A hallmark of totalitarianism is that it’s never your money; it’s always the government’s money, although the government can be kind enough to let you have it. Certainly, Canadian truckers were reminded of that last year when Trudeau had their bank accounts frozen without any due process. And here in America, leftists repeatedly confuse taxpayer money with government money. In China, the government makes no pretenses about its right to all money within its borders, as investor Mark Mobius discovered when he tried to withdraw his investments from Shanghai.

Mobius appeared on Fox Business last week to explain how the Chinese were putting essentially insuperable barriers in place to block him from withdrawing his funds:

Renowned investor Mark Mobius says he can’t get his money out of Shanghai.

As a foreigner in China, we all know that you can’t move money easily and you need to keep all the tax records if you want to wire money abroad.

I am actually surprised he has an account here….🤦‍в™‚пёЏ pic.twitter.com/uoSIGVpEFC

— Marco Castelli (@macastel3) March 4, 2023

I’m personally affected because I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai. I can’t get my money out. The government is restricting the flow of money out of the country. So I would be very, very careful investing in China.

[snip]

It’s just amazing. They’re putting all kinds of barriers They don't say, “No, you can’t get your money out,” but they say, “Give us all the records from 20 years of how you’ve made this money,” and so forth. It’s crazy.

I don’t doubt Mobius’s facts, but I do disagree with him as to one essential. He says, “It’s crazy,” but it’s not crazy at all.

Under Xi Jinping, China is engaged in a massive, “put all your money on one color” gamble. Currently, the Chinese economy is still struggling both because of COVID and because Xi has vastly overextended it.

Image: Chinese ghost city. YouTube screen grab (cropped).

However, if Xi can use what money he has, including foreign investor money. to wipe out the American economy while building up his own military to a point at which no one has the courage to take him on, he’s won. China will be cash poor, but it will have attained sufficient power that, at least in the short term (with “short term” measured in decades, not months or years), he will control the world’s economy.

As Xi knows, you don’t necessarily have to raise yourself up as long as you can push everyone else down or destroy them completely. Xi may even be inspired by America’s success after WWII.

America ended WWII with massive debt. However, because the war never touched her soil, her industries were in place, and every other country was a shambles, she had room for almost thirty years of relatively uninterrupted economic growth. Given that China’s past growth was based on a government-controlled economy and trade theft, it probably won’t be the same, but all that matters is that it’s good enough.