Lets say China gets involved in a large confrontation with US. No land operations, but potential for air and sea battles.
Even without a sea blockade (which in itself is unrealistic, as there would surely be be a blockade) the following seems likely: All trade with US stops. All or most trade with a good deal of NATO countries stop, as well as certain Asian countries that US has influence over.
Now, of course, its a two way street. Ceasing such economic cooperation would do great damage to the other side as well. But let's leave out that wider context for now and just concentrate on China's economy.
What happens if all those western firms in China stop working? What happens if western world customers are told not to cooperate with Chinese firms and stop buying their products? What happens if Chinese firms in the West are suddenly kicked out of those markets?
Unrealistic scenario A) West and China stop cooperating, but there is little to no actual blockade and attacking the chinese interest overseas such as in S. America, Africa, Asia etc. How realistic is that chinese economy could find sufficient demand in those markets all of a sudden? And if so, to which degree could it switch its economy to work in those markets? How big of a market substitute would those be?
More realistic scenario B) In addition to the above, the US does its best to prevent any sort of trading and economy going on to/from China, with anyone. That means, in addition to political pressure over all those overseas markets, there'd be significat loss of trade through sea routes. Suddenly most trade would have to go over Russia, Pakistan, etc, which themselves could also be embargoed (Pakistan for sure, probably not Russia)
What happens to China's economy when it loses so many markets and private capital overnight? I'm really not interested in black/white explanations or doomsday prophecies. Are there some actual data, historical figures that could be used for comparison? If China suddenly had to rely on domestic consumption plus whatever markets they can efficiently reach overland - Russia, Kazahstan, Pakistan, Iran and a few more adjacent countries.
How long could political leadership survive and keep up the fight? Military itself could be supplied quite well, I'm sure, but even that, over a long term of several years might be having trouble when the economic base has suddenly weakened.
"Bright" side is that the raw materials shortage worries in such a situation seem to me really a non issue. The economy which uses biggest part of those raw materials would shrink so much that there'd be more than enough production in China itself or perhaps with a little help of Russia/Kazahstan/Iran that there'd really be no such shortages. Bigger issue is how to maintain a large economy that can, in the long term, maintain a large and powerful army that keeps fighting a prolongued war of attrition and not losing. (which doesn't mean it'd be winning either)
Even without a sea blockade (which in itself is unrealistic, as there would surely be be a blockade) the following seems likely: All trade with US stops. All or most trade with a good deal of NATO countries stop, as well as certain Asian countries that US has influence over.
Now, of course, its a two way street. Ceasing such economic cooperation would do great damage to the other side as well. But let's leave out that wider context for now and just concentrate on China's economy.
What happens if all those western firms in China stop working? What happens if western world customers are told not to cooperate with Chinese firms and stop buying their products? What happens if Chinese firms in the West are suddenly kicked out of those markets?
Unrealistic scenario A) West and China stop cooperating, but there is little to no actual blockade and attacking the chinese interest overseas such as in S. America, Africa, Asia etc. How realistic is that chinese economy could find sufficient demand in those markets all of a sudden? And if so, to which degree could it switch its economy to work in those markets? How big of a market substitute would those be?
More realistic scenario B) In addition to the above, the US does its best to prevent any sort of trading and economy going on to/from China, with anyone. That means, in addition to political pressure over all those overseas markets, there'd be significat loss of trade through sea routes. Suddenly most trade would have to go over Russia, Pakistan, etc, which themselves could also be embargoed (Pakistan for sure, probably not Russia)
What happens to China's economy when it loses so many markets and private capital overnight? I'm really not interested in black/white explanations or doomsday prophecies. Are there some actual data, historical figures that could be used for comparison? If China suddenly had to rely on domestic consumption plus whatever markets they can efficiently reach overland - Russia, Kazahstan, Pakistan, Iran and a few more adjacent countries.
How long could political leadership survive and keep up the fight? Military itself could be supplied quite well, I'm sure, but even that, over a long term of several years might be having trouble when the economic base has suddenly weakened.
"Bright" side is that the raw materials shortage worries in such a situation seem to me really a non issue. The economy which uses biggest part of those raw materials would shrink so much that there'd be more than enough production in China itself or perhaps with a little help of Russia/Kazahstan/Iran that there'd really be no such shortages. Bigger issue is how to maintain a large economy that can, in the long term, maintain a large and powerful army that keeps fighting a prolongued war of attrition and not losing. (which doesn't mean it'd be winning either)
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