money (in exchange for securities, other currencies, goods or services). I am only proposing that we proceed along the current path.

As an example, denying them imports is reducing the value of their dollars.

They wont, Which is why I said in the last sentence the west are clearly losing.

US Food and Agriculture are already beholden to China. From corn, soy beans, potatoes to Pork ( Smithfield is owned by China ), Tyson has 25-30% of their business in China. If you buy Beef or Lamb from AUS you have a 25% chance buying it from Chinese Owner. Or To Tech from Intel, AMD, Nvidia, where the growth are in E-Sport or PC Gaming in China. Manufacturing or assembly where they have a contingency plan to Foxconn as ICT or more commonly known as Luxshare. RISC-V ( Nearly all Chinese startup getting on RISC-V gets much better funding ) and IMG PowerVR, ARM China. YMTC against Samsung and Micron on NAND and DRAM, BOE against Samsung and LG on OLED. If you exclude Apple and Samsung, the rest of Smartphone market are 80% Chinese Brands. Solar Panel is partially all Chinese. NBA. ( And English premier league which seems to have some following in US, they will be targeting F1 soon ). Even Amazon clothing are losing to SHEIN. Unless someone make a revolutionary leap in battery otherwise the current trajectory would be China winning the price / Whr. ( Not even Tabless Battery from Tesla / Panasonic ). They are gunning for electric car manufacturing and are also the largest customer of Boeing and AirBus. But are working on their own JET. The increasing percentage of patents on 5G to Video Codec from China. To inside influence on tech companies via employees. We have another thread about Reddit and Youtube moderation, that happened already in 2019 during Hong Kong protest. And Tik Tok I mentioned in [1], expanding financial services like AliPay and WeChat Pay via tourist influence. And all these circulate back to SWIFT and US dollar as dominant currency. I could talk about it for hours and this list is just for US, there are whole lots of other things from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and SEA perspective.

For a long time I try not to be blunt but I am sorry I have to write this out so clearly. I hope Ukraine is enough of a woke up call.

I have been wondering if start up linked to certain political agenda will ever get accepted. We cant sit just here and watch.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30463767

How do you sanction China when a good chunk of western industries rely on Chinese factories? Without a collapse of western economies? Maybe the people who outsourced all our manufacturing and know how to China should have thought about all that...

We're still in the middle of a chip crisis and haven't still figured out that relying on the region constitutes a threat to our way of life. Are we bringing back all these plants to the west? We aren't...

Yes, this is the problem with sanctions and blockading without actually going to war. The chip crisis will pale compared to the steel etc. crisis in magnitude and importance.

A severe reduction in size of the global economy is not necessarily a "collapse," it's just that -- a severe reduction under either direct or indirect war conditions.

> A severe reduction in size of the global economy is not necessarily a "collapse," it's just that -- a severe reduction under either direct or indirect war conditions.

We have crazy levels of inflation right now among other economic problems and the FED or the EU central bank are running out of instruments to "tamper with". Anything at that point could trigger violent unrests across the west.

Whatever the consequences of "sanctions" are, they won't be happening in a vacuum.

The Fed’s tampering is the main reason for the inflation and the corner that they have painted the US economy into. Raise rates to proper levels to fight the inflation they created and risk recession; allow inflation and risk eventual revolt.

Which choice will they make? Should they alone have the power to make these decisions is the true question.

If there isn't peace in Ukraine soon and/or if Taiwan is invaded, it's WWIII and a rate hike won't matter and frankly the depreciation would be so rapid that it would be quickly irrelevant going forward. There would be rationing and a centrally planned economy, like in the previous world wars. Hopefully there are speedy and peaceful resolutions to this so that the worst of our problems is inflation.

The government's debt problems are mostly "to itself" -- the commitments to give free drugs and unlimited surgery for old people. Under war conditions obviously those commitments will be defaulted on. But then there comes a much larger and worse commitment to enormous war expenditures, and a far smaller private economy. A couple weeks ago it'd be nuts to say all this stuff but obviously things have changed now.

Unrest in Ukraine alone is not likely to cause a new world war. There has been a civil war mainly in eastern Ukraine for many years already. Ukraine has historically been an unstable area mainly due to its unfortunate position between the major powers Germany and Russia. Ukraine government is better served to remain neutral and avoid provoking the angry bears that exist on each side of the country in my humble opinion.

Not sure what you mean by depreciation during war. Some things will depreciate like fluffy tech stocks, luxury goods makers, and real estate, but other things like certain commodities and possibly food will increase in value.

Inversely, China is highly reliant on the U.S. for agriculture, Brazil and Australia for meat, etc. China has 1/5th the arable land that the U.S. does, with five times the population. You can't eat silicon chips.

China is nutritionally only reliant on the rest of the world for meat. If they reduce meat consumption, they can provide nutrition for all of their citizens with their arable land alone.

China produces cheap manufactured goods. But the U.S. is the world's largest producer of cheap agricultural goods. In fact, China's largest sources of meat source much of their feed from the U.S. The U.S. also pretty much only produces soy for export to China, as does Brazil. My point is that people thing the global economy would collapse if China stopped exporting manufactured goods, but China would starve without the rest of the world feeding their people.

China may be able to feed its people with its arable land, but the reality is that it would be only at a sustenance level. This is why China is investing so heavily in African agriculture.

A little under half of soybean production is exported from the US. The rest is used here for oil products, protein products and animal feed. Apparently, 90% of our cooking oil comes from soybean (usually sold as vegetable oil).

https://www.bizvibe.com/blog/agriculture/us-soybean

The more countries you cut off, the less you hurt them and the more you hurt yourself.

If you sanction every country you're effectively sanctioning yourself, not that that is what you're suggesting :).

> Further politicising swift would give China an incentive to bolster cips

It's not just China, but also crypto. This can already be seen with Ukrainians using stablecoins because they don't have access to banks.

I figured the sanctions would drive Russia into the arms of CIPS

I've been saying this for awhile, the US is screwed when the dollar loses reserve currency status and kicking Russia out of SWIFT accelerates the timeline for that dramatically. The fact India hasn't said a word about Russia and Pakistan PM is meeting with Putin right now is telling

The US has been outplayed by China so badly it's almost laughable, Chess vs Checkers for decades now

> India hasn't said a word about Russia

Why should we? When China killed 20 of our soldiers in 2020,[1] the whole world prayed for "de-escalation and a peaceful resolution." And that is what India will say in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

[1] 2020–2022 China–India skirmishes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932022_China%E2%80%...)

I'm agreeing that it is a wise decision. I put that in there because people in this thread are acting like India will blindly follow the US against Russia/China with things like sanctions. The US is in a weak position right now due to a number of dumb foreign policy decisions, going nuclear by kicking Russia off SWIFT would have even allies questioning SWIFT and cause the US to lose even more control over the financial system

India is doing what's in the best interest of their people, which is what a government should do

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-explores-setting-u...

India are very wary of US led wars, they do not have a good track record and when this all blows over and everyone forgets about it, India will never get support from the US against Pakistani sponsored terrorism. So why should India fight its wars for them?

Every country in the world has suffered many such slights, but somehow we have to and we do cooperate, to our great mutual benefit. The slights are used by those who want division, in every country (and if they can't think of one, they make them up anyway). Why should India sacrifice it's larger interests to temporary outrage - never a good idea in international or personal relations.

(Also, China didn't attempt to conquer India, attacking Delhi, Mumbai; annexing the south, etc. The comparison is very exaggerated.)

> China didn't attempt to conquer India

China illegally occupies Aksai Chin. Pakistan illegally occupies parts of Kashmir. We have fought multiple wars with both countries over the last 75 years with very little help from outside parties. When the rest of the world goes beyond mere words to help restore these territories to India, I am sure India will be more than happy to move beyond mere words in similar situations.

> China illegally occupies Aksai Chin. Pakistan illegally occupies parts of Kashmir.

Border disputes are everywhere, even between close allies like the US and Canada, the UK and France. Both sides have claims and arguments. That has nothing to do with conquering other other countries.

> When the rest of the world goes beyond mere words to help restore these territories to India

What should the world do? Fight a war? What has India's government asked the world to do?

> I am sure India will be more than happy to move beyond mere words in similar situations

India does a lot in concert with the rest of the world, and benefits enormously from it.

The grievance-based nationalism also is common these days. Everyone has grievances - both in international relations and personally - but what party benefits from inflaming and acting on them?

> Border disputes are everywhere, even between close allies like the US and Canada, the UK and France.

Such a weird thing to say. When was the last time Americans and Canadians beat each other to death with barbed-wire wrapped clubs?

> Both sides have claims and arguments.

In that case, both Russia and Ukraine have claims and arguments over parts of Ukrainian territory. Why should other countries interfere in their dispute?

> What should the world do?

Apply pressure? Isolate Pakistan and China completely like they are trying to do with Russia? Stop selling and gifting them weapons that will be used against India? But we know none of that is going to happen. Everyone knows that in American and European circles, Asian and African lives have far less value than European lives.

The qualities of the claims, and the harm caused by the actions, are very significant factors.

I hereby claim Perth. Can I now insist that Australia be isolated and cut off from the financial system? Is that the same as Russia invading Ukraine?

> The qualities of the claims, and the harm caused by the actions, are very significant factors.

You do not understand.

We are Indians. We have no expansionist agenda, designs on other people's territories and don't feel the need to play policeman or marriage counselor to the world unlike some other Great powers.

We have our territorial claims and Russia has its own. No other opinion is relevant. The only thing that matters is the answer to the question: does the claimant have the power to enforce their claim? Russia does. We don't.

The problem in Ukraine is of their leadership's own making. They trusted a notoriously untrustworthy ally like Washington whose military policy has been in control of neoconservatives since forever. The neocons wanted a war with Russia. Biden and the Comedian gave them one. Ukraine had a chance to be independent as long as it had a government that practiced neutrality. That is no longer possible. It is going to be embraced by the Bear and there is no military power on Earth that can do anything about it.

If Pakistan is illegally occupying Kashmir. Why is India not illegally occupying Hyderabad and Goa? Unless you agree they are.

> with very little help from outside parties.

You might have missed the part of history where Bill Clinton pretty much ended the Kargil War and stopped Pakistan from nuking India [1][2].

[1] https://www.mea.gov.in/articles-in-indian-media.htm?dtl/1541... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-india...

This isn't to say that the world goes often beyond mere words; every democratic nation's leadership is obligated to act in the best interest of their citizens, and what's in their best interest is not always clear at the outset. There's a reason diplomacy and statecraft are full-time jobs, and defense pacts like NATO exist. These pacts tie populations together and organize some of the decision-making process. Even then those pacts have steps that need to be triggered before action is taken, and NATO Article 5 [3] has been invoked only once in its history. The really interesting thing is that according to NATO Article 6, an attack on Hawaii or some Spanish cities may not trigger a NATO response [4]

[3] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty#Article_...

If you're looking for an example closer to home, consider the Pandavas' exile; they went to war only after all other options had been exhausted [5].

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurukshetra_War#Background

Much as we as individuals want nations to act emotionally as we would, democratic nations simply do not make decisions that way. There are tens, perhaps even hundreds, of people involved at all levels of government in any major decisions around foreign policy. It is possible to subvert that machinery like with the 2nd Bush administration, and trash it altogether like with the Trump administration, but for the most part it works fairly rationally, if not always in the long-term interest.

> stopped Pakistan from nuking India

That was never going to happen. Neither Musharraf nor Sharif are stupid people. The Americans have always been a cowardly lot when it comes to nuclear weapons.

The Pakistan situation is a result of the gross incompetence on the part of the Indian and American establishments. India chose the wrong politics, the wrong friends and didn't contain Pakistan when we were in a position to do so. And America funded and protected them for imaginary achievements of their political objectives. The only winner in all this was the Pakistani establishment that made out like a bandit.

Why would people trust CIPS with China in charge of it?

Why not? The world trusts China to make their products and corporations entrust China with their sensitive intellectual property to manufacture goods. Even Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet (two conservative investors) trust China enough to invest in China. Doesn’t seem like a big stretch to trust China for money transfers.

The end result is multiple payment systems so that the countries can do whatever they do without single entity being able to shut the valve. And you do not have to trust any single one. Consider it free market competition.

People don't need "trust", they need alternatives. SWIFT is currently in a monopolistic situation right now. Any abuse of that position will lead to eroding trust.

they wouldn't point is use both then you are reliant on neither.

I don't buy this logic. If China can get dominance, there is no reason for it to wait for the SWIFT to ban those bad actors. They can start their own system on the side right now.

>They can start their own system on the side right now.

CIPS is their own system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com