#7 SPOD: This crap of looking at China's populaton and seeing consumers of US based goods and services is a pipe dream. It always has been.
I'm afraid that's wrong. China is a big consumer of American goods. The problem is that much of it doesn't show up in the trade balance. (Where it does show up is in the bottom line of American companies, large and small, that do business in China).
In 2001, Coca Cola racked up $1.2b of sales in China. Its annual sales in 2005 were $23b. And Coke's Chinese sales have grown roughly 20% a year since 2001. Which means its Chinese number is probably 10% of Coke's total 2005 sales. But this is not something that will show up in the trade figures. Because Coca Cola produces its beverages in China.
GM sold 665,000 cars in China in 2005. That's close to 2/3 of all of GM's sales in the Asia Pacific region, which includes Japan, Australia, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan. This means that for GM, China was bigger than all the other Asian Pacific auto markets combined. Again, this is something that won't show up in the trade figures. Because GM makes its cars in China.
The above is why the relationship with China is going to require some balancing between strategic and commercial interests. On the one hand, it is a large market with huge growth potential, much like pre-war Japan relative to the rest of Asia. On the other hand, it presents a potential strategic threat, just like pre-war Japan, depending on the extent of its territorial ambitions. |
CHINA has batted the North Korean crisis back to Washington, implying that the US should lift financial sanctions against Kim Jong-il's regime. North Korea has been fuming since the US effectively froze $US24 million ($A32 million) in assets last November at the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia.