lollontee posted:

no, i think its great, as i do not feel any sympathy towards people like jack ma. i am however concerned that the people going after him seem to be associated with other cliques exactly like his, like jack ma be representing how the business of party matter is just going to be done from now on

quote:

because periods of rapid economic growth never last. the western world as a whole is on the precipice of the economic disaster narrowly sidestepped in 2008 and 2014, except this time without the deep pockets that so far have saved them from the apocalypse. a/the major part of the chinese consumer base is about to fall on hard times, and thats going to have consequences for the class demands of those parts of chinese society that have so far been the beneficiaries of satisfying western demand for consumer products. namely, the number of new people entering the work force who can find meaningful, long-term employment is going to fall going forward, and that will create a new, urban proletariat

quote:

Many internet users say the video underscores grassroots workers’ gripes about stress and less-than-ideal working conditions, and uses terms like “laborer” — applied to all kinds of employees, from blue-collar workers and low-level staff to middle managers and top executives — in contexts that seem alternately uplifting, aspirational, and self-deprecating.

“This means more and more people are realizing that the splendor of tall buildings and the glory of companies doesn’t belong to them,” read one post by an online human resources company on Q&A platform Zhihu. “There’s no difference between white-collar workers in office cubicles and blue-collar workers on assembly lines.”

quote:

Policies to boost national and rural consumption

To combat the economic blow of the COVID-19, China has formulated a new development pattern that takes domestic development as the mainstay, with domestic and international development reinforcing each other, also known as "dual circulation."

Under such a pattern, China's economy posits to be dominated by domestic economic circulation and facilitated by circulation between China and the rest of the world.

Since the beginning of this year, China has made efforts to improve the rural consumption environment and accelerate the opening of the rural market by increasing investment in rural areas. A series of measures are helping to tap the consumption potential of the rural market and becoming strong support for expanding domestic demand.

quote:

During the same period, the online retail sales in national poverty-stricken counties increased by 18.8 percent year on year, 11.5 percent higher than the national growth rate. Sales of appliances such as smart TVs, refrigerators, washing machines were popular goods sold in rural areas, with a year-on-year increase of over 60 percent.

mila kunis posted:

Wanted to add that China is currently in a honeymoon period similar to the keynesian period in the west following WW2, where with the task of building productive capacities and rebuilding the (western bloc) world there was enough increase in profits that capitalists could allow the state / labor to take a share. When growth inevitably slowed (the larger an economy is, the harder it obviously is to grow) obviously that couldn't stand anymore without cutting into profit margins and the average rate of return, which led to all the consequent problems in the 70s.

The west had two choices; socialism or neoliberalism and chose the latter. I don't know enough about the mentality of the establishment, governing cliques, and the future leadership that's being groomed in China to know which way they'll go when they'll run into the same problems.

China does seem to want to follow the path of wanting to grow the per capita GDP / purchasing power of their populace and supplant the west as the world's most important consumer market. Which means higher wages relative to profits and I don't see how you do that under capitalism without the similar contradictions that led to neoliberalism, jobs flowing out of the country, and rising costs of living leading extreme debts and rent obligations placed on the population.

The question is whether the CCP has studied this and sees it as something to avoid, or whether they seem themselves, personally, enriched enough by it in the short term to do it anyway.

Bathtub Cheese posted:

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1340223089750097920?s=20

mila kunis posted:

this is going to be china's biggest challenge. there's already pretty big grumbling from urban workers over long hours, commutes, poo poo pay, lack of good opportunities these days and a big push for better welfare and higher wages. funny article on it here: https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006336/young-chinese-bemoan-rat-race-with-tongue-in-cheek-memes

current state policy seems to be going hard on domestic consumption though: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-30/Rural-China-sees-robust-income-and-consumption-growth-UcOtY6qh2M/index.html

I think with increasing domestic consumption they can fulfill job growth targets, the problem as always is that consumption requires higher salaries and that cuts into capitalist profits - same problem the west ran into, we talked about it upthread

Loveshaft posted:

Literally all you do is threadshit and post violent bullshit, and it’s astonishing how both of your accounts aren’t permabanned yet. gently caress off.

Gaupo Guacho posted:

says the tankie who follows me around replying to all of my posts in between caping for genocidal regimes lol. projection much?

mila kunis posted:

...
China does seem to want to follow the path of wanting to grow the per capita GDP / purchasing power of their populace and supplant the west as the world's most important consumer market. Which means higher wages relative to profits and I don't see how you do that under capitalism without the similar contradictions that led to neoliberalism, jobs flowing out of the country, and rising costs of living leading extreme debts and rent obligations placed on the population.

The question is whether the CCP has studied this and sees it as something to avoid, or whether they seem themselves, personally, enriched enough by it in the short term to do it anyway.
...

lollontee posted:

because periods of rapid economic growth never last. the western world as a whole is on the precipice of the economic disaster narrowly sidestepped in 2008 and 2014, except this time without the deep pockets that so far have saved them from the apocalypse. a/the major part of the chinese consumer base is about to fall on hard times, and thats going to have consequences for the class demands of those parts of chinese society that have so far been the beneficiaries of satisfying western demand for consumer products. namely, the number of new people entering the work force who can find meaningful, long-term employment is going to fall going forward, and that will create a new, urban proletariat

stephenthinkpad posted:

It's not that American puritans are inheritedly lazier than East Asians, the reason Americans are lazy nowadays because the capitalist elites systematically move the manufacturing industries out of the country since Reagan. And the petroldollar system needed to continuously send USD put of the country in the form of trade conficit.

Chomskyan posted:

https://twitter.com/nigel_farage/status/1340639648876523520?s=21

Mantis42 posted:

Maximo Roboto posted:

Has anyone in the past decade criticized Foxconn/Hon Hai as sort of Taiwanese colonialist exploitation of mainland Chinese labor? I've never seen that politicized angle mentioned in English media, but if you kinda squint at it it's pretty ironic, at least at the beginning of the 2010s, for a wealthy Taiwanese corporation running industrial sweatshops in the PRC to make iPhones and other electronics for American consumers.

Cao Ni Ma posted:

Nigel is one to talk when the UK is going through super rona right now and their populace is so dumb they are trying to flee the epicenter of it to spread it to other parts.

Anime Schoolgirl posted:

it's gonna be so good when chen weihua goes up against the biden administration

he'll probably be banned outright

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

the ballad of chen weihua. the red detachment of chinese boomer twitter shitposters telling nigel farage to shut the hell up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJaQBjMlhyk

Maximo Roboto posted:

Has anyone in the past decade criticized Foxconn/Hon Hai as sort of Taiwanese colonialist exploitation of mainland Chinese labor? I've never seen that politicized angle mentioned in English media, but if you kinda squint at it it's pretty ironic, at least at the beginning of the 2010s, for a wealthy Taiwanese corporation running industrial sweatshops in the PRC to make iPhones and other electronics for American consumers.

stephenthinkpad posted:

A lot of Taiwanese businessmen operating factories in mainland have pretty fluid loyalty. There was a Israeli diplomat hosted event for the major "Chinese business investors", Terry Guo showed up and acted like he was representing China FDI. I don't know how often he did it but he didn't mind being photographed for it. China really wouldn't give Foxconn a hard time because people like Terry Guo and Tim Cook represent the international capital/WTO interest. Beijing want to present world trade friendly image when she is fighting a trade war with the US.

And I also know that some Taiwanese businessmen pretended they support "1 country 2 systems" when they were in mainland but donated to DPP when they went back to Taiwan. Just recently Beijing is talking about making a "black list" for the major Taiwan independence supporters.

Antonymous posted:

it's funny that the litmus test on if china 'experts' (people who report on it or write books on it are acting as experts) might have ulterior motives is if they can speak chinese which is such an insanely low bar lmao

my russian buddy would get so pissed if you brought up that the experts on russian history who are cited most often are all brits and americans some of whom don't speak russian

white power is insane

Antonymous posted:

it's funny that the litmus test on if china 'experts' (people who report on it or write books on it are acting as experts) might have ulterior motives is if they can speak chinese which is such an insanely low bar lmao

my russian buddy would get so pissed if you brought up that the experts on russian history who are cited most often are all brits and americans some of whom don't speak russian

white power is insane

Top City Homo posted:

I read Russian history in Russian and the difference night and day.

its the difference between reading 2nd hand summary and a detailed novel.

mila kunis posted:

kotkin is very anti-russian but he actually does the work so if you can stand the bias and read through the lines he's pushing he's very informative.

Ardennes posted:

Eh, sort of yes and no, there are valid points he makes, but he has been caught before using misleading or incorrect statistics (and then threw a tantrum about it) after he published Magnetic Mountain. On the other hand, in his Stalin book, though even he admitted the 1932-1933 famine doesn't seem to have been intentional genocide/peasantcide. Basically, you got to slowly comb through his work and pick out: what is fine, what is unsourced, and what is complete bs. It is hard to recommend him to any sort of layperson.

As for modern Chinese history at this point, it is even harder because there isn't really access to actual archival evidence and there is a reason you get circular citations. Ironically, the best way to study modern Chinese history (particularly from 1949 to the early 1960s) at this point is probably again learning Russian (alongside Mandarin obviously) and clawing through the Soviet archives and see what spills out.

sincx posted:

Taiwan is a pawn in the geopolitical game between China and the US. As a pawn, Taiwan's ability to control its own destiny is limited. I'm not sure there's much Tsai can do to change Taiwan's future, one way or another, regardless of how well she understands mainland politics.

Protagorean posted:

in a stunning reverse-psychology gambit Taiwan recognizes Beijing's sovereignty over them. Xi never sees it coming