marianatom

More available produce year round. Cheaper imported food from around the world due to dollar's strength. More diverse cuisines in big cities, with a lot better Asian cuisines (sushi!) in general than France, due to large immigrations.

technically a higher caloric diet is considered "richer" :)

There are walkable US cities, and one can move to NY, Chicago, Boston, Seattle or its outskirts. However, people choose to stay in the suburbs because they can afford it.

lower life expectancy in US in general can be attributed to a more unhealthy diet and less walking, which is on the flip side due to US's economic success - affordance for more food and richer food, as well as affordance for car as transportation. Another attribution is the larger amount of immigrants, which as a segment has lower income level and thus lower life expectancy

Meanwhile, China's factory business have dropped dramatically.

- Tech multinationals are moving out of China fast. Apple is mandating Foxconn to move 50% production lines to India by 2024. And anticipates 50% iPhones out of India bu 2027 https://techwireasia.com/2023/01/india-is-anticipated-to-pro.... Most of the downstream apple supply chains in China have all left for Vietnam. Dell is going to cut all ties to China by 2027 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dell-made-in-china-us-exit. HP and LG is quietly exiting as well. Samsung has already left China a while back.

- China factories are closing left and right, and there's actually a long line of labors going back to countryside to farm, or waiting to go to Vietnam to work. You can see in Chinese citizens videos such as https://www.youtube.com/@ZGQSL https://www.youtube.com/@realchnrecord or English channels like https://www.youtube.com/@chinainsights4458

- According to the office for national statistics in China, for jan/feb of 2023 http://www.ce.cn/xwzx/gnsz/gdxw/202303/27/t20230327_38464161..., car manufacturing profits is down 41%. non-metal products manufacturing profits is down 39%. chemicals manufacturing profits is down 56%. electronics manufacturing profits is down 71%!! In fact, all businesses have dropped 22% in profit. This is supported by empty malls in Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen, as well as 50% collapse in real estate prices in Tier 1 cities.

- There are 7 stories high stacked shipping containers in all major ports in China. https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3210870/c...

You are correct https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/insights/chinas-fdi-decline... shows that FDI is falling in the last 3 years. The increase is with double counting, from Hong Kong investment being counted as FDI.

China’s Foreign Investment Data Distorted by Hong Kong Flows https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-05/china-rou...

1.) Hong Kong money into China is counted by the Chinese government as FDI https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-05/china-rou...

2.) A more thorough report shows that China's inbound FDI has been plummeting

https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/insights/chinas-fdi-decline...

China is seeing falling inbound FDI in all its major sectors, with financial services down 62% between 2019-2022 and electronics down 56%. Which would align with all of the major technology companies pulling out of China in 2022-2023

Tesla is building its next major factory in Mexico https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/business/tesla-mexico-plant/i..., that's how much Elon believes in China.

> If I had to put money on which EV company becomes the next major car company of the world, I would almost certainly bet that it's going to be a Chinese one.

Do you mean WM motor? one of the most promising startup https://www.autonews.com/china/wm-motor-pay-cuts-layoffs-sig... where at least 20 percent of WM Motor’s workforce has been laid off since November?

or Didi/Li auto venture? https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas... which declared bankruptcy?

or Nio, whose stock was as high as $62, now below $10?

or BYD, whose stock has been offloaded by Warren Buffet by 1/3 since august of last year?

or China's car industry as a whole https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics/flash_sales/automoti..., whose production dropped 35% and sales dropped 34% in January 2023?

And why would a Chinese car company not be sanctioned/outlawed relating to the CHIP act, or something similar out of Europe?

Export is 20% of China's economy, real estate is another 20-30% of China's economy. That's 50% of the total economy. Based on on the ground estimate (short sale/foreclosure by the court figures), real estate price has collapsed 50%. Based on Hong Kong numbers, export has collapsed 40%. The vicious cycle of collapsing demand -> job losses -> weakening spending -> investments pulling out -> collapsing demand will see no end.

- factories in Southeast Asia that were started shortly after the Trump sanctions in 2017 or covid 2020, that have finally come online

- CHIP act in mid 2022 from Biden that spurred Apple to finally drag its immoral lazy feet

- Russia invasion of Ukraine, and Chinese proclamation of friendship with no limits shortly after

- covid lockdowns in China in early 2022 that shut down factories

- increasing electric rationing every year in China that shut down factories

- Foxconn factory riots

- very loud geopolitical risks that C level execs can no longer pretend not to hear

- can't move money out of China. 'I can't get my money out': Billionaire investor Mark Mobius says China is restricting flows of capital out of the country. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/mark-mobius-...

China's youth unemployment is at 20% end of 2022. https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20221021-i-feel-lik..., a Great Depression type of number. With the recent estimated 80% reduction in factory jobs in 2023, One can assume the unemployment is a lot worse than 20%. If you look at some of the online videos, you will see factories that are now requiring only female workers, workers under 23, etc. You will see 100 people in line for 3-4 positions.

that's for 2022. 2023 numbers will be horrendous, based on the 40% export collapse seen in January 2023.

Hong Kong exports post biggest plunge in 70 years https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/Hong-Kong-exports-post...

Government numbers, enough said.

This is a government that just raised the retirement age from 60 to 65, proclaimed that one can take on a mortgage at age 70 and let the heirs inherit the mortgage, and do not issue passports freely. Where its banks has delayed its customers from paying off mortgage in full, and from withdrawing large amount of cash. Does that sound like a healthy economy?

Again, watch online testimonials from average citizens, and you will see entirely empty malls in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oApzG9ycwkw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBpybdnYVEs

China is in a state of terminal decline and closing off to the world, barring any huge macro trend reversal (CCP loses power)

- Factories are quickly moving out of China. Judging by the recent -40% export collapse from Hong Kong https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/Hong-Kong-exports-post..., where Hong Kong serves as the main hub to transport stuff out of China, at least 40% of factory outputs have moved out of China. A few apple suppliers have confirmed the fact https://fortune.com/2023/02/28/airpods-maker-goertek-apple-s.... Unlike the majority consensus on hacker news that "it's too hard to move out of China", almost half the factories that were in China in 2022 had already left. The factories that left and went to Southeast Asia are mainly from the Guangdong and Shenzhen regions.

- Apple, a China laggard, has finally decided to pull the string and move itself and all its related supply chain out of China. Tesla is building its next big factory in Mexico. Samsung has completely left China. Dell is asking all of its suppliers to move out of China. The list of technology multinationals leaving is increasing day by day. The age of China's hold on technological supply chain is over.

- There's about 80% reduction in retail activities in China, 50% reduction in home prices, and 80% reduction in labor demands. Judging from on the ground testimonials from social media in China, such as https://www.youtube.com/@realchina, https://www.youtube.com/@baixingzhengxiang, https://www.youtube.com/@XMKZG666, https://www.youtube.com/@ZGQSL (need to understand mandarin to view). There are millions of unemployed young men walking the city streets, and millions that have gave up and returned to the country side to farm. There are people with entire savings lost in real estate and small business. It's a very volatile situation.

- China's unwavering decision to be friends with Russia with "no limit" is slow changing into "directly giving military aids". US and EU is threatening sanctions on China for this, something that most on this board would consider impossible a year ago.

The substack was created today, then Russian outlet Sputnik ran the story hours later. Then a hacker news account with pro CCP content submitted this substack.

Why is this rubbish on top of hacker news?

China's current state

- Complete shutdown of all businesses not related to pharmacy or hospital, probably until April 2023. This includes factories. Check out on the ground videos by https://www.youtube.com/@xiaorenwu/videos, you will see completely empty malls, subways, and streets. Not only that, you will note all the anger from normal citizens, which is only really publicly visible this year. EDIT: the shutdown is either mandated by city, or voluntarily by the merchant, since nobody is traveling out to shop in fear of contracting covid.

- Few hundred thousand small and mid size business closures/bankruptcies. China does not provide small business relief like US did, so these closures are permanent.

- 37 million covid infections per day https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-23/china-est..., millions of death per day that overwhelms the morgue. Keep in mind their vaccine is ineffective, and re-infection likely to last throughout 2023

- Market laggards like Apple finally moving out of China, and the rest of manufacturing laggards to follow

- Multinational consumer product companies moving out of China or reducing footprint

- Real estate collapse still unresolved

- Demographics collapse still unresolved

- Total debt still unresolved

- Closer alliance with Russia, and alienation from democratic countries. QUAD, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Europe all are aligning against China and Russia now.

So China's only card it can play is, being as sick as it is for at least a year more, is to be a paper tiger. and threatens with empty promise.

Not sure what you mean. All the current data is painting the picture of companies and factories fleeing China, and moving to US (reshoring, close parity in cost to China in certain states, clean energy act), Mexico (friendshoring, close to consumer), Vietnam (fastest growing, most relocations), India (alternative to Vietnam, huge labor force), Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Eastern Europe...the list goes on and on.

Nothing of the sort; it's due to the worsening condition to run a business in China, namely the abrupt shutdown of electricity to factories, abrupt covid shutdown of factories and loss of output while still needing to pay out wages, and worsening economic conditions. you can see some of that in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPptD2eBgwo. In this video, a factory owner complains of an abrupt and unannounced electricity halt leading to machinery stopping in mid operation, and another factory owner crying that she has paid out 1M in wages after having to take a 3M loan out, and having so much unsold inventory.

related:

Apple begins making the iPhone 14 in India https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/26/apple-starts-manufacturing-t...

Apple may move a quarter of iPhone production to India by 2025 https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-may-move-quarter-ip...

Multiple Supply Chain Risks Accelerate Reshoring, 350,000 jobs in 2022 https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/97116-reshoring-initiati...

and the latest trend: friendshoring https://fortune.com/2022/07/19/what-is-friendshoring-janet-y...

EDIT: China growth to fall behind rest of Asia for first time since 1990. Vietnam is predicted to lead the region with annual growth of 7.2% https://www.ft.com/content/ef425da7-0f94-484a-9f0c-40991be70...

As a parent and someone who have acquaintances in China, I am encouraging many of my Chinese friends to get their kids out of the country right now, and not wait for Xi Jing Ping to declare himself emperor in October and preparing for war against Taiwan in the next 5 years. So their kids aren't ship fodders when China mobilize their citizens to get on ships that will be sank quickly and swiftly by US, Japanese and NATO navies.

That said, there's already a huge migration for many Chinese citizens, especially those from Shanghai, to Singapore and Malaysia this year, since now it's super hard to emigrate to US or Australia or Canada. The rich do see the writing on the wall. or rather, the many buses to the covid concentration camps.

Right so I had similar vein of thoughts years ago when I thought China was in a real estate bubble and did think that the government can just make certain type of investors take the loss and move on. However, that's only if the collapse is only in real estate. What I'm seeing right now with China is a death spiral, namely

bad policies such as zero covid, tech crackdown, or not resolving the root of real estate crisis -> investor (domestic and foreign) loss of confidence -> companies leaving or shut down -> rising unemployment or reduced salary -> debt bubble gets bigger -> bad policies.

This death spiral is enhanced by demographics collapse which is happening now, not 30 or 15 or 10 years ago, as well as nationalistic behaviors that isolates China. Not to mention global inflation and consumer demand collapse.

In my list of things I also didn't mention

* 20% unemployment rate for new grads

* layoffs from big tech companies

* 70% of China's economy is real estate related, which means China will take an even bigger impact from real estate collapse than other countries that have less % of economy in real estate.

* collapse in demand for real estate due to fast aging population

* 20% of built real estate stays empty (not even rented) due to investment vehicles purpose

I was one of those people that thought China would never collapse due to its iron grip on economy and population. But look at recent activities

* Chinese GDP shrinks to 0.4% in Q2 2022. Which is still suspicious because Shanghai economic activities declined -40%, and real estate overall activities dropped -30%

* Massive mortgage boycott. Also public protests against lost deposits and unable to access bank is being aired out in Chinese social media. Also property bond crash spreading

* The 1 billion people data leak has some experts analyzing the data and figuring that the Chinese population is already in decline, and only at 1.2B currently. Which means the population is going to half its size sooner than 2100

* Chinese firms are still selling Russia good its military needs https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-firms-are-selling-russi..., incurring the wraths of normal folks in Europe and other allied countries.

* Zero covid practice still going on, with tons of public discontent. There are videos of the people waiting in line to test in the pouring rain and huge wind!

* Zeihan gaining more popularity, which implies that people do believe that China is crashing. Foreign investors and companies are pulling out in record numbers

* public sector employees taking 30% salary cuts

Makes me think there will be a massive public unrest and Chinese government will likely collapse soon. What do people think?