Re: Kirin will become Karen
PPP doesn't mean China are richer than the USA. In this case it's exactly the opposite, it means they are poorer. PPP means purchasing power parity and is a different way of comparing international ecnomies that reflects that wages are lowers in those countries (i.e. workers are poorer). As workers are of course the consumers, who buy things, by definition them having less money means they are poorer. Of course it also means that services are cheaper, because wages are lower, so it's not all downsides. It's important to know this because when you compare, say defence budgets, a country with lower wages is going to be getting more bang for their buck - so long as they're buying home made military equipment.
Your point about the US inflating the dollar is exactly the reverse of reality though. If the US had really inflated the dollar, that would mean the value of the dollar would have fallen - thus meaning that the Chinese economy would be closer to parity with the US on the normal measure of GDP. But in fact the dollar has been strong for the last 10 years, because the US have generally had strong growth.
In fact the Chinese have been forced to intervene into the market to raise the value of the Yuan - reversing the trend from the first decade of this century when they were desperately buying US T-bills in order to reduce the Yuan's value and hence artificially lower the wages of their workers. Which made the country as a whole poorer, but grew the economy due to the cost advantage it gave their exporters. However, despite a continuing current account surplus, China still exports more than it imports, that process has reversed since about 2014 - because China has been suffering from slow-motino capital flight. i.e. Chinese businesses don't trust their own government and so export profits abroad, so they can't be stolen / legitimately siezed / (more likely) a bit of both, in Xi's anti-corruption drives. Hence the Chinese Central Bank's foreign reserves peaked at about $4 trillion in around 2012 - and have now fallen to somewhere closer to $2tr now - as they've intervened in the currency markets.
The US were the only one of the major economies to have already reversed some of the QE they were forced to do in the last recession - because their economy has been doing so well.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
