Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Economic Sanctions: A Reality Check — Timothy Taylor

Interesting observations by an economist that question the geopolitical effectiveness of economic sanctions as hybrid warfare aimed at achieving political goals, such as regime change through color revolution. 

But Timothy Taylor fails to notice sufficiently that imposition of economic sanctions has often backfired both politically and economically against the US, e.g., reducing American soft power, resulting in import substitution and building of national and regional self-sufficiency, de-dollarization, and promoting multi-polarism.

Overall, as a policy tool economic sanctions as hybrid warfare have failed to meet objectives. As Taylor observes, they are usually just "feel-good" measures that generate a sense of "doing something."

Conversable Economist
Economic Sanctions: A Reality Check
Timothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

See also
Xinjiang in China has quietly become one of the world’s top tourist hotspots – overtaking France. More than 158 million visitors came to Xinjiang, the scenic northwestern region of China last year, and the number is expected to top 200 million this year.

For comparison, Paris has about 30 million visitors a year, and the whole of France, considered the most visited place in the world, had about 80-90 million visitors a year in pre-Covid times. The French government has set a target of 100 million visitors a year when the pandemic is over.

Xinjiang is already way ahead, with pflans to welcome 400 million visitors annually by 2025....
Oh, the irony.

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