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Taiwanese desire for unification is really slow, like around 5-8% or lower, so I don't see them being that interested in unification. At the same time, the PRC seems to be contend to play the waiting game and tolerate the ROC pretty much indefinitely. In fact, as internal economic tensions continue to rise the issue of unification will probably be pushed to the far back burner. In addition, the PRC has a ton to lose in economic and diplomatic terms if it actually thought about attacking Taiwan. A the PRC has risen as a regional if not world power, it suddenly has a lot of other issues at stake than just Taiwan. Anyway, cross-strait relations might be one of the least interesting things going on, the real event is that Chinese growth might radically slow this year. However, it is unlikely that prices will decline or even cease to continue inflating. The government has talked about reinflating the property market to keep things moving, but that seems pretty insane at the moment. Japan/South Korea/Taiwan when they were growing they relied on protectionism and the United States as a ready market for their goods. But not only is the PRC bigger than all three of those countries combined, but it's period of expansion has occurred when American consumers have largely gone broke. I think it is fairly likely that the PRC might be stuck in sort of a limbo state, it is half-industrialized with many of the issues of a country undergoing an industrial revolution but is in a world with increasingly more expensive energy and ha a dwindling export market. In addition, within that market they are facing competition from more efficient fully industrialized economies and from more undeveloped countries with lower wages. I don't see them having the same "easy" path to growth like Japan/South Korea had, in fact it might be pretty rocky from here on out.
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Feb 16, 2012 03:39
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BrotherAdso posted:I disagree! While there's no stupid Tom Clancy thriller stuff in the future, cross-strait relations will remain interesting because Taiwan represents a significant source of talent, technology, and contact/capital/investment streams to other Asian nations and the West for nascent companies and government agencies in the PRC. Stronger economic and social ties with Taiwan are not only a PR win for the People's Republic, but they also represent somewhat outsized economic/trade gains, making Strait relations an important area. Taiwan, too, has to delicately balance its policy and politics distance from the mainland while taking maximum advantage of their economic and cultural relationship to keep its own economy afloat. "Interesting" is subjective, I agree it will probably be more of the same but I don't see any major change (unification/indepdence) happening even in the medium term if not longer. At this point it is pretty much agreed that independence is effectively off the table, and I think even the Greens have realized this. It is unfair and probably undemocratic but there is just too much pressure from all sides. That said, I don't see any real "path" to unification either especially since there just isn't any support for it in Taiwan. quote:I agree China is facing a really thorny set of problems when it comes to economic growth and momentum. However, I think you're underestimating the depth of the Party's response plan to these challenges. The PRC is giving a try at implementing a half-dozen major policy initiatives aimed at curbing the impact of export downturns and soften the housing bubble. Now, like everything, they have corruption, bias, and other problems, but they aren't sitting painfully oblivious or crippled by regulatory capture the way the US was before 2008. Ultimately, it is doubtful ANY current government could really keep up growth on the same level China has considering what is happening. Ultimately, they would need massive public work projects EVEN greater than the currently are conducting and considering the very real problems they have been having with their current projects it is something to think about. I don't see any real reason to have faith that the CCP is going to overcome the issues that have developing especially since they are going to be a lighting rod for criticism. Even while things are still "good", people (from a foreign perspective admittedly) seem more and more disgruntled with the standard of living and taken a very "the grass is always greener" look at things. One problem with industrial revolutions is rising expectations, people expect rewards for sacrifice. By and large things have been good enough where at least there is enough improvement that people's anger has been controlled, but a persist drop below double digit gdp growth is going to change that especially since vast regions of China are still impoverished and you got tens of millions of migrant workers looking for jobs.
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Feb 16, 2012 04:48
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Granted, Australia is just now having a very similar crash to 08 and they really don't have any type of excuse. Everyone was saying it was going to happen, but there was no attempt at course correction. That said, I wonder if China's "soft landing" will eventually have to become a "hard landing" due to the fragility of both the global export market and world finances period. Even with a decrease in prices, and plenty of equity wiped out in the stock market, there is still plenty lower to go especially if Europe continues to slide into recession. I guess they could simply turn on all the taps again and then hope for the best, for monetary and (real) energy inflation coupled with stagnant (for China at least) manufacturing growth could very well led to stagflation. Anyway, the situation in Hong Kong is interesting, because Beijing was forced into a somewhat significant course correction because of public opinion. Tang was obviously their man, although Leung is obviously going to keep things relatively as they are. Although, I guess he might be a little more economically to the left of Tang. Maybe, this is how managed democracy will actually function, the elections will be rigged but the government still has to find a way to make people happy and has to find someone at least palatable. It seems they rising economic and consumer expectations on the mainland would eventually led to the same situation at some point, a token opposition would exist but the CCP would still have its ear close to the ground.
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Mar 26, 2012 06:35
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McDowell posted:So maybe there is a big rush to purge the government of Western influence? The Chinese know the writing is on the wall for neoliberal globalism, so there is a push for insulation/isolation. I don't know how possible that is going to be since on a generational level people have grew up with neoliberalism. I mean a younger generation is going to take power pretty soon, then a even younger one after that, is it going to be possible to forget the rest of the world when you grew up in it's economy? In addition, shifting to "emerging markets" is going to be difficult when they are desperately trying to out export China at the same time. I mean I doubt, Russia/India/Brazil/Turkey etc are really interesting in expanding Chinese exports... in fact they are probably desperate to limit Chinese exports as much as possible. There is a very real possibility that the pessimists were right and China from 1990-2011 was caught in an export/industrialization bubble and eventually it is going to have declining returns. In addition, energy costs are going to heavily erode Chinese consumer spending since the price inflation will continue to go up regardless of what happens. Unless, China radically shifts its economy, I don't know how the Chinese are expected to be great consumers when they have to contend with rising energy prices, rising living costs and an inflated housing market with honestly marginal pay.
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Mar 28, 2012 03:56
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Cream_Filling posted:On the other hand, Chinese military cyber-warfare and cyber-espionage is a big, big concern, especially since unlike conventional weapons they have few reservations at deploying it. Ditto for trade wars and "economic warfare." Granted, as China is finding out, their not the only ones who can bear the brunt of economic warfare nor are they immune from financial pressure. The cyber-warfare/espionage thing is also a two way street, they just have more to gain from it at this point in the technical arena. Anyway, I would say that Vietnam and the Philippines are in China's sights more than anyone else and Russia has been arming Vietnam and working with India. The economist article had a real alarmist vibe to be honest, even if they admitted Chinese economic strength at best is going to be an issue 20-25 years from now assuming a constant growth rate. (which isn't going to happen) It honestly kind of bugged me, because it made the same alarmist assumptions the Western press always makes about China. In 2010, they had this X growth rate so if you multiple X x 20 then they conquer the world! Come on, this is 2012 and we are already seeing a reduction in Chinese growth due to various bubbles and commodity pressure. Chinese military spending will grow, but the power projection disparity between China and US is absurd. They cite numbers but don't really detail what their talking about, like what a "frigate" means in the PLAN. China certainly is building a navy that can protect their shore, but pretending their going to start aggressive operations in the "first island chain" is just nuts, especially since they are seriously like 5-6 navies already there. I honestly, think the Economist is yearning for the old "scary rising Dragon" period again, since they could suggest Western (primarily America, maybe the UK) nations do all types of crazy poo poo to emulate China. Granted, right now I think they are hoping India crushes the Naxalites so they can have a new country as a capitalist model state.
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Apr 6, 2012 07:10
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The issue is "gradually slowing" gdp growth which honestly isn't specified and almost certainly is in no way accurate. It is alarmist junk, the type of stuff you would see about the Soviets in the 70s/80s.
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Apr 9, 2012 03:32
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ReindeerF posted:I lived through a similar period in America in the 1990s and it was stupid then, too. I mean there were maybe some valid points about international trade and dumping, but mostly it was a bunch of American-made cars with Japanese badges getting destroyed by redneck auto-workers. It didn't get this widespread, though, in property damage terms. There were a lot more staged "come beat up a Japanese car with a sledgehammer!" public events than out of control riots. Yeah, the US navy wasn't playing chicken off the coast of Japan, because they were taking a nap in Yokosuka. Anyway, the Chinese leadership needs something to distract people if export growth continues to drop or even decline. Nothing like a scapegoat and some rocks to fight over to distract people, and since they got tired of pushing Vietnam and the Philippines around it was time to move over to Japan. Pity they do quite a bit of trade with Japan. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 07:16
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Zwabu posted:Seems like a dangerous game. Once the rabble get a taste for being roused, I'd think that's a fire you could have more trouble putting out than you think, and could burn in unpredictable directions. Dangerous for a country that has been trying to navigate a tricky path between economic growth and keeping a tight lid on political control and freedom of expression. Handing a bunch of young men rocks and torches and telling them "go to town" (on these guys, over here) seems like it could blow up in ways that aren't too hard to envision. Hey, I didn't up with this plan or a approve of it, I am just saying they probably have an economic motivation for this thing, not that it was a good idea. Anyway, the emotional ties the Chinese people have to the islands are understandable, so is the fact that the government has openly used them for their own purposes. Personally, I think it is a sign that the Chinese government is becoming more desperate, and I think you're right that controlled protest can lead to uncontrolled protest. Honestly, I don't see Japan gaining much from this particular issue, they own the islands and the government bought them in a effort to stabilize the situation. Obviously, it didn't stabilize things because the Chinese government wants an unstable political situation to keep the protests going. The US almost certainly isn't going to fight a war over this because it is obviously a created event to get people in China worked up at home. The US fights wars in which it can at least theoretically gain something out of them, even if those reasons really aren't in any way honorable. Sure, if China actually started to shoot up some Japanese ships we would get involved (with hesitation) but the Chinese government isn't going to do that because they know wars are bad news for a country reliant on exports and things are bad trade wise already. It is something that "could" happen but at such odds it isn't worth mentioning, talking about or debating. Also, the Fed needing China for q3 is ridiculous, has anyone checked out US bond yields lately? Sounds like something someone picked off of FNC. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 18:39
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So Japan would show the horrors of WW2 won't happen again by handing over some rocks with natural gas under them? Okay.
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Sep 19, 2012 01:59
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Suntory BOSS posted:Because diplomatic protests are the only way a nation can express displeasure? From 1896 to to the 1950s, China was silent about the Japanese building fish-flake factories on their land. From 1946 to the 70s (and possibly later), China was silent about the USAF using Kuba-jima for bombing practice. I think even more confusing didn't come up during the immediate aftermath of ww2. If these islands were so clearly Chinese, why didn't the ROC make a firm demand for their sovereignty right after the war? They probably could have gotten them without question, they were one of the chief victors of the war and had suffered massive causalities. The US had no interest in the islands, and at that point, they were on far warmer with the ROC than Japan. Maybe, they just cared because of the oil/gas deposits found during the 1960s and have built this whole thing up to keep people occupied, and have been heavily abusing memories of Japanese imperialism over an issue that really had nothing to do with addressing imperialism at all. If this was about imperialism, it would have been brought up in 1945 not 1968/1972, even the KMT would have fought for territory that mattered to them. They didn't because they didn't care.
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Sep 19, 2012 08:36
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It is kind of weird when you go to a foreign country and are accepted though. You begin to have your own sort of weird identity crisis, especially when you don't have a family connection with that particular country at all. I guess expats want that feeling they "made it" but to be honest looking the part of an "average joe" isn't terribly exciting. You get reminded in reality your not really that special after all.
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Oct 1, 2012 07:07
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I see it as an outgrowth of going dissent among the populace and the Chinese economy continues to require additional stimulus. Also, the continued crunch as wages don't meet additional costs and what I would assume would be the loss of international and domestic credibility of the government from growing environmental catastrophes such as Beijing's atmosphere on any random day. The saber rattling is getting louder because they need it louder, but I think the leadership is made up of selfish enough plutocrats to know that actual shooting wars with little chance for success aren't going to be great for their bottom line or keeping the public in line. They want a situation they can control and a real war isn't one of those options.
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Jan 24, 2013 07:26
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A big flaming stink posted:I mean, you say that plutocrats know that wars are against their long term interest, but when do they ever act in favor of long term interest if a short term benefit is available? Politicians by their nature pay far more attention to their own survival than that of the country, a shooting war doesn't help them very much there. They know the greatest threat to the gravy-train is the Chinese public getting so incensed that their security forces can't knock them back down and a humiliating defeat to the Japanese over a rock might push the public over the edge. The Chinese government seems to have enough control over the Chinese military to keep them in-line and the public might trash a Toyota dealership but they have no real way of sparking a war. The leadership just needs to sound like the are talking real tough, until people get bored and then will wait a while a bring it up again.
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Jan 24, 2013 19:08
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Ultimately, it is a natural result of competition for space, food, and jobs. In the US it has been traditionally racially divided, in China there is more of a urban/rural, and regional divide. However, the impetus is the same, intense competition causes otherization of outsiders even if you are technically of the "same people." It is going to get worse as distrust within mainland goods grow and prices continue to increase faster than wages. Urban mainlanders will want rural mainlanders kicked out of the cities due to competition, and this will only become contentious when Chinese economy starts to head toward a post-industrial economy. Also, all things considered, wouldn't you be tempted to make a bunch of money off baby formula on the grey market if you were facing intense economic pressure back home? Who knows maybe the central government will ride it out in the future with further crackdowns and saber-ratting, but there is some pretty grim socio-economic pressure developing in China.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:27
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shrike82 posted:I'm not sure if it's purely "competition for space, food, and jobs" when you have mainlanders literally making GBS threads in the streets. If anything that shows the vast disparity between development levels, and therefore eventual economic and social friction.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:47
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The ultimate victor of that incident seems to be Beijing, all things considered.
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Jan 30, 2013 05:05
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Its just opportunism by the Russians, especially since another 1905 is brewing in the background (life in Russia is just getting worse all the time). The Russians would never go to war to support China...they have a lot to lose from a strong China and have purposely been restricting their most advanced naval and aerospace tech from them. In addition, they have been building ships for Vietnam. Think of it as a quick jerkish sucker-punch that is a easy sell to their population, Japan is not very popular with the Russian public even today. China is still desperately looking for something that will distract the public from the mass robbery and dysfunction that is taking place.
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Feb 8, 2013 01:55
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Dr. Witherbone posted:Completely off topic, but is there a thread about this or somewhere I could go to learn more about life in Russia? I'm really interested to just what exactly Russian society is like, now that we're 22 years out from the fall of the Soviet Union. It would be interesting but I don't know if there are enough people to make it workable. Interesting things are happening in Russia, but I get a feeling that at least on SA there aren't enough people who live in Russia to make it worth while.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:38
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mobby_6kl posted:There was a thread in A/T about living in Russia, but I can't find it now for some reason. The OP was a slightly goony programmer from Moscow earning a good salary so it wasn't completely representative of the whole country, but still could be pretty interesting for the non-russian audience. While I'm sure people living in Russia make up a tiny minority of SA, I don't think it's necessarily negligible; you can't really tell where somebody lives by their name/avatar. But if not, it could be an ex-USSR/CIS thread, like there's a Southeast Asia one. I was kind of hoping maybe there would be some Russians (still in Russia) that would be able to get it up and running. Certainly, I think there are some pretty direct parallels between China and Russia, and they are facing many of the same pressures. You can't really group the two countries together, as many people have done, but I think they offer two similar but different examples of the effects of capitalism. I think the baby formula story is still interesting, but has there been any recent action to not only the pollution in Beijing but across China. The English language press is even worse about covering public opinion in China than other relatively "closed" countries.
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Feb 9, 2013 00:03
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whatever7 posted:If you are interested in Putinland, there is a BBC documentary called Russia : A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby Well I was there over the summer, and from what I say there was a very clear edge to Russian Society. It is hard to tell what it what it was like before the 1905 revolution or during the later years of the Wiemar Republic, but it couldn't have been that far off. In general, people are immensely unhappy and looking for someone to blame for their lot, and while pretty much everyone agrees there is no choice but Putin there is still such a deep and bitter sense of resentment. During Russia Day (the independence of Russia from the USSR), no one could give less of a poo poo in St.Petersburg even though it was summer and it was a holiday. I don't know how it would compare to China, I don't think people are to that point yet but Russia as a whole seemed on the edge of becoming real unstable under the right conditions.
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Feb 9, 2013 03:07
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Koramei posted:How true is it that there's a nostalgia for the USSR? I would say fairly broad, it is especially strong among older people (60+) who broadly wish for the good old days. It isn't just empty nostalgia either, for most seniors it is very difficult to make ends meet. For younger people, I think there is still a deep respect for the Soviet Union especially its military accomplishments. During Navy day, there were more Soviet Naval flags being flown than Russian Federation ones. If you held a referendum to bring back the Soviet Union, it would fail but by less of a margin than most Westerns would believe. If the referendum was something like "bring back the social systems of the USSR," I think it would pass. If you spent time there (which I think anyone remotely interested it's history should), you could see why people are so miserable and still long for the past. Most of the former public housing people live in was built after the war and is slowly falling apart, and pretty much everything except cigarettes, bottom-shelf beer and the worse housing available is ridiculously expensive compared to wages. There is very little way to make it ahead, and very easy to slide to the bottom. Life expectancy, especially for males, is below what would be commonly expected in developed country. A big part of it is that people just drink and smoke themselves to death because that is about their extent of their options in life. The public health system is still technically universal, but the services are so minimal unless your willing to pay it might as well be privatized. (Private clinics are also a big thing.) I could go on but you get the idea. Edit: GDP per capita has always been a terrible way to measure a society, I am sure Russia is doing better than Ukraine and many of the Central Asian states but it is all relative. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 04:08
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So the Chinese AQI only goes to 300 (which is very polluted). I don't know if AQI can be compared equally across countries but at what point would it be unsafe for even young/healthy people to remain in the city?
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Feb 9, 2013 20:29
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karthun posted:151+ is considered to be unhealthy for all groups and 200+ is considered to be an emergency condition. Yeah, but at what point is a relative healthy person laboring to breath without a filtration system? The terms are rather nebulous considering the wide range of cited values (if 200 is emergency, what is 300, 400, 500?). Obviously, they would shut down the factories and close the streets before anything, but if they aren't...it is pretty much up to people to "voluntarily" evacuate? Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 22:35
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Arglebargle III posted:A lot of the weirdness in the Asian markets has to be related to Chinese capital controls right? They've got all sorts of money sloshing around and there's deep distrust of Chinese institutions within China, which I would guess mean that money really wants to flee. I think in particular Macao and Hong Kong have become or have become even more so, a conduit of wealth from the mainland due to their status. Macao is (still) an impressive front for money laundering, and Hong Kong's strong property market makes a compelling investment. That said, I think maybe people from Hong Kong (looking at the Canada thread) also have invested/moved to Vancouver as the Hong Kong market continues to swell, and that many of them simply would rather live in Canada for a multitude of reasons. However, life has been become for difficult for working people in Hong Kong and Vancouver because there isn't enough room to match the amount of demand. Ultimately, there will be a crash at some point, the crisis are too ridiculous for there not to be one but there are significant (even if it is mostly legally defined) restraints to future growth in both cities. That said, Vancouver is an interesting city since in many ways it feels very different than Seattle or Portland, not only the Canadian/British heritage but a very different attitude towards cultural autonomy. I assume the Chinese government could theoretically clamp down, but I doubt they would since so many members of the party are involved and there is a great demand of getting the money out of the country.
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Feb 16, 2013 03:14
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ocrumsprug posted:That dude would have been Tazered to death in a Canadian airport, so now I am beginning to question what sort of police state you guys are running over there. I don't think there would have been the same reaction if the dude was a migrant worker that somehow got a plane ticket then flipped out.
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Feb 26, 2013 07:54
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Anyway, isn't the Singapore system (based on a city contained with a small island) fragmenting anyway? Maybe China requires actually an entirely new system that may require higher wages for bureaucrats but also gets rid of the abuses of state capitalism. I don't really see Singapore as a model for the future all things considered.
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Feb 28, 2013 08:10
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If anything I wish someone produced a flow chart to show all the moving parts in this equation, since national banks, the national government, the local government, developers, the middle class and working poor seem to be all tied together. I wonder how much of construction is fueled by speculation by just the middle class, or the wealthier party-tied elite but ultimately you only get bits and pieces of what is going on in the Western media. If everything collapses who is the ultimate fall guy besides peasants/working poor in this case? In the United States, it was the federal government that had to fail out the big banks. In China, there are national banks who very different but are basically the "commanding heights" of the banking industry? I seem to remember the national banks don't do much direct lending at all, but is it local governments that do it? Besides the economy taking a massive hit (construction is going to stop which means unemployment, and consumer spending is going to go down because the middle class is going to be wrecked), who is going to be absorbing the losses if developers just completely fold? There are going to be titanic losses that have to be passed along somewhere. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 19:40
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Volkerball posted:The government from the sound of things. There were severe protests in reaction to the ruling that each person could only buy one apartment. A bubble of this scale popping might just blow the Arab Spring to the east. Bout that time of year. In this case, I would assume the central government would marshal every resource possible to capitalize new loans since they need more construction to keep economic growth up. While the central government has vast foreign currency reserves, it can't borrow against the Yuan and I don't know if they could honestly use those reserves in a pinch or if they would be enough of a back stop. That leads to one scary option, that the PRC would turn to the IMF and I think we all know how problematic that is.
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Mar 4, 2013 20:07
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Modus Operandi posted:The severity of the bubble must be significant because there's a lot of Chinese fob cash buyers in CA buying 2-3 half million dollar houses at a time and dumping all their relatives here. If they can swing that sort of dough and the upper-middle crust are going out of their way to avoid it by going out of country then there must be little value in Chinese real estate these days. I bet it's sort of like major real estate in Thailand..it's the playground of the very rich who are usually gambling with other people's money buying and flipping over and over again until it all blows up. I do think the banking system in China is well aware of this and they have been trying to keep a lid on the easy liquidity for the past couple of years. I think they have tried, and when things start really slowing down they back off and turn the faucets back on. Obviously, many officials in high positions in China realize that construction has been untenable for a while, but there isn't any way to resolve it easily while keeping growth high. Also, I think there is a real worry of mass default or simply unpaid debts from all these projects that have been passed a long. Granted, I don't know how much it has been split between local governments, state banks and developers but obviously most of the iceberg worth of debt is below the surface somewhere since all these projects had real costs and their current values are only on paper. It is very difficult to predict because the central government's most important object is to keep the show going on as long as humanly possible. That said, Japan tried to do that as well.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:56
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VideoTapir posted:In the United States the working poor were being handed loans like they were candy. I'm not sure that's the case in China, and most of them, if they're buying houses, aren't buying them in the major cities. They won't be the convenient scapegoat for assholes that they were in the US. Granted, the working poor in China ultimately rely on construction and consumer consumption in order to get their meager wages. I guess you could just tell them to move back to the village but an actual deep recession would put a lot of people with not much money out of work. Also, consumer/food prices are always sticky so drastically reduced wages/mass unemployment will be problematic. Ultimately, the People's Bank of China has reserves of 3 trillion, which is a substantial amount of money (even in regards to the extend of the future crisis) but who knows what that actually means. The Chinese banking system seems very opaque and it is difficult to get a hold on exactly how much money is owed and by whom. (If anyone has any info on this, feel free to share). If I had to guess, I think property prices in HK/Macao will probably stay elevated just by virtue of the SARs acting as sort of a grey-market conduit. If a real crisis happens, I suspect there will be a lot of mainland officials that would like to move their assets in a more "secure" location that is also far more open to international finance. I think as long as the Mainland sees Hong Kong (and Macao) as a way to secure their gains, I think it is going to be hard for people who actually live there.
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Mar 5, 2013 04:08
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You can simply take the flat position that interior imperialism against indigenous minorities is something that shouldn't happen. I don't think America as a nation as much of a leg to stand-on, but I don't see Americans as hypocritical for saying both past and current treatments of Native Americans are wrong and China shouldn't colonize Tibet. In the case of the United States, its terrible policy towards Native Americans neatly dovetails with its other horrific policies towards the rest of the population that isn't rich.
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Mar 8, 2013 08:40
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:That's the trap though. Just because Western nations did this before, some worse than others, doesn't make it right. Just because China is late to the game doesn't mean they get a "get out of jail free" card. I think worry over legitimacy and "looking weak" is also critical at stake. The central government senses their position is weak, but the government is too large and the problems are too severe to make real changes. (I am kind of reminded of Tsarist Russia in this case) If you start negotiating fairly with one group...the other groups will start expecting it as well, better to have a firm boot on everyone's necks. It's imperialism, and the government is pragmatically (and cynically) using past application of imperialism by Japan and European powers to justify it. Tibet and Xinjiang are going be successfully colonized unless the situation dramatically destablizes within the next 5-10 years.
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Mar 8, 2013 09:22
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Bloodnose posted:I forgot to turn on my script blocker before going to a Chinese subtitling website, where I was treated to my new favorite banner ad: It would be interesting to see what that game actually is especially since it seems to be happening in a built-up area and the islands are barren rocks.
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Mar 10, 2013 19:47
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To put it in perspective, 5.5 to 29 million are estimated to have died in the Great Indian famine of 1876-78.
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Mar 12, 2013 17:58
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pentyne posted:Except Hoover and FDR didn't make the plains dry up and destroy the midwest. I think Hoover more just sat and watched while it happened.
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Mar 13, 2013 05:25
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Fangz posted:I doubt we will ever get a very accurate value for the death toll. Every estimate we come up with will be built up by a large variety of assumptions, and it seems like everyone who looks into the data does so with their own neuroses. In general, we end up with different figures, by choosing to accept different parts of the CCP statistical records, and ignoring others. Too long has passed to justify this beyond much more than gut instincts. Granted, the issue is that traditionally "capitalism" has been offered as the cure for its prevention which leads us to the situation of today. Right now, millions of people aren't starving and dying (at least outright) but there are plenty of other problematic issues facing Chinese society. Ultimately, the solution is probably something else than the most destructive policies of Mao or authoritarian state capitalism, but we haven't started asking those questions.
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Mar 13, 2013 19:48
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MeramJert posted:How is it even possible to repay a mortgage with a 30% APR? I don't understand why anyone would enter an agreement like that. If the value goes up 35% a year forever then it isn't a problem, right? I guess the honest question is, of the larger "too big to fail" banks, how exposed are they to bad loans?
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Mar 14, 2013 03:39
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MeramJert posted:Well yeah, but the value obviously isn't contractually obligated to go up 35% a year and anyone that thinks it will is insane. Free market capitalism is kind of insane all things considered.
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Mar 14, 2013 03:44
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Modus Operandi posted:If you're a true pessimist then it's a pretty logical investment. China's bubble is more similar to the UAE's and a lot of people saw that one coming too. The first thing that started to free fall after the crash were all the rich gulf arab construction firm/real estate stocks. There is an issuing of timing, you don't necessarily know when it will fall apart. Also, state responses can be fairly difficult to predict. On one hand you have growing ghost cities, on the other hand you an a authoritarian government desperate to keep the charade going.
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Mar 16, 2013 18:54
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 09:01 |
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drat $10 for a gallon of milk is rough, is that representative of food prices as a whole?
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Mar 17, 2013 04:06
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