China could be an economic time bomb sitting on Thailand’s doorstep as Evergrande collapse nears

[TorquayFan]

Webfact thanks for airing that - still learning something every day. Good discussion too . .

[BritManToo]

10 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

Can someone please tell me what impact any of this will have on an expat with no connection to China ? I have money in a bank here but like most, that is all, what is the risk if any to the normal man/expat in the street ? 

 

Looking forward to hearing from you lot ????

Our pension funds going bust is the obvious risk.

$23Billion default on international bonds.

[morrobay]

6 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Our pension funds going bust is the obvious risk.

$23Billion default on international bonds.

How exposed is Thailand in these chinese bonds. Also the Thai exports /trading with china could be problem. And that can depreciate the baht

[sezze]

8 hours ago, Anant72 said:

The Thaiger article makes scary reading. Add to that, as you mention, Chinese provocations in the Taiwan straight and concurrent sabre-rattling by Putin at the Russo-Ukrainian border and one gets an ominous picture of things to come. 

Do not forget something i said earlier in this thread .

Russo Ukrainian border . True Russia got a large troop force there . But remember how it got there in the 1st place . A tiny bit of history , taking you back to the default of USSR and the Warsaw Pact . The countries holding on the borders from USSR back then , well they actually were USSR , did ask for going independent . USSR has no role to play at that time since they were basically bankrupt , and all was crumbling apart . USSR , since they had enough problems closer to Moscow let their grip on those "states" go , so the Baltic states and Ukraine and many others broke lose of USSR/Russia . The Moscow command let it happen without problem with giving 1 promise , never to form allies with NATO . What did the Baltic states do ,... right ... Then we go over down to Ukraine . When they overthrown the local government which was close to Russia/Putin , and EU parliament members came also raising their voice there , Russia with a strong leader could not let that happen . Not forgetting the importance of the Black Sea fleet which is housed on Crimea . Now you see everything unrolling ....  imagine Mexico turning to Moscow , and after USA sees Canada having their eyes on Moscow also ... what you think will happen ?

Does not make it all alright .... like i said in previous post ... but gives you a bit of perspective and understanding . Politics and media make you show only their side , from Russia they only give their vision , from USA their vision , but the truth is somewhere in the middle .

China i told you in previous post also , the economic power is shifting towards the East , which is something US don't like . China's power is growing and they feel they have that economic power , is investing huge amounts in their military and they , as large nation ( like Russia , check if you turn everything around if it happened to USA) like to keep control over the waters and islands near them .

This all is scary stuff , and it can lead to disaster , but like i said , always look both ways and not 1 single way . Hope for leaders who do keep their calm ( thank US voters to vote Trump out , since in situations like this you need diplomacy and not strong language ) .

[gearbox]

21 hours ago, placeholder said:

Please.  China has essentially been subsidizing it's economy via a huge housing bubble But as China's growth rate slows, that's just not going to work anymore.  Because Chinese citizen save at such a high rate China has to devote more than 40% of its GDP to capital formation to maintain employment. That's an extraordinarily high and inefficient percentage.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS?locations=CN

Also, it's working age population, which looks like that of fully developed nations, is already shrinking. 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPPOP1564TOZSCHN

 

Now china's heavy investment may work when the economy is growing the way it used to. But it's not growing nearly as fast anymore. So far the Chinese leadership doesn't seem to understand that it can't go on encouraging the kind of overbuilding that had been, at least on the surface, so successful.

The only good news out of all this is that China is not deeply integrated into the world financial system. So if there is a crash, it won't be nearly as disruptive to the rest of the world as the 2008-2010 crash was.

And finally, many thanks to Paul Krugman whose thoughts on the issue I liberally stole. Here's a link to the original column for those who subscribe to the NY Times or know a legitimate way to get past is paywall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/opinion/china-bubble-economy.html

The smart money doesn't seem to take notice of what Krugman writes...looks like the inbound FDI for China would be record high this year. But what do they know...listen to the TVF experts!

 

Also growing the economy by growing the population is a dumb thing to do. Japan and Germany don't record any population increases and the population is aging, but their goods are still sought after.

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, gearbox said:

The smart money doesn't seem to take notice of what Krugman writes...looks like the inbound FDI for China would be record high this year. But what do they know...listen to the TVF experts!

 

Also growing the economy by growing the population is a dumb thing to do. Japan and Germany don't record any population increases and the population is aging, but their goods are still sought after.

Japan's average wage is now very low.

[Rimmer]

An unattributed cut and paste post in contravention of the fair use rule has been removed

 

14) You will not post any copyrighted material except as fair use laws apply (as in the case of news articles). Please only post a link, the headline and the first three sentences.

[Anant72]

7 hours ago, sezze said:

Do not forget something i said earlier in this thread .

Russo Ukrainian border . True Russia got a large troop force there . But remember how it got there in the 1st place . A tiny bit of history , taking you back to the default of USSR and the Warsaw Pact . The countries holding on the borders from USSR back then , well they actually were USSR , did ask for going independent . USSR has no role to play at that time since they were basically bankrupt , and all was crumbling apart . USSR , since they had enough problems closer to Moscow let their grip on those "states" go , so the Baltic states and Ukraine and many others broke lose of USSR/Russia . The Moscow command let it happen without problem with giving 1 promise , never to form allies with NATO . What did the Baltic states do ,... right ... Then we go over down to Ukraine . When they overthrown the local government which was close to Russia/Putin , and EU parliament members came also raising their voice there , Russia with a strong leader could not let that happen . Not forgetting the importance of the Black Sea fleet which is housed on Crimea . Now you see everything unrolling ....  imagine Mexico turning to Moscow , and after USA sees Canada having their eyes on Moscow also ... what you think will happen ?

Does not make it all alright .... like i said in previous post ... but gives you a bit of perspective and understanding . Politics and media make you show only their side , from Russia they only give their vision , from USA their vision , but the truth is somewhere in the middle .

China i told you in previous post also , the economic power is shifting towards the East , which is something US don't like . China's power is growing and they feel they have that economic power , is investing huge amounts in their military and they , as large nation ( like Russia , check if you turn everything around if it happened to USA) like to keep control over the waters and islands near them .

This all is scary stuff , and it can lead to disaster , but like i said , always look both ways and not 1 single way . Hope for leaders who do keep their calm ( thank US voters to vote Trump out , since in situations like this you need diplomacy and not strong language ) .

It seems NATO had promised it wouldn’t expand and include the former Soviet satellites but did not honor that promise. The West is harvesting what it has sown. Let’s hope the Biden-Putin phone call  brings the temperature down. 
By the way, I am reading “Never” by Ken Follett about a possible scenario for WWIII. Let’s hope it remains fiction.

[HAPPYNUFF]

I  can  guess the only safe haven  for savers and investors in the   medium term is to buy and invest in gold/silver and other precious metals.  Unfortunately     all are presently  incredibly expensive.  Gold  selling in the region of 29,000 baht per baht,  when I can recall  back in  the 1980s  it was around the 13000 baht per baht range..       Cash, money in the bank,  stocks and bonds    face the possibility of being near worthless    should  a  major conflict erupt,  and  the  inevitable   inflation follows.

[placnx]

23 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

I can think of one that invested in vaccines.....

also insurance & auto production, and has big debts

[DBath]

On 12/6/2021 at 3:49 AM, BritManToo said:

I disagree,

As far as I can see the whole of our current civilisation is in decline.

China appears to be in as much trouble as anywhere else. 

True and very well-stated, using way fewer words than those who weighed-in before you, BritManToo. 

 

Reminds me of my divorce attorney (after I dumped my first one - who was incompetent). My wife’s young and aggressive man-eater attorney came to trial with boxes and boxes of documents meant to defame, discredit and destroy me. Meanwhile, my attorney came in with just three pieces of paper and successfully refuted every single one of her 17 charges against yours truly.
 

He completely dismantled their case with just those three well-written documents. 
 

The bottom line: Some of us are clearly better at cutting to the chase than others, well done, sir! 

[BritManToo]

50 minutes ago, HAPPYNUFF said:

I  can  guess the only safe haven  for savers and investors in the   medium term is to buy and invest in gold/silver and other precious metals.  Unfortunately     all are presently  incredibly expensive.  Gold  selling in the region of 29,000 baht per baht,  when I can recall  back in  the 1980s  it was around the 13000 baht per baht range..       Cash, money in the bank,  stocks and bonds    face the possibility of being near worthless    should  a  major conflict erupt,  and  the  inevitable   inflation follows.

If I were concerned,

I'd invest in shelf stable foods, alcohol, drugs and bullets.

And hide them in my secret underground bunker.

[placnx]

5 hours ago, gearbox said:

The smart money doesn't seem to take notice of what Krugman writes...looks like the inbound FDI for China would be record high this year. But what do they know...listen to the TVF experts!

 

Also growing the economy by growing the population is a dumb thing to do. Japan and Germany don't record any population increases and the population is aging, but their goods are still sought after.

Actually a shrinking population is a problem in European countries and Japan because fewer workers mean fewer people to finance the pension payments for currently retired people. Since China doesn't have an equivalent safety net, people have to save on their own, and the means up to now has been buying property. The Chinese government is encouraging people to invest in mutual funds and in stocks of the industries which the government wants to develop - high tech sector.

 

Krugman is good at foreseeing problems. In December 2007 in a NYT op-ed he accurately predicted the 2008 financial crisis, said that housing prices would decline 30% (spot on), and said that it would take years to fix the problem (also correct). People ignored him.

[placnx]

1 hour ago, Anant72 said:

It seems NATO had promised it wouldn’t expand and include the former Soviet satellites but did not honor that promise. The West is harvesting what it has sown. Let’s hope the Biden-Putin phone call  brings the temperature down. 
By the way, I am reading “Never” by Ken Follett about a possible scenario for WWIII. Let’s hope it remains fiction.

Yeltsin also created a problem by not objecting to the situation of Crimea remaining in Ukraine. It was historically part of Russia until the 1950s.

[thaibook]

On 12/6/2021 at 10:39 AM, ozimoron said:

Sure they do but I object to the conspiracy theories about the origins of coronavirus and the general racist sentiment. It's one thing to bash government policy and another to bash it's people. Furthermore, there's plenty of blame to go around but you don't see any attempt at nuance or balance.

How absurd to allow bashing of governments but to elevate the people to sainthood and claim they are beyond criticism.  The people support the government or else they remove it, sometimes peacefully sometimes with violence as in China.  

[ozimoron]

4 minutes ago, thaibook said:

How absurd to allow bashing of governments but to elevate the people to sainthood and claim they are beyond criticism.  The people support the government or else they remove it, sometimes peacefully sometimes with violence as in China.  

You are just stereotyping a population here. The Chinese people are not different to any other population. The political class in China also has an equivalent in every other country.

[thaibook]

22 hours ago, gearbox said:

The smart money doesn't seem to take notice of what Krugman writes...looks like the inbound FDI for China would be record high this year. But what do they know...listen to the TVF experts!

 

Also growing the economy by growing the population is a dumb thing to do. Japan and Germany don't record any population increases and the population is aging, but their goods are still sought after.

If anyone still reads the NYT I suggest you read the article https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-the-new-york-times-broke-journalism

[Henryford]

On 12/6/2021 at 3:53 PM, Denim said:

Attacking forces will either have to ship troops across it or airlift them over it. Still a hazardous operation given the amount of troops that will be needed.  The build up of troop ships capable of doing this will be seen well before it happens giving Taiwan and allies plenty of time to react. I would not under estimate the value of the Taiwan Straits. Without a secure harbour ,  Too risky IMO

The difference is that Xi doesn't care what it costs in casualties. He could lose 1 million men and it's nothing to them. If the US lost 20,000 there would be calls to end the war.

[ExpatOilWorker]

25 minutes ago, Henryford said:

The difference is that Xi doesn't care what it costs in casualties. He could lose 1 million men and it's nothing to them. If the US lost 20,000 there would be calls to end the war.

With 34 million more males than females, due in large to the one child policy, a little trimming of the male population might be part of Xi's plan.

[bdenner]

On 12/7/2021 at 7:23 AM, ThailandRyan said:

Here comes the hit people fear

 

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1531946/global-financial-crash-evergrande-bond-repayment-world-finance

 

The company, which is one of the largest in the world, delivered a statement to the Hang Seng stock index, informing the organisation liquidity issues may impact its ability to repay investors. Following this, Dr Marco Metzler, senior analyst for Deutsche Markt Screening Agentur (DMSA), said $23.7billion in international bonds is now at risk.

The situation has made headline news in Australian media this morning and I'm sure it must have in the US yet the Dow Jones has risen 1000 points and All Ords risen 160 points over the past 2 days. Go figure!

[Denim]

1 hour ago, Henryford said:

The difference is that Xi doesn't care what it costs in casualties. He could lose 1 million men and it's nothing to them. If the US lost 20,000 there would be calls to end the war.

A million men would fill a lot of transport ships. Impossible to achieve in secrecy. Taiwan also has islands in the Taiwan Straight. These are also a thorn in Chinas side.

[Mr Meeseeks]

2 hours ago, Henryford said:

The difference is that Xi doesn't care what it costs in casualties. He could lose 1 million men and it's nothing to them. If the US lost 20,000 there would be calls to end the war.

Tactical nuclear weapons fixes this. 

[sscc]

54 minutes ago, Denim said:

A million men would fill a lot of transport ships. Impossible to achieve in secrecy. Taiwan also has islands in the Taiwan Straight. These are also a thorn in Chinas side.

 

Taiwan got the relative big Formosa  island + few very small islands. 

Most don't even know such facts. 

[John Drake]

4 hours ago, Henryford said:

The difference is that Xi doesn't care what it costs in casualties. He could lose 1 million men and it's nothing to them. If the US lost 20,000 there would be calls to end the war.

Most of these "lost" 1 million would be the only sons of families under China's one child policy. You think that wouldn't cause upset?  Any war China would fight right now would mean how many sons from hundreds of millions of families would no longer have an heir? Nothing is more likely to cause internal social upheaval than China losing an only child in a war.

[ozimoron]

4 hours ago, Henryford said:

The difference is that Xi doesn't care what it costs in casualties. He could lose 1 million men and it's nothing to them. If the US lost 20,000 there would be calls to end the war.

Pretty disgusting bit of racism there.

[metisdead]

An off topic post trolling about Trump has been reported and removed. 

[thaibook]

3 hours ago, ozimoron said:

Pretty disgusting bit of racism there.

doesn't alter the facts.

[thaibook]

On 12/6/2021 at 10:17 AM, ozimoron said:

None fo those countries has had a distinct national culture for hundreds of years. You are using code words (dog whistles) for "nationalism"

What rot.

 

Cultural traits are not necessarily unique to a country. Being proud of one’s country is part of the culture of most nations although the way it is expressed varies. Some display of flags, as in Thailand or the USA; for some it is an integral part of oneself and a foundation of one’s unspoken inner confidence. An example, beautifully expressed by Rupert Brooke, who incidentally was killed soon afterwards in 1917.

 

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England, bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by rivers, blest by suns of home.

 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away.

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sound; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

 

There is an English culture. It is not selfish, sharing much with the rest of the world, starting with our language – the centrepiece of any culture. To cut this short I am not listing more.

[ozimoron]

40 minutes ago, thaibook said:

What rot.

 

Cultural traits are not necessarily unique to a country. Being proud of one’s country is part of the culture of most nations although the way it is expressed varies. Some display of flags, as in Thailand or the USA; for some it is an integral part of oneself and a foundation of one’s unspoken inner confidence. An example, beautifully expressed by Rupert Brooke, who incidentally was killed soon afterwards in 1917.

 

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England, bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by rivers, blest by suns of home.

 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away.

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sound; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

 

There is an English culture. It is not selfish, sharing much with the rest of the world, starting with our language – the centrepiece of any culture. To cut this short I am not listing more.

Being proud of one's country has zero relationship to its culture or lack of it. How do people with dual nationalities fit into your view of culture nationalism.

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, thaibook said:

What rot.

 

Cultural traits are not necessarily unique to a country. Being proud of one’s country is part of the culture of most nations although the way it is expressed varies. Some display of flags, as in Thailand or the USA; for some it is an integral part of oneself and a foundation of one’s unspoken inner confidence. An example, beautifully expressed by Rupert Brooke, who incidentally was killed soon afterwards in 1917.

 

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England, bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by rivers, blest by suns of home.

 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away.

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sound; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

 

There is an English culture. It is not selfish, sharing much with the rest of the world, starting with our language – the centrepiece of any culture. To cut this short I am not listing more.

There's nationalism, on the one hand, and xenophobia, on the other.

As Coronavirus Fades in China, Nationalism and Xenophobia Flare

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/asia/coronavirus-china-nationalism.html

 

And not just xenophobia but jingoism as well. Witness China antagonizing other nations by claiming that the South China Sea is virtually a Chinese lake.

Whitsun Reef: Philippines files new diplomatic protest against China

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin said Chinese boats ‘really are fishing everything in the water that belongs by law to us’

Manila said 240 Chinese vessels were in its waters as of Sunday, and the Philippine navy will send three more ships to the South China Sea

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3129555/whitsun-reef-philippines-files-new-diplomatic-protest

 

Malaysia protests presence of Chinese vessels in its waters

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3129555/whitsun-reef-philippines-files-new-diplomatic-protest

 

Indonesia Protests China Coast Guard Incursions

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/indonesia-protests-china-coast-guard-incursions

 

Vietnam rejects Chinese aggression in the South China Sea

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/08/08/vietnam-rejects-chinese-aggression-in-the-south-china-sea/

 

And then there's China attempt to invade Indian controlled terriotry.

China-India clashes: No change a year after Ladakh stand-off

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57234024