Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a business futurist specializing in emerging technologies and demographic trends as well as geopolitical dynamics around the world. Chief among them is the USA China trade war initiated with sweeping tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump in early 2018. Patrick has studied this evolving trade dispute since China was admitted to the WTO back in 2001, and the current tariff “trade war” was an inevitable consequence of the approach taken by the Communist Party of China with its managed capitalist economy. Patrick has authored five (5) business books. The most recent is “Anarchy, Inc.: Profiting in a Decentralized World with Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain” (2018, Authority Publishing) and it was significantly impacted by the tremendous technological progress coming from Chinese companies and, in particular, from Shenzhen in the Pearl River Delta. Patrick has lectured at numerous academic institutions including Stanfard and Purdue Universities, and is a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV.
Past speaking clients include:
Recent speaking destinations include:
Conference Keynote Speech on the Chinese Communist Party
Patrick began his fascination with China as a result of their impending demographic disaster. He build his proprietary Macro-Economic Investment Capital Availability Platform (MEICAP) model in 2003, and it became clear that China would experiences challenges starting in the 2020s. Over the years, his study of the country focused increasingly on the Chinese Communist Party and their attempts to create a new economic model that is very different then the traditional western “free market” model. China deserves a lot of credit, because they were able to develop their country in record time. It truly was an economic miracle. But as time went on, the differences in their managed economy began to lock heads with western companies, and Donald Trump took up the fight (with Steve Bannon’s counsel) when he got into office in 2017. His trade tariffs began in January 2018, and tensions have only escalated since then. Patrick has a broad understanding of (1) the technology trends driving China’s economic expansion, (2) the demographic trends putting pressure on the government, and (3) the differences between the two economic models. He can explain the situation for your attendees, allowing them to make educated decisions about their respective business expansions in the Asia-Pacific region.
Speech on the China USA Trade Dispute
The USA currently imports about $500B in goods and services from China each year. By contract, China only imports about $150B from the USA. The imbalance is clear. China needs the USA more than the USA needs China. Donald Trump knows this and is exploiting that imbalance to pressure China to conform to established trade practices around the world. Over the past 30 years, China has forced foreign companies to have a Chinese partner when doing business in China and allow that partner to learn the technologies and processes used by that company to conduct business. This is also referred to as forced technology transfer. The Chinese Communist Party is also a majority shareholder in most Chinese companies, a practice that is shunned in most free market countries, and subsidizes many industries deemed critical to their future economic development. Abroad, China has pushed many countries into their famed “debt traps” by loaning enormous sums of money for infrastructure development projects, knowing full well that the host countries won’t be able to repay the debt, leaving China with powerful negotiating advantages to gain 99-year leases and other concessions to control parts of their territory.
China currently has deep water shipping ports, for example, in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, fully encircling their primary Asian rival, India. These ports were paid for by China, constructed by Chinese workers and Chinese companies, and now largely controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. And although these “agreements” generally prohibit military uses of these ports, it’s inevitable that those rules will be bent if a conflict arises. The goal is to build their One Belt and Road Initiative, connecting China with it’s primary trading partners across the Asian landmass (including Europe) and Africa. On top of that, China has constructed artificial island in the South China Sea, complete with military installations, allowing them to project power across the region’s high-traffic marine waterways.
China Trade War Keynote Presentation
China begins this “trade war” from a weak position, but it only gets worse when considering China’s demographic profile. Their population will peak before 2030 and begin receding after that. Furthermore, their birthrate is extremely low and their population is aging quickly, resulting in increased pressures on their governments for decades to come. As a result, it’s likely that Donald Trump will “win” the trade war, but it may take a long time to resolve itself. It’s unlikely that America will reduce the tariffs to zero because China will never acquiesce to all American demands. Instead, some tariffs will remain in place for many years into the future. Even if Democrats win in 2020, Trump’s hard line stance on China will likely be adopted by all subsequent administrations. Furthermore, other developed countries in Europe as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will start making similar demands of China, effectively putting them in a corner. Sooner or later, China will either conform to established western standards, or they will decouple their economy from the west and focus instead on markets in southeast Asia and Africa.
Patrick Schwerdtfeger is a keynote speaker who has spoken at business conferences in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
