The Sino-US Trade Talks Cast Uncertainties on World Trade
The Sino-US economic and trade talks have been full of twists and turns, and the prospects of a deal in the near future are bleak.
China and the United States have released conflicting reports of the discussions, indicating that the game between the two sides is fierce. Studies by several international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have shown that the uncertainties brought about by the Sino-US economic and trade frictions have hurt investment and trade confidence in the two countries and globally. At the core of the storm, Chinese import and export enterprises and the United States have experienced the test of life and death. In the process of global value chain changes, China needs to consider how to ensure more employment and win more space and time for the development of high-quality manufacturing in the context of technological advancement and the aging of China’s population.
Brazilian Soybeans Find New Market
Mato Grosso is state located in the interior of Brazil. It is now Brazil’s main soybean producing region. The flourishing soybean trade makes the locals feel that the golden age of the past is back. In fact this agricultural produce has become their “white Gold”.
Soybean planting season in Brazil begins from September, and farmers in Mato Grosso have almost finished planting. Soybeans here account for 30% of Brazil’s total exports, and the proportion shipped to China exceeds 70% this year. The soybean export volume is much higher than in previous years, making local farmers very optimistic about their prospects for next year. However, this expectation is also mixed with worries because they know that although soybeans will not be exhausted like gold, but to maintain this prosperity, they to a large extent rely on Chinese buyers to provide stable bulk orders, so they pay close attention to the outcome of the Sino-US trade negotiations. As the Sino-US trade dispute comes to an end for now, the market competition in the soybean trade will see new changes. To be sure, China will still be the main source of soybean demand. But neither Brazil nor the United States can unilaterally meet China’s demand.
John Lewis Gaddis Talks About Grand Strategy
John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale University, first became interested in grand strategy in the 1970s, and nearly half a century later, he published several classic works on the Cold War, which made him a famous Cold War historian and grand strategy researcher.
In the autumn of 2019, Professor Gaddis had a sit-down with Caijing’s reporter at Yale University to discuss what a grand strategy is and the real concerns of a grand strategy. According to Gaddis, the characteristics of global strategists are that they combine fox-style and hedgehog-style thinking. The so-called strategy is the balance of goals and abilities. The outstanding American strategists in the eyes of Gaddis are Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Gaddis believes that these two great men “saved democracy and capitalism.” In Gaddis’s view, there is always competition between the great powers, and a Cold War might break out any time. The first step in recognizing the situation is to look at international relations and its essence, and understand that conflict is part of competition.
Softbank and Naspers Strive for Top Spot
The best financial investment in modern history happened in 2001 by the company of Naspers. Led by its CEO Koos Bekker, Naspers invested $32 million in Tencent for a nearly half of its shares. Seventeen years later, this investment is worth more than $175 billion. The only investment that can be compared to it is from Softbank. In 2000, Softbank invested $20 million in Alibaba, and today its value is close to $105 billion.
There is no doubt that without these two investments, neither Naspers nor Softbank would be able to aspire to what they have achieved today. The lives of the two investors are so similar. They both went to the United States for further studies and felt deeply inadequate. So they worked hard to learn, dreamed of transforming their country, and achieved a career. However, of the two entrepreneurs the one who can truly continue his glory would be the real winner.
