Whether it's because China is rigging their currency or staving off capital flight from the mainland, the yuan is dropping almost every day now v the dollar, which is having a deleterious effect on FX reserves. But don't feel too bad for the great wall'd nation of dog eaters just yet. They still have north of $3t of our dollars stashed away -- as we swim in their cheap shit purchased at Walmart.
It seems that Trump's phone call with Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen as well a recent pair of tweets from the president-elect blasting China for devaluing their currency, taxing U.S. imports and military provocations in the South China Sea have served their purpose of ruffling some feathers in Beijing.
Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016
There’s a lot to be worried about going into 2017 both in terms of financial markets and in terms of geopolitical concerns.
In what may be the most direct admission that China's economy is about to grind to a deflationary halt, today China's Global Times, a newspaper which is seen as a propaganda companion to the official People's Daily, revealed data showing this year's proposed salary guidelines according to which there is a broad wage growth declines in virtually every single province on the mainland, which according to the Chinese publication "confirms the country is experiencing an economic slowdown."
With last Friday's phone call between Donald Trump and Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen which broke decades of US protocol, still creating ripples among diplomatic circles and the political punditry, not to mention continue to fascinate the media which leads today with such speculative headlines as Wooed by Trump, Taiwan Trembles, China urges U.S. to block transit by Taiwan president, U.S.