This is the Cater Daily Podcast for Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

China is regularly viewed as an economic threat to the United States,

but even if you accept the dubious notion that a strong Chinese

economy won't help or even hurts the average American, there are reasons to believe

that China's position is more vulnerable than is typically acknowledged.

Charles Calamiris is a finance and economics professor at Columbia University.

We spoke at the Cato Institute's monetary conference last week.

You see President Trump gushing over Mr. Shee and you see what looks like an

attempt to cozy up to the Chinese and be very, maybe very weak with respect to the Chinese.

On the other hand, there are lots of alternative signals where you could say for once maybe Trump is carrying a big stick and not speaking

very loudly in China that's It's an interesting shift for him.

And some of the concessions the Chinese have been making on this trip

weren't even things that were actively solicited

by the administration.

And so there's a possibility that the Trump administration is doing what I think they should do,

which is believe that they have a strong bargaining position vis-à-vis the Chinese to try to really

liberalize trade and get their geopolitical objectives vis-à-vis North Korea and the China Sea satisfied too.

So my view is China is in a very vulnerable position right now relative to the U.S. and that we're holding a lot of pretty good cards.

As the Chinese economy has slowed, what has been the official response both from a budgetary perspective and a monetary perspective?

Well, it's been to issue debt or to permit or encourage vast amounts of debt to be issued for which

the government has either an explicit or an implicit guarantee.

...