Comment by yogthos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yogthos | Hacker News Reader

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What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that manufacturing accounts for only around 11% of the GDP in US

https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-...

We can look at steel production volumes to get an idea of the size of the productive industry in US. According to official data, US produced 6.8 million metric tons of steel in June this year https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/us-steel-executive-...

This is comparable to Russia, which produced 5.8 million metric tons https://www.statista.com/statistics/1079878/russia-steel-pro...

US might be the most industrialized western economy, but turns out it’s steel production is only slightly higher than in Russia. And it’s important to keep in mind that Russia has a much smaller population, so per capita production is actually higher than in US.

Meanwhile, China where 90 million metric tons of steel is produced in a month https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-june-crude-steel-...

China’s productive industry is a whole order of magnitude larger than US. This shows just how absurd the notion that US is in some sort of meaningful competition with China. It's like an ant by comparison.

Yes but all the steel production in the world may not help when you're ports are blockaded and your country is no longer able to feed it's citizens. Remember Germany was close to the top of the world in manufacture and population in 1914, but that didn't do it a lick of good when it's citizens were starving in 1918.

If you ever look at a map, you'll realize that China has plenty of trade routes through Eurasia. This is literally the whole idea behind the BRI initiative. China can ship goods to the majority of the world without relying on seaborne shipping. The routes also go through countries that are friendly to China and are increasingly hostile towards the US.

However, it's also absolutely laughable to think that US could actually blockade China effectively. Every single war game that the Pentagon ran against China they lost decisively.

LOL, almost all of China's oil supply runs through the Straits of Malacca which the US Navy could blockade with a carrier fleet and a few submarines. Why do you think they've been so heavily focussed on building relationships (and pipelines) with Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Russia and building up their deep water navy in the South China Sea?

I think you've answered your own question here. Russia is one of the biggest oil suppliers, and they're building another big pipeline as we speak

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-finalising-po...

It's not clear how US plans to block oil supply going forward here. Also, worth noting that unlike the west, China is taking alternative energy seriously. China is far ahead in terms of using renewable energy

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-widens-ren...

They're also massively investing in nuclear https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...

So, China's reliance on fossil fuels is going to keep decreasing going forward, and that will make it that much easier to fill the gap from friendly countries where US can't interfere.

Finally, it's kind of silly to think that this is a one way street. If US ever did decide to try and blockade China, it's obvious that China would retaliate. We're already seeing this with the whole chip war right now where China has stopped export of Germanium and Gallium. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/china-export-curbs-...

Given how dependent US economy is on China, the blowback from any sort of blockade of China would do incredible damage domestically in the US.

As of 2021 Russia supplied 15% of China's oil and 6% of it's natural gas, and those pipelines are a) for gas, not oil, and b) increase from 38 Bcm to 88 Bcm, while total imports via pipe are 2,000 Bcm, which c) doesn't account for LNG imports via ship.

https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN

In other words, Russian pipelines supply very little of China's energy needs, and that's not going to change anytime soon. The only thing that could really change that is global warming enabling Russia to ship fossil fuels from its north coast to China.

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