The Dude Abides: China in the Golden Age of Central Bankers

July 1, 2014·1 comment·Money

Western central banks solved their growth problem with financial asset inflation. China's political stability, however, depends on actual economic production, not stock price appreciation. That contradiction has created two simultaneous crises for Beijing: weakening export markets from the West, and unprecedented wealth inequality at home that's hollowing out the legitimacy of the Party and Army. China is beginning to do something about it, and the consequences for the global system could be severe.

The foundation of Chinese political power is cracking. Deng Xiaoping unified the country around real economic growth. That growth is slowing, exports are weakening, and Beijing can't replicate Western solutions because they don't work for a state built on delivering tangible results.
Wealth concentration is eroding the Party's moral authority. The gap between hyper-privileged families and ordinary Party members has become unbridgeable. These oligarchs aren't just rich; many rose through political positions and now represent everything the revolutionary coalition was supposed to prevent.
China is beginning to view the Western monetary system as an existential threat. The renminbi has weakened significantly since early 2014. Currency policy, not tariffs, is becoming the weapon of choice in what Beijing sees as economic warfare.
The chess pieces are moving in ways most models don't anticipate. Energy independence, technological sovereignty, strategic resource control, realignment with Russia, cyber operations. These aren't random policy choices; they're coordinated responses to perceived encirclement.
One of the world's most stable financial structures may be approaching collapse. The Hong Kong dollar peg to the US dollar has held for 30 years through sheer political will. If Beijing's pressure intensifies, that fault line could shift in ways that reshape global finance.

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Comments

cartooxover 6 years ago

The first part of this is great …the last part things didn’t seem to work out quite that way…when i lived in Shanghai back in the years 2012 - 2015 , we thought that Xi would purge the corruption…that was the Narrative, to use your words…it turned out, he’s just another dictator wannabe…Communists do not know how to make money…but they love money so much, they want to take all that You have !
an anecdote for you about the early Deng years :
"Deng’s first concern after beating the gang of four and consolidating his power was how to get the economy going…
He turned to China’s last remaining Capitalist – Rong Yiren.
Rong’s family – extremely wealthy Shanghainese businessmen in the pre-communist days, had fled in 1949 to HK, Taiwan and the US where they continued their business enterprises.
Rong had stayed behind. He was the last of the major players still in China, all others being either killed or having run away. Rong made a deal with the communists – he would stay in China and run his factories, and share the profits with the communists, a deal which Mao initially agreed to.
Deng asked for advice on rebuilding China.
Rong’s advice ?
Invite overseas Chinese businessmen from HK and Taiwan to invest in China, bring their capital, technical and management knowhow and their marketing connections to China. They would work with China in traditional Asian style, relying on family networks and mutual trust. Investors from other countries would demand a harder contractual framework.
From his connections, Rong had learnt that both in both HK and Taiwan labor costs were rising fast, & the entrepreneurs were already looking at other locations – mostly Asian ‘Tigers’ (remember those?) for relocating their low wage assembly operations. The first thing was to set up a free trade zone where HK and Taiwan investors could open up cheap manufacturing to employ the labor.
That was Shenzhen, then an empty piece of land, on the border of HK.

It was businessmen from Hong Kong who first took the chance and gambled on China. Taiwanese quickly followed.
For much of the Chinese public, traumatized and broke after almost 20 years of horror and starvation, a chance to simply go to honest work and earn some money to eat was already a dream come true of sorts…

Of course, Rong’s family profited handsomely from this….They are the principal Shareholders of CITIC , which always has prime land in every major city of China. CITIC is also a key share-holder in Alibaba. Coincidentally, CITIC’s headquarters in Hong Kong are next to the new HKSAR government buildings on the waterfront……just saying……"