Amit's Blog

The Great Yuan Gambit: How China's 1994 Devaluation Suckered the West and Built an Economic Empire In the annals of global economics, few moves have been as audacious and transformative as China's 1994 currency devaluation. What appeared as a routine unification of exchange rates—a 33% overnight drop from 5.8 to 8.7 yuan per U.S. dollar—unleashed a cascade of events that turned a struggling socialist economy into the world's manufacturing juggernaut. This wasn't mere reform; it was a calculated sucker punch that exploited Western greed, and short-sightedness. While the West cheered China's "market embrace," Beijing engineered a system of perpetual undervaluation, sterilization, and strategic hoarding that hollowed out industries abroad and amassed unprecedented leverage. Decades later, as China pivots to de-dollarization and global dominance through initiatives like the Belt and Road, the contradictions are stark: apparent market liberalization masking s...

From Bottleneck to Beacon: India's Maritime Metamorphosis and the Quest for Global Port Dominance   Fifteen years ago, Indian ports were the economy's Achilles' heel—congested, slow, and costly. Ships idled for days, containers languished in yards, and exporters paid a hidden "congestion tax" that eroded competitiveness. Today, that narrative has been rewritten. Through a confluence of policy courage, private capital, and digital innovation, India's ports have transformed from logistical liabilities into strategic assets. This is not merely a story of incremental improvement; it is a tale of systemic reinvention. The journey from 94-hour turnaround times to sub-48-hour efficiency, from three ports in the global Top 100 to nine, and from reliance on Colombo for transshipment to the emergence of Vizhinjam and Galathea Bay as regional challengers, reflects a nation recalibrating its maritime destiny. Yet, this transformation is nuanced—marked by contradiction...