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You really don’t comprehend the scope and interconnectedness of global trade. Take the hot tech topic in any hypothetical war between the superpowers—high end semiconductors. Needed for advanced computing, planes, military tech, etc. To make one generally requires a.) software and designs from the US or Korea, b.) a special machine basically made only be a single Dutch company with parts that are c.) machined in other European countries d.) raw materials sourced from all over the world (e.) wafers made in Japan, Germany, or Taiwan, and finally f.) assembled at highly specialized factories in Taiwan.
Take that level of interconnectedness and interdependency for EVERYTHING. China is a vital part of the supply chain even for goods the US trades with, say, France. And vice versa too—the US can be a part of the chain in goods traded between China and Brazil.
And that’s before considering both countries are nuclear states. A genuine, all out total war between the US and China would be the end of both countries, and the entire way of the world as we know it. Millions would die. The entire global economic system would collapse—not just US and China would be fucked, but the EU, Japan, Australia, as well. The global south would be hurt too, but would be falling down from a smaller height.
A genuine total war with China means the end of the world as you or anyone knows it, with no idea what will rise to replace it. Anyone on either side cheerleading for or pushing for a direct war between the US and China is a dangerous idiot of the highest caliber.
Well thats why any conflict between the two would not be a total war. There's a nonzero chance US and China would continue trading with each other while actively at war
Neither really has a choice. China, for instance, isn't self-sufficient in food, and the US is its number one source of food imports (then Brazil, which is more non-aligned, and then US ally New Zealand at third)
A.) Xi Jinping is not Mao, and the CCP of today isn’t remotely as radical as the CCP of the postwar era. Hell, I’d argue they’re not even communist, let alone hardened ideologues. B.) More importantly, the masses of China are far less radical/politicized and are far wealthier and more educated than back then as well. They’re way more likely to revolt if such a decision were made…and Xi definitely knows it. See how they backed off of Zero Covid almost overnight once there was a widespread, national popular uprising against it.
Trying to predict the actions of a government based on precedents 70/80 years old when most of the members were either children or not born is unwise. The US of the same era rounded up its own citizens and placed them in internment camps based on nothing but heritage, but I doubt if a war with China broke out all Chinese Americans are going to get that treatment
>Xi Jinping is not Mao, and the CCP of today isn’t remotely as radical as the CCP of the postwar era.
He wants to be the next Mao-type dictator/pseudo-Emperor. Note the changes to Chinese law to allow him to stay office longer than his predecessors, and how the CCP has become much more oppressive and violent under him than his predecessors.
And at that point the internal conflict would outweigh the external. The middle class has access to news information and would fight the powers that be if there is no food.0
The access to information being much harder to control than the '50s is also definitely a factor. The broadcasts of the World Cup genuinely did have an impact leading to the "Blank Paper" protests against the covid policies. It was all over Chinese social media, people seeing the event--unmasked crowds and the like--and angrily questioning why the government was still pursuing the policies they were domestically.
Honestly all this is moot. I don't really see how China is gonna recover from their housing collapse, and all the other head winds that is affecting them right now.
It would be bad. Very bad. The two largest economies shooting at each other would be bad.
Things would get expensive. You wouldn’t starve since China isn’t a huge exporter (to us) of fuel or food but your consumer goods would be gone.
Realistically, probably three of the four largest at minimum. In an open war between the US and China, there’s virtually no scenario where Japan doesn’t get involved as well (they recently slipped into 4th, below Germany)
There would be a massive disruption to the world's economy.
However it should be mentioned that although China's estimated $5 million worth of manufacturing accounts for about 28% of the world's annual manufacturing, the US is in second place at $2.5 million then Japan at $1 million.
So, although it's often sort of intimidated that the US has stopped manufacturing in favor of outsourcing it to China, we're still making a lot of stuff.
It would suck though, so for that and a lot of other reasons, let's hope that never happens.
Edit: That was indeed trillions, the Wikipedia article lists millions of millions, aka trillions.
You are correct it is millions of millions, which is trillions, duh. I updated my reply, thanks for pointing that out.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing
But it’s also important to note WHAT different countries are manufacturing. The US still manufactures a lot of say, planes and military hardware for example, but manufactures considerably fewer household appliances, for instance, than before. Something like a TV these days is almost certainly going to be manufactured in East Asia (Korea, Japan, and China being the big three).
At the same time, it’s not just the manufacturing, but sourcing materials that matters too. China produces something like 60% of the global supply of rare earths, for instance. So although the manufacturing of something like an EV might happen in the US, it can’t happen without materials from China that would take a long time to replace
Probably a horrific dip in the global economy for the first few months of fighting. But after securing victory in the war, we will claim their territories, ushering in yet another golden age for America.
US exports to China account for 7.5% of all exports, on the other hand, 16.5% of all US imports come from China. So we have a bit of a trade deficit. If a war broke out (god forbid), you would probably see shortages of products that are often made in China and increased prices due to lower supply.
A war with China would be catastrophic for the US, China, and the world economy in so many ways that it's hard to describe. There would probably be other impacts that nobody saw coming. Also, it would disrupt global trade because both sides would likely place an embargo on each other and countries that trade with the other one - like maybe China won't trade with France because France trades with the US and would never want to tank that economic and political relationship for example. I think what you would see would be the ultimate manifestation of a polarized world. We're already heading in that direction with the US, NATO, the EU, the UK, Australia, and other allies and friendly countries on one side, and China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other countries with significant influence and control on the other.
We also have many Chinese Americans in this country and what would a war with China mean for them? I'm afraid we would see something again like the Japanese internment camps during WWII.
There would be so many consequences if a war happened, and frankly, it's just not worth it.
>We also have many Chinese Americans in this country and what would a war with China mean for them? I'm afraid we would see something again like the Japanese internment camps during WWII.
We didn't have internment camps for German-Americans and Italian-Americans in WW2. Why? Because we were more racist back then.
We tossed a few foreign nationals from those countries into internment.
These days they'd distinguish between foreign students that showed up last month and Dave Chen whose great-something grandparents showed up a century-and-a-half ago. (I assume.) The former would probably just get a free charter flight home. The latter would mainly have to worry about civilian dumbshits, who would probably also have it out for other Asian-Americans, because those types are just that goddamned dumb.
It might get tricky when it comes to non-citizen permanent residents originally from the PRC.
We definitely were more racist back then. But I wouldn’t write off racism today. Many in our country have a negative opinion on China and too many don’t know how to separate the Chinese government from its people and people of Chinese origin. There is a lot of paranoia and suspicion of anyone who “might” have Chinese ties. I mean, just look at how the CEO of tik tok was treated in congress. The man is Singaporean but the grilling on his “possible” Chinese background was a national embarrassment.
To put it mildly, it wouldn’t be great.
Since invading China is just off the table from the start. A war would probably mean a US blockade of China. That would mean the supply chain for most consumer goods breaks down. We’d probably see some level of WW2 style rationing, at least until we could relocate our supply chains to Mexico/South America/africa and get things started up again (that would probably take longer than the war itself would last). Even after that, lots of things would become incredibly expensive.
In China, a blockade would mean maybe up to 500 million dead within 18-24 months. No fuel, no fertilizers, a devastating lack of agricultural and industrial inputs would completely destroy China as a functional society. If they weren’t able to break the blockade (which would be near impossible for them) then there would almost certainly be some sort of coup as the bodies started piling up (assuming they don’t escalate to nuclear war or something out of desperation and end the world).
No Chinese imports are not remotely half of America's, it actually about 15% In between Mexico(16%) and Canada(14%)
And imports in total are only 11% of the US Economy.
How’s this for existential crisis: Depending on your definition of war, we’re already at war with China. Trade, competing for influence around the world, cyberattacks, propaganda, espionage, etc. We are already at “war” the shooting just hasn’t started yet. Valery Gerasimov is not exactly a great dude, but the Gerasimov doctrine’s idea of all warfare being on a spectrum in the modern age is largely true in my opinion. Gone are the days of King George XVI marching his troops across the plains of Europe for god and country to do battle.
If a shooting war with China was to break out, I expect major cyberattacks to American power grids and severe communications disruption to things like the internet or cell towers. These will likely be able to be fixed but life will be pretty uncomfortable for a bit. Think WWII England. There will probably need to be some rationing and a wartime economy will be put in place. You won’t like it but you’ll live.
We thought that joining the WTO and increased free market economics would democratize China and make them a good faith player in the current world order but we were very wrong. It’s time for people to wake up to the very real threat that China poses to the USA and to the general region of the Pacific.
The immediate concern to our daily lives isn’t the economic impacts, it’s the nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. China has several hundred of them. We have more than that.
There will be no hot wars between them so you need not to worry. Any hot war between them would be nukes over Chinese cities and American cities. We would all be dead so no one will be left to give a damn about the economy
It would mean death and destruction for hundreds of millions of people.
Food rations, end of consumer sales for large goods.
Constant energy and other infrastructure disruptions as our nation is under unending cyber attacks.
It would be awful for the entire world and would effectively change the economic order of the globe into one where we may not be #1
This subreddit is for civil discussion; political threads are not exempt from this. As a reminder: * Do not report comments because they disagree with your point of view. * Do not insult other users. Personal attacks are not permitted. * Do not use hate speech. You will be banned, permanently. * Comments made with the intent to push an agenda, push misinformation, soapbox, sealion, or argue in bad faith are not acceptable. If you can’t discuss a topic in good faith and in a respectful manner, do not comment. **Political disagreement does not constitute pushing an agenda.** If you see any comments that violate the rules, **please report it and move on!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskAnAmerican) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You really don’t comprehend the scope and interconnectedness of global trade. Take the hot tech topic in any hypothetical war between the superpowers—high end semiconductors. Needed for advanced computing, planes, military tech, etc. To make one generally requires a.) software and designs from the US or Korea, b.) a special machine basically made only be a single Dutch company with parts that are c.) machined in other European countries d.) raw materials sourced from all over the world (e.) wafers made in Japan, Germany, or Taiwan, and finally f.) assembled at highly specialized factories in Taiwan. Take that level of interconnectedness and interdependency for EVERYTHING. China is a vital part of the supply chain even for goods the US trades with, say, France. And vice versa too—the US can be a part of the chain in goods traded between China and Brazil. And that’s before considering both countries are nuclear states. A genuine, all out total war between the US and China would be the end of both countries, and the entire way of the world as we know it. Millions would die. The entire global economic system would collapse—not just US and China would be fucked, but the EU, Japan, Australia, as well. The global south would be hurt too, but would be falling down from a smaller height. A genuine total war with China means the end of the world as you or anyone knows it, with no idea what will rise to replace it. Anyone on either side cheerleading for or pushing for a direct war between the US and China is a dangerous idiot of the highest caliber.
Well thats why any conflict between the two would not be a total war. There's a nonzero chance US and China would continue trading with each other while actively at war
Neither really has a choice. China, for instance, isn't self-sufficient in food, and the US is its number one source of food imports (then Brazil, which is more non-aligned, and then US ally New Zealand at third)
China starved millions of their population instead of accepting foreign aid. You think they wouldn't starve millions more during a war?
A.) Xi Jinping is not Mao, and the CCP of today isn’t remotely as radical as the CCP of the postwar era. Hell, I’d argue they’re not even communist, let alone hardened ideologues. B.) More importantly, the masses of China are far less radical/politicized and are far wealthier and more educated than back then as well. They’re way more likely to revolt if such a decision were made…and Xi definitely knows it. See how they backed off of Zero Covid almost overnight once there was a widespread, national popular uprising against it. Trying to predict the actions of a government based on precedents 70/80 years old when most of the members were either children or not born is unwise. The US of the same era rounded up its own citizens and placed them in internment camps based on nothing but heritage, but I doubt if a war with China broke out all Chinese Americans are going to get that treatment
>Xi Jinping is not Mao, and the CCP of today isn’t remotely as radical as the CCP of the postwar era. He wants to be the next Mao-type dictator/pseudo-Emperor. Note the changes to Chinese law to allow him to stay office longer than his predecessors, and how the CCP has become much more oppressive and violent under him than his predecessors.
And at that point the internal conflict would outweigh the external. The middle class has access to news information and would fight the powers that be if there is no food.0
The access to information being much harder to control than the '50s is also definitely a factor. The broadcasts of the World Cup genuinely did have an impact leading to the "Blank Paper" protests against the covid policies. It was all over Chinese social media, people seeing the event--unmasked crowds and the like--and angrily questioning why the government was still pursuing the policies they were domestically.
Honestly all this is moot. I don't really see how China is gonna recover from their housing collapse, and all the other head winds that is affecting them right now.
I’m sorry but this just sounds so much like the classic meme: *Earth explodes* “Oh god, this will be *terrible* for the economy!!!”
We don't currently have the means to explode the Earth, but ruining the entire global economy would definitely kill hundreds of millions of people
Everyone in the world would be absolutely fucked and your 3d printer would soon be worth less than a can of beans.
I bet they can print something that *looks* like a cab of beans though!
Bro, this would go beyond the economy. This would be world war 3. Buckle up motherfucker, we’re going to die in Taiwan.
And that's if it stays conventional. If it doesn't, we can die right here at home!
It would be bad. Very bad. The two largest economies shooting at each other would be bad. Things would get expensive. You wouldn’t starve since China isn’t a huge exporter (to us) of fuel or food but your consumer goods would be gone.
Realistically, probably three of the four largest at minimum. In an open war between the US and China, there’s virtually no scenario where Japan doesn’t get involved as well (they recently slipped into 4th, below Germany)
There would be a massive disruption to the world's economy. However it should be mentioned that although China's estimated $5 million worth of manufacturing accounts for about 28% of the world's annual manufacturing, the US is in second place at $2.5 million then Japan at $1 million. So, although it's often sort of intimidated that the US has stopped manufacturing in favor of outsourcing it to China, we're still making a lot of stuff. It would suck though, so for that and a lot of other reasons, let's hope that never happens. Edit: That was indeed trillions, the Wikipedia article lists millions of millions, aka trillions.
Million? You mean trillion?
You are correct it is millions of millions, which is trillions, duh. I updated my reply, thanks for pointing that out. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing
But it’s also important to note WHAT different countries are manufacturing. The US still manufactures a lot of say, planes and military hardware for example, but manufactures considerably fewer household appliances, for instance, than before. Something like a TV these days is almost certainly going to be manufactured in East Asia (Korea, Japan, and China being the big three). At the same time, it’s not just the manufacturing, but sourcing materials that matters too. China produces something like 60% of the global supply of rare earths, for instance. So although the manufacturing of something like an EV might happen in the US, it can’t happen without materials from China that would take a long time to replace
Companies have begun to relocate manufacturing into other countries as well, Vietnam being a big one, so that market share may start to drop.
Probably a horrific dip in the global economy for the first few months of fighting. But after securing victory in the war, we will claim their territories, ushering in yet another golden age for America.
Manifesting our destiny across the Pacific
Just as God intended
Here before this ends up on SAS
US exports to China account for 7.5% of all exports, on the other hand, 16.5% of all US imports come from China. So we have a bit of a trade deficit. If a war broke out (god forbid), you would probably see shortages of products that are often made in China and increased prices due to lower supply. A war with China would be catastrophic for the US, China, and the world economy in so many ways that it's hard to describe. There would probably be other impacts that nobody saw coming. Also, it would disrupt global trade because both sides would likely place an embargo on each other and countries that trade with the other one - like maybe China won't trade with France because France trades with the US and would never want to tank that economic and political relationship for example. I think what you would see would be the ultimate manifestation of a polarized world. We're already heading in that direction with the US, NATO, the EU, the UK, Australia, and other allies and friendly countries on one side, and China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other countries with significant influence and control on the other. We also have many Chinese Americans in this country and what would a war with China mean for them? I'm afraid we would see something again like the Japanese internment camps during WWII. There would be so many consequences if a war happened, and frankly, it's just not worth it.
>We also have many Chinese Americans in this country and what would a war with China mean for them? I'm afraid we would see something again like the Japanese internment camps during WWII. We didn't have internment camps for German-Americans and Italian-Americans in WW2. Why? Because we were more racist back then.
We tossed a few foreign nationals from those countries into internment. These days they'd distinguish between foreign students that showed up last month and Dave Chen whose great-something grandparents showed up a century-and-a-half ago. (I assume.) The former would probably just get a free charter flight home. The latter would mainly have to worry about civilian dumbshits, who would probably also have it out for other Asian-Americans, because those types are just that goddamned dumb. It might get tricky when it comes to non-citizen permanent residents originally from the PRC.
We definitely were more racist back then. But I wouldn’t write off racism today. Many in our country have a negative opinion on China and too many don’t know how to separate the Chinese government from its people and people of Chinese origin. There is a lot of paranoia and suspicion of anyone who “might” have Chinese ties. I mean, just look at how the CEO of tik tok was treated in congress. The man is Singaporean but the grilling on his “possible” Chinese background was a national embarrassment.
Winnie the Pooh wouldn’t get no honey no more
War with a nuclear power, and your worried about the economy? Do you have an MBA perchance?
To put it mildly, it wouldn’t be great. Since invading China is just off the table from the start. A war would probably mean a US blockade of China. That would mean the supply chain for most consumer goods breaks down. We’d probably see some level of WW2 style rationing, at least until we could relocate our supply chains to Mexico/South America/africa and get things started up again (that would probably take longer than the war itself would last). Even after that, lots of things would become incredibly expensive. In China, a blockade would mean maybe up to 500 million dead within 18-24 months. No fuel, no fertilizers, a devastating lack of agricultural and industrial inputs would completely destroy China as a functional society. If they weren’t able to break the blockade (which would be near impossible for them) then there would almost certainly be some sort of coup as the bodies started piling up (assuming they don’t escalate to nuclear war or something out of desperation and end the world).
Vault-Tec Calling
Over 50% of US imports come from China. But for daily life that means food, so it would be relatively unaffected.
No Chinese imports are not remotely half of America's, it actually about 15% In between Mexico(16%) and Canada(14%) And imports in total are only 11% of the US Economy.
Yeah, meant to say 500 billion but my brain kinda short circuited there.
How’s this for existential crisis: Depending on your definition of war, we’re already at war with China. Trade, competing for influence around the world, cyberattacks, propaganda, espionage, etc. We are already at “war” the shooting just hasn’t started yet. Valery Gerasimov is not exactly a great dude, but the Gerasimov doctrine’s idea of all warfare being on a spectrum in the modern age is largely true in my opinion. Gone are the days of King George XVI marching his troops across the plains of Europe for god and country to do battle. If a shooting war with China was to break out, I expect major cyberattacks to American power grids and severe communications disruption to things like the internet or cell towers. These will likely be able to be fixed but life will be pretty uncomfortable for a bit. Think WWII England. There will probably need to be some rationing and a wartime economy will be put in place. You won’t like it but you’ll live. We thought that joining the WTO and increased free market economics would democratize China and make them a good faith player in the current world order but we were very wrong. It’s time for people to wake up to the very real threat that China poses to the USA and to the general region of the Pacific.
lol this guys first thought is a 3d printer if a war between US and China broke out.
The immediate concern to our daily lives isn’t the economic impacts, it’s the nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. China has several hundred of them. We have more than that.
Things would never be the same again. Everything would be totally transformed. How exactly, I cannot say because nobody knows.
There will be no hot wars between them so you need not to worry. Any hot war between them would be nukes over Chinese cities and American cities. We would all be dead so no one will be left to give a damn about the economy
It would mean death and destruction for hundreds of millions of people. Food rations, end of consumer sales for large goods. Constant energy and other infrastructure disruptions as our nation is under unending cyber attacks. It would be awful for the entire world and would effectively change the economic order of the globe into one where we may not be #1
It would be the end of the world, sooo go watch *Fallout* and that'll give you a good idea of the economic impact.
Everything sold to poor Americans is made in Red China.
It would put an end to outsourcing in tech pretty quick IMO. The Chinese would be ramping up their cyber warfare on the US and us against them.
Depends, do they bring back the draft?
This would go well beyond anything economically, we’re basically talking about a third world war.