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My Imaginary GF posted:In E. Africa, a major importer of Chinese arms, the types of warfare you find are done with machetes, light armored vehicles, and children attacking in waves with heavy machine guns and Chinese kalashnikovs. When Bip Roberts said "war economy" I assumed he meant "war economy" ie. the mass mobilization of national industry towards warfare. Anyone with a moderately sized economy can support that style of proxy warfare if they set their mind on it. When it actually comes to the ability to militarize the economy, GDP per capita is a better measure for domestic production and nominal GDP is a better measure for imported weaponry. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Apr 4, 2015 |
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Apr 4, 2015 21:41
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The Warsaw Pact (Soviet Union, really) was also economically self-sufficient and practiced a command economy.
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Apr 4, 2015 22:01
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My Imaginary GF posted:GDP measurements don't matter. What matters is mampower: can you mobilize 40,000 air force cadets aged 7-16 to charge when you say charge? Chinese war strategizing used to involve using China's sheer bulk against any given enemy (throw people at them because they'll run out of bullets before we run out of people) but then they saw the Gulf War and shat a brick.
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Apr 4, 2015 22:19
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Jumpingmanjim posted:
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Apr 9, 2015 19:09
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:They aren't. The government is currently expecting children to care for their parents in the traditional Chinese fashion. They even passed a law to punish negligent children. Cant see how this would negatively affect economic productivity. No siree bob.
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Apr 10, 2015 02:20
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It's way easier to double down on authoritarian rule in order to keep power than it is to actually create a working social safety net, especially considering the sheer cost of providing it for 1.3 billion people. There's a reason anyone who is able to do so is moving as much of their wealth as possible out of China right now.
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Apr 10, 2015 02:33
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Trammel posted:A 1.4 billion population, dysfunctional Russia. I just hope it keeps it retains the whole "middle-kingdom" focus in that case. They could try to invade Taiwan and fail spectacularly.
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Apr 10, 2015 04:59
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Shifty Pony posted:I had a question about that. Is there an attempt to crack down on this outflow? Is that possible in a country where a bribe can go pretty far? Will we see China start attempting to claw back overseas deposits and investments similarly to how the US has been chasing tax dodging? It's technically illegal in China to move your wealth overseas/individually invest in foreign assets (as far as I'm aware.) One of the reasons the Shanghai and Hong Kong markets are about to blow up is because most investors have no choice but to invest in either property/housing (which is declining) or in the Chinese stock market. If you're rich enough you can grease the right palms and exploit a loophole where you're supposedly just paying a large import fee but in actuality moving most of your wealth and assets offshore, but obviously this is only an option to the kleptocracy. Xi's much vaunted anti-corruption campaign is supposedly starting to target people who do so but it's running into the same problems the rest of his supposed anti-corruption campaign is which is that it's drastically undermining "the way things work" in China and causing a not insignificant amount of damage to the Chinese economic structure which as it turns out was heavily fueled by corruption. And this is if you give Xi the benefit of the doubt and assume he legitimately wants to get rid of corruption and not just get rid of his political enemies.
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Apr 10, 2015 18:21
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It's really striking how you can predict how bullish/bearish someone will be based on whether or not they've actually been to China. People whose job it is to sit in London and look at spreadsheets are always the ones who are predicting China to become the world's dominant economic power whereas people who have actually been to China almost universally say that poo poo is hosed and it's a ticking time bomb.
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Apr 10, 2015 18:37
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quote:Deteriorating economic data has led traders and analysts to speculate that China’s central bank will act to revive growth. "More bad loans to people who can never repay them! Keep piling private debt! Anything to keep the numbers high!"
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Apr 11, 2015 01:40
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A quarter goes further in China than it does in the US because China is still poor as gently caress.quote:So how will China be a successful service economy? Aren't they already? They do it for poo poo pay, but they gotta eat, so hair cutters, prostitutes, passing out ads, whatever, the poor are serving in mass already. Trying to transition to a consumption-based service economy while per-capita GDP is still around $6,000 will cause a severe and long-lasting recession at best, which means kiss the "China Dream" goodbye and also possibly the CCP unless they can double down on their authoritarian rule (which we're already seeing.) There is literally no way out of this for China. Beijing can continue to try and prop up the economy through stimulus but diminishing returns on that have been in play for a couple years now as debt racks up, meaning growth will continue to slow but with the added risk of causing the economy to collapse under the debt. Beijing can step back and let banks and SOE's fail which would send the economy into a tailspin and possibly a depression. Beijing could start nationalizing industries which would cause huge amounts of capital flight and also crush the economy. They can try to do what they're supposedly trying to do now which is switch the economy from being based on exports to consumption, which even if pulled off perfectly would cause economic growth to drop to sub-5% at best, as well as fueling unemployment and probably social unrest since China only has a middle class of roughly 60 million to fuel a consumption based economy. The CCP could voluntarily give up power and China could become a liberal democracy, and I could watch this from my moon base after riding there on my unicorn. I don't envy Beijing policy makers right now.
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Apr 13, 2015 19:34
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Nonsense posted:I do because they're rich as gently caress and steal from a billion people and they worship you for it. On the other hand they have to live in China.
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Apr 13, 2015 19:38
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Also China is heading over a demographic cliff and there is no way to mitigate or change that.
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Apr 13, 2015 19:55
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People talk about how the Chinese and American economies are symbiotic when they aren't. It's more of a case of Americans farming Chinese labour and they'll move on to another farm once it craters.
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Apr 14, 2015 18:14
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/11533317/Three-ways-the-rise-of-Chinas-stock-market-will-change-the-world.html So how come the biggest China bulls tend to be British. I've been scouring the internet for information about this for the past while and whenever I find someone predicting the inevitable ascent of the Chinese to economic dominance of the globe it's 9 times out of 10 a UK publication or a British guy.
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Apr 15, 2015 01:41
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Nintendo Kid posted:Overinflated expectations of the results of Hong Kong being taken over allowing the rest of China to become the same? Maybe, although it goes even beyond that, and even the US state department has noticed and said that the UK in particular seems really eager to accommodate China. The UK breaking rank and joining the AIIB is the largest factor in that particular diplomatic boondoggle (as it was what caused the chain reaction), more than anything that was occurring in China or the US.
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Apr 15, 2015 02:02
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computer parts posted:Problem is you don't have any big farms left (that aren't already being used). Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria are all showing promise from what I understand.
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Apr 15, 2015 03:07
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whatever7 posted:For products that require heavy engineering skills (phones tablets droids electronic toys, cheap walmart appliances etc) there is no replacement for Guangdong, China. Well, there are, just not in the developing world. Robots
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Apr 15, 2015 04:01
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caberham posted:Lots of firms in Southern China are already using robots for production. Foxconn has an automation program to combat rising wages, but robots is not the end all be all of production. Basic parts and components still require cheap engineering, in the mean time GuangDong still remains king. Robots they buy from Japan or the US.
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Apr 15, 2015 04:26
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jim-rogers--absolutely--still-bullish-on-china-despite-slowing-economy--bubbly-stocks-192910998.html How did I not know about this wonderful man until now. 
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Apr 16, 2015 05:22
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asdf32 posted:The west is rich because it has capital and a well educated/trained population. To expand on this, a belief about economics that is often held by the layman is that economic power is a measure of how many tangible things can be made by a given economy in a given period of time for a given cost, when that isn't really the case anymore, at least in post-industrial economies (which we collectively refer to as "The West" nowadays.) This is a result of both overestimating the difficulty of making tangible things and underestimating the difficulty of producing intangible things (capital management, worker and supply management, basically management in general.) Producing the latter requires a well educated and a reasonably wealthy population (these two things, education and personal wealth, tend to feed one another.) The big question is HOW do you produce a population that is wealthy and well educated and what happened in the West that resulted in that where the rest of the world didn't, which is still a hotly debated question. Liberalism and democracy seems to play a big role in creating these conditions simply looking at historical correlation, which is among the main reasons myself and others think that China is hosed. They won't liberalize and democratize as long as the CCP has its lock on power and no authoritarian government has ever escaped the middle-income trap (a situation where a country's economy is stuck in a position where average personal wealth is too high to be considered impoverished but too low to be considered developed.) China seems to be trying to have its cake and eat it too by, for example, sending Chinese youth overseas to Western institutions to be educated, but as it turns out Chinese who excel academically rarely ever return to China, because they simply will not make as much money in China with a PHD as they could in the West, resulting in a brain drain which further exacerbates China's economic problems.
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Apr 20, 2015 00:42
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Continued growth past middle income range without liberalization is without precedent. Sure it isn't impossible in theory but nobody has ever pulled it off and not for lack of trying.
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Apr 20, 2015 01:13
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The so-called "Beijing consensus" is only tempting for countries that are already authoritarian because, again, it's a way to keep everyone pacified ("Look at how much richer we're making you!") without having to give up power. It only can work for so long though before the internal contradictions of such a system begin to unravel the state (Like the Soviet Union) or force substantial liberal reforms (Like South Korea/Taiwan). Capitalism is a boom-bust cycle and I'm not convinced that an authoritarian development model can handle a bust. At least not without soldiers and purges.
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Apr 20, 2015 01:19
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Femur posted:Again, I don't care about historical answers, I would rather a systemic one. Pass me some of that poo poo man. Realpost: if what you're trying to say is that economics and money are basically social constructs and the only things that matter are perception, that's sort of true and not true at the same time. One of the ways you're right is that the perception of, say, stability, matters. One of the reasons the US is so economically pre-eminent is because its perceived as being the most stable major economy in the world. Nobody is going to invade it, you aren't going to have a corrupt rear end in a top hat steal your investment because you can actually fight him in an American court with recognizably legitimate power, the government isn't going to suddenly nationalize your industry and take all your poo poo when it becomes convenient for them. Is that what you're talking about? Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Apr 20, 2015 |
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Apr 20, 2015 01:33
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whatever7 posted:Hence Philippine dropped US's Trans Pacific Partnership and joined China's AIIB bank. They haven't dropped the TPP. Al-Saqr posted:Speaking of Development cash, China is about to invest a whopping 46 BILLION dollar investment into Pakistan, to develop an energy and transportation super highway from the western most part of china, across the entirety of Pakistan and straight to the ocean. Pakistan is a borderline failed state. Can't wait for someone to blow the highway up.
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Apr 20, 2015 05:55
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Ardennes posted:Anyway, someone mentioned that there is no way to reach "higher than middle income status" without liberalization, but that isn't really true. Look at the gulf states as an example to the contrary, they are very wealthy and very unliberal. Admittedly they got this way because of commodities, but commodity exports are what many if not most middle income countries going be relying on in the first place. Exporting natural resources such as petroleum is not the same as exporting manufactured goods, particularly when you also account for the fact that the population of these petrostates are sufficiently low that the immense poverty of the working class is balanced by the insane wealth of the oil barons, and considering them "high income economies" as a consequence is misleading. I didn't say that there is no way to reach high income status without liberalization, I said it was without precedent. You can theoretically sit down and etch out a scenario on paper of an authoritarian high income economy but usually such scenarios are contingent on assuming that the authoritarian regime not only has access to a stupidly high amount of accurate economic data on a day to day basis (or is a petrostate/tax haven) but also that the authoritarian regime is benevolent and selfless and will remain so forever. Both of these are fantasies, particularly the latter.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:23
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whatever7 posted:There are only a handful of countries (mostly in Asia) moved from developing countries to developed countries, historically. Saying "no precedent" doesn't mean anything. Singapore had liberal reforms, just not in the realm of civil rights. And saying that there's no precedent is meaningful because I don't see China as being particularly exceptional with regards to authoritarian countries, as much as they like to trumpet "with Chinese characteristics." I think that most of its success has been due to its massive population rather than anything particular about their political economy.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:41
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whatever7 posted:I don't think it matter that much in this century. If China one day surpass US's GDP in a few decades down the road (big if), China is still a developing country based on per capita number. The whole concept of "developed country" and "developing country" will be thrown out. The narrative will change to "East vs West" to more accurately describe China's global influence. China won't surpass the US in GDP, but even if it did it still wouldn't become "East vs West." China is surrounded by powerful neighbours in a way that America and Europe aren't.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:26
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icantfindaname posted:An authoritarian command economy and its allies take on the US and the other liberal capitalist states on the geopolitical stage, in a sort of 'cold' war - a thing that has never happened before and definitely didn't end in the complete victory of liberalism. Like I honestly don't understand how or why anyone would take the USSR in the Cold War as a good geopolitical model, considering how badly they got beaten. The only explanation is that people think China is simply special and superior and not bound by earthly realities It's Orientalism. There are a poo poo-zillion articles and opinion pieces floating around the internet about how China is special because it had the largest economy in the middle ages and that its geopolitical pre-eminence is certain because of that, and that it also won't have to liberalize because Asians have been conditioned for centuries to obey the emperor. An article that is constantly referring to the PRC by "The Middle Kingdom" is a pretty big red flag in this regard. quote:China isn't an command economy and doesn't offer much of an alternative geopolitical model if that helps. Also, I don't think they are especially that interested in a new Cold War even if so many Americans seem to desperately want one again. They aren't interested in a Cold War because they'd get creamed and the Chinese political establishment is aware of that.
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Apr 20, 2015 18:50
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It'll work this time I'm sure.
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May 10, 2015 19:43
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Basically every article I read saying that it's not THAT big a deal guys is assuming that China being an authoritarian country is a literal panacea to any economic problems.
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May 19, 2015 19:53
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China said they're going to do a thing and therefore they will do a thing. People unironically believe things said by an authoritarian kleptocracy at face value. If China thinks it can keep its economy above the water by convincing other countries to let the Chinese build useless crap that nobody will ever use then they don't seem to understand that people from other countries aren't literal retards who can be awed into passivity by the mighty monuments of the Mao Dynasty.
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May 20, 2015 20:24
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Anosmoman posted:No need to convince countries when you can bribe a few politicians. There's many ways to loot a country but it's a lot less complicated if you throw the local cleptocracy a bone. I'm not even convinced this railway will ever come into being, because it's a lot easier to say you'll do something than to actually do it. It's why Beijing's been talking about their "economic rebalance" for the past 5-6 years and counting while simultaneously continuing to build useless infrastructure. Edit: poo poo, something like 50% or more of the articles that pop up when I skim the internet for China-related articles are some variation of "The Chinese government says they are going to do a thing by 2020, and they will accomplish it by doing another thing they are planning to do." Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 01:27 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 01:24
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It's certainly effective propaganda though. "Look at the ADB and the World Bank, taking forever to determine if a project they're funding will actually be useful. With China and the AIIB we'll build all sorts of stuff for you fast, regardless of how practical it is!"
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May 21, 2015 03:20
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"Going through" is a relative term for the Nicaragua canal because even if it went smoothly (it won't) it won't be completed for decades, and its completion is contingent on the Chinese economy continuing to boom through those decades (it won't) and Nicaragua retaining a government so corrupt that it's willing to sign a document granting a foreign corporation complete control over all public and and private lands surrounding the canal, which is the most probable thing here but still not guaranteed. And even assuming all that goes the way the Chinese want it to it still stands a substantial risk of being the whitest elephant in the Western Hemisphere because Panama is more accessible and more efficient. Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 03:44 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 03:42
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Nintendo Kid posted:The current route is rather slow speed and quite old and circuitous in parts. The new plan is a brand new route that goes much more direct and higher speed, thanks to rail technology and bridge/tunnel stuff improved since the 1940s. Definitely won't see one-sided use too. Nosiree bob.
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May 21, 2015 05:07
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Nintendo Kid posted:Looking it up, the current route used is 4,735 miles and takes about a week. The proposed line would cut the length by nearly 400 miles and reduce it to 2 and a half days. That's average 72 miles an hour versus about 30 miles per hour now. Or you could fly and be there in 7 hours.
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May 21, 2015 05:29
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McDowell posted:Planes might be good for moving a few hundred people around quickly, but rail lines can move lots of cargo with lower emissions. How much cargo is shipped from Beijing to Moscow? I'd wager not enough to cover the costs of this thing, especially with Russia's economy in the shitter.
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May 23, 2015 01:04
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So where's Chinese growth coming from? It's definitely not consumption.
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Jun 8, 2015 06:36
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Cultural Imperial posted:Monetary policy bruh. Lending. That sounds sustainable.
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Jun 8, 2015 06:59
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