Actually, MSM, China’s an Economic Mess
America’s movers and shakers can’t seem to stop ogling Chinese authoritarian chic. While few would defend China’s repressive political system, numerous politicians, business executives, and pundits bow before China’s state-directed capitalism, equating authoritarianism with efficiency and ruthlessness with enlightenment.
At the heart of this ogling lies an admiration for Beijing’s ability to undertake large projects far more quickly than America’s democratic gridlock would ever allow. In reality, Chinese central economic planning generates massive inefficiencies and imposes drastic human costs. Below is merely the short list.
Infrastructure
As a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, Senator Barack Obama bemoaned the crumbling infrastructure of the United States and noted that China’s state-directed infrastructure spending had produced ports, trains, and airports that were “vastly the superior.” Since then, Westerners have consistently pointed to the rapid construction of China’s high-speed rail system, now the most extensive in the world, as Exhibit A of China’s infrastructure prowess.
In fact, going high-speed in China has highlighted endemic corruption and created unhappy customers. In February, Liu Zhijun, China’s minister of railways and architect of the country’s $300 billion high-speed rail network, was fired and arrested amid accusations of wheeling and dealing in bribes of $155 million — and keeping 18 mistresses.
Since then, concerns about shoddy construction and safety have surfaced.
China’s state media once trumpeted the trains’ top speed of 210-236 mph as the fastest in the world, but the trains were never designed to run above 186 mph. In April, they were slowed accordingly. Caxin.com, the website of China’s leading business and finance publication, reports that the “high-speed bubble” was all a “naked, systemic lie,” concocted and fanned by the Railways Ministry.
Meanwhile, most Chinese citizens cannot afford to ride the shiny new trains and have opted instead to pack into buses for their long-distance travel.
State Ownership
Infrastructure is not the only aspect of Chinese government planning for which Westerners get starry-eyed. Senior business executives, in particular, can get downright obsequious about the superiority of China’s government leadership. Writing in the Wall Street Journal on July 9, Robert Herbold — a retired COO of Microsoft — cited Chinese bureaucrats’ penchant for reciting the goals of China’s new five-year plan as evidence of such superiority.
But Chinese government planning hardly equals a winning investment. According to a recent report by the Unirule Institute of Economics, an independent think tank in Beijing, the average return on equity of state-owned industrial enterprises in China was much lower than that of their non-state counterparts between 2001 and 2009.
When preferential government subsidies (such as free land and cheap loans) for the state firms are factored in, the real return on equity registers at an embarrassing -1.47%.
Moreover, 70% of all net profits made by China’s centrally owned enterprises in 2009 are derived from merely ten companies that have been bestowed heavy market advantages by the state. The unflattering flipside, observes Zhang Jialin of the Hoover Institution, is that a vast majority of the remaining state-owned companies are poorly managed or suffer from overcapacity.
Climate Change
But even inconvenient numbers cannot deter New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman from extolling the “enlightened” leadership of Chinese autocrats for imposing “the politically difficult but critically important policies needed” to embrace green technology and combat climate change.
Yet where gargantuan government investment has created rapid growth in China’s renewable energy industry, it has also resulted in bottlenecks and overcapacity. For instance, China now boasts the world’s largest wind capacity — but approximately one-third of its wind farms stand idle at any given time, unable to connect to the electricity grid.
In addition, Chinese leaders never hesitate to convey the callousness of their approach. Zhao Baige, vice minister of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission, has eagerly trotted out the country’s one-child policy as an example of the bold and swift action on climate change that China has bequeathed to the world. In December 2009, Zhao noted that China witnessed 400 million fewer births between 1978 and 2007, which “converts into a reduction of 1.83 billion tons of carbon dioxide emission … per annum.”
Financial Prowess
Clearly, such “enlightened” leadership is not for America, or any liberal democracy, to emulate. Even so, President Obama warned in his 2011 State of the Union address that China’s meteoric economic rise threatens to leave America in the dust and exhorted Congress to substantially increase federal investments to increase American competitiveness.
Such thinking ignores the serious problems lurking beneath China’s economic glitz and spending onslaught. To combat the financial crisis, Beijing pushed out a 4 trillion yuan ($619.1 billion) stimulus package and encouraged lending by state banks that totaled, by some estimates, 20 trillion yuan ($3.1 trillion) in 2009 and 2010. Two years later today, Beijing is staring at piles of bad debt that may imperil China’s broader financial health.
Much of the problem stems from the fact that China’s local governments turned out to be some of the most avid consumers of state lending. Though facing legal constraints on borrowing from state banks, they created financing vehicles to serve as intermediaries, incurring off-the-books liabilities and using the funds largely for infrastructure projects that they could not afford.
Earlier this month, Moody’s Investor Services estimated that China’s local government debt totaled over 14 trillion yuan ($2.17 trillion), more than 35% of the country’s 2010 GDP. The Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing agreed on May 31 to assume as much as $436 billion in bad loans made to local governments. Though the figure is only about half of the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program of 2008, it amounts to a far bigger percentage of China’s GDP.
China’s central regulators are now attempting to stem local profligacy, but their mad scramble should remind the world that swift and decisive policies pushed by the full weight of authoritarianism can sow swift and decisive problems.
Internal Contradictions
In the end, all of China’s problems cannot take away from the country’s breathtaking economic growth and liberalization. Yet China’s state-directed capitalism presses forward without any political accountability and imposes inherent obstacles to the free market. The country continues to produce not just persecuted religious believers, jailed political dissidents, and a censored media; it is also home to immense waste and jarring inefficiencies. As a U.S.-trained economist turned Chinese official observed recently, China’s economic inefficiencies are caused by its political contradictions.
Instead of ogling Chinese authoritarian chic, Americans would do well to recognize the same. Meeting China’s rising global influence requires sensible policies. Fashioning them would first require seeing China and its limitations more clearly.
I would like to make a few very clear points in the comparisons between the U.S. and China –
1) U.S. had a GDP growth of 2.8% in FY 2010. China had a GDP growth of 10.46% in FY 2010, first place yet again in GDP growth worldwide.
2) U.S. had an unemployment rate of 9.8% as of July 2011 with a total population of 312 million people. China had an unemployment rate of 4.2% as of July 2010 and much has not changed in regards to this statistic since then. What makes this so impressive is that China’s total population is at 1.3 billion people. The exact population figures for each country are in the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
3) U.S. exports were $1.280 trillion and imports were $1.948 trillion in FY 2010. China exports were $1.506 trillion USD and imports were $1.307 trillion USD in FY 2010.
4) U.S. public debt was $14.77 trillion as of June 2011, which is 100% of GDP. China public debt was 17.5% of GDP for FY 2010, which was $5.88 trillion USD nominal and $10.08 trillion USD PPP.
5) U.S. revenues were $2.162 trillion and expenses were $3.456 trillion in FY 2010. China revenues were $1.149 trillion USD and expenses were $1.27 trillion USD in FY 2010.
6) U.S. foreign reserves were $140.607 billion as of May 2011. China foreign reserves were $3.05 trillion USD as of 2011.
By looking at the overall statistics above, which economy is looking much stronger? We are at the crossroad of shifting the balance of power to China as the world’s number 1 financial superpower. You can check out the info on both economies in these 2 links below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China
wikiresearch = LOLZ
really? facts base on wiki? isn’t that a user edited site?
Citing from WIKIPEDIA? Next time use legitimate sources when trying to make an argument if you want people to take you seriously.
Speaking as someone who has spent the last two months in Seoul studying Korea’s political and economic system I think that South Korea is a much better country to talk about than China. In a nutshell, Korea’s government is a republic, the whole adult population has a vote, and the voting matters. Additionally its government does build infrastructure projects that – by and large – work, and they get them built rapidly with only modest levels of graft and corruption. Instead of looking at China with its highly stratified system of political power being wielded by a tiny fraction of its population, Korea is, in my opinion, the major Asian nation which America can learn from. Its true that China is worth studying, but I believe there is very little that the Chinese government does which can be applied in the U.S. due to their fundamentally undemocratic ideals which permeate nearly every action the Chinese government takes. Yes I’m a fan of South Korea but I dare any American to come to Seoul and see for themselves.
CROG it has been 50 years since I was in Korea the last time but I do agree with you. I spent two tours there and I loved the people. they were good hard working and friendly, if I could afford a trip back there I would go in a heart beat, they dont produce shoddy merchandise as do the chinees, and I dont worry about the koreans trying to poison me and my friends and family,
“they dont produce shoddy merchandise as do the chinees [sic]”
There’re lots of Chinese-made goods that are of high-quality. Almost everything Apple is assembled there. (When I unpacked my new iMac in 2008 I was impressed by the quality.) Oppo blu-ray players are as well. And just this morning I heard a report of the final sections of the new San Francisco Bay Bridge coming out of China – ahead of schedule, meeting all quality requirements. Of course, all these require demanding customers who are sticklers for quality. Government entities shoveling someone else’s money aren’t so demanding. That applies in the US as well as China. And yes, I’d prefer such goods were manufactured here or at least in a friendly, democratic state like South Korea.
Knew there was another reason why I avoid all Apple products.
From my Amazon review of a wok.
http://www.amazon.com/Presto-5900-1500-Watt-Stainless-Steel-Electric/dp/B0017UTSLY/ref=cm_aya_orig_subj
“This product is environmentally sensitive. The thin metal, rolled into round handles on the cover and wok bowl, proves that even the lowest grade metals can find a place in your kitchen. The low-profile cover handle highlights the manufacturer’s equalitarian philosophy: oven mitt manufacturers will attain full employment ensuring that you don’t burn the backs of your fingers when removing the cover while cooking.
The rivets on the lid and wok guarantee that even the lowliest microbes will have a place to live in your home. To do otherwise is jingoistic arrogance; that only humans have a right to life.
The control dial displays numbers up to 400, supposedly giving you options on how hot you want your wok. But you can burn your food even at the lowest setting: the real temperature control is a simple on/off. The Department of Education recently published a report that only 30% of 4th and 8th graders can read proficiently. This shows the manufacturer’s excellent visionary skills: you don’t need to read the owner’s manual or even the numbers on the dial. To do otherwise is to demonstrate insensitivity towards 70% of their future customers.
This wok is made in China, a country of great cultural sensitivity, where even political dissidents get to work in factories, producing appliances that make your life more comfortable. Such honored employees, since they get paid nothing, help you save money by keeping production prices down.
This is how fine American manufacturers like National Presto Industries ensure America’s future: providing us with cheap appliances that guarantee that landfill employees will never have to worry about providing for their families; stimulating the flow of money in the economy by ensuring that you will have to replace your appliances frequently; and creating jobs for warehouse workers and delivery drivers.
For this and more, we honor this product with the coveted One Star.”
For a long time, I have called our questionable relationship with China “Chinese Redistribution of American Profit”. I won’t say the acronym, but it’s synonymous with the vast majority of their production.
Thanks for taking the time to share your personal insights. I am a researcher who has a lot of areas to cover and actual personal insights from intelligent observers like you make my job immensely easier.
Well done though it is—and, although much more could now be adverted to, and perhaps, the author will do another one for us—the great things which I wished to have seen in an article on this topic were, comment on the fact that, at least since the Roman experience forward—and this to include our own bloc of states in the Southern experience, or, in unwarrantable labor union domination—through many variegations of slavery, many systems of governance have thoroughly demonstrated that, that society which is afflicted with administrative minimization of human will and incentive—arbitrary and unreasonable limitations to freedoms—is inherently limited to standing as a forever second-best—the size of their aircraft carriers, or number of them, notwithstanding, . . .
As I live, the narrow and myopic understanding of politicians seems as a never ending kaleidoscopic of destructive nonsense—Eisenhower, standing against Israel to relinquish her territory was one, though later—and too late to have left him in good appearance—he did express regret, . . .
Also, one woman being processed through court for cheating on her taxes, she was then medically processed and “parted out”—which, as the Mayans did for the barbarous cruelty of their culture, for this kind of thing, the Chinese people will take their system apart with their own hands—China is not a worthy example; and for their purposeful ignorance of manifest facts on this topic, our politicians, leaders and such as T. Friedman, I would say, should be put to shovel out the barn—while it’s not all difficult, it would give them some time to think, . . .
I just downloaded your book onto my Kindle and read the intro. I don’t expect to get much sleep tonight. I know from a Chinese friend a bit about how hard life can be in China, and I’ve seen first hand how difficult the transition to Western lifestyles while retaining one’s own values can be. You are doing very good work in getting us all to look beyond the superficialities of diversity and multiculturalism, and reminding us of the reality of the peoples’ lives beneath all the PC categories.
“downright obsequious about the superiority of China’s government leadership.”
Well, compared to the vacuous Sock Puppet we’ve had since ’08….
What we are dealing with here is the “selective memory” of our intellectual elite’- wannabee authoritarians all.
Yes, the PRC has gone “all-in” for high-speed rail. But it is predominantly in the “New Economic Zone” along the coast around Shanghai, an area roughly analogous to the U.S. East Coast Boston-Washington (BosWash) Corridor, or the Honshu Corridor (Tokyo-Kyoto-Yokohama-Kobe) in Japan.
In a restricted area with a combination of relatively high income residency, low auto ownership, and high commuter traffic volume due to heavy fourth-generation business (“information” based as opposed to heavy-industry based, i.e,. “thought workers”), a high-speed commuter rail system makes some sort of sense. In a more dispersed environment, such as the rest of the PRC- or the United States- it doesn’t. In the high-income restricted area it will be, at best, a “break-even” proposition on ridership, probably requiring continual taxpayer support to stay out of the red. In the dispersed area, there will never be enough bodies in seats to break even, and serious taxpayer support is a must to achieve the illusion of an even semi-profitable system. (The “elite’” like it because it puts the hoi polloi in their places in both cases, of course- only going where the government wants them to, in an easily-monitored coach.)
Next up, Chinese “Five-Year Plans” are as old as the Communist regime’, and in fact were an idea copied from Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union. What they all have in common is that they never achieve their goals. But Communist governments, like all totalitarian states, are good a hiding their failures. The goals of the last (failed) Five-Year Plan generally get rolled over to the next one, with a few more added for camouflage. Those never work, either.
Finally, climate change. It feels good to “progressives” to sing the praises of the PRC’s “commitment” to Holy Wind- it allows them to carefully avoid mentioning that the PRC leads the world in building coal-fired powerplants. It also leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions from said plants- and the “ecologists” are now claiming that those emissions have somehow prevented man-caused global warming (which is supposedly caused by such emissions) from being as bad as they predicted when demanding total control of our civilization to “Save Holy Mother Gaia”.
I can only assume that Chinese socialist emissions are somehow fundamentally different from chemically-similar emissions elsewhere. Maybe they actually come from mystically-charged coal. (Considering the unreality of the Western progressive fascination with all things Eastern, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear this argument being made in all seriousness.)
As with Walter Duranty and the USSR, Western “progressives” are so carried away with their fascination with the PRC’s socialist/Communist state that they are simply and categorically dishonest in talking about it. Either that, or they are so infatuated with their visions of a “People’s Republic of America”, based on the same principles (with themselves in charge), that they fail to notice that they are waist-deep in a pile of self-deception.
It’s going to take more than hip boots and a shovel to get them out of it.
clear ether
eon
very well said eon. and oh so true. a democrats ultimate dream,
Why yes, they are. Chinese coalburners are filthy, belching not only carbon dioxide but sulfates and soot (cleaned up by Western power plants in the past few decades). The latter emissions form a sunlight-blocking smog that really does prevent global warming. Of course, given the right weather conditions, those toxic effluvia will wreak havoc on a level that will make the killer London smogs of the 1850-1950 timeframe seem like mere inconveniences.
But then, neither the Chicoms nor the watermelons have ever been bothered by the prospect of murdering a few million people.
…now claiming that those emissions have somehow prevented man-caused global warming (which is supposedly caused by such emissions) from being as bad as they predicted when demanding total control of our civilization to “Save Holy Mother Gaia”.
One of the more mind-blowing claims to recently come out of the dedicated AGW community.
When pollution is good: Thank God for Chinese sulphur!
“Researchers now claim that sulphur emissions from power plants in China are blocking sunlight and having a cooling effect on the atmosphere, cancelling out the effect of global warming.”
Mendacity personified. It’s statements like that which tell you they’re (AGW fanatics) running a con.
“Global Dimming” is what I’ve heard SO2 pollution referred to. So, does this mean we don’t have to worry about acid rain anymore?
Eon, you have it right here:
Western “progressives” are so carried away with their fascination with the PRC’s socialist/Communist state that they are simply and categorically dishonest in talking about it. Either that, or they are so infatuated with their visions of a “People’s Republic of America”, based on the same principles (with themselves in charge),
THAT is at the bottom of ALL such fawning and foaming. And just over the horizon of THAT nightmare lies the rest of the plan…. the People’s Republic of Earth. Of course, fully controlled by the same lot of monomaniacal perverts. Its the oldest lie in the universe, in spades: I will ascend, I will be like God.
Excellent post eon. One sentence caught my eye as it hits homes and a second point about elites.
“In a more dispersed environment, such as the rest of the PRC- or the United States- it doesn’t”
Apparently we are going to get a high speed rail between Chicago and Detroit. Meanwhile we already have an Amtrack line that is losing money and the new high speed will be something like an hour faster, WOW ain’t that something, and we have no idea how much more expensive to ride on the high speed, but I think you can forget about grandma and cousin Jake taking the High Speed any time soon when the bus and Amtrak are just fine, they aren’t in a hurry. This along a corridor that you can currently drive on I-94 in about 5 hours downtown to downtown, some I know do it faster. This on a corridor that has umpteen flights going to and fro at low rates. This is utter nonsense. How about Chicgo to Omaha and then Omaha to San Fran along the old California Trail, that could be even better. Why not, then we can be like Europe and China and that seems to be the ONLY goal here as it makes no economic sense.
Meanwhile Tom Friedman looks out the window of his tower, in his mansion, on his estate, out in the country, in heavily wooded Virginia, far far away from the hub bub of the hoi poloi, musing, envisioning, pontificating, sighing, jotting notes and otherwise pondering how much smarter he is than we.
If only, if ony, if only, he wonders to himself, we would listen he and his friends THEY could save us. However it should be noted that THEY have two conditions to saving us:
1.) THEY get to keep everything they have and
2.) THEY get to be in charge.
…. pundits bow before China’s state-directed “capitalism” ….
There is no such thing. No such system.
Capitalism cannot exist in such a murderously enslaved and largely brutally colonized (2.4 of 3.6 million sq miles, total) empire as that perilously perniciously presided over by the self-anointed and self-appointed Peking-Based pack of predatory lying looting thieving mass-murdering dictators.
Although not as pure a form of Mr Mussolini’s modified Marxism as is America’s — or even purer — Australia’s, Peking’s system, involving the direct bureaucratic regulation of every enterprise, is fascist.
…. China’s economic inefficiencies are caused by its political contradictions ….
Peking’s predatory pack, that so grandiosely calls itself “china,” could begin the process to give the Chinese People even a snow-ball’s chance in Hell of being, ever, other than a mostly counterfeited poor hand-cranked Gestetener copy of My America, by learning how to institute a government having the consent of those it governs!
And Good luck with that little task.
Meanwhile, unless it’s rescued by its 200+ millions of Christians who then create a foundation of Law upon which any subsequent substantial state might stand, much-vaunted “china” — Trillions-in-debt economy and all — is headed after its birth-mother USSR, into History’s dustbin.
It is comforting to know that not every person has gone berserk; some are still able to think and speak the truth, even if it might hurt someone’s feelings.
Excellent article!! It seems like we hardly ever get good information about how things really work in China. It’s usually simply how much of our debt they own. Of course, that is a major concern. But this is article skillfully highlights not only the reality of life in China but just how deliberately misleading the “news” presented by the MSM can be.
And you just know what the knee-jerk “liberal” response will be to this kind of article: “Ying Ma isn’t a ‘real Chinese person.’” Because she’s disrupting the Lefty narrative, she can’t be counted as “real” in much the same way that Herman Cain is not a “real” black person, Marco Rubio is not a “real” Latino, and Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are not “real” women.
I’ll echo Moira @8 here. Just let me observe that what seems to be all in working order in China is really the effect of newness. A new building, a new facotry, etc. Give it some time to age and see what’s it’s like in thirty or forty years. I am reminded of the Washington Metro which I ride every day. This paen to socialism worked very well when it was new. Then about the middle of the 1990s, when it was about twenty years old, it began deteriorating at a rapid pace. Today, one-fifth to one-third of the escalators don’t escalate, while a good percentage of the elevators don’t elevate. Metro advertises that it can open doors (on its train-cars) but it frequently has a lot trouble closing them. Meanwhile (because of the 11 to 14 billion dollar investment) very few new highways have been built in the Washington DC area. So, now we have the worst of all possible worlds: jam-packed highways and streets and an unreliable mass transit sysem. I suspect that down the pike, the same thing will become apparent in China.
An interesting comment, the parallels between the development of the interstate highway around Washington D.C., I-495, and the Chinese decision making.
I worked on I-495 as a engineering co op. On the north side, it has a kink, the only segment in the US which could not be designed to 75 MPH. The kink was caused by a Congressman’s house, which sat in the needed ROW. He told the engineers that if they took his house, he would defund the entire highway system for the USA. They built the kink, with which every commuter must contend. There is an entire interstate road system, in Maryland which was to complement I 495. They do not exist. If they had been built, they would be at design capacity; the I 495 road is grossly over capacity. This causes the ten hour back ups.
One tiny piece of the road system, the Intercounty Connector, ICC, has recently been opened to traffic. It costs well over 100 times the cost per mile, relative to the average cost of an interstate road; it has consumed the entire transportation budget of the state. It has been litigated since the 1950s. The entire cost must now be paid by tolls. I have made a hobby of counting the vehicles as I pass over it, 20 counts, 22 cars.
The politician who was voted out of office because of his opposition to the ICC, became head of our zoning agency. He spend over a hundred million rezoning the county, every square inch, with one prime command; ignore the new interstate that cuts through the county. This assures that every new gas station, house, and commercial building will require a busload of lawyers, before the first shovel of dirt is dug, and it assures that most construction will be illegal.
China is run by selfish human beings, dictators. The US is run by selfish human beings, regulators. The winner will be the system that selflessly serves its citizens.
I live in Arlington and I also ride the Metro. You are essentially correct that the system has been going downhill fast, but not because it was badly built or designed. The fault is the bizarre funding scheme that requires Northern VA, Suburban MD and the District to share funding and periodically fight out how much they will contribute (with the federal taxpayer, of course, kicking in a bit). This has led to a buttload of deferred maintenance which is now bearing bitter fruit.
PJM is becoming our own free press. I can’t think of a better compliment.
Yesterday, at RealClearPolitics, Victor Davis Hanson discussed a major California public-works project which was done 100 years ago:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/07/21/green_shovel-ready_stimulus_–_100_years_ago_110651.html
He points out that this project was done entirely with private money, then notes the many impediments we have put up since to private money accomplishing such miracles today.
In the discussion of China’s formidable construction and infrastructure projects, and in our own elites’ bemoaning that our statism is not as effective as China’s statism, the realization that the vast majority of what built this country is private enterprise, not government initiative, somehow gets lost. If the MSM wants the US to start outperforming China, it should start cheerleading for smaller government, fewer regulations, and an end to bogus environmental impact statements, nuisance lawsuits, and the like.
this was an excellent article; i found this tidbit to succinctly summarize the essence of our nation’s problems– the quote references our “ancestors” of the early twentieth century:
“… acting when they were 80 percent sure of success rather than endlessly talking and delaying in expectation of an always-elusive 100 percent certainty.”
Today’s Progressives are just following in the tradition of a long line of political pilgrims that have fawned over dictators since the 1920′s. First it was Mussolini and Lenin, then Stalin and Hitler (yes Hitler was big in certain progressive circles); then Khrushchev and Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez and Hu Xintao. Progressives know whats best and identify with those men in a hurry. To quote Mussolini “Action first, debate later.”
“Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity.
It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts
The rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.”
– Benito Mussolini, 1922
The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.”
I want to scream when I read such crap.
I discovered in 6th grade that communists lie and I never ever read anything afterwards to convince me I was wrong. What on earth is wrong with these fools who think the Chinese government is to be admired and emulated. It’s easy to say they are all wannabe-authoritarians, and maybe that’s it. I guess they all assume that they will end up as members of the nomenklatura so it would be funny to see the look on their faces when their usefulness is ended and they are sent off to the gulag.
My wife and I visited Beijing and Shanghai last March. We saw construction cranes everywhere but we also saw a lot of buildings that appeared empty. Many of the buildings appeared to have relatively shoddy construction as well. In China, we were constantly harrassed by peddlers pushing fake products like Rolex watches and designer handbags. We were told that they were more interesting in pushing counterfeit currency as change for that $10 Rolex knockoff. You buy the watch and give them a $20 bill, they give you a counterfeit $10 bill as change. This was well known but the nearby police did nothing to stop it.
When we visited Vietnam a week later, we saw a lot of construction taking place there as well. There were far fewer cars in Vietnam than in China but we were told that’s because the Vietnamese government taxes cars at 100% of their value (so does Singapore). Saigon was said to be a city of “8 million people and 4 million motor scooters” and I think both numbers are low. In Vietnam, it seems everyone is trying to sell something, a kind of capitalism at the micro scale. Unlike China, the stuff they were selling appeared to me more food and local crafts related, at least in the smaller cities.
In Vietnam, the scooters flow like water in a stream. Crossing the street isn’t for the faint of heart. We were told that they could buy a Japanese made scooter or light motorcycle for $2000. They could buy a good Korean made scooter for $1000 or a Chinese made one for $300. However, they considered the Chinese made scooters to be junk. Vietnam has a lot of western brand factories there and they seem to have a pretty good reputation for quality.
Yes, and many abandoned before being completed. It was the same when I was working there 10 years ago. In Guangzhou I saw a complex that would have rivaled the World Trade Center – half built. The structure was all there, but only about 40% of the glass had been installed. Nothing of the interior. Nothing but weeds around the construction area. Well, that and some rusted, obviously abandoned tools. All the heavy machinery was gone.
Next to the office where I worked was a project that had gotten as far as the ground floor. 3 large skyscraper-building cranes were still on site, rusting away.
I saw this all over.
Yes, they have two huge problems in this area. The obvious one is corruption. But the less obvious is simply know-how. The Chinese do not have a culture of craftmanship. They don’t have the culture of doing things well which comes from the much-despised “Puritan work ethic”, and which undergirds much of what we do in America (though we are losing it). They simply don’t really know or care about quality, unless an American company shows them how to do it. They can follow instructions and produce a quality product (Lenovo comes to mind), but they really don’t “get it”.
The comments I’ve been reading on the computer tech sites say otherwise. Seems that Lenovo has squandered their rep for tough computers; at least laptops. The rumble on the ‘net is that they’ve become expensive doorstops. Quality control has definitely left the building! Customer support has taken an extended vacation also.
If you think the Chinese have an economic problem wait until the “One child” problem raises its ugly head. There is a shortage of 18 MILLION women there now and it is getting worse. Every nation or area in the past that has had a higher ratio of men to women have descended into violence and chaos in time. The Chinese have manipulated their society by artificial means and they will have to pay for it in the future. We here in the US have done the same thing with government handouts and subsidies and we will have to pay the piper someday too.
Historically, countries with a a surfeit of young, angry men with no chance of having a family have used those young, angry men to build large, aggressive armies. I don’t expect China to be any different.
As for what to do with that large army, they’d love to take Taiwan- but don’t have the sealift. Although they might bomb it back into the Stone Age from the air and then offer it a chance for “peaceful reunification” afterward.
India is also a tempting target- but the Himalayas are in the way, unless they emulate the Imperial Japanese Army and go through Imphal. Not a good idea.
But then there’s Siberia. Lots of resources, relatively few people- and the likely defenders would be operating at the thin end of a very long logistics tail (the Trans-Siberian Railway). Short of Russia going nuclear, if the old men in the Forbidden City move their army across the Amur River and put up “Under New Management” signs, there isn’t much Putin & Co. could do about it.
A large People’s Liberation Army with a lot of river-crossing gear is something that Moscow should worry about. Tom Clancy pretty much got it right in “The Bear and the Dragon”.
cheers
eon
Siberia probably would be a poor choice — at any rate one that would have an unmotivated army — because of it sparse population. CINCPLA would, I think, do best by handing each angry, horny young man an AK-47 and telling them once assembled, “Pick a direction to conquer in, boys, and you can keep half of the loot and all of the women you seize”. As long as they didn’t march on Beijing, the gerontocracy wold be ahead of the game.
I like how people are excusing China’s wealth because they have slave labor and poor (no) environmental standards. As if corporate America cares about either of these things.
I believe this has a great deal to do with their quiet quasi-colonial adventure in Deepest Darkest. When you read the more detailed articles, you find that most of the workers involved in their African projects, including much of the menial scut-work, are Chinese and male. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are being encouraged to settle down there. I doubt it takes all that much prodding to overcome their racial superiority complex and take African wives.
What we have here is a failure of risk management (accountability). This failure allowed for too much short term debt to provide long term bread and circus–and an 18th century gentry mansion for Thomas Friedman. The political problem is getting politicians on short re-elections cycles to commit political suicide by ratifying long term austerity and sacrifices–sacrifices that usually don’t apply to the Thomas Friedmans. The economic solution so far is to extend and pretend, changing the time value of debt by increasing the duration for pay back–slowly pulling off the band aid in increments so as not to upset too many of the provincial gun totting knuckle draggers at the expense of the elite mandarins. The politically equivalent solution to the economic problem is to extend the politicians shelf life beyond the age of pain and sacrifice, ending the republic. Long live the empire! Hail Caesar! We don’t need no stinking elections to pick pragmatic policy makers. Political science is not consensus!
…Thomas Friedman from extolling the “enlightened” leadership of Chinese autocrats for imposing “the politically difficult but critically important policies needed” to embrace green technology and combat climate change.
China has always seemed to me “into” green energy like Al Gore is into green energy, for profit, from manufacturing solar panels to selling so called carbon credits.
I don’t know how this squares with a country that regularly erects coal fired plants and, reportedly, has 7 of the world’s top 10 polluted cities.
Then there is dessication of the countryside, diversion of river/water for city use. Also river dumping of toxic chemicals. Remember some body of water for the summer Olympics was being frantically cleared of algae bloom so it could be used in rowing and other competitions ?
Thomas Friedman is a shallow egotist, built himself a mansion, as perfectly hypocritical on “green” as Al Gore.
Not all that long ago, Barack Obama opined rather wistfully that the Chinese didn’t have to go through the messy process that dogs the United States when formulating policy.
Ideologues like Obama and Friedman really do envy totalitarian decision makers and choose to regularly overlook the downside of such cultures.
China’s GDP is growing at an annualized rate of around 9%. That’s more than any Republican or Democrat has dreamt of for our country.
They must be doing something right.
Anyone care to explain what that is?
As for the waste and inefficiency and corruption in China: There was plenty of that in 19th century America too. Learn the history of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Credit Mobilier, the Homestead Act, etc. But along with those excesses came strong, almost unprecedented, growth. In the end, it was the growth, not the waste along the way, that mattered.
We have learned that the internal contradictions of Communist societies will doom them eventually. But China is no longer a purely Communist society. There is a strong and growing private sector component; and unlike the U.S.S.R., China loves to do business with the U.S.
That combined with Chinese authoritarianism would suggest that China today is more Fascist than Communist. And we don’t have strong evidence that Fascist societies must necessarily collapse. Spain didn’t. Chile didn’t.
Instead, liberalization can loosen the authoritarianism eventually, but without causing the kind of collapse that occurred in Gorbachev’s U.S.S.R.
China’s GDP is growing at an annualized rate of around 9%. That’s more than any Republican or Democrat has dreamt of for our country.
They must be doing something right.
Anyone care to explain what that is?
There are several possibilities and they aren’t mutually exclusive. Here are a couple that come to mind:
1. They could be lying about their GDP figures the same way the old Soviet Union did for decades.
2. They don’t take years to do environmental impact studies before starting a project. If they have environmentalists in China, it seems they’re told to sit down and shut up. Look at the Freedom Tower project in NYC. We’re approaching the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the building isn’t close to being finished. In that same amount of time, China has undertaken a massive amount of construction. Beijing was quite polluted when I was there so perhaps there is a need for a balance between fast project approval and pollution.
They could be lying about their GDP.
But they can’t possibly be lying about the gigantic trade deficit between China and the U.S. They’re clearly selling far more stuff to us than we are to them. I can’t believe how much stuff sold in America today says “Made in China.” So they’re clearly producing lots of stuff.
I’m glad that the constraints of environmentalism were mentioned. I believe that we can have sufficient environmental protections in America without giving the EPA indefinite time to hold up a project. A vital project could be put on a fast track, with the EPA given just 6 months to review the environmental impact statements and so on. Let the bureaucrats at EPA work around the clock and on weekends if they have to, just like we folks in the private sector do when we’re racing to beat a delivery deadline.
And to do that, we need to institute reforms into the Civil Service that make it easier to fire the incompetent and the obstinate.
Maybe the answer is about what they aren’t doing?
Nobody who knows about these things trusts China’s economic baseball stats anymore than they can punt the hulk of the Varyag. All the anecdotal evidence of the “ghost cities”, the tottering State Owned Industries, the bad-debt-laden banks, the quaking and quivering Three Gorges Dam, the now scandal-ridden and crash-plagued high-speed rail lines and the growing water shortage and pollution crisis all point to a crash just around the corner.
Kindly recollect that twenty-two years ago a similarly semi state-directed Japan Inc. was about to rule the waves. Now where are they?
Tariq Ali said it best in a speech last year: “To understand what’s going on in China right now, all we need to do is look at 19th Century Dickensian England.”
A couple of years ago I picked up an old textbook from my college years in the early 1970s and the number 1 growing economy in the world was the Soviet Union, so I would take China’s growth rates with a very large grain of salt.
The command and control economy can’t adapt well and is totally inept when it comes to providing signals to producers as to what and how much to produce. Anyone who ever went to any of the Communist countries has many aticdotes about airplanes with no real maintenence or spare parts and supply chains that would make Rube Goldberg blush.
Well, China lies fra behind Spain for its high speed network: they built a highspeed railway between Albacete and Cuenca (distant memories) who got 9 (nine) travelers a day. And except for the service between Madrid and Barcelona who, more or less, covers cost, alml of the high speed train network loses _lots_ of money (even without accounting its effect on the copnventional trains).
Thank you for writing this article.
It is astounding that some people are so amazed at the improvement of China’s GDP that they don’t care to reflect on the government sanctioned quasi-slavery of the Chinese people, the degradation of their health and their environment.
In the current state of human values in the world, material gain trumps human dignity, rule of law, and respect for your fellow man.
As for Friedman, he did not live long enough to see the fruits of his theory, as experienced on the back end by the America people, which they are still experiencing now. Even if he had, I don’t believe he’d have recanted one word. He was until the end a closet fan of fascism. So much for a man constantly extolling the virtues of free markets without government interference.
Dude, the Friedman we speak of here is the celebrity author and China shill Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat) not the late conservative economist Milton Friedman.
What happened to robust language to tell the truth? You call China an authoritarian nation. Murderous totalitarianism doesn’t have a place in the lexicon anymore now we’re all softly softly catchee monkey? “Authoritarian” with the murders of millions of their own countrymen. Or if it doesn’t count as murder because in the cause of an acceptable to western bien-pensant liberals and educational bigshots perhaps a more acceptable word might be racist, since they were only Chinese. But maybe racist isn’t right either since racism is a fault- crime only among western whites who try to comply with their own cultural ethos in countries which do not murder their citizens in the millions because the laws of those countries forbid such “election” procedures. Which I would guess many of the bien pensant, liberal/progressive/democrat control freaks would use if they thought they could get away with it. But of course there are more subtle ways to destroy millions of the citizens, and a very effective way is to destroy their economic stability/ security. But nobody would do that, would they?
Not even “Democrats” if it takes a half century to gull the susceptible voting population.That would be conspiracy and Democrats would not conspire over generations with their self-selected successors to the programs, however hungry they were for unaccountable power over the lives of others. It’s only “that vast right-wing…” that conspires a la one of the powers in this “Democratic” Party of the USA, and help-mate to one of the destroyers of the foundations of the economic security of Americans. With the promise of a free lunch.
Two words: Ghost Cities. Ask any economist what they signify.
Having been to Chongquin, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Shenzhen on business and pleasure, both comments and article are “foot on the pavement” reporting. IT is different than sitting in some office overlooking the polluted Hudson River.
The Yalu River (where Three Gorges Dam is) is the worlds largest cesspool. The lake created by the dam, as stated in a report by WHO, is now a sewage nightmare. As the River snakes around Chongquin, one witnesses effects on the River from an exploding city without sewage treatment. A Sunday walk on any street in Chongquin reveals small, surface canals snaking through neighborhoods, smelly and repugnant carrying their fare to the River. Much the same is throughout cities I visited. Some in greater evidence, others not so much. A garbage disposal crisis is emerging in every major city in China. Food handling, eating habits and restroom cleanliness are just absent. Market (both open and supermarkets) having food on display are exposed to human and insect diseases. A drain problem in an apartment on the 22 floor is a nightmare. Walking up 22 flights is a body strengthening experience. See, most older apartments in china are walkups…no elevators. Newer, yes. Of course, if one is connected to the Central Government, a nice apartment with preferential payment schedules can always be had. So it is doing business in China. A multilayered system of Stamps, people to talk to, specialists in one thing or another, etc. is standard fare. And of course the rice paper. Graft is a way of life.The only thing one doesn’t have to do is tip the waiter. If China is so great, move there and see. There are now seven large cities, without a single soul in them. Many more smaller ones exist, but these larger ones can be seen as one flies over them. Welcome to communism masked as free enterprise.
The Three Gorges Dam is on the Yangtze River, not the Yalu River. The Yalu is in the northeast, it forms part of the border betwen China and North Korea. I agree with much of what you said, but this mistake is like confusing the Mississippi with the Columbia River in the US.
Every time I read Thomas Friedman lauding the Peoples Republic of China I am reminded of the penultimate scenes fromt he great 1951 version of “The Thing.” The Navy crew has wired the catwalk with enough juice to fry The Thing (menacingly played by James Arness.) Suddenly the lights go out and the power is cut. Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) rushes past the naval personnel and stands (almost kneeels) imploringly in front of the creature. He says (if memory serves) “You’re wiser than us. Stronger than us. You have so much to teach us.”
The creature casually backhands the doctor into a wall and is then is satisfyingly fried. I mention this because Friedman always strikes me as the doctor and China “The Thing.” The path of human destruciton left by the chinese way matters naught to the true ideologue and Friedman is certainly that. He always seems to be auditioning for a job in the Peoples Ministry of Enlightenment and Truth.
Friedman has got me scratching my head in bewilderment. The man is not stupid, he cut his journalistic teeth in the Middle East from 1979 through the eighties and got to know and write authoritatively about Lebanon and Israel during that time. He married into wealth early on and makes a princely income with speaking fees and the like as a celebrity author.
He has spent enough time in China to find out the truth if he wanted to. My best guess is that the Chicoms have either got video of him with a donkey (compromising foreign journalists and diplomats being standard practice in commie-ville) or they have simply expertly stroked and manipulated his brobdingnagian ego. Added to those tantalizing possibilities the well-known fact that if you want to make your career reporting on unfree countries you have to “play ball” or never be invited back its quite possible he has allowed himself to slip into their spiderweb embrace so deeply that he dare not cut his way out and is now a paid, blackmailed sycophant-in-residence. Though I don’t put it past the realm of possibility that it really is just his giant ego that has him singing the praises of autocracy.
This infatuation with China has gotten personal for me: the agency program I work for has been tasked with a Chinese language (Mandarin — cretins here don’t seem to know the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese) initiative that’s bound to be as much of a flop as China’s high-speed rail. Those of us here with our common sense intact want the whole initiative tossed in the trash.
It is true that English, our glorious Mother Tongue, is a bastardized, cobbled-together-over-centuries monstrosity but I don’t see Mandarin Chinese becoming the language of the world any time soon.
The left in their infatuation with the Chinese certainly have been watching Blade Runner a time or two too many.
What you don’t understand is our political masters want to be America’s high-speed railway czar or whatever czars (we love czars, don’t we?) with access to billions, but no chance of getting caught. When the Chinese get caught they might be in deep doo-doos, when our czars get caught, e.g. Fannie and Freddie heads, they would be bailed out by the most generous American taxpayers, and net multi millions bonues. No downside for our political masters, really.
Remember: no big taxpayers financed projects, no opportunities for “campaign contributions”.
I think that we need to take care of the Chinese peril that exists because of their constant hacking of our nations computer systems. We should give them notice that if we trace anymore national computer hacks we will cancel ALL debt owed to them in the form of US bonds. Let the world know in advance so that the Chinese cannot claim that they were tricked or cheated. Cyber war is still war. The Chinese have gotten away with it for so long they don’t believe we will retaliate.
“Zhao noted that China witnessed 400 million fewer births between 1978 and 2007, which ‘converts into a reduction of 1.83 billion tons of carbon dioxide emission … per annum.’”
Ah, yes, treating human beings as carbon. Socialism is the same everywhere. Someday the Chinese, and for that matter, the EUro governments will discover humanism and treat people as more than a pile of elements. Do I really need to mention the last EUro government to do this?
What is it with authoritarians and trains, anyway?
1. They’re big and impressive, and make great “prestige” projects.
2. They have an almost limitless potential for graft, ranging from union kickbacks from the construction and operation to sweetheart deals on the right-of-way. An old trick is for friends of politicos to buy up land along the RoW before construction, then resell it to the rail company or government at about a 10,000% markup- with the pols getting about a third skimmed right off the top, as JoJo Krako would say.
3. They provide an excuse for banning privately-owned vehicles from city centers and “corridor” areas, in the name of “Holy Mother Gaia”- except for the elite’s own limos, jets, etc.
4. And last but by no means least, they ensure that the riders are under surveillance as long as they are on the train, for ‘security reasons”. Which means that, in the name of “political correctness” and “social justice”, they don’t care who gets beaten up and robbed by gang-bangers, but you can be sure they will be watching and taking notes on anybody they see reading The Weekly Standard or Investor’s Business Daily, as opposed to the New York Times or the Utne Reader.
From their “enlightened” POV, it all makes perfect sense. The fact that it doesn’t make sense to the rest of us is, in their minds, just one more proof that they’re smart, we’re stupid, and that only they should be allowed to make decisions. For everybody.
cheers
eon
I understand the sentimental attachment to choo-choos and trolleys (“light rail”) but I understand that rise of the automobile and commuter air travel simply rendered passenger rail obsolete.
Of course, our masters can fix that little obstacle but I’ve also read that rail right-of-way runs up smack against the NIMBY phenomenon in every single community it passes through and, although eminent domain abuse can easily deal with angry peasants seeking to defend their puny property rights, the powerful enviros will knee-jerkedly sue to oppose even things like these in practice that they may approve of in principle.
In America you must have a car, in Europe, maybe a small car or train ticket, and in China, a bicycle. We are conflicted between out rights for every man to have a car or three, and what it means to pay for it.
They’re over compensating for something.
“Actually, MSM, China’s an Economic Mess”
They’re doing great…if you want to live in a country that’s six TIMES poorer than the USA (that’s assuming that the commie economic figures are accurate, which is highly unlikely).
Per Capita GDP (PPP) figures from the IMF
USA: $47,284
Taiwan: $35,227
South Korea: $29,836
PRC: $7,519
Way to go commies!!!
That’s what state controlled economies will do for ya. Not only can you live under a tyrannical dictatorship that murdered millions of innocent people, but you also get to enjoy perpetual poverty, if you’re lucky enough to survive the mass purges.
Ying Ma, you rock! Thank you for this incisive piece.
Bottom line is this: China has a party-down, planned economy. But as economies cannot be planned to meet the needs of individual businesses, such utopian schemes ALWAYS fail. A thriving economy requires the agent of Chance in order to effect initiative and forward movement.
Communists, Socialists, and Democrats (i.e., American Socialists) will never wrap their noodle around this basic reality.
Hey, you, California! You getting all this?
The main danger of China`s economy are the goals of its rulers.Their ideology of violence along with economic grouth will create international conflicts as of Taiwan and of the international currency.These problems may appeare before the inevitable later collapse of China`s economy.
And to cap it all…
“At least 32 die in east China high-speed train crash”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/23/us-china-train-idUSTRE76M26T20110723
I’m not sure that lefties emulate China as much as righties. China can produce so much because 80% of its fully employed (non-unionized, of course) workers cannot afford an HD TV or their own house. Righties would like fewer American workers to be able to afford such things. If they had lower wages we could produce more competitive stuff and if we didn’t have to worry so much about emissions, work place safety, and the toxicity of the actual products produced, then we could do even better. Forget the state-controlled piece; it is a lean-to hungry/starving country where peope will work for relative peanuts. Why can’t we get workers like that any more?
Oh, but “we” do, they’re called illegal aliens and H-1B workers. And both righties (Chamber of Commerce righties, to be specific) and lefties are in harmonious agreement on that score.
Cheap labor (the profits are privatized, the costs are socialized) and cheap votes (illegals vote dem for the free bennies), what’s not to like?
Except for us silly ordinary folks who might have some objections.
And what are the wages which us ordinary folk consider decent? What are the hours of work that decent folks are willing to spend working in order to support the lifestyle they need/want?
“I’m not sure that lefties emulate China as much as righties.”
That’s probably because you’re a couple of cans short of a six pack.
Well try applying your four-pack to the concept that most of the things righties complain about as making for inefficiency in the American workplace are NOT present in the Chinese workplace. China has the paradox of supposedly being controlled, but simultaneously being in the unregulated wild west stage of capitalism, not to mention the fact that their work(er) ethic is stronger than ours.
Try not took make too much of a mess when one of your cans pops….after you drop it.
Paradox?
Classic Pick It Fence Butism courtesy of the 2 Dimensional Manster from Mass. Look at that, is that Ping Pong Tongue emerging from his shoulder?
37. Dwight
“I’m not sure that lefties emulate China as much as righties.”
The self made false dichotomies of a leftist posing as a fanatical “centrist”. It must be said though, that the use of “not sure” and “emulate” in the same sentence does present an economical presentation of Butism. Maybe the brain hemispheres were separated at birth. No, that’s mean, this is learned behavior.
Then an attempt at understanding beer drinking –
“Try not took make too much of a mess when one of your cans pops….after you drop it.”
Ah yes, the Teacher’s Voice of Experience.
No D-White, it has been shown that opening beer cans is more efficient when using the pull tab. Less waste. And those who forget to open their fly during beer by-product elimination after drop opening beer cans are simply using the Modern Liberal version of Beer Wealth Reduction. In other words, don’t do everything Mr. President tells you to do.
You know D-White, you might do better with a 30 pack of Keystone rather than a 4/6th pack. More like a classroom.
“And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.”
I’m waiting for some content on China…but it will most likely be a long wait. You also have an odd take on my observation that Dave S. is dropping his beer cans…but I should have gone slower; sorry.
“…Dave S. is dropping his beer cans…”
So D-White. You might know about “dropping” acid, “but” “dropping” beer cans? There is an unintended Freudian “leak” too.
“Try not took make too much of a mess when one of your cans pops….”
Hey, firecrackers in Wasilla!
More Pick It Fence Butism –
!!!!….”but”….!!! “I should have gone slower; sorry.”
Don’t be “sorry” D-White, be enlightened. Pop!
China? Got a nice set.
Dwight seems to be a little unclear on the concept.
The PRC has a totally state controlled economy, Dwight.
That’s what lefties dream about…while righties abhor the idea, because it inevitably leads to what China has been suffering under, lo these many years, namely tyrannical murderous government AND grinding poverty.
A better title for this piece would have been:
-
“Since China is an Economic Mess, What is it the American Left Truly Envies?”
-
I’m sure all the intellectual elite of Obama’s team knows the truth of the Chinese economy.
What they envy is the totalitarian rule. They point to their “state capitalism”, which is National Socialism, and drool. THAT is what they want. The fact the economy is in shambles but looks good at a glance is all the more reason for them to envy, as they live for that kind of mass deception.
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Go spam somewhere else doofus.
Having lived in China nearly two years, I can attest to the corruption in almost every aspect of the government. In addition to the government bureaucrats, the police and the army are corrupt from top to bottom.
Any time a citizen needs a red stamp on a document a bribe is required, even if it’s a carton of cigarettes or a chilled melon. Of course big manufacturers or developers are a bit more generous with their bribes and local officials live well over their salaries.
Most people hate the local government, but somehow they admire and respect the top leaders in Beijing. Still it is true, China is facing many problems and many are not economic.
“America’s movers and shakers can’t seem to stop ogling Chinese authoritarian chic.”
If they had any brains they’d be ogling SUCCESSFUL east Asian nations (the ones that didn’t go down the commie highway) instead of a broken down hellhole like the PRC.
That’s assuming, of course, that the “movers and shakers” would rather see people rich and free insrtead of enslaved and poor.
But, once again, the “paradox” is that our wealth and freedom, lets say for our workers, prison guards, teachers etc had led to/come from their increased wages, often via unionization and the right howls (with some justification) that we have gone too far down that road. I am in no way defending the authoritarian, controlled economy aspects of the PRC, their polluted rivers, and impoverished rural population, and their odd, but potent blend of communism and capitalism. On the other hand, our “freedom” and democratic republic has gotten us to this spot in our historical and economic life cycle. As TT, often points out, we VOTED ourselves to this place, a place where much of our industrial sector has disappeared, and at this particular point in time, we are having difficulty finding JOBS for 20% of our population.
What neither the right nor the left have figured out is how to have us be prosperous in a world where we consume relatively cheap stuff, produced by China and others, at what would be considered slave wages here. What is the smart, (and saleable) economic policy which can create wealth here, not just consumers of that wealth? In the meantime, we pray for our next bubble.
“What is the smart, (and saleable) economic policy which can create wealth here, not just consumers of that wealth?”
Simple.
The U.S. has some of the largest known energy reserves in the world. Energy drives the economy. Exploit those reserves. Now.
Have you done your homework? You know, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Or is the D-White Labyrinth so closed that the thought of some thinking from another viewpoint is to be self censored? Isn’t a “centrist” a… centrist – inclusive? Or maybe just the thought of learning about another viewpoint from such an “odd” source is not within the bounds of a Tweed Lounge trained reactionary. No there there.
“Smart”? “Saleable”? Just a smokescreen. A pre-filter to prevent thoughtcrime.
“They’re selling postcards of the hanging…”
What paradox?
You can either be rich and free under free market capitalism, or poor and oppressed under totalitarian communism (if you’re lucky enough not to be one of the millions killed in communist purges).
Seems pretty clear cut to me.
And, people who look on the PRC and what they’ve done with admiration are one of two things:
1.) Deluded idiots.
2.) Power mad scum, who long to have control over other peoples lives, no matter how much those other people suffer as a result of that control.
If liberal halfwits, like that jackass in the White House (who is doing his level best to take us down the same road commies drive), want to admire Asians, they should admire the South Koreans and what they’ve done. In just two generations the South Koreans have gone from being essentially a slave labor camp for the Japanese to a first world country. That’s something to admire. The Chinese commies? Anyone who slaughters the lot of them would be doing the world a service. They’ve caused endless death and misery, and have not done one damn thing of value in their entire worthless existence. And, anyone who looks to them as an example to emulate is lower than what I just scraped off the bottom of my shoe.
“we VOTED ourselves to this place, a place where much of our industrial sector has disappeared, and at this particular point in time, we are having difficulty finding JOBS for 20% of our population.”
Well, you take that one up with the liberal Democrats, and the balloonheads who vote for them. They’re the idiots who wanted to replace the Republican created system that made us the richest country on earth, which was free enterprise at home and protective tariffs abroad, with a system of huge government controls at home (aka socialism) and free trade abroad.
Big surprise that after 75 years of their stupid policies our industries are collapsing and that companies would rather operate overseas.
Another century of this crap and we’ll be right where the PRC is now (which is at the bottom looking up at all the countries that are better off than they are)…and, it will all be thanks to the socialist, liberal Democrats.
Interesting that the author made no mention of the ghost cities that have been sprouting up across China. No doubt the Chinese equivalent of those old Soviet “Potemkin villages” with a lot of real-estate mania thrown in. Imagine the fallout when that bubble deflates.
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