China needs to be able to sell to foreign markets to recoup its investments. Chinese labor costs are grown substantially, and the west is working on ways to lower their cost to build products till many (not all) western products are cheaper to make then Chinese products. In that context, westerners would buy locally rather then from Asia. Especially at similar costs and if they know it will bring back local jobs. I have lived in rural America for years, and men would vote for that in a heartbeat to gain back a sense of purpose when they are in manufacturing.
Look at Russia, cut off from selling a lot of things to markets, even at below market rates. The US is working on getting Europe off Russia oil/gas and possibly on to US LNG over the next 6-12 months.
The US has gotten Germany to increase their defense spending. Once the republicans are back in control of Congress this year, they will slash social spending to ramp up military spending like the Reagan buildup of the 1980s. The west has more then enough money and resources to ramp up defense production.
Doesn’t look like the Russians are done with their war any time soon.
Is China prepared to use those weapons against allied forces? The US is building up all its allies to be used in combination against China. What business does NATO have in East Asia, but they are being built up to counter China as evidenced by their naval patrols off the Chinese coast. The cost spread out over all these countries will be maybe 200 Billion extra a year, which is almost the same as the entire Chinese military budget itself.
China can only seize assets once. After that forget about new investments, and selling products to western nations, just like what is happening with Russia. It will take the west 2-3 years to rebuild all the lost factories in China. It will be painful and expensive but the west can get it done. The west will probably seize the $2-3 Trillion of Chinese T-Bill to pay for it too. Or the west will just print money and put the cost on society. Sure costs will go up, but it will be done in the name of national security so no one will question it.
This is why BRI has to get done by the end of this decade if China is to be secure sources of raw materials and reliable markets. $50-100 billion a year for the next 5-7 years invested (NOT LOANED) in Africa and the region between China and there is a small price to pay to gain this kind of resilience. Also, the investment can’t be called a loan or else it will lose the PR wars in these countries as well.
It will take the west 2-3 years to rebuild all the lost factories in China?
No, it will take at least 100 years to rebuild the modern industrial system from scratch.
Have you eve
r wondered why the West has been unable to transfer manufacturing from China? Why do Chinese people earn six times as much as Indians, but goods made in India are much more expensive than those made in China? Because China is the only country with a complete industrial system.
Even in the last century, China has never been the country with the lowest labor cost. In fact, in addition to low-end labor-intensive industries, labor cost is not the largest commodity cost, and industrial chain and logistics are the biggest commodity costs, that is also the reason why the cost of goods in countries such as India is much higher than that in China. I am engaged in cemented carbide industry, if I want to sell a batch of drill bits, first I need to buy tungsten powder and cobalt powder from other enterprises, then I need other enterprises to help me press it into alloy rods, I also need enterprises to help me do wire cutting, and I also need enterprises to help me weld the alloy head to the steel bar. A total of more than 10 enterprises are required to cooperate together. If I am an Indian, I need to mail products more than ten times around the world and bear the logistics cost and time back and forth, the logistics cost will exceed the cost of the product itself by several times. In China, I can carry out all production links in one city.
China has the largest, most perfect and most reasonably designed industrial chain in the world, and the most advanced and efficient logistics system, that is the most important reason why capital cannot leave China. Sorry, I forgot that there is also the largest market in the world. Any enterprise leaving China will face fierce competition from China, and it will be difficult for such enterprises to survive.
The modern industrial system is huge and complex, far beyond your imagination.
You come from the West and are not as familiar with industrial knowledge as the Chinese, so you really underestimate the difficulty and time of rebuilding the modern industrial system from scratch.
These are consumables for coal and oil mines. If the supply of consumables is stopped, these mines will be shut down within three days. If the work is stopped for more than three months, these machines need to be overhauled and then scrapped<So if China ZCC.CT group (factory 601, which produces 15% of the world's cemented carbide products) imposes sanctions on Russia, Russia will not be able to produce any resources.>.
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The modern industrial system is a result of the gradual upgrading and accumulation of human beings over a thousand years. If the industrial chain breaks, it will be scrapped quickly, but the reconstruction time will take generations.
For example, if you want to make penicillin, a necessity of modern mankind, you first need to be able to make freeze-dried powder. If you want to make lyophilized powder, you first need high voltage current. If you want high voltage current, you first need stainless steel, special steel, rubber and electric welding. Synthetic rubber needs organic chemical industry, which needs ethylene manufacturing and aromatics manufacturing. Welding requires electrical systems, which require capacitor manufacturing and mercury arc rectifiers, which require chlorine manufacturing and aluminum industry. Just one penicillin, you need to develop hundreds of industrial links. It takes only a week for China to get resource countries to abandon the dollar, because Chinese have mastered the necessities of life and production consumables they need. The west can't even make light bulbs in a week, because it needs vacuum pumps, and then vacuum pumps need hundreds of advanced technologies.
Even if Western countries are given a hundred years, they will not be able to rebuild the whole industrial chain from scratch. China is the only country on the blue planet with a complete manufacturing industry.
USA does not control more than 70% of the world's military and financial power, but China controls more than 70% of the world's factories. Once China launches sanctions against the west, confiscate all western factories & Investment & Patents in China. Some of the only factories in the West will also be shut down and abandoned quickly due to the broken supply chain. For example, Kenner and Sandvik of Germany, which need Chinese raw materials in the cemented carbide industry, and Indian and American pharmaceutical companies in the pharmaceutical industry.
Without material and commodity supplies, USA cannot even wage war against a small country like Haiti. Of course, the US military should be busy dealing with domestic riots at that time. Once the supply of goods is cut off, whether rich or poor, Americans will rob supermarkets with guns.
BTW: You should check China's grain output, which is twice that of India. China's grain output ranks first in the world, and its grain reserves account for 70% of the global reserves. China can be self-sufficient in grain and is not afraid of blockade at all. Moreover, USA may not be able to blockade China. If China continues to expand its navy for 20 years, we will have enough navy to blockade USA.
In addition, we welcome the Republican Party to continue to increase military spending. US military expenditure accounts for 3.5% of GDP, while China's military expenditure accounts for 1% of GDP. If USA military spending triples to 10%, congratulations to USA, you have reached the level of military spending of the Soviet Union.
At that time, USA may need a Stalin and Kim Jong Un to keep the country stable under such high military spending. Oh, you can make trump the emperor of the Empire(I'm not kidding. The worse the economy, the more populism prevails. Trump must have been the most popular American politician at that time. He was likely to become the emperor of the Empire. Americans would want him to be Napoleon.).
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