Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing cannot accept any country acting as the “world’s judge” after the United States captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
The world’s second-largest economy has provided Venezuela with an economic lifeline since the U.S. and its allies ramped up sanctions in 2017, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion worth of goods in 2024, the most recent full-year data available.
Almost half of China’s purchases were crude oil, customs data shows, while its state-owned oil giants had invested around $4.6 billion in Venezuela by 2018, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which tracks Chinese overseas corporate investment.
In terms of flexing on foreign countries on the international stage, though, raw GDP (or at least imports and exports) is pretty important.
The PPP calculation comparing China to the United States may tell us a lot about how much a resident of either country can expect to experience using the local currency domestically, but if we’re talking about influence over a third country, in that third country’s local currency, then I think each respective PPP back home doesn’t matter as much.
If we’re not comparing the ability of a citizen to buy things with the fruit of their labor. What are we comparing?
I get what you’re saying. But it comes down to a fundamental problem with liberal (using the classical sense of the word) economist and what they are “flexing” about.
The “economy” to the average voter is how much the groceries and rent are.
Not even mentioning the “eating shit” problem of GDP. GDP PPP is far more meaningful to quality of life. Though still flawed. The normal person isn’t trying to understand the power of a currency on the world stage. They are using it to buy eggs.
In this particular case? I think we’re comparing Chinese and American ability to project economic influence (from trade or aid, to outright bribes or coercion or boycotts or sanctions or everything in between) over Venezuela.
But the normal person has nothing to do with governments dealing with other governments on the global stage. And that’s what this story is about, Venezuela being caught between two competing visions of their future in the international order.
If a country wants to build an airport in their capital city using the resources of foreign governments seeking to influence them, the question isn’t about how many eggs the citizens of those countries can buy in their home turf, but about how much concrete and steel and heavy machinery those other countries can provide in the country considering offers.
Do you think America competes at all in its ability to produce heavy machinery, concrete, and steel when compared to China?
We are far beyond the GDP vs. GDP(PPP) that started this. But, you brought it up. The US’s main problem is it’s lack of industrial production. It’s an almost entirely finance based economy. Which is something that causes its GDP to be heavily inflated. The AI companies trading the same billions in a circle with no actual material production happening in the country right now. The US economy is built on financial speculation. China’s is built on industrial production. Something GDP doesn’t account for at all.
That was my entire frustration with using GDP as a metric in the first place. I said “at least use GDP(PPP)” because at least it takes into account the populations purchasing power of goods.
On the world stage, as an economic power, the US is losing to China. It’s why it’s using its military to invade South American countries that trade with China. It has no real way to compete. So it’s falling back on it’s methods of imperialism.
No, you started talking about PPP in response to a news story that described the United States and China competing over influence over the Venezuelan economy: Chinese aid and investment in response to United States sanctions. Those are essentially going to be dollar denominated, and PPP doesn’t matter. I’ve been saying from the beginning that you were wrong to bring PPP into the discussion, because this discussion, in this thread, isn’t about domestic consumption in either China or the U.S.
Again, when talking about the effects of sanctions and foreign aid and investment, we should be talking about transactions that occur in the currency at issue. If China wants to provide aid to Venezuela in RMB, Venezuela will either need to spend that on Chinese producers or exchange for another currency to spend elsewhere (including Venezuelan Bolivars being spent domestically). If there’s going to be a currency exchange, then PPP of the aid providing nation doesn’t matter. A million USD from China is worth the exact same amount as a million USD from the U.S.
I think if we’re talking about on the world stage, as an economic power, the interconnected West is best understood as a power bloc. U.S. inconsistency and unpredictability on things like Russian sanctions actually show the limits of U.S. unilateral power while still showing the power of the broader Western order. Yes, China and Russia want to provide the world with an alternative multipolar order, and fragmentation of the Western powers may open up opportunities for that vision, but that competition is playing out along alliances, not isolated nations. In any event, PPP doesn’t have anything to do with that particular competition.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’m not going to bang my head against the wall trying to explain it to you. But I’ll give it one more shot.
The fact that you see PPP as only relevant in a bubble inside the country is just idiotic. China PRODUCES things. Literally most of its aid and initiatives are in the form of resources and infrastructure projects. There is no USD involved. That’s literally the entire Belt and Road project.
I’m sorry. But it seems like you’re trying to project what you know about US trade and neoliberal economic policies onto China. You clearly know enough about US trade and how it uses the dollar for dominance on world markets. But China doesn’t have to play that game anymore. That’s literally the shift in global economic trade that has happened. The world is not being held hostage by US dollar dominance anymore. They have an alternative in China.
And PPP is a much better means of showing why this is. It’s BECAUSE China actually makes shit. It’s not just a finance and consumption economy. It makes stuff more affordable for its population AND it’s able to use this same massive industrial power to work on industrial projects with other countries.
You are explaining a world that existed 20-30 years ago.