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Comment by DasIch | Hacker News Reader

The CP clearly believes that as long as growth is maintained and people's lives improve, there won't be any political resistance. I'm inclined to agree.

We have a lot of examples of people protesting and calling for more representation when they're not doing well economically but do we have any examples, any evidence, any indication at all of people doing that when things go well economically?

The potential loss of quality of life associated with such resistance failing is massive and the probability of a failure is high. The people have too much to lose by calling for more representation and honestly not that much to gain.

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When people are well fed and happy they don't see the need to up end the status quo. When there's no bread for people to eat then heads will roll. Therefore it will be interesting to see how long China can keep the growth up, and if there is ever a bust, what kind of change will happen. For all we know they could just go down the path of having a dictator of some form again.

The North parts of China did go bust (factories moved south) from being the wealthiest. Did not lead to a massive resistance.

A good leader keeps his people's bellies full and their ambitions low... or so the tao goes.

This is the point I'm trying to make, they have had a long period of economic growth, people will put up with a lot if they see their situation is getting better. The question is what happens when the growth flounders.

You borrow massively to prop up employment and reflate asset markets. The Chinese government has plenty of scope to do this as they are well into the black, holding vast reserves of American treasuries. That gives them a massive war chest, and plenty of scope to assume equally large debts if needs be. They will buy economic stability in return for saddling future generations of Chinese with crippling debt. And it will work.

The growth will of course slow down eventually as it has in Europe and the US. Slow growth might still be considered acceptable enough by most as to not be too much of a problem.

I don't see this happening in the immediate future, except maybe temporarily due to global economic issues. I'd expect it to take at least a decade until this becomes a problem and as the article shows, China is certainly planning that far ahead and is able to execute these plans.

Making and executing long term plans is definitely something China has a significant advantage in compared to the democracies in the west.

People put up with a lot in America. That's mostly because of money. Take away the money and you will have problems.

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