there are already 18,600,300 bitcoins mined. also there is plenty of miners outside of china, probably about 50%.
so the only thing that will change if china stopped all bitcoin mining is that blocks will take about 20 minutes, instead of 10 minutes. for two weeks.
this wont have much effect on price at all, if anything it could make the price go up since presumably all the bitcoins in china would be inaccessible for a while.
if it is some sort of permanent loss of 50% of mining power and 50% loss of all bitcoins, that would double the value of each bitcoin!
Question: how quickly would the blockchain adjust to a 50% drop in the hashrate? Surely it wouldn't take two weeks?
My (very limited, tech illiterate) understanding is that the algorithm is designed to take 10 minutes, and will adjust the "math" to compensate for any change in overall computing power.
I know this is off topic, but I would appreciate any insight that can help me better understand.
Edit - I agree with the value of BTC rising if China's access to the network is permanently cut.
2nd Edit - what would happen if China continued to run mining, but not integrated with the rest of the network? Would two simultaneous blockchains form? Could they be eventually reconciled?
So many questions....