Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
China's huge boom is starting to level off. Down from 10%/yr to 7% a year. The US is under 3%/yr. That happened to all the "Asian tigers", as they caught up to the developed world. Its a long way from a recession.
[1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/c...
If you look at cities like Shanghai, Nanjing or Beijing, there's a subtantial minority already basically living with western living standards. That number is still growing quickly.
Furthermore, China has little problem letting old people work longer - or potentially even implement pretty brutal policies regarding the elderly.
So while China is growing old very quickly, and this will slow down progress, I do not believe it will lead to a halting of progress.
I would be concerned about China in the 2030s and 2040s.
But I bet you already knew all that.
If the experts are correct, can they hurry up and be correct faster because I can't wait for a prediction that has no timeframe requirements.
You have a threat (The trade war with USA, well and maybe South China sea etc) and a slowing economy. Now many Chinese companies are in need of help from the CCP government, and the help is not for free.
In Zhejiang, their government want to send "Government representatives" to private firms[0] to "help" them on site. I will not be in total surprise if one day all of those companies turn themselves to "State controlled".
[0] https://www.voachinese.com/a/China-To-Send-Officials-To-100-... (Chinese, but the URL already told the story)
China is just another big country with a lot of problems. So is US.
Even if China is really going to collapse, what is in it for average people in the US or other countries? To prove that the democracy you believe is correct -- even if that means nearly all the people in the world will suffer from economic slowdown?
Which is not meant to break the EU's democracy and getting more votes. Nothing else.
I wish Hong Kong and Taiwan the very best, even this far away China is overreaching it's influence. They shouldn't be surprised that they have lost all sympathy from a lot of westerners.
Before I forget, if you try to loan halve of the world money ( there are no real investments from China), you are not a developing country and shouldn't abuse our help.
There is also no way that Alibaba would have gotten that big without being a developed country and the Postal Union financial assistance. We basically financed it.
Everyone can see that, it's loans and you get a cheaper loan when you use Chinese workers.
It's also shell companies, that do nothing ( from a research of the Netherlands)
It's a scam
I'm not sure why you think writers at Bloomberg, a Wall Street-oriented outlet, represent average people in the US.
I'm also not sure why you think anyone would want China to collapse in order to "prove democracy correct", as if to win a bet. Democracy is a means to an end. "Average people" think that in China, though many people are doing great under the current system, there are also people not doing great, average people just like them, who are being oppressed, harassed for reading banned books, punished for criticizing party officials, put into re-education labor camps, even having their organs harvested, and they want that to stop. If China stopped all that tomorrow without collapsing, most people would be ecstatic about that. But they won't, and average people believe the best way to permanently stop that kind of thing is for everyone to get a voice and a vote in their government—indeed, for a hundred flowers to bloom, or 百花齐放, if you will.
Apparently I do not believe this is happening in China and you do. Maybe I am brainwashed by Chinese government or you are affected by all those western media. Anyway, Chinese government cares not so much about what western media says -- they have been saying that China is going to collapse for so many years. Instead, Chinese government on the one hand tries to solve some of the problems faced by China, on the other hand uses propaganda involving patriotism and ethnic identity to unify people within. Whether this way can work in the end is still unknown -- maybe yes, then guess fewer and fewer people will still talk about democracy is the only way to govern the world; or maybe not, then China is definitely be not better than Russia: before USSR's collapse, people are poor; after its collapse, people are still poor and only a few people benefited from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_therapy_(economics)
You asked "if China is really going to collapse, what is in it for average people in the US or other countries?", and I hoped that you were genuinely interested in understanding why there are people in the West who dislike the Chinese government. Does my explanation make sense, and convince you that it's not because they want to "prove democracy correct"?
I am also interested in what you believe is and isn't happening in China and why. The organ harvesting reports are extreme and salacious, and I can see believing the Vocational Training Centers are voluntary, but the others seem obvious and undeniable? Is it not well-known in China that the government bans certain books? Or that social media posts can be taken down on the basis of being too critical of the party?
I'm not entirely sure why you bring up shock therapy. It's true that many countries failed to or suffered when they liberalized their society alongside their economies. It's also true that many countries have done it quite successfully.
Maybe that's playing a role here.
The media pattern now is so obvious every time there are geopolitical tensions to justify a conflict that it's hard to ignore (please remember Irak).
I'm not a geopolitical expert, I really like Americans (obviously, otherwise I would not be on this site), but I don't understand how nobody notice this pattern, especially here.
People look down on Trump and ridicule him endlessly when he spews bullshit about things he knows nothing about. But if you spew bullshit about China, you get lots of upvotes.
Just think of the old war in Korea -- they will go to war with US even at that time they were not even comparable at all
Just kidding. Only people in countries that have been spared its horrors still believe in communism.
A lot of people (mostly westeners) don't understand, that if someone gets back "historic russian territory" from a "neighbor" you don't really like, and noone can do anything about that, that's a good thing for Russia. It's bad for the neighbors, it's bad for NATO, it's bad for everyone else who wants to influece Russia, but for Russia, it's a good thing.
It's the same thing with Trump... he does this, he does that, outrage everywhere, and in the end, EU is even more fuc*ed, Chinese send threats but can't do anything, and USA gets richer, old industries come back, people get jobs, get paid more, etc. And some wonder why he won.
Are you sure? Haven't the resulting sanctions damaged Russia's economic growth and increased prices for consumers?
I can see the geo-strategic value of Crimea, but for the ordinary Russian citizen, where is the positive effect?
The Russian people called Tsar Nicholas "little father". The assassination was an anomaly; the revolutionaries had to work very hard to hide the bodies because they feared the people would start worshipping the dead Tsars (which is exactly what's happening today).
Even with religion, 70 years of Soviet oppression and Russia is now as religious as ever.
So when you criticize Putin for crushing dissent, you have to understand that what might be oppression to us is perfectly normal for Russian people.
At this point, I have to ask: why do we assume that we know what's better for Russians (or any other nationality) than the Russians themselves?
All I've seen is a shrinking coal industry leaving workers unpaid for their last month on the job[1], 25% tariffs slapped on our hardware imports [2] (causing a 30% drop in our sales) and kids being killed by Customs and Border Protection [3].
None of this is good for the USA or my fellow American
1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/kentucky-coal-miners.h...
2 - https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/08/07/the-long-term-im...
3 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/20/migrant-chil...
We need to deal in fact, which requires a fair bit of effort to cite and write. Call out those poisoning the comments with vitrol and insanity, a harsh light reveals their lack of grounding in fact.
> kids being killed by Customs and Border Protection
Are you actually trying to claim that CBP is deliberately killing children?
Is killing children okay if it's not deliberate?
Please cite how the USA has been negatively affected by IP abuse or China's monetary policy. It seems quite similar to our prior tangoes with Japanese cars & Taiwan's electronics imports to the USA.
At this juncture we have pushed China into economic stagnation, while slowing our own economic growth.
> unfettered illegal immigration are also "not good for the USA or my fellow American."
We're a country of immigrants, our current "legal" immigration system is only a few decades old. Prior to that it was a free for all with nearly open borders (and no passports/visas), which bolstered the US economy mightily during World War 1 & World War 2.
Open Borders is key to being open for business, our current policy is locking out millions of people that could turbocharge our economy.
> Are you actually trying to claim that CBP is deliberately killing children?
Yes, when you choose to act in a way that you know kills some children needlessly, you are killing children. God doesn't look the other way!
If you want a 'communist corporation', just give every employee shares. You don't need unions or whatever else. You could start a company right now that does that. Some big UK firms do a performance sharing scheme with everybody in the company, even cashiers. Granted it's not much money in real terms, but it's proof how flexible the corporate legal structure can be.
Co-operatives in this form aren’t communist. They compete for members, vendors and customers. They don’t have a monopoly on violence. They can be held accountable by the rule of law.
None of the above apply to communist governments. They have a monopoly on violence and the factors of production. That precludes an independent check on state power which, in turn, precludes the rule of law.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still some die hard communists around that’d love to seize the power.
Such a collapse would bring China back to the 1980s, increase poverty by hundreds of millions of people, disrupt global supply Chains (50% of the global electronics are shipped from the Pearl River Delta, 50% of all ACs and fridges are made there, Daimler, BMW and GM source 20-30% of their parts from China).
Western factories would reduce production as parts are missing. Western companies that export to China would have to reduce output (Volkswagen, GM would have to cut production by 30-40%, Airbus and Boeing by 20-30%). Western stock markets plummet, housing crises emerge, poverty surges, unemployment increases dramatically.
All in all, this would not be a great thing and a lose-lose situation. The Soviet Union was not integrated into the global value chains. China is. A collapse would make the 2008 crisis look like a cute little girl on a pink bicycle and bring the global economies back into the 1990s.
War is chaos. War destroys supply chains. War is standing in direct contrast to planability.
Nobody wants war.
Just look at Russia and its behaviour after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 1991-2000 was pure shit: chaos, corruption, high suicide rates, absolute poverty where poor old Grandmas and Grandpas suffered and committed suicide as there was absolutely nothing. In the early 2000s reforms were made that brought certain stability back to the country. Unfortunately, the economy was depending on resource exploitation - and the government knew that ofc. They tried to open up and integrate themselves into the global economy, e.g. by suggestion to join the NATO (for more stability and less spending on the military) and to join the EU (for better integration into the European markets). The Western nations said no to both suggestions. This is where the wars began: Georgia, North Kaukasus, Ukraine and now Syria.
My two cents: it was a huge bullshit made by the USA to 1) fuck the ex Soviet republics after the collapse in 91 - and yes, they had the option for a Marshall plan 2, and 2) to not integrate Russia into the Western military and economy. Shit for Russia, shit for the EU, shit for the US, shit for the global economy. Thanks again, USA.
Recovery wouldn't happen immediately but there are a lot of towns and cities with shuttered factories, particularly in the Rust Belt and the Northeast which I could see revitalized. Increased manufacturing would vastly increase the economic diversity of the country, instead of a situation where most jobs that pay a living wage are concentrated in few cities and few industries. A diverse economy would vastly improve the housing situation, since there is abundant land and housing in the middle of the country. It would also do wonders for halting Climate Change, since the US has much cleaner power, transportation, and emissions regulations.
I grew up in poverty and I'd rather go back to poverty than live under a dystopian surveillance dictatorship.
I imagine if 1989 was a turning moment for Democracy in China.
Fun fact: advanced Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners travel from China to Japan to learn. Japan preserved records of the TCM knowledge that China destroyed during the great leap.
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00F8MIJMQ/geneexpre...
Too bad the great leap didn't totally destroy it.
Preserving historical knowledge is not the same as perpetuating it or believing it's effective. Keeping a record of what societies did what is extremely important, regardless of whether it worked. If nothing else, so that a particular failed avenue of research isn't pursued again.
Unfortunately there are too many people on earth who have been trapped in poverty for far too long, they will gladly to be like China.
The more salient question, though, is whether you'd rather go back to poverty than live in Singapore?
I am of a boring old school of thought that thinks democracy is a pretty cool system and that it should be preserved.
I really hope the Chinese political system collapses at one point. However we should not underestimate the reputation that has a system that tripled the average wage in the last 10 years.
Also I would not trust Bloomberg much outside their field of expertise.
Like authatorian dictatorships are now super hip? :D
For one, China has been the #1 economic power in the world longer than any other country.
Second, they do not spread their views unlike the Western world. How many interventions the US committed in the last 70 years with the approval of the UN? This is exactly the difference between China vs the Western world. They do not force their views on you. This is why they are much more successful in Africa than any Western country ever will be. It is spelled out in the documentary "The Chinese are coming".
I'm not sure if with "unlike" you imply that they [China] doesn't do it at all, or not as much as others [US].
In the first case, the argument is wrong. China is using economical leverage to impose its political agenda. See, for example: https://sentinel.tw/norway-one-china-policy.
I guess this is what you are referring to. It is called diplomacy. You apply diplomatic pressure on the other party until you reach a resolution. In this case Norway ok with One China.
On the other end there is the rule of petro dollar and the US military in case you do not understand that you cannot question it. List of countries severely impacted[1]: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Russia
This is what I meant by the differences between the Western world vs China. Maybe I was too vague.
Here is the complete list of countries where the US committed some sort of intervention[2]. This includes shooting down airliner, invading countries without declaring war, financially supporting terrorist, supporting terrorists with arms, and so on.
This is what I see the fundamental difference between China and the Western world (more specifically USA), Chinese are not trying to overthrow any government or support any terrorists, they want to do business. As somebody put it nicely: "China's business is business, USA's business is war"
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_warfare
2. https://www.globalpolicy.org/us-westward-expansion/26024-us-...
China is hardly that successful in Africa yet, it just publicized the success it has had greatly and ignores all the riots and failed funding situations completely.
Western nations have plenty of authoritarianism already. It's just more insidious and under the surface. For example, here in the UK there are CCTV cameras everywhere[1]. They're all linked up so the police can remotely follow citizens around towns, along roads, down motorways, etc. Every bus and train has CCTV on it. Every shop has cameras. People are encouraged to have them in their houses. Whenever there are police documentaries on television they always have CCTV footage of crimes.
We pretend that we're a free liberal democracy, but we're not really. I suspect the same is true for most first world countries.
[1] I live in a small city in the North East of the UK - here's a portion of our traffic cameras https://api.newcastle.urbanobservatory.ac.uk/camera/
True
> They're all linked up so the police can remotely follow citizens around towns, along roads, down motorways, etc.
Not true. The police need to ask individually every time they want CCTV footage from private businesses or get a warrant. They do not have convenient access to all CCTV.
> Every bus and train has CCTV on it. Every shop has cameras. People are encouraged to have them in their houses. Whenever there are police documentaries on television they always have CCTV footage of crimes.
And police documentaries don’t show the ones where they don’t have footage or where the criminals got away. If the UK was truly a panopticon there’s be far less crime. I’m not sure what their clearance rate is but people get away with murder in London so I doubt the average mugger has too much to fear from CCTV.
Not sure if you are claiming this, but this does not mean that surveillance is not rampant. You need more than CCTVs for criminals to fear them. Sometimes you do not even need CCTVs for criminals to fear the state.
The UK's pervasive mass surveillance is definitely bad, but you can, for example, campaign and vote against them, right? Do you feel like pervasive CCTV limits who you can vote for or what books you can read? That's not a strawman, that's literally what it's like in China right now.
I wonder, can you really do that, and with ANY effect (leaning towards your goals)?
Yes, of course there is plenty of other sources of authoritarianism. What does it have to do with the fact that China is promoting a pretty horrible system of it?
At least in UK and USA is it legal to be against those.
The Bobbies in downtown London won't haul you off for having a sign that shows the Queen as a Whinny the Poo character.
China doesn't even have free migration within their own country and is actively running concentration camps against their own citizens (Uyghurs).
Forgive me for doubting this.
It will lead to an internal crash in China, but this won't cause the whole world to crash. There will be a slowdown at worst. Taiwan and Vietnam will likely take up a lot of the slack.
I'm curious that HN is full of articles and comments that uglify China. Many Chinese developer read HN to learn and integrate into the world. Now I think Chinese understand the world more than the world understand China.
By the way, isn't this off-topic according to HN guidelines?
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The west has a biased perspective on this issue, but the idea of democracy is not innate to vast majority of the world