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Arglebargle III posted:So is that why the British elite fellate China at every opportunity? Seriously, the China-will-rule-the-world rhetoric is much more inflated on younz end of the pond. My impression is that it's a kind of sour grapes reaction to the Americans being the world power.
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Aug 22, 2015 01:32
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Arglebargle III posted:So is that why the British elite fellate China at every opportunity? Seriously, the China-will-rule-the-world rhetoric is much more inflated on younz end of the pond. I discovered last week that they're going to have Martin loving Jacques lecturing on China next academic year so I don't think they're even being subtle about it any more. Interest in Chinese politics among undergrads has collapsed though for whatever reason -- when I took the course there were about 40 people, last year it was in single digits -- so we'll see if it actually makes a difference.
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Aug 22, 2015 01:44
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Oh Christ is that the civilization-state guy? His TErD talk was hard to watch. Surely the editor of Marxism Today is an unbiased observer. I seem to recall his whole schtick was the same old tired orientalism and mysticism, and gosh isn't it lucky that we have Martin Jacques here to explain it all because it's so different and foreign. Better buy his book because we just can't understand the mysterious orient without giving Martin Jacques money. edit: wow his blog unironically reposts People's Daily editorials Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Aug 22, 2015 |
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Aug 22, 2015 01:59
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Ceciltron posted:My impression is that it's a kind of sour grapes reaction to the Americans being the world power. I think Brits are sorely mistaken if they think they are going to get a better deal with China as a world leader.
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Aug 22, 2015 02:28
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Vladimir Putin posted:I think Brits are sorely mistaken if they think they are going to get a better deal with China as a world leader. It seems like many of the people that champion China's rise know that. They don't really care who the superpowers are. Deep down they are upset about being bossed around by their former colony and still have a power hangover from the collapse of their empire. Somewhat like Russia's current inferiority complex.
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Aug 22, 2015 02:47
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Which is a moot point because the Chinese aren't going to overtake the US in any meaningful metric this century, it's looking mathematically and demographically impossible without intervention from some sort of sorcerer or galactic empire.
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Aug 22, 2015 03:57
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My dumb question, China's been growing ridiculously rapidly. Whatever the official numbers, the state of the country proves that well enough. So let's say it's been over 10% since Deng's reforms and it slows down to 2%. What's the big deal? 2% is a pretty good normal growth rate for a country. I get why zero or negative would be bad but I don't get what would be so bad about normal growth instead of insane growth. I know a lot of CCP legitimacy is their promise to make people's lives better, but that would still be true as long as the economy is not negative. I do not at all buy that people would be rising up if growth was just normal, the average person here is way too nationalist and pro-CCP for that.
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Aug 22, 2015 04:34
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All revolutions are impossible until they are inevitable. What makes 2% growth terrifying for China is that it will highlight the massive amount of corruption and inequality in their economy. The CCP can't stand scrutiny in these areas and has no willingness to make meaningful reform. It needs rapid growth because that way, even with all the inefficiencies, people can still improve their quality of life. As we can see, that's becoming more unsustainable.
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Aug 22, 2015 04:43
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Grand Fromage posted:My dumb question, China's been growing ridiculously rapidly. Whatever the official numbers, the state of the country proves that well enough. So let's say it's been over 10% since Deng's reforms and it slows down to 2%. What's the big deal? 2% is a pretty good normal growth rate for a country. I get why zero or negative would be bad but I don't get what would be so bad about normal growth instead of insane growth. I know a lot of CCP legitimacy is their promise to make people's lives better, but that would still be true as long as the economy is not negative. I do not at all buy that people would be rising up if growth was just normal, the average person here is way too nationalist and pro-CCP for that. Part of it is a lot of people (inside and outside of the country) have been banking on that growth continuing. If you're building 40 widgets assuming that 40 widgets are needed to make the 80 whatsits needed for the 30 thingies that'll be used by the doohickey corp to make goods meant to be consumed by the Chinese market, well, no you're SoL, since the economy doesn't actually support that many doohickeys. Meanwhile everyone who invested in your company (and, indeed, in any company along that chain) expecting returns this big are only going to make returns that big. And that can be big. Lying about economic statistics is bad because somewhere somehow meat meets the metal and the whole mixed metaphor collapses like a house of called bluffs.
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Aug 22, 2015 04:43
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For the record I don't think the GDP growth stat itself is wildly exaggerated, though it's probably overstated -- a few people I've spoken to think the Chinese economy is literally in recession but I can't see that being the case. There are a number of problems with slow growth in China: most economists agree that China needs slower growth, but it mustn't become too slow too quickly. One obvious issue is that there's a great deal of debt circulating round the Chinese economy which will become very problematic if the economy slows precipitously -- private enterprises and local governments won't be making the returns they need and they'll go into default. e: ^ pretty much what JJ says
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Aug 22, 2015 04:47
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Zohar posted:For the record I don't think the GDP growth stat itself is wildly exaggerated, though it's probably overstated -- a few people I've spoken to think the Chinese economy is literally in recession but I can't see that being the case. Yeah, I agree. I don't buy that China is in recession, we'd be seeing a lot more signs of a slowdown if that were the case.
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Aug 22, 2015 04:50
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There's a great post today on ftalphaville about how employment figures in China are even more bogus than gdp figures. In a nutshell, the politburo is terrified of instability and masses of unemployed migrant workers are a sure fire combination for chaos, so it's not particularly enthusiastic about broadcasting any news about mounting job losses. I'll link it when my flight lands.
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Aug 22, 2015 04:55
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2% growth is not good for a developing economy.
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Aug 22, 2015 04:56
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the JJ posted:Lying about economic statistics is bad because somewhere somehow meat meets the metal and the whole mixed metaphor collapses like a house of called bluffs. Makes sense, thanks. On employment, everything here is wildly overstaffed and I've always suspected that's a government thing to raise the employment numbers. They do the same thing in Korea and I think Japan does too? Like you go to the grocery store and there's literally two or three employees hanging out in every aisle doing nothing. There must be hundreds of people working there and 80% of them don't seem to have anything to do except get in the way and occasionally annoy you about what brand of detergent you're buying.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:00
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Grand Fromage posted:My dumb question, China's been growing ridiculously rapidly. Whatever the official numbers, the state of the country proves that well enough. So let's say it's been over 10% since Deng's reforms and it slows down to 2%. What's the big deal? 2% is a pretty good normal growth rate for a country. I get why zero or negative would be bad but I don't get what would be so bad about normal growth instead of insane growth. I know a lot of CCP legitimacy is their promise to make people's lives better, but that would still be true as long as the economy is not negative. I do not at all buy that people would be rising up if growth was just normal, the average person here is way too nationalist and pro-CCP for that. Not really no. Poorer countries are supposed to grow faster than wealthy ones, and even the US did close to 5% per year in the 90s and hasn't really dipped below 2.5% since outside of the 2008 crash. China is an order of magnitude poorer than the US and if they can't even manage those numbers something is horribly wrong with their economy. Given China's nominal level of development I'm pretty sure 7% is the appropriate number, which is why it's what the CCP is saying 1 or 2% is like Japan style life support growth icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Aug 22, 2015 |
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Aug 22, 2015 05:10
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Grand Fromage posted:Makes sense, thanks. Aren't some of those people being paid by the detergent companies to steer you towards their companies product? Which, to be fair, is a pretty straight forward way to REALLY reach that target market. https://hbr.org/2010/08/chinas-in-store-wars The fourth one in the article. This is just what I pulled up googling, I'll see if I can find a more current/in depth look at the phenomenon.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:11
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Yeah for sure some are. A lot are just standing around doing literally nothing though.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:13
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Grand Fromage posted:My dumb question, China's been growing ridiculously rapidly. Whatever the official numbers, the state of the country proves that well enough. So let's say it's been over 10% since Deng's reforms and it slows down to 2%. What's the big deal? 2% is a pretty good normal growth rate for a country. I get why zero or negative would be bad but I don't get what would be so bad about normal growth instead of insane growth. I know a lot of CCP legitimacy is their promise to make people's lives better, but that would still be true as long as the economy is not negative. I do not at all buy that people would be rising up if growth was just normal, the average person here is way too nationalist and pro-CCP for that. But if 10% of the population captures 60% of the growth, 3% growth is a big problem for the most-of-the-people economy growing at 1%. With 7% GDP growth the laobaixing might not be happy but they're still getting ~3% growth.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:20
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Arglebargle III posted:But if 10% of the population captures 60% of the growth, 3% growth is a big problem for the most-of-the-people economy growing at 1%. With 7% GDP growth the laobaixing might not be happy but they're still getting ~3% growth. Wasn't this basically the phenomenon looked at by Piketty in that book last year that caused all that drama?
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Aug 22, 2015 05:31
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icantfindaname posted:Not really no. Poorer countries are supposed to grow faster than wealthy ones, and even the US did close to 5% per year in the 90s and hasn't really dipped below 2.5% since outside of the 2008 crash. China is an order of magnitude poorer than the US and if they can't even manage those numbers something is horribly wrong with their economy. Given China's nominal level of development I'm pretty sure 7% is the appropriate number, which is why it's what the CCP is saying I was just pulling example numbers out of my rear end but this is good to know. But it makes sense that people made plans based on extreme growth and that growth slowing fucks up the plans. I guess it'd be less of a problem if the whole country were developed but while living in a big city like I do is more or less the same as being in any city anywhere, rural China is still nightmarishly poor. And there are plenty of super poor people in the city too.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:32
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Grand Fromage posted:
This is pretty standard for, well any nation but especially developing nations. The only really terrible part is that China's (sort of) artificially limiting migration to urban areas via the hukou, although letting hundreds of millions of people migrate also has its downsides (see: India). The good news is that they are urbanizing at a decent pace.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:35
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Grand Fromage posted:I was just pulling example numbers out of my rear end but this is good to know. But it makes sense that people made plans based on extreme growth and that growth slowing fucks up the plans. I have read some interesting articles about rural China. I'm not sure how far things have changed, since they were written from about four to nine years ago, but apparently the production system in rural areas is much more overtly coercive and exploitative. There are very high levels of taxation and food production is accomplished according to planned targets set and enforced by local CCP cadres, with the intent of ensuring that the cities are fed properly and at a favourable price. Hu Jintao announced a rural reform plan in, I want to say 2006, but not much actually ended up changing on the ground, apparently.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:39
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computer parts posted:This is pretty standard for, well any nation but especially developing nations. China's difference is extreme though. A place like Shanghai is basically like any wealthy first world city but rural Gansu is like the Middle Ages. There are people who haven't even heard of electricity.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:42
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computer parts posted:This is pretty standard for, well any nation but especially developing nations. Poor people in developed countries are substantially better off than poor people in developing nations if simply because developed countries tend to have some form of social security. Which China could theoretically provide of course but that means less money for bribes and battleships and lol if you think an unaccountable government is ever going to give those up.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:44
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Grand Fromage posted:China's difference is extreme though. A place like Shanghai is basically like any wealthy first world city but rural Gansu is like the Middle Ages. There are people who haven't even heard of electricity. Remember that it took a New Deal program for much of the South to get electricity.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:48
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computer parts posted:Remember that it took a New Deal program for much of the South to get electricity. Yes but that was 80 years ago. The US was much less developed then.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:53
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the JJ posted:Wasn't this basically the phenomenon looked at by Piketty in that book last year that caused all that drama? It was part of it, yes. VideoTapir fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Aug 22, 2015 |
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Aug 22, 2015 05:53
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Grand Fromage posted:There are people who haven't even heard of electricity. Is this hyperbole or is it literally true?
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Aug 22, 2015 05:56
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VideoTapir posted:Is this hyperbole or is it literally true? There's a Facebook page called Humans of New York that posts pictures of people in NYC and they've been doing this event called "Humans of Pakistan", which as you can guess is pictures of people in Pakistan. Usually not city dwellers either, but lots of rural folk out in the mountains. A lot of them have stories like seeing an airplane fly by and literally not know what it is, or not even picturing what the world was like outside of their mountain valley. So yeah, I could see it be possible for China. e: here's the post I was thinking of specifically quote:"There were no paved roads here when I was a boy. We had to walk for 3 days to get to places that only take 2 hours now. There was never any money for school. We had no wealth or property. Beginning at six years old, I cleaned dishes at a restaurant until 9 pm. Then I would go to sleep and start again. All my money went to my parents. I'd hear stories about cities and airplanes, but they seemed like fairy tales. I'd dream of visiting these places, but before I could get too far, I'd be hungry again. So I grew up thinking that the entire world was like our valley. I thought all children lived like me. Then one day when I turned 16, I had the opportunity to visit to the city of Gilgit. I couldn't believe it. I saw a boy eating at a restaurant with his father. He was my age. He was wearing a school uniform. I broke down in tears." computer parts fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Aug 22, 2015 |
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Aug 22, 2015 05:59
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VideoTapir posted:Is this hyperbole or is it literally true? I can't attest to it personally but I've read it a few times. There are poor isolated parts of China that have basically no interaction with the outside world at all still.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:59
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There have always been apocryphal stories of Eastern European mountain villages that think the USSR still exists, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Habsburgs. If there isn't a concerted effort to make basic infrastructure universally available it's kind of easy to end up with a few remote pockets of almost medieval subsistence living.
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Aug 22, 2015 06:15
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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...7354256/?no-ist
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Aug 22, 2015 06:23
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Ceciltron posted:My impression is that it's a kind of sour grapes reaction to the Americans being the world power. Whilst there might still be a few fantastically crusty old aristocracy types lodged up the arse of Westminister who hold some longing for the Empiyuh and resent the colonials their uppity successes, expanding that to UK diplomatic strategy or even general demeanor is loving nuts. Like, looney-tunes dumb. If we're some of the first to talk about how smashing China are and how they're just the best people and will certainly be ruling the world any day now it'll be coming from concerns about our own insignificance, and a desire not to annoy the next big dog, not some grudge against the US. The UK is, in relative terms, less powerful and relevant now than we have been since Napoleon, and we have something of a rocky history with China. On the off chance they do inherit the world we'd rather not be in their crosshairs.
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Aug 22, 2015 15:54
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the JJ posted:Lying about economic statistics is bad because somewhere somehow meat meets the metal and the whole mixed metaphor collapses like a house of called bluffs. That plus 2% growth is only fine as long as the growth is distributed evenly across both regions and social strata. This being China there's no way that's happening, so 2% growth is pretty much guaranteed to mean negative growth in certain areas. Zeroisanumber posted:Yeah, I agree. I don't buy that China is in recession, we'd be seeing a lot more signs of a slowdown if that were the case. For example? Bearing in mind the most common metrics (employment, exports etc.) are probably just as dubious as the GDP figures.
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Aug 22, 2015 15:56
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Another chemical plant just exploded in Zibo, Shandong. Reportedly near a residential area, though no casualties reported yet.
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Aug 22, 2015 16:03
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Fargo Fukes posted:a few fantastically crusty old aristocracy types lodged up the arse of Westminister who hold some longing for the Empiyuh For the truly crusty that would be Empaah
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Aug 22, 2015 16:11
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computer parts posted:Another chemical plant just exploded in Zibo, Shandong. Reportedly near a residential area, though no casualties reported yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cyeIoEzzO4
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Aug 22, 2015 16:50
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Fargo Fukes posted:The UK is, in relative terms, less powerful and relevant now than we have been since Napoleon, and we have something of a rocky history with China. On the off chance they do inherit the world we'd rather not be in their crosshairs. I'd like to add that the UK also has a more involved history with China than most other Western nations, what with having a few historical wars and treaties and the like. There was a lot of ink spilled on both sides regarding Hong Kong and the Foreign Office has never been overly shy about keeping China happy wrt Hong Kong (one of the big reasons democratic reforms were never made was China threatened to invade and take the island if Britain looked like they were going to put in a functioning democractic system because it would have made reclaiming the place probably a massive pain). It also shouldn't be underestimated how much UK government policy is influenced by London's economic concerns and between how much money Chinese businessmen and tourists spend in the place and how much money the City has tied up in China, it has a big impact. On a much more pop-psychology personal belief note, I think Britain seems to be a bit more susceptible to Chinese talk over unfair treaties and a Century of Humiliation because the UK was leading the way on much of that. So a dose of post Imperial guilt and a fear that the Chinese might actually mean it and be genuinely upset when it comes to Britain.
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Aug 22, 2015 17:05
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MrNemo posted:
And it's not like the US is going to care unless the next 50 years literally become the Fallout universe (pre-War).
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Aug 22, 2015 17:06
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https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3115517 Time to divest you'reself of Apple stocks.
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Aug 22, 2015 18:48
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