Here are the statistics for Europe since 2014, Almost all sectors except automotive are pretty flat. Chemicals were hit by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but are recovering. The EU is definitely in recovery.
Actually, China was getting cheap oil from Iran, but that just changed dramatically. Now, Europe is looking at Canada for future off-oil energy supplies. and is returning to nuclear, but using small scale nuclear reactors. I would hardly say the European relations with China in economics are tense. Human rights, maybe, but Europe has never fallen for the myth of the Chinese abuse of human rights that the Americans have. Europeans are much closer to the source, and can see for themselves.
Unfortunately, the Chinese diaspora to America was made up mostly of dissidents, and they carried a very biased message with them. They are, after all, well, dissidents. There is a far greater flow of average Chinese citizens to Europe, with a very different viewpoint. Italy, for instance.
No, I am not misrepresenting BRICS. It is now a photo-op setup designed to offset the publicity that the G7 gets. In the beginning, it had a purpose - to establish the renminbi as a global currency. That has pretty much fallen by the wayside, as the individual countries proved to be far more loyal to their own currency. and did not want to give up the control of currency from America to China. It also had the purpose of diverting control of other world economic institutions away from America, as you stated, and to alter the global rules to be more favorable to them. Now that America has pretty much abandoned these rules, this purpose has also been met. America has pretty much lost control of the greenback, and I expect within a year or so there will be a greenback exchange outside of America, controlled perhaps by Geneva or even the Cayman Islands, as American money gets very much afraid of the instability in money markets that America presents. World American money wants the greenback to be worth a dollar, not a value negotiable IOU that may or may not be honored that the Republicans are trying to make it.
My bet is on the Euro or some offspring as becoming the next global currency. I think the world now trusts Europe more than they trust America or China, now that Europe is ‘coming of age’ again.
China is quickly losing the reputation of the world manufacturer. China is instead turning to domestic markets. It wants to export high value products like automobiles, airplanes, ships, and machinery. Remember the movie “I, Robot” and the NS5? China is now mass producing the 1.0 version, with legs that work like human legs.
It is actually other East Asian countries that are now the world manufacturer for low to mid value goods. Vietnam is rapidly developing an export market for manufactured goods, in part replacing Chinese goods in our marketplace. Look carefully at the ‘Made in’ notations of current products - they are no longer almost exclusively Chinese.
The EU is absolutely not in a recovery, and there are no reasons to expect it to be in a recovery because structural problems are still there. The elephant in the room is that Europe lacks cheap energy, and until that problem is solved, there’s no reason for companies to manufacture anything in the EU.
What we’re actually seeing in the EU is essentially a structural wipeout of its industrial core. Out of 18 flagship sectors only aerospace and defense are still globally competitive. Everything else from automotive and steel to chemicals and solar is losing ground fast to the US and China right now. And it’s not some temporary dip because 83% of industrial indicators are either stagnating or actively deteriorating.
The chemical sector is doing even worse than automotive industry. Over 20 major plants have closed in the last two years wiping out 20k jobs and pushing production volume nearly 8% below pandemic levels. The math just does not work for these firms when their energy costs are 4x higher than what their American competitors pay, who in turn pay 3x energy costs in China.
This distress is now moving into infrastructure and utilities too. Bloomberg is writing that those sectors will be among the most distressed by late this year. Meanwhile gas reserves are ending the winter at record lows and refilling them will be incredibly expensive now. So we are seeing a permanent relocation of industry to lower cost regions rather than a standard market cycle.
Here are some links on how things in the EU are going, it’s grim as fuck:
Now, Europe is looking at Canada for future off-oil energy supplies. and is returning to nuclear, but using small scale nuclear reactors.
These things will take years to do. Canada can’t just magically create a huge increase in oil production, nor is there even infrastructure to ship stuff to Europe. Meanwhile, nuclear takes decades to build out. Also, not clear where the fuel for that is coming from now that Europe has been kicked out of Africa where France has been plundering uranium.
No, I am not misrepresenting BRICS.
Yes, you are because the reality of BRICS is that it’s basically running circles around the G7 right now when it comes to raw growth. According to the latest IMF numbers, these countries grew by about 4% last year and are on track for another 3.4% in 2025. That easily beats the global average of 2.8% and makes the G7 growth rates of 1% to 2% look pretty stagnant by comparison.
Most of this momentum is coming from heavy hitters like India and China, but even newer members like Ethiopia and Indonesia are putting up huge numbers. Because of that, the bloc now controls about 40% of the global economy based on PPP. It is a massive shift in where the world’s money is actually moving.
The whole thing is being fueled by a mix of massive populations and a ton of natural resources. Countries like Russia and Brazil are leaning hard into their energy and grain exports while others like India are just capitalizing on shifting trade routes. While the West is struggling with slower growth, BRICS is using its demographic edge and domestic stimulus to turn into a serious heavyweight counterweight. And it’s a self feeding cycle. As western economies become less attractive, more countries are driven where growth is further accelerating the growth of BRICS.
My bet is on the Euro or some offspring as becoming the next global currency. I think the world now trusts Europe more than they trust America or China, now that Europe is ‘coming of age’ again.
If anything is going to replace the dollar it’s going to be the yuan because everybody imports things from China, and holding the yuan means you can always trade it in for something you need. This is basically the logic that underpinned the petrodollar in the past.
China is quickly losing the reputation of the world manufacturer.
[citation needed] seems like the exact opposite is happening as you can clearly see from the links above
China is instead turning to domestic markets.
That’s incorrect. China is pursuing a dual circulation strategy
Meanwhile, you’re right that countries like Vietnam are rapidly growing their industrial base, but they’re not doing that independently of China. It’s all one ecosystem.
I am not sure why you posted all of those links that support what I stated, and then tried to argue exactly the opposite. I have never argued that the individual countries that make up BRICS are not doing very, very well. That is why China and America only make up about half of the world GDP. But nothing in any of your links indicates that the organization called BRICS is nothing more than a photo-op, as these countries are doing nothing but fighting each other, certainly there is no co-operation or consensus as to what to do. They would still rather cut each others’ throats than do a co-operative venture. China is the only one pushing some form of common belt-and-road initiative.
And the links regarding China all point to what I said - China is turning towards its domestic market, and is looking to export high value items while switching low-value production to its home market. But even there, the other Asian countries are switching to the low-end consumer goods, and exporting them to China. China’s middle income population, twice the size of the entire American population, is now creating a demand that actually out-strips the capacity of Chinese manufacturing to meet. Put another way, all of the manufacturing capacity that China was using to meet the American demand, is not even close to the capacity needed to meet the Chinese domestic demand. Every toaster that is shipped to the US is one less toaster for a Chinese family, and the Chinese really, really want that toaster.
And you completely missed that part about small scale nuclear reactors, that can be mass produced and are currently in production. Although Europe came late to the game, they are ramping up quickly, thanks to Russia cutting off the flow of cheap energy. Even Germany, that previously swore they would never have nuclear power, is pushing for the switchover. The timeline is 5 to 7 years from now.
What I keep pointing out here is that individual countries that make up BRICS are doing well because of BRICS. That’s the system of trade they all participate in that’s centred on China which is at the core of BRICS industrial development.
certainly there is no co-operation or consensus as to what to do.
I’ve repeatedly explained that BRICS is not in a business of having ideological alignment, It’s a trade org, plain and simple. The only thing you mentioned that’s at all relevant is that BRICS still haven’t agreed on a common currency. This stuff takes time to do, and the fact that it hasn’t happened yet is certainly not an indication of BRICS not being functional.
They would still rather cut each others’ throats than do a co-operative venture.
Once again, you could’ve just googled the info yourself. But here are just a few examples for you.
And the links regarding China all point to what I said - China is turning towards its domestic market, and is looking to export high value items while switching low-value production to its home market.
You might be slightly misinterpreting the core concept behind the dual circulation strategy. It is definitely true that Beijing wants to boost domestic consumption and insulate their economy from geopolitical shocks but they are absolutely not doing that by sacrificing their global export engine. Dual circulation is basically designed to make the internal domestic market and the external international market reinforce each other rather than treating them as a zero sum game. The idea that Chinese manufacturing capacity cannot keep up with its own domestic demand and that exporting a toaster somehow takes a toaster away from a local family actually completely contradicts the current macroeconomic reality over there.
Right now China is dealing with massive structural overcapacity and significant deflationary pressures precisely because their factories produce vastly more goods than their domestic middle class can afford to absorb. Their existing capacity is exactly why they are currently flooding global markets with everything from everyday consumer items to advanced electric vehicles and green energy tech. They are definitely trying to move up the value chain and they are offshoring some low end production to places like Vietnam but they still need global export markets to keep their industrial base running and prevent domestic employment problems. So rather than turning inward and leaving the global market behind they are actually trying to dominate both spheres simultaneously by using a strong domestic base to build bulletproof supply chains while aggressively expanding their export footprint.
The timeline is 5 to 7 years from now.
And the point you evidently missed is that Germany doesn’t have 5 to 7 years. It’s in a crisis right now with its industries collapsing. In 5-7 years Germany is going to be completely fucked. Also, it wasn’t Russia that cut off the flow of cheap gas. It was the EU making an idiotic decision not to buy Russian gas directly. A pretty big difference there.
Actually, Canada doubled LNG sales out of BC in just one year.
The second train online in Kitimat and hitting that 14 million tonnes per year mark might be a milestone for the Canadian economy but you really have to zoom out and look at the Middle East to understand the actual scale of the global gas trade. When you compare the BC setup to what Qatar was doing until Hormuz closed, the volume difference is staggering. LNG Canada is celebrating reaching its maximum current capacity of 14 million tonnes after years of complex development and billions in investment. Meanwhile Qatar is sitting on a baseline capacity of 77 million tonnes per annum and they were actively executing the massive North Field expansion project. That expansion alone was going to add several massive new trains that will push their total output to 126 million tonnes in the next couple of years and eventually to 142 million tonnes by the end of the decade. To put that into perspective the amount of brand new capacity Qatar was just bolting onto their existing infrastructure is essentially equivalent to building four or five entirely new LNG Canada facilities from scratch. Canada is like a boutique craft brewery operating in a market dominated by an industrial beverage conglomerate. It’s not replacing the LNG that’s off the market now, not even close.
And your links to the European manufacturing situation are out of date. The recovery has already started.
Most of the links I gave you are from this year. Again, I keep explaining this, and you keep ignoring it. But structural issues have not gone away. Europe lost access to cheap energy, and that problem has not been solved. Therefore, no meaningful recovery is possible. If you look at the actual numbers in your link it’s very clear there’s no real change happening:
The HCOB PMI business activity index in the eurozone manufacturing sector rose to 50.8 points in February from 49.5 points in January, reaching a 44-month high. In Germany, where the trend is in line with the European average, the index rose to 50.9 points from 49.1 points a month earlier.
Here are the statistics for Europe since 2014, Almost all sectors except automotive are pretty flat. Chemicals were hit by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but are recovering. The EU is definitely in recovery.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202508/1340956.shtml
Actually, China was getting cheap oil from Iran, but that just changed dramatically. Now, Europe is looking at Canada for future off-oil energy supplies. and is returning to nuclear, but using small scale nuclear reactors. I would hardly say the European relations with China in economics are tense. Human rights, maybe, but Europe has never fallen for the myth of the Chinese abuse of human rights that the Americans have. Europeans are much closer to the source, and can see for themselves.
Unfortunately, the Chinese diaspora to America was made up mostly of dissidents, and they carried a very biased message with them. They are, after all, well, dissidents. There is a far greater flow of average Chinese citizens to Europe, with a very different viewpoint. Italy, for instance.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Industrial_production_statistics
And the regularly scheduled trains between China and Europe are expanding.
https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/statistics/202506/21/content_WS6856a81cc6d0868f4e8f384f.html
No, I am not misrepresenting BRICS. It is now a photo-op setup designed to offset the publicity that the G7 gets. In the beginning, it had a purpose - to establish the renminbi as a global currency. That has pretty much fallen by the wayside, as the individual countries proved to be far more loyal to their own currency. and did not want to give up the control of currency from America to China. It also had the purpose of diverting control of other world economic institutions away from America, as you stated, and to alter the global rules to be more favorable to them. Now that America has pretty much abandoned these rules, this purpose has also been met. America has pretty much lost control of the greenback, and I expect within a year or so there will be a greenback exchange outside of America, controlled perhaps by Geneva or even the Cayman Islands, as American money gets very much afraid of the instability in money markets that America presents. World American money wants the greenback to be worth a dollar, not a value negotiable IOU that may or may not be honored that the Republicans are trying to make it.
My bet is on the Euro or some offspring as becoming the next global currency. I think the world now trusts Europe more than they trust America or China, now that Europe is ‘coming of age’ again.
China is quickly losing the reputation of the world manufacturer. China is instead turning to domestic markets. It wants to export high value products like automobiles, airplanes, ships, and machinery. Remember the movie “I, Robot” and the NS5? China is now mass producing the 1.0 version, with legs that work like human legs.
It is actually other East Asian countries that are now the world manufacturer for low to mid value goods. Vietnam is rapidly developing an export market for manufactured goods, in part replacing Chinese goods in our marketplace. Look carefully at the ‘Made in’ notations of current products - they are no longer almost exclusively Chinese.
The EU is absolutely not in a recovery, and there are no reasons to expect it to be in a recovery because structural problems are still there. The elephant in the room is that Europe lacks cheap energy, and until that problem is solved, there’s no reason for companies to manufacture anything in the EU.
What we’re actually seeing in the EU is essentially a structural wipeout of its industrial core. Out of 18 flagship sectors only aerospace and defense are still globally competitive. Everything else from automotive and steel to chemicals and solar is losing ground fast to the US and China right now. And it’s not some temporary dip because 83% of industrial indicators are either stagnating or actively deteriorating.
The chemical sector is doing even worse than automotive industry. Over 20 major plants have closed in the last two years wiping out 20k jobs and pushing production volume nearly 8% below pandemic levels. The math just does not work for these firms when their energy costs are 4x higher than what their American competitors pay, who in turn pay 3x energy costs in China.
This distress is now moving into infrastructure and utilities too. Bloomberg is writing that those sectors will be among the most distressed by late this year. Meanwhile gas reserves are ending the winter at record lows and refilling them will be incredibly expensive now. So we are seeing a permanent relocation of industry to lower cost regions rather than a standard market cycle.
Here are some links on how things in the EU are going, it’s grim as fuck:
Iranian oil is a small portion of the energy mix, and it hasn’t changed at all because Iran continues to ship oil to China.
These things will take years to do. Canada can’t just magically create a huge increase in oil production, nor is there even infrastructure to ship stuff to Europe. Meanwhile, nuclear takes decades to build out. Also, not clear where the fuel for that is coming from now that Europe has been kicked out of Africa where France has been plundering uranium.
Yes, you are because the reality of BRICS is that it’s basically running circles around the G7 right now when it comes to raw growth. According to the latest IMF numbers, these countries grew by about 4% last year and are on track for another 3.4% in 2025. That easily beats the global average of 2.8% and makes the G7 growth rates of 1% to 2% look pretty stagnant by comparison.
Most of this momentum is coming from heavy hitters like India and China, but even newer members like Ethiopia and Indonesia are putting up huge numbers. Because of that, the bloc now controls about 40% of the global economy based on PPP. It is a massive shift in where the world’s money is actually moving.
The whole thing is being fueled by a mix of massive populations and a ton of natural resources. Countries like Russia and Brazil are leaning hard into their energy and grain exports while others like India are just capitalizing on shifting trade routes. While the West is struggling with slower growth, BRICS is using its demographic edge and domestic stimulus to turn into a serious heavyweight counterweight. And it’s a self feeding cycle. As western economies become less attractive, more countries are driven where growth is further accelerating the growth of BRICS.
If anything is going to replace the dollar it’s going to be the yuan because everybody imports things from China, and holding the yuan means you can always trade it in for something you need. This is basically the logic that underpinned the petrodollar in the past.
[citation needed] seems like the exact opposite is happening as you can clearly see from the links above
That’s incorrect. China is pursuing a dual circulation strategy
Meanwhile, you’re right that countries like Vietnam are rapidly growing their industrial base, but they’re not doing that independently of China. It’s all one ecosystem.
I am not sure why you posted all of those links that support what I stated, and then tried to argue exactly the opposite. I have never argued that the individual countries that make up BRICS are not doing very, very well. That is why China and America only make up about half of the world GDP. But nothing in any of your links indicates that the organization called BRICS is nothing more than a photo-op, as these countries are doing nothing but fighting each other, certainly there is no co-operation or consensus as to what to do. They would still rather cut each others’ throats than do a co-operative venture. China is the only one pushing some form of common belt-and-road initiative.
And the links regarding China all point to what I said - China is turning towards its domestic market, and is looking to export high value items while switching low-value production to its home market. But even there, the other Asian countries are switching to the low-end consumer goods, and exporting them to China. China’s middle income population, twice the size of the entire American population, is now creating a demand that actually out-strips the capacity of Chinese manufacturing to meet. Put another way, all of the manufacturing capacity that China was using to meet the American demand, is not even close to the capacity needed to meet the Chinese domestic demand. Every toaster that is shipped to the US is one less toaster for a Chinese family, and the Chinese really, really want that toaster.
And you completely missed that part about small scale nuclear reactors, that can be mass produced and are currently in production. Although Europe came late to the game, they are ramping up quickly, thanks to Russia cutting off the flow of cheap energy. Even Germany, that previously swore they would never have nuclear power, is pushing for the switchover. The timeline is 5 to 7 years from now.
https://www.trendingtopics.eu/eu-bets-e200-million-on-small-nuclear-reactors/
Actually, Canada doubled LNG sales out of BC in just one year.
https://shippingmatters.ca/lng-canada-brings-second-train-online-doubling-export-capacity/
And your links to the European manufacturing situation are out of date. The recovery has already started.
https://pluralia.com/en/news/eurozone-manufacturing-recovers/
What I keep pointing out here is that individual countries that make up BRICS are doing well because of BRICS. That’s the system of trade they all participate in that’s centred on China which is at the core of BRICS industrial development.
I’ve repeatedly explained that BRICS is not in a business of having ideological alignment, It’s a trade org, plain and simple. The only thing you mentioned that’s at all relevant is that BRICS still haven’t agreed on a common currency. This stuff takes time to do, and the fact that it hasn’t happened yet is certainly not an indication of BRICS not being functional.
Once again, you could’ve just googled the info yourself. But here are just a few examples for you.
You might be slightly misinterpreting the core concept behind the dual circulation strategy. It is definitely true that Beijing wants to boost domestic consumption and insulate their economy from geopolitical shocks but they are absolutely not doing that by sacrificing their global export engine. Dual circulation is basically designed to make the internal domestic market and the external international market reinforce each other rather than treating them as a zero sum game. The idea that Chinese manufacturing capacity cannot keep up with its own domestic demand and that exporting a toaster somehow takes a toaster away from a local family actually completely contradicts the current macroeconomic reality over there.
Right now China is dealing with massive structural overcapacity and significant deflationary pressures precisely because their factories produce vastly more goods than their domestic middle class can afford to absorb. Their existing capacity is exactly why they are currently flooding global markets with everything from everyday consumer items to advanced electric vehicles and green energy tech. They are definitely trying to move up the value chain and they are offshoring some low end production to places like Vietnam but they still need global export markets to keep their industrial base running and prevent domestic employment problems. So rather than turning inward and leaving the global market behind they are actually trying to dominate both spheres simultaneously by using a strong domestic base to build bulletproof supply chains while aggressively expanding their export footprint.
And the point you evidently missed is that Germany doesn’t have 5 to 7 years. It’s in a crisis right now with its industries collapsing. In 5-7 years Germany is going to be completely fucked. Also, it wasn’t Russia that cut off the flow of cheap gas. It was the EU making an idiotic decision not to buy Russian gas directly. A pretty big difference there.
The second train online in Kitimat and hitting that 14 million tonnes per year mark might be a milestone for the Canadian economy but you really have to zoom out and look at the Middle East to understand the actual scale of the global gas trade. When you compare the BC setup to what Qatar was doing until Hormuz closed, the volume difference is staggering. LNG Canada is celebrating reaching its maximum current capacity of 14 million tonnes after years of complex development and billions in investment. Meanwhile Qatar is sitting on a baseline capacity of 77 million tonnes per annum and they were actively executing the massive North Field expansion project. That expansion alone was going to add several massive new trains that will push their total output to 126 million tonnes in the next couple of years and eventually to 142 million tonnes by the end of the decade. To put that into perspective the amount of brand new capacity Qatar was just bolting onto their existing infrastructure is essentially equivalent to building four or five entirely new LNG Canada facilities from scratch. Canada is like a boutique craft brewery operating in a market dominated by an industrial beverage conglomerate. It’s not replacing the LNG that’s off the market now, not even close.
Most of the links I gave you are from this year. Again, I keep explaining this, and you keep ignoring it. But structural issues have not gone away. Europe lost access to cheap energy, and that problem has not been solved. Therefore, no meaningful recovery is possible. If you look at the actual numbers in your link it’s very clear there’s no real change happening: