Does China Rule the World?

Chinese Communist Party leaders believe that their country will soon dominate the world. I don’t know: maybe it already does. I am not sure when or how we decided to have China do our manufacturing for us, but the implications of that decision–if in fact it was ever consciously made–continue to unfold.

China’s utter dominance in metals production is documented here.

According to The Visual Capitalist, global steel production has more than tripled over the past 50 years despite the fact that nations like the U.S. and Russia have seen declining domestic production and a rising reliance upon imports.

The most stunning aspect of the chart is China’s absolute dominance in the industry. China now produces about half of all of the steel in the world.

Click to enlarge:

China has similar dominance in processing other metals. According to the International Energy Agency, China processes 40 percent of the global copper supply, more than 50 percent of the global lithium supply, and more than 80 percent of rare earth metals.

One of the many reasons why transitioning to “green” energy is almost unfathomably stupid is that it would put America’s entire energy system at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party. (They make our wind turbines and solar panels, too. They dominate solar panel production in part because they save on costs by using slave labor.) But maybe our economy is pretty much in China’s hands already.

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