They could in theory choose to sell lot of it in exchange for another currency, messing with exchange rates. Or they could go on a buying spree, messing with asset prices

It's not just 'having money', it's 'having a huge amount of money in foreign assets'. One entity controlling that much capital is able to manipulate the global economy in some interesting ways. For example, they could strategically pump or dump other countries' currencies, and probably even crash most other countries' economies at will.

This is naturally pretty scary to other competing entities that historically are used to being the ones doing the controlling.

>Is countries actually having money a problem now?

USA looking at central and south America: Yes.

Planning to switch to another reserve currency seems to be a "career-limiting move".

It’s unlikely to be a simple shift and more of a global splintering into various monies for different purposes.

Which country’s values do you prefer influencing the developing world: China’s, or the United States’?

Neither, and I fail to see the difference between them. Neither country would do such a thing with altruistic goals and both have proven they shouldn't be trusted. We have already seen how badly the US fucks up other place's economies and governments with their meddling.

You fail to see a difference between a country run by an autocratic cult of personality and a country run by a democracy? That’s troubling. The US commitment to human rights is flawed, but it’s nothing compared to the dystopia that is China. Values matter.

Being a democracy didn't stop the US from killing Guatemalans over the possibility of bananas costing a couple more cents, or installing or supporting dictatorships in foreign countries when it benefited them. How much power do voters really have in determining foreign policy or large financial decisions?

It is also not quite right to treat the Chinese government as a single minded monolith in determining their own policies. There is tons of internal factions and divisions within their own political system. Yeah sure certainly Xi has a lot of power, but only so long as he doesn't try to buck off the opinions and ideals over the rest of their political class, a political class who holds many of the same opinions and ideas as the US political class. The political sphere in China today is nothing near what it was 50 years ago.

China has one party.

The US has two and it's hard for other countries to discern any difference between them.

Interesting. This was upvoted when the US was asleep, and downvoted as the US woke up.

the most significant difference is that one has blue paint and the other red.

otherwise, they are seemingly the same in terms of outcomes for average workers.

It's the wrong question.

Developing nations will take the support they can get - just ask the predatory lenders who've been dicking them over for hundreds of years. Values don't really come into it, unfortunately.

Montenegro did it and the country ended up with $1b debt for 25% of the planned project that was built. Now they are doing it again.

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-chinese-highway-debt-cont...

So, let me get this straight. Are you saying that our economic system only works if the right people have money?

Then it sounds like the problem isn't 'who has money', it sounds like we need to scrap the economic system. What do you propose we replace it with?

That's a very charitable interpretation.

It's rather, which would you rather the developing world be exploited by, US or China?

We have pretty extensive track record of developing countries being exploited by western economies. And it aint pretty. So the best case you can make for the US is thay familiar devil is better because it's familiar.

I would rather third world countries be exploited by the US, since it would mean my country projects its power to those regions. My stable, democratic country.

The lack of realpolitik in this thread is astounding. We don’t live in a perfect world, where economies of real people in countries that need roads and telecom get to say “No thank you, your country’s history is gross.”

Belt and Road is a massive soft power grab by an autocratic dictatorship. That has enormous implications in geopolitics. China is about to collapse because it’s in a demographic tailspin. What happens to these initiatives — and those countries that depend on them - is a huge open question and risk.

> I would rather third world countries be exploited by the US, since it would mean my country projects its power to those regions.

I'm sure Chinese citizen could have said exactly the same.

> My stable, democratic country.

And follow it by his own set of nice sounding (to him) words. Everybody is a good person with good intentions in their own judgement.

Besides, US is not really a democratic country. You don't get a democracy if you just split one party system into two halves that play cooperative hot potato game with who's the current face of the power. What laws US lives by are dictated solely by the wealthy and both halves serve them equally efficiently at the tremendous cost to society and environment. China does pretty much the same only it didn't come up yet with the idea of having mock fights every few years to improve the stability of power.

> China is about to collapse because it’s in a demographic tailspin. What happens to these initiatives — and those countries that depend on them - is a huge open question and risk.

When a lender collapses it's usually very good news for the debtor.

> I'm sure Chinese citizen could have said exactly the same.

It would stand to reason that this is statistically likely, but I don’t think anyone has any real understanding of how much the people in China believe in / support their current government and its positions. Information is extremely restricted.

> When a lender collapses it's usually very good news for the debtor.

I could see why someone would think this if they’re considering the collateral is something like a house, or a car, or a plot of land — something that is useful in and of itself because it is surrounded by other stable infrastructure. However, in the case we’re talking about here, China is the lender for large scale infrastructure that will stop getting built and eventually decay because the borrowers have no means of finishing or maintaining what was being built. That makes them vulnerable in other ways.

Keep in mind, too, that those places where the infrastructure will stop being maintained are also places that make or mine or otherwise export components that are part of a global supply chain.

You don’t have to love America’s values like I do to be biased towards the US being the driving influence in these nations.

> The lack of realpolitik in this thread is astounding.

Realpolitik arguments have the other problem, where they rely on hope that whatever's good for the elites that call the shots will eventually trickle down to the rest of us.

There is certainly truth to it (A lot more truth than to trickle-down nonsense in domestic economics), but the track record for it is still... Mixed.

Also, if China collapsing over demographics is a real concern, what about democracy in the US collapsing? Is that not a real concern in this decade? Is it normal for democratic countries to have a loser who pulls every stop to try to prevent a peaceful transfer of power, or for an eleventh hour beer gut putsch to invade its capitol, causing its government to shelter in closets? Or for one of it's two ruling parties focus more on waging culture war on the other, than on governing? Or for the frankly insane effort going into winner-wins-more systems of gerrymandering, voter suppression at polling stations, etc..?

I prefer values to be secondary to development for developing countries. If PRC actually gets powerplants and roads build, then don't be surprised if African real politik chooses Chinese infra over western lectures. And don't be surprised African leaders would PRC surveillance model to reduce ability of US to spread their values via influence ops. Or African leaders look at modern development history and still pick PRC/East Asian model, because at the end of the day, democratic societies are easily hijacked by external factors and terrible at developing. Authoritarianism is the worst development model, except for all others that have been tried.