It was first said by Metternich about France. For nearly all of my life it has been said (at least by Americans) about the U. S. Now Jeffrey Snider is wondering whether when China sneezes, the world gets a cold. From his post at RealClearMarkets:
According to government figures, there was a tidal wave of borrowing especially among Chinese corporates. Consumers were ramped up and ready then all manner of businesses would pile right on the roaring recovery.
And it never happened. If you believed the financial media, it was a done deal. Had you consulted with markets – any of them apart from stocks – you’d have known the truth the entire time.
Not only did recovery fail to materialize, very quickly even the mainstream tone shifted back to the level of last year’s dull thuds. China’s recovery wasn’t just faltering, worse than that the economy and financial system have since been giving off all the appearances of another drop and in the near run.
China is being sucked into the global recession with everyone else rather than Beijing’s shifting coronavirus enlightenment redeeming the world (oh, the irony).
The balance of the post is devoted to the next “pundit” attempts to convince us that China will save the world. Mr. Snider says the whole world is “anti-progressing”.
If you’re wondering what the point of this post might be, I think that depending on any country to “save the world” is foolhardy. The most we should expect from the Chinese is to save the Chinese. The French will save the French, the Germans will save the Germans.
The only country I know of that works persistently against its own best interests is the United States. I suspect that’s because of the several competing and conflicting interests. Sometimes one prevails; sometimes another. However, we shouldn’t expect that to be a reliable strategy. It will eventually fail.
