China - the future

imme

What is the future of China.

Will it keep growing at the rate or a slightly lesser rate than heretofore.

It has decided to invest, (some say exploit Africa), in African countries. Selling technology, making people reliant on China.

How long before it gets involved in conflict on a large scale or is forced into conflict.

Will the Hong Kong climbdown be seen as the evolution of a more wobbly China.

China installs 3/4 of a million elevators every year.

How long before the elevator starts to stall.

Twenty Grand

They really are a great bunch of lads.

50 years ago they were a backwater.

Now they're a world power.

Dravokivich

They dont invest in Africa. They build infrastructure when needed, to take resources from Africa. They even put their own workforce there to do it all.

rossie1977

As someone who has visited China a few times over past few years it's pace of progress is incredible. Vast city underground metros are being built from scratch and completed in a few years.

Your Face

Mao money, Mao problem

_Brian

rossie1977 wrote: »

As someone who has visited China a few times over past few years it's pace of progress is incredible. Vast city underground metros are being built from scratch and completed in a few years.

Same, it’s incredible the progress they are making.

I think their biggest challenge will be when massive growth stalls. How will they deal with that.
They have an insatiable appetite for technology similar to japan so that will continue their growth for a long time.

Wheeliebin30

They are well on their way to world domination.

They have infiltrated every small town in Ireland serving 3 in 1s to paddy biding their time.

Great bunch of lads.

McMurphy

Ever been with a Chinese lady?

Great at doing the auld 69s.

Best beef and broccoli ever.

Dravokivich

rossie1977 wrote: »

As someone who has visited China a few times over past few years it's pace of progress is incredible. Vast city underground metros are being built from scratch and completed in a few years.

Huh? Social credits, isnt all that progressive. Most of those cities they build are left empty.

Twenty Grand

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

They are well on their way to world domination.

They have infiltrated every small town in Ireland serving 3 in 1s to paddy biding their time.

Great bunch of lads.

Ya but we've infiltrated every town in China selling warm Guinness and Tayto

Dravokivich wrote: »

Huh? Social credits, isnt all that progressive. Most of those cities they build are left empty.

Quantify "most" there.

Standard of housing is poor. Some blocks are uninhabitable a few decades after being constructed.

It's a huge stretch to say cities are empty.

4068ac1elhodqr

Dravokivich wrote: »

They dont invest in Africa. They build infrastructure when needed, to take resources from Africa. They even put their own workforce there to do it all.

Infrastructure possibly on the back of loans that cannot be repaid.
So if you cannot pay back x, we'll take y and z instead. [ -5pt SC ]

But a great bunch of lads, the Chinese [ +7pt SC ]

rossie1977

Dravokivich wrote: »

Huh? Social credits, isnt all that progressive. Most of those cities they build are left empty.

We built lots of housing estates and apartments across the country that are left empty and rotting to this day.

I was referring to cities where people live. Chengdu e.g only opened its first metro line in late 2010, in a few years there will be 350km of metro line in that city https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_Metro

Beasty

imme wrote: »

What is the future of China.


China installs 3/4 of a million elevators every year.

The masterplan is to put them on top of each other when they have enough to reach the Moon

It's reckoned another 14 years and they'll all be able to spy on us from their Moon colony

Blueshoe

rossie1977 wrote: »

As someone who has visited China a few times over past few years it's pace of progress is incredible. Vast city underground metros are being built from scratch and completed in a few years.

Yeah they work around the clock and if anyone does they just bury them in the concrete and keep going.

Same thing they do in the like of Dubai

1o059k7ewrqj3n

China's rise is good for multipolarity. Anyway what did the west think was going to happen, sending all its jobs and industry there? That China would just be another Asian country ready to debase itself and its people so the elite could benefit eg Marcos and the Philippines or Suharto and Indonesia?

No doubt the elite (the inner party members of the Chinese Communist Party) have done exceptionally well, but they also have ambitions on a grand strategic scale. Chinese civilizations goes back hundreds if not thousands of years and pumping out cheap runners is not the end game.

knipex

They are facing huge issues. The entire economy and population is addicted to massive continuous growth. There is huge corruption and a vast flight on money out of the country. They are facing a demographic time-bomb which is going to kill their growth. There is a massive debt bubble just begging to explode and significant parts of the infrastructure they have invested in is not fit for purpose and ready to fall down. . Huge 6 lane motorways hundreds of miles long with 2 cars a day and grass growing..

Some of the building and banking practices would make the construction industry in 2006 Ireland look like a model of compliance and restraint

Not to mention the grumblings of the large middle class, the push back in Hong Kong (and other cities) that is going to explode.

I see China exploding and splitting up much like the old USSR did. Just don't ask me for a time frame..

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Dravokivich wrote: »

They dont invest in Africa. They build infrastructure when needed, to take resources from Africa. They even put their own workforce there to do it all.

Er, ok. And this is different from any other foreign investment, how?

Franz Von Peppercorn II

knipex wrote: »

They are facing huge issues. The entire economy and population is addicted to massive continuous growth. There is huge corruption and a vast flight on money out of the country. They are facing a demographic time-bomb which is going to kill their growth. There is a massive debt bubble just begging to explode and significant parts of the infrastructure they have invested in is not fit for purpose and ready to fall down. . Huge 6 lane motorways hundreds of miles long with 2 cars a day and grass growing..

Some of the building and banking practices would make the construction industry in 2006 Ireland look like a model of compliance and restraint

Not to mention the grumblings of the large middle class, the push back in Hong Kong (and other cities) that is going to explode.

I see China exploding and splitting up much like the old USSR did. Just don't ask me for a time frame..

I’d say the US or the EU is more likely to implode.

Ireland should get a piece of that belt and road initiative.

Richard Hillman

Europe hands money over to the 3rd World.
China loans them money and take whatever they need when they can't pay.

China First.

1o059k7ewrqj3n

knipex wrote: »

They are facing huge issues. The entire economy and population is addicted to massive continuous growth. There is huge corruption and a vast flight on money out of the country. They are facing a demographic time-bomb which is going to kill their growth. There is a massive debt bubble just begging to explode and significant parts of the infrastructure they have invested in is not fit for purpose and ready to fall down. . Huge 6 lane motorways hundreds of miles long with 2 cars a day and grass growing..

Some of the building and banking practices would make the construction industry in 2006 Ireland look like a model of compliance and restraint

Not to mention the grumblings of the large middle class, the push back in Hong Kong (and other cities) that is going to explode.

I see China exploding and splitting up much like the old USSR did. Just don't ask me for a time frame..

You could have left China out of your post and the entire thing could easily be attributed to a western country, especially the US. The economy of the US is centered on the idea of continuous growth ever since the departure of Keynesian economics. Infinite growth on a finite planet doesn't seem sustainable.

I'm not a China expert, but the last sentence of your post is quite interesting, as I've seen a few Western think tanks pushing for some kind of strategy that would split China apart. It's probably adopted on some level by the US, as some sort of CIA/NSA grand strategy.

The Chinese aren't going to let that happen. The kind of policies they have in place now which look like Big Brother, how the Han culture is supreme there, the efforts they are taking in Muslim Xinjiang or Tibet. They've seen the dissolution of the USSR and there is no way in hell the CCP will let it happen to China.

Yawlboy

Chinese people are changing, before 996 was the norm - 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Now the young generation want cars and phones and vacations and designer everything but they also are not willing to work 70/80 hours a week for it. The biggest issue that China faces is the same as Japan and thats an aging population. The one child policy has led to a generation of entitled spoilt 20 somethings who have no interest in having kids or at least no more than one. That is going to be the thing that stops the growth.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Europe hands money over to the 3rd World.
China loans them money and take whatever they need when they can't pay.

China First.

The Africans are happy enough with Chinese investment.

Whether you like it or not China is the future. No reason for Europeans to hate that because we are not the US. We don’t dominate the world now and won’t in the future.

The US is Europe’s enemy. Full of angry right wingers who hate Europe and left wingers who despise “Eurocentricism”.

biko

If you had trouble learning Irish at school, wait until you must learn Mandarin.

Dravokivich

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

Er, ok. And this is different from any other foreign investment, how?

Foreign investment would usually invest in local resources locals can use and employ locally too. Chinese investment doesn't do that in Africa. They bring everything over on a needs basis, just to pull what they want.

Dravokivich

Twenty Grand wrote: »

Ya but we've infiltrated every town in China selling warm Guinness and Tayto



Quantify "most" there.

Standard of housing is poor. Some blocks are uninhabitable a few decades after being constructed.

It's a huge stretch to say cities are empty.

I don't have to quantify it. Theres quite a bit about it out there. It's not all that hard to fall onto those topics elsewhere.

https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-gs-rev1&ei=LVYJXbOhO_TB8gKg-6_IBQ&q=chinese+empty+cities&oq=chinese+empty+&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.1.0.0l6j0i22i30l2.31225.34526..36231...0.0..0.146.1671.16j3......0....1.........0i71j35i39j0i20i263j0i131j46j46i10i275j46i10j0i10.yrob_LQHHQs

TheValeyard

Massive progress at the cost of many lives. But what they have achieved is impressive.

Still though, i firmly do not believe China is as united as the Communist government imagery would have you believe. It's a vast landmass with a massive population and many different merging viewpoints.


And because the world does so much trade with them people tend to forget their Muslim concentration camps.

Junkyard Tom

The Chinese have been a great civilisation for millions of years.

archer22

They can do things at a pace and on a scale that is just awesome to watch.
Like a huge 1300 million strong team pulling together.

And contrary to popular belief in the west they actually have a good government (as governments go) ...the Chinese government can plan long term 30 years or so ahead.

Western governments are intrinsically unstable can only plan short term 4 or 5 years ahead and must try and please everybody to get reelected.Plus in a western system you usually get around half or more of the elected politicians doing nothing only trying to undermine the ones who are in power.

screamer

Life be cheap, fear be a great motivator, and a war be a great way to keep de economy going strong, as ould hitler knew well....... red army coming this way when economy hits the fan.

fly_agaric

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

The Chinese have been a great civilisation for millions of years.

I always knew there was something to those "lizard people" conspiracies....the dinosaurs became Chinese!

For Forks Sake

Dravokivich wrote: »

Foreign investment would usually invest in local resources locals can use and employ locally too. Chinese investment doesn't do that in Africa. They bring everything over on a needs basis, just to pull what they want.

It's certainly not being done out of any benevolence, there will come a point in time when they will call in their debts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#Accusations_of_neocolonialism

The Satanist

You’re all right with that, like, because it’s a race of people, and it’s a food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBagN5En-N0

:pac:

theguzman

Trump is destroying them economically, he knows that he had to act now because they couldn't be left get too strong, he is avoiding a shooting war by waging an economic war. Take the enemy out before he gets stronger than you in an ancient tactic. America will eventually deploy Nuclear Weapons against China once they have hypersonic delivery methods perfected and the iron dome to keep out incoming ICBM's from China.

archer22

theguzman wrote: »

Trump is destroying them economically, he knows that he had to act now because they couldn't be left get too strong, he is avoiding a shooting war by waging an economic war. Take the enemy out before he gets stronger than you in an ancient tactic. America will eventually deploy Nuclear Weapons against China once they have hypersonic delivery methods perfected and the iron dome to keep out incoming ICBM's from China.

Trump is doing nothing only destroying America in the long term...its American consumers who are paying his tariffs.
And nobody in the world will ever again trust America because of its bullying sanctions and agreements breaking.
America will never again be viewed as a trustworthy nation.

theguzman

archer22 wrote: »

Trump is doing nothing only destroying America in the long term...its American consumers who are paying his tariffs.
And nobody in the world will ever again trust America because of its bullying sanctions and agreements breaking.
America will never again be viewed as a trustworthy nation.

America does what is in its best interests, everyone knows that? It is not the world police force.

1o059k7ewrqj3n

theguzman wrote: »

Trump is destroying them economically, he knows that he had to act now because they couldn't be left get too strong, he is avoiding a shooting war by waging an economic war. Take the enemy out before he gets stronger than you in an ancient tactic. America will eventually deploy Nuclear Weapons against China once they have hypersonic delivery methods perfected and the iron dome to keep out incoming ICBM's from China.

Iron Dome is not an ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) defence system. The US and NATO lag behind Russia in ABM systems [Russia has A-135, going over to A-235], in fact they don't actually have one. Russia is ahead in hypersonic delivery also, ahead in SAM technology, ahead in ICBM technology. Integrated air defence systems are not the same as ABM systems because of the missile characteristics involved.

Whatever Russia develops will end up being sold, maybe in a lesser level of excellence, to China - Su-27/35s, S-300s and so on. The US and NATO stood still in the late 90's and early 2000's because they thought that all wars would be low intensity insurgency/Iraq style conflicts. China and Russia recognise it wasn't and are ahead in some ways, but maybe behind in others, perhaps many others.

If the US thought that nuking China before it got too big would work, it would have done so already.

Richard Hillman

I remember hearing a story about how they were installing a train system for one of their cities. They put out a tender for European producers, Germans I think, picked one and imported a train over for inspection. When they got the tram, they took the thing apart, piece by piece and documented it. Then they told the producers that they didn't want it.

Little did they know that the went on to rebuild it themselves using the blueprint and didn't pay a penny.

The same applies with all of those factories that are churning out Fake Football Jerseys. They couldn't give a **** about the intellectual properties because they know it brings income into China.


China First.

Twenty Grand

There's a fantastic YouTuber called Serpentza who lives in China and documents the cultural differences.

One of his main points is that, as a foreigner, he will never to equal to a Chinese citizen and will always be treated second class by the authorities. Even if a Chinese man starts a fight, he can't right back because to insult one Chinese person is to insult them all.

archer22

Twenty Grand wrote: »

There's a fantastic YouTuber called Serpentza who lives in China and documents the cultural differences.

One of his main points is that, as a foreigner, he will never to equal to a Chinese citizen and will always be treated second class by the authorities. Even if a Chinese man starts a fight, he can't right back because to insult one Chinese person is to insult them all.

He also has lots of good things to say about China.

ILoveYourVibes

imme wrote: »

What is the future of China.

Will it keep growing at the rate or a slightly lesser rate than heretofore.

It has decided to invest, (some say exploit Africa), in African countries. Selling technology, making people reliant on China.

How long before it gets involved in conflict on a large scale or is forced into conflict.

Will the Hong Kong climbdown be seen as the evolution of a more wobbly China.

China installs 3/4 of a million elevators every year.

How long before the elevator starts to stall.

Life is still really hard for ordinary people there. I have friends from different parts of China. They say normal people struggle to buy food.

Its like the boom lots of people get left behind.

China doesn't like to get involved in conflict though.

But they do have a huge concentration camp right now for muslims.

Twenty Grand

archer22 wrote: »

He also has lots of good things to say about China.

Oh plenty, sure he's living there and is married to a Chinese woman

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Richard Hillman wrote: »

I remember hearing a story about how they were installing a train system for one of their cities. They put out a tender for European producers, Germans I think, picked one and imported a train over for inspection. When they got the tram, they took the thing apart, piece by piece and documented it. Then they told the producers that they didn't want it.

Little did they know that the went on to rebuild it themselves using the blueprint and didn't pay a penny.

The same applies with all of those factories that are churning out Fake Football Jerseys. They couldn't give a **** about the intellectual properties because they know it brings income into China.


China First.

You got a link to the first story.

Btw the US was a copy cat nation for 100 years.

tuxy

archer22 wrote: »

He also has lots of good things to say about China.

He's also a South African who thinks he is British.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Dravokivich wrote: »

Foreign investment would usually invest in local resources locals can use and employ locally too. Chinese investment doesn't do that in Africa. They bring everything over on a needs basis, just to pull what they want.

And yet the Africans seem happy enough.

This article refutes your points.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/three-myths-about-chinas-investment-in-africa-and-why-they-need-to-be-dispelled/

topper75

archer22 wrote: »

They can do things at a pace and on a scale that is just awesome to watch.
Like a huge 1300 million strong team pulling together.

And contrary to popular belief in the west they actually have a good government (as governments go) ...the Chinese government can plan long term 30 years or so ahead.

Western governments are intrinsically unstable can only plan short term 4 or 5 years ahead and must try and please everybody to get reelected.Plus in a western system you usually get around half or more of the elected politicians doing nothing only trying to undermine the ones who are in power.

Could see it the opposite way too though.

The 5-year terms here are a safety valve. Enraged at the crash? Put the other shower in. Repeat the absurd pantomime ad infinitum, but enjoy an underlying civil stability.
No such option in China. Rage and disappointment at a burst debt bubble will go all the way and bring the house down.

knipex

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

I’d say the US or the EU is more likely to implode.

Ireland should get a piece of that belt and road initiative.

Not with anything like the potential catastrophic results.

There is a huge new middle class that have been kept quiet and from pushing from more personal freedom by the promise of more, more and more. The Chinese middle classes have taken consumerism to a whole new level.

At the same time you have millions in virtual indentured servitude, living, working shopping and dieing in a huge compounds.

The level of corruption is in a scale that has to be seen to be believed. There has been some attempt to curb this and admittedly it has met with some success but very very limited. Money is pouring out of the country, feeding casino's and banks of the region. Chinese citizens are buying property, all over the region and in into Europe and the US, they are buying up gold, jade jewellery, art, cars, anything that will turn cash into assets that can be hidden, traded and is necessary liquidated.

China even now is not one bland nation, anyone that travels around china will hear multiple languages, diets, customs, etc. Look under the veneer.

Government owned corporations are drowning in debt, individual stated are drowning in dept, both from downright corruption, incompetence and government prodding to boost the economy during the last recession,

fly_agaric

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

I’d say the US or the EU is more likely to implode.

Ireland should get a piece of that belt and road initiative.

Funny thing is such actions (each EU country chasing after their piece of "free" investment off China - nothing is ever free) will make the EU far more likely to implode in future!
Really should be a sort of common EU policy on relationships with these giants (US, China) in a lot more areas but unfortunately that looks unlikely to happen.

Dick phelan

Currently living in China so will throw in my observations. It's amazing the rate of speed they build things, i'v seen entire metro lines built in only a few months, their technology is surpassing the west in many ways, the phones they make, use of contactless payment etc is ahead of the game. Part of it is motivated by the need to control, for example they invest more in domestic security than any overseas ventures. Secondly i honestly don't see the communist party falling anytime soon, Xi Jinping is probably the most powerful leader they've had since Mao. They have some serious problems tho.

They have a real issue with demographics, an ageing population and not enough young people to take care of them, the one child policy has come back to bite them big time. Also their young people do not want to have many children much the same as western nations, in fact it's quite common to hear people say they want no kids whatsoever. Also for years China could grow at massive human and social, environmental costs, now you have a generation who are used to have a comfortable life, they won't be willing to work crazy hours, put up with terrible air and water pollution etc. Also there is an element of a house of cards going on here, the banking system has some seriously shady practices and a lot of the growth has been built on infrastructure and building, however a lot of the building isn't viable, when you go through the countryside here you'll see tons of dams, massive bridges, multilane highways and the amount of practically empty housing blocks and industrial units you see empty is massive.

The last things against them is the fact that practically everyone hates them, all their neighbors dislike them Japan, India as well as , the US, the EU etc, this means while China may but up barriers to stop Western products in China the same could and has happened on the opposite side. If you think about it how many Chinese brands do people use? Sure it say's made in China on the label but most of the brands are US, German, Japanese etc. For example i had never heard of companies like Taobao or JD before i moved here, yet they are massive in China, however globally everyone uses Amazon for example. They make and sell more cars than anyone yet it's almost all for domestic market and indeed even within China theirs a belief that if you can afford it you should buy the international brand be it with cars, beauty products, clothes etc. They are certainly making serious gains but it's not all as rosy as you might think.

JohnnyFlash

I’d be over that neck of the woods a few times a year. China is in recession at the moment, and is struggling to keep up the momentum of attracting farmers and small town folk into the cities so they can contribute to the consumer economy. The Communist Party over there are becoming increasingly communist again in their outlook.

There’s also huge human rights abuses taking place there at the moment under the flag of socialism. The Ungars are being put into prison camps in extraordinary numbers, with the excuse being that they are enemies of the socialist revolution started under Mao.

_Brian

Twenty Grand wrote: »

There's a fantastic YouTuber called Serpentza who lives in China and documents the cultural differences.

One of his main points is that, as a foreigner, he will never to equal to a Chinese citizen and will always be treated second class by the authorities. Even if a Chinese man starts a fight, he can't right back because to insult one Chinese person is to insult them all.

Fairness allot of Irish treat every non white person as second class, I don’t think that makes them very different to us.

conorhal

Steyr 556 wrote: »

China's rise is good for multipolarity. Anyway what did the west think was going to happen, sending all its jobs and industry there? That China would just be another Asian country ready to debase itself and its people so the elite could benefit eg Marcos and the Philippines or Suharto and Indonesia?

No doubt the elite (the inner party members of the Chinese Communist Party) have done exceptionally well, but they also have ambitions on a grand strategic scale. Chinese civilizations goes back hundreds if not thousands of years and pumping out cheap runners is not the end game.

People forget the 'historical context' around how this all came about, largely in the wake of all that post 1989 sunny optimism that Francis Fukuyama was writing about in his infamous article 'The End of History'.
(Cribbing from the NewYorker here)
Fukuyama’s argument was that, with the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union, the last ideological alternative to liberalism had been eliminated. Fascism had been killed off in the Second World War, and now Communism was imploding. In states, like China, that called themselves Communist, political and economic reforms were heading in the direction of a liberal order.
History had reached it's goal and representative government, free markets, and consumerist culture would dominate.

Simply put, there was a lot of sunny optimism and utopian thinking going on in those heady days, and a belief that once there was a McDonald's in Red Square and Tiananmen square all would be right with the world!
The attitude was that all China needed to become part of the liberal order was access to the open market.

Well those that forget their history are doomed to repeat it.
History doesn't simply stop, but parties do, and the dot com bust and 9/11 proved that once and for all. Now people are beginning to question the value of rampant globalism.