China eyes Equatorial Guinea for naval base

[Wild coast]

They already own a big chunk of the U.S., financial instruments and real estate included.
I don’t like it at all, but it is a fact.

Yes I read about the Chinese buying Smithfield Pork. Every time a US citizen sits down to breakfast the PRC gets richer… scary shit!!

[oafpatroll]

The the chicoms have been the biggest holders of US Treasury bonds for a long time, maybe even as long as a decade. Uncle Han has been reaching around on uncle Sam for a good long time.

[dammitgriff]

Yes, oaf, but I believe China has sold off enough now where Japan holds the No. 1 spot.
The only way to counter the Chinese in commerce is for every country to stop importing their products (kak) and producing goods domestically again. This, of course, opens up a whole other conversational can of worms. To whit, the reason all our production capacity was shut down and transferred to China in the first place. Labor arbitrage killed off more than 70,000 factories in the U.S. alone, the consequences of which much have been known to the U.S. government and allowed to occur anyway.

[oafpatroll]

Yes, oaf, but I believe China has sold off enough now where Japan holds the No. 1 spot.

I missed that in the fun of Covid. There's something deliciously ironic about a country that you conquered and occupied until 70 years ago now holding the lions share of your foreign debt and the second placed having been on the other side of the cold war. Geopolitics is a funny old thing.

[oafpatroll]

To whit, the reason all our production capacity was shut down and transferred to China in the first place.

That one's easy. It's because Americans like to buy shit tons of consumer goods at the cheapest possible prices but don't have the same taste for low wages that Chinese people do.

[dammitgriff]

That one's easy. It's because Americans like to buy shit tons of consumer goods at the cheapest possible prices but don't have the same taste for low wages that Chinese people do.

You got it. Exceptionalist ideals and the institutional embrace of Modern Monetary Theory (debts don’t matter) won out over common sense.
And here we are, getting our asses kicked in trade by China.
The business of America is War.
The business of China is business.
Their new port in Equatorial Guinea serves in equal measure military and commercial interests.
Make no mistake, the Pentagon is assuredly planning countermeasures with their AFRICOM subordinates.

[oafpatroll]

Their new port in Equatorial Guinea serves in equal measure military and commercial interests.

Their existing one in Darwin does the same I think albeit not quite so overtly.