http://www.corruptionofrealmoney.com/education.php Will China divorces U.S.? This article is about the relationship between two countries. The relationship as creditor and debtor. Please enjoy . Let's see how this divorce relates to you today.
China just needs to bend the USA over and take its love bonds back the hard (or fun depeding on what you like ) way
I think 7th fleet would strongly disagree with that... I see a lot of China adoration going on on this forum. I personally would rather live under US fake money regime than under fake Communism China. Peace.
Doesn't take much thought or time to extrapolate a future where this is not the case. The US with the world reserve currency can literally print oil and goods, once this is over there will be a lot of head scratching
The Chinese would be stupid to not start moving out of US treasury bonds, but this isnt something they can do overnight. The figures dont lie - America is the biggest recipient of Chinese exports. The US after all is the biggest consumer market in the world. As long as Chinese factories are kept in business by pumping out cheap consumer trinkets, they need the Americans there to keep buying them. What China was/is doing by buying US bonds is to pump money into America to keep the liquidity in the US high - so people can continue to get loans etc and buy Chinese crap. Dumping the bonds enmasse isnt really an option as this would hurt the Chinese as much as the US. We will probably witness a slow withdrawal by the Chinese - they need to develop new markets for their goods and slowly draw down their position in US bonds. While many here seem to relish the thought of China waging an economic war by dumping bonds, the reality is that this is unlikely to happen and for that I personally am glad. Some people just want to watch the world burn....
I think you're overestimating the extent of world burning rather than redistribution (notably of political power and the attendant wealth benefits). Allow the actual Chinese workers to decide whether they want to accept US bonds for their labours and the whole imbalance will sort itself out fairly damn quickly.
Yeah world burning may be a touch sensationalist, but some of the suggestions on how China should react to the US amount to that, even if its not the person express intention. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you see it) Chinese workers aren't in a position to make a decision on their governments relations with the US and wont be for quite some time, if ever. 'The Party' in China is wildly popular, as they have presided over an era of unmatched growth. Again, the figures don't lie... it took countries in Europe and the US over a hundred years to become modern industrial economies, under the communist party China has achieved similar levels of growth in less than half this time. Even in a democratic country, we would be unlikely to go against a political party that had given us double digit growth for decades. I personally say the Chinese are doing a pretty damn good job of becoming the world economic superpower on their own. They may not be moving as quickly as some people would like, but in my opinion they will get there in the end. The projections have China completely dominant in the global economy by 2050, with other developing nations from BRIICS not far behind. We will see a change in the balance of global power within our lifetimes (unless you are already really old ).
I understand and mostly agree with what you're saying. I think you're underestimating the growth that happened in the 1800's and that they had to invent everything from scratch rather than play catchup like the Japanese, Taiwanese, Koreans, Hong Kong etc societies could. If it wasn't for the Chinese Govt, the people would already have matched (or exceeded) what these other countries did 30-40 years ago. Edit: And - as I've posted in the past - I'm actually more pessimistic on the likelihood of a substantial change in the balance of power.
Oh I know that the first countries to industrialise didn't have any kind of 'blue print' as such which is why it took them longer. The countries who industrialised after that had the benefit of the knowledge gained in the 1800's. What governmental system do you think would have better served China? There is no guarantee that the nationalists would have done any better. Mao wasn't great, but they were basically piecing the country back together after 100 years of occupation, war, civil war and humiliation... gotta break some eggs to make an omelette. I also dont think a more democratic form of government could have taken the bold steps that have led to success like the Communist party has in China. In my opinion, China will never be suited to a western style democratic system. Over their thousands of years of history they have never had anything resembling such a system. Instead they have had an emperor/ruling class operating under the 'mandate of heaven'. Now this sounds like they hold complete power, but in reality Confucian principles are clear on this point - if the rulers are not serving the interests of the people, then it is the duty of the people to overthrow them. If we get rid of emperor and mandate of heaven and modernise the language, there is not a stark difference between this and the current system. China has created its own brand of communism that fits within its ingrained Confucian principles. The biggest fear of the party is losing the favour of the people, so they do their utmost to continue economic growth, which is what the people want. Sorry if I am being long winded... and I don't want to be argumentative. I am studying a unit on the Chinese economy for my masters right now and I just have all this stuff bouncing around my head.
^ That ignore free market principles. It was only when China began to embrace free market principles, via the special economic zones, that the economy began to grow. Look at Hong Kong. Many Chinese people there but they certainly aren't into communism. Assuming that all Chinese people are looking for an authoritarian structure is just unthinking propaganda. People are fundamentally the same everywhere just with different levels of education in their society. As China becomes more developed they will move away from ancient superstitions just as other societies have. Of course the Western democratic system itself is proving itself to be very authoritarian and not the bastion of freedom that it claims to be.
Yeah in the late 70's after Mao, they started to go free market in the south. The way they did it was very calculated and slow... and it has clearly worked. I am not specifically saying that communism is whats worked in China, I am saying the Chinese Communist party, which has done very un-communist things has worked brilliantly. No, most people in China arent into communism, they are into their situation improving - the communist party is giving them that. Most of East and South East Asia has systems that are almost Authoritarian.... there is only one real political party in Japan, the party in control of Malaysia hasn't changed in 50 years same same in Singapore... Taiwan only just kicked the KMT out of power after about 50 years. Technically still communism in Vietnam. These are the boom states of the world and they have done it under the direction of authoritarian parties. Have you been to any big city in China recently? There isnt discontent, they are too busy stopping by their local rolex store... the only chance the people will overthrow the communist party is if the party messes up and things go badly. They dont want democracy unless it will bring as much, or more success.
If you want to know what could have happened use Hong Kong as a case study. Tiny island, hardly any natural resources to speak of, huge influx of refugees. In most aspects they had economic freedom (property being a key exception) and they flourished economically. Ditto China (look at province by province). The growth started when individual economic freedoms began not when the centralised power was directing things. In many ways you could say the recent successes happened DESPITE the party.
Hong Kong was in the unique position of being a western style system amongst non western systems... it grew, especially its banking sector, because it was an island of calm in a sea of storms. This is a unique situation which could not have been replicated over the whole of mainland China. If there was not a single powerful ruling party in China post WW2 (either the KMT or CCP) we would have seen the continuation of the civil war that had been going on for decades.... doesnt sound like a good way for continuing economic growth to me. You fail to address the point that even when technically democratic, East Asian countries seem to have thing for strong parties being in control for a long time and for them this seems to have worked well. When Deng Xiaoping began the reform in the late 70's it was a good thing for China, and they reformed province by province to avoid just throwing open the markets and allowing foreign capital to come in to rape and pillage. Hell they only joined the WTO in 2001. Other developing countries in Africa etc have tried the tactic of opening up all at once to free trade and yet they continue to suffer due to economic imperialism. This cautious 'but by bit' approach was prompted because of the need to not move too hard and fast from the Mao line, but in the end it has worked out well - likely even better than just throwing the doors open all at once. China has the largest foreign reserves, the most manufacturing and in not too long will be the largest economy by GDP in the world. They clearly made a lot of good decisions along the way. I would really like to see anyone here do any better. Clearly we wont agree, I am out. I will forward you my next paper if it touches on this particular debate. Once the argument is backed up with cool hard facts and figures it becomes impossible to ignore And if you are interested in this, try reading 'When China Rules The World' by Martin Jacques. The title gives away his main premise, but its not just hyperbole, its well written and academically sound. Peace.
Peace too. Cultural issues that mean people are more willing to commit genocide rather than trade has been a problem in many parts of the world. Whether and how much this applied to China in the past, I have no idea (and only vague interest). I think the fact that Western Liberal Democratic systems have triumphed is a completely separate issue to Hong Kong being in a "Unique" position. The so-called "opening up" and "economic imperialism" in Africa bears absolutely no relationship to Liberal Democracy and is simply pretend economic liberalisation and I am sad that you seem to see no difference and assume that Asian countries "have a thing for strong parties". They are people and people always thrive better under economic and personal liberty without arbitrary laws (or customs) that promote cronyism, corruption and protection of privileges and the only people worried about the "pace of change" are those that benefit from cronyism, corruption and privileges. What the Liberal Democracies have achieved time and time again in single generations due to economic and personal liberty is astounding and China's story is simply rhyming with history but will falter like the Philippines, Argentina, Rhodesia, etc if they don't allow an effective transition of power from the Govt to the people. The distortions within China are massive and a country with such inertia can hide the negative consequences for a long time before they hit their first major recession. But a major recession will happen just as it happened in every other advanced economy in history. How China passes through that will depend on the tightening or loosening of the Govt forces creating the distortions. Based on what (little) I (think I) know about the power brokers in China, I do not hold out as much hope for substantial reform before seeing the US re-embrace it's strengths - particularly given the coming massive demographic shift that China will face in a decade's time. I'll end with "remember Samuelson and how much he praised the model of the USSR juggernaut right up to the point of collapse" (he even backed his stuff up with lots of numbers and "facts") and would caution that the same can easily happen in China (but it will play out substantially differently). For all it's strengths (which are many and varied), China is not a capitalist powerhouse. It exists on the shakiest of financial foundations. As someone I forget said "The Chinese financial system is built on sand running through a Rube Goldberg hourglass." Hopefully you don't need to go rewrite your masters thesis
How has capital raped and pillaged? It looks to me like it has built the country. Of course it does. People want returns on their money. That's why they don't invest in North Korea. You do realise that in mainstream academic circles there has long been a bent towards communism? Also, the vast majority of mainstream academics just, well, plain get things wrong. It wasn't them who foresaw the GFC. You can throw around numbers but what is backing up those numbers? Lots of credit most likely. Pushing down on IR's to create inflation, etc, etc. I'll be happy to revisit this thread in a few years so we can see how fantastically China has done. My money personally is on the people who usually get these things right, the ones with the established record. And they are saying China has problems.
