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By what measure is China an open economy? That flies in the face of their long history of currency manipulation and explicit protectionist policy.

I believe GP means “open” in the sense of having a high degree of trade with the rest of the world.

The US economy has more of a closed loop in that it consumes much of what it produces.

China on the other hand imports most essential commodities and pays for them with the proceeds of exports.

> USA is a large closed economy. China is a large open economy. I’m simplifying, . . . .

Yes, "simplifying" to the point of getting it completely backwards.

I think so too, but we should also understand that authoritarians are not rational.

Before February 2022, I would have bet a big sum on Putin never authorizing a full-scale Ukraine invasion. There was just too much to lose and too little to gain theoretically…yet he did it anyways.

Putin was lied to about the capabilities of his forces. Now we’re seeing the same thing with Xi, except heads are rolling _before_ the invasion gets underway.