Lol 118 bannable apps versus Tagore poetry and yoga is... an interesting sort of cultural trade deficit. India basically exports no cultural goods worth canceling to China. The US otoh has Hollywood exports as a pain point.https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/tagore-no-threat-to-china-why-should-pubg-be-a-risk-to-india-asks-beijing/story-EcwOFSFhRA5JdILES142UL.html …
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I’ve been thinking a lot about these dynamics for the last couple of years due to gigs where it’s been salient. Manufacturing needs to be refactored along lines of energetic raw-materials-transformation vs info-intensive intermediates transformation and reoptimized for min-GHG
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I think the economic solution is for the world to pay China for the cost of hosting the dirtiest bits of the supply chain. Ie China should impose an environment tax on its exports or something. Internalize those externalities.
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Risk to them is, if it’s too high, they’ll lose those industries to other countries. But the “capital rigidity” is huge. You can’t build up basic industrial capacities overnight, and most countries have neither the appetite nor the capacity.
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The one stupid scenario which is not inconceivable is if China decides to go back to isolationism. Secure it’s own raw materials needs, cede export markets where they don’t like being strong-armed by last mile, and simply let the rest of the world suffer a transient collapse.
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I don’t think they’d do this. The allure of being a global superpower rather than a kingdom in retreat preserving its quality of life during a dark age is rather weak. Also, some raw materials equations may not balance.
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Still there’s no doubt that the rest of the world has been significantly techno-pastoralized by China’s dominance of process industries. It’s 95% farmers markets and trad larping and 5% 10x-engineer wizard work for the developed world right now, and squalor for developing world.
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The solution is robots for everyone, easy player-piano work for most, wizard work for a few. And mansions for some. Including me.
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Only if the current Mandrins continue to allow the deployment of PLA assets to Africa. This does not get talked about enough, but this is a reversal of a 500 year old cultural tradition for China. Africa has far more rare earth minirals.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Alright just to interject they can’t hold rare earths to ransom. I do this once a year as a Malaysian. Rare earths are not rare. They’re called rare earths because they’re in that part of the periodic table. Occurrence is widely distributed. Processing produces
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China is the largest producer because they’re willing to put up with the environmental damage. The US has been trying to get a plant off the ground for a decade but still negotiating environmental rules. Australia put up a mine but does the processing in Malaysia. (hi that’s me)
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