China politics and economy MEGA Thread.

[Buster]

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No worse than typical Torontonian identity.

I find all countries shared the "they are center of universe" mentality to a degree. Just worse with wealthier Asian countries.

And Japan just started to break out of that but it took 2+ decades of stagflation to humble them.

Maybe the difference is the asian countries do it, but also feel butthurt.

The Americans will always have an advantage in the DGAF department.

[Xtrema]

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Maybe the difference is the asian countries do it, but also feel butthurt.

The Americans will always have an advantage in the DGAF department.

The CCP is blaming all the planning failures to foreign interference. Much like Trump blame the Mexicans and UK blames EU.

Like @suntan said, it's all about face/respect.

End of the day, if you peel off the façade, all these moves last year, it all rooted in Xi is still fighting Jiang after 8 years in the chair. Jiang basically got China's economy under his thumbs and Xi is trying break from it.

[ZenOps]

Actually I'd say that China hasn't had as many failures comparitively speaking. Finished off Three Gorges Dam, built up tech based cities, got all the rare earth metals and used them for maglev trains that you could push with a single hand.

USA DGAF for the wrong reasons nowadays. Fail at anything? No problem, just declare bankruptcy four times. War in the middle east? 20 year waste of time. Trillion dollar "stealth" fighter jet, that still makes a sonic boom. But at least people got paid?

[Xtrema]

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Actually I'd say that China hasn't had as many failures comparitively speaking. Finished off Three Gorges Dam, built up tech based cities, got all the rare earth metals and used them for maglev trains that you could push with a single hand.

USA DGAF for the wrong reasons nowadays. Fail at anything? No problem, just declare bankruptcy four times. War in the middle east? 20 year waste of time. Trillion dollar "stealth" fighter jet, that still makes a sonic boom. But at least people got paid?

The key that everyone in the world need to do business in USD allows US to make as many mistake as they can. Something the Chinese wants for themselves but looks like they just ended up with the same bubble bursting like Japanese did in the 90s.

Japan looked good in the 80s as well.

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-spe...o-a-debt-trap/

The problem is Chinese local government revenue is based on land sale to developers to build condos for speculators. The lack of property and business tax is supposed to spur business development. This train has now stopped when Xi started the 3 red lines and fall of Evergrande causing local governments revenue stream to stop or slowed down to keep the debt fuel spending going.

Now this is fine if you can keep everything in house, just print more $. But for things that can't including energy products or stuff China doesn't have (mRNA vax), it causes huge inflations.

And what we are seeing now is just tip of iceberg. Your favorite chip maker UNISOC is being drag thru the bankruptcy of Tsinghua.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4253961


The capital flight is real, rich people are fleeing China leaving behind bankrupt shells of companies. If anyone in the west who favor this "tax the rich" trend, China is now showing how well that works for them.

[ZenOps]

Capital flight is a problem, no doubt everywhere in the world is running out of money but its especially bad in China.

But you could also look at it like, too much stuff - not enough money. Too much stuff isn't really a problem most of the time.

I'm thinking Apple could actually be hurting on a few missteps and barriers. The EU banning the lightning connector, shows that Apples influence is waning.

The problem with Unisoc is that it is growing too fast. If it overtakes Apple in mobile chipsets next year, they may burn up from that type of growth.

The one overarching problem with North America next year will be too little stuff, or at least not enough stuff to satiate a two generation old economy based on consumption. People will be crying about not being able to buy their favorite cereal.

[Buster]

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The key that everyone in the world need to do business in USD allows US to make as many mistake as they can. Something the Chinese wants for themselves but looks like they just ended up with the same bubble bursting like Japanese did in the 90s.

Japan looked good in the 80s as well.

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-spe...o-a-debt-trap/

The problem is Chinese local government revenue is based on land sale to developers to build condos for speculators. The lack of property and business tax is supposed to spur business development. This train has now stopped when Xi started the 3 red lines and fall of Evergrande causing local governments revenue stream to stop or slowed down to keep the debt fuel spending going.

Now this is fine if you can keep everything in house, just print more $. But for things that can't including energy products or stuff China doesn't have (mRNA vax), it causes huge inflations.

And what we are seeing now is just tip of iceberg. Your favorite chip maker UNISOC is being drag thru the bankruptcy of Tsinghua.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4253961


The capital flight is real, rich people are fleeing China leaving behind bankrupt shells of companies. If anyone in the west who favor this "tax the rich" trend, China is now showing how well that works for them.

Is there a useful distinction between "rich" and "corrupt" in China?

[suntan]

Sure, there's a bunch of poor corrupt people as well.

[ZenOps]

I'm sure the USA will blame China when no one wants to go back to work. On the upside, many companies are giving up on drug testing to get people back.

Makes sense, if you push needles into people to require them to go to work, then it tough to deny someone work because of a different needle.

[Buster]

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Sure, there's a bunch of poor corrupt people as well.

So in China, all rich people are corrupt, but not all corrupt people are rich.

Got it.

[tcon]

When do we get our own version of China's infamous social credit system?

[Xtrema]

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So in China, all rich people are corrupt, but not all corrupt people are rich.

Got it.

Get rich or die tryin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lai_Xiaomin

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When do we get our own version of China's infamous social credit system?

Ain't we half way there with cancel culture and social media?

[killramos]

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So in China, all rich people are corrupt, but not all corrupt people are rich.

Got it.

Imagine being corrupt and not rich.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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It's always slightly satisfying to see price controls and a centrally planned economy do what they have always done: learn all about the law of unintended consequences.

Did the CCP think they were smarter than the multitude of other dimwits that thought a bunch of gov't bureaucrats could do a better job than free markets?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ond-evergrande

This may be the most convincing evidence that our entire "War On Carbon Footprints" hysterical adventure is actually a global scheme to fuck China.

[ExtraSlow]

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This may be the most convincing evidence that our entire "War On Carbon Footprints" hysterical adventure is actually a global scheme to fuck China's dad.

F.
T.
F.
Y.

Brah.

[OTown]

OP's list doesn't even include Chinese foreign interference or penetration into in a vast number of major western organization or governmental agencies. Intellectual property and other espionage is still going strong to this day.

MSM is a good example... many mainstream news or entertainment orgs are corrupt and basically used as a political propaganda machine

- Time Warner/Warner Media, who owns CNN and a multitude of other brands, and who is partnered with a Chinese investment fund (China Media Capital (CMC))
- NBC signed an agreement with Chinese state run media in order to expand business cooperation. China's aformentioned CMC also took full ownership of NBC Unversal's Oriental Dreamworks
- Disney, at the end of Mulan, thanked the Chinese provincial government where they were and currently are enslaving and killing Weigurs in what many nations have accused China of genocide.
- China's de-democratization of Hong Kong, constantly breaking it's legally binding handover treaty that had guaranteed rights and freedoms to Hong Kong
- John Cena being forced to publicly apologize in mandarin to the Chinese people, in Mandarin, after calling Taiwan a country.
- IOC calling Taiwanese athletes under the Chinese Taipei banner. Just another step towards annexation.
- WHO turning a blind eye to Chinese interference during initial COVID-19 investigations, and continues to interfere to this day.
- Chinese scientists that were suddenly fired in Canada's high security labs after sharing information and virus samples with their institutes.
- And we arent even talking about cyber security or hacking events yet.
- Or how much the CCP owns the US dollar (1 trillion of it's debt) and manufacturing much of the world's consumer goods.

The list goes on and on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55454146

TLDR; Unless something fundamentally changes, its not a matter of if China takes over, but when. And they might not even have to put any military boots on the ground. Our leaders are either complicit, or too incompetent to see it or do anything about it

[ZenOps]

As for Taiwan:

Of course people know that Taiwan is more traditionally Chinese than China is. Just look at their keyboard typing, they actually used the original Chinese scripture. China actually adopted the QWERTY keyboard.

The USA didn't spend $1.7 Trillion on stealth fighter jets to invade Africa. Although I will say, that it looks like the USA is eyeballing Australia (just a matter of taking out a few natives and British types, almost exactly like Guam) Rule #1 of invasion, pretend to come in under guise of friendship. #2 Start arming the area. #3 Create conflict in area. #4 Wait.

I can imagine the plan looks like this: Use Australia as a staging point, if invasion is unsuccessful into greater Asia - try to take over Australia on fallback. Such a predictable plan. Aussie government is either stupid or already bought out.

Before Korea or Vietnam, the USA did try through the Philippines way back in 1899. USA will probably try through Taiwan in 2030+ or so. And my personal opinion: The USA will pretend to try through Australia (in and around 2050) but instead just not bother to try to take Asia and simply trounce Austrailia.

[Buster]

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TLDR; Unless something fundamentally changes, its not a matter of if China takes over, but when.

This is just silly.

China can steal patents to a new fan blade for an airplane engine, or some software for whatever. But they will always be missing the one magic ingredient: a free and open society with free and open markets.

China has some massive problems that the CCP will almost certainly not be able to overcome:

- a disastrous demographic future,
- an inability/desire to draw foreign talent through immigration,
- an awkward geopolitical landscape on at least 3 sides,
- a world even outside of the US which is starting to view them as adversaries,
- an expensive security state which is just going to get more expensive,
- a ponzi scheme economy,
- a political system which hasn't been demonstrated to be sustainable in the last thousand years or so,
- a requirement to import critical natural resources,
- a racist dominant ethnic group which will lead to instability.


I'm sure I could think of more.

[Xtrema]

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TLDR; Unless something fundamentally changes, its not a matter of if China takes over, but when. And they might not even have to put any military boots on the ground. Our leaders are either complicit, or too incompetent to see it or do anything about it

There isn't much anyone can do and China can play the long game unlike democracies.

China is making the world to choose $ or ideology. And the fact that everyone is shunting Taiwan's request to join CPTPP, you know everyone is just all talks.

Masayoshi Son and Ray Dalio are still bullish on Chinese economy after the crackdowns. HSBC has pulled out of US after this whole Meng fiasco and concentrates on Asia. After all the screaming and yelling about security law in HK, only a few companies left for Singapore. Majority stayed.

The power outage in Guangdong is now impacting a lot of other components in the supply chain, making this chip shortage even worse.

China knows they got the business world by the balls and even if the world wants to divest to other regions, so far it has been met with mixed results.

EDIT: @Buster has shown a lot of headwinds that China will face going forward. And signs of Japanese style lost decade may be coming to it soon. But even if it's not growing, it's still a massive spending economy for businesses to ignore. China may lose relevance eventually, but I don't see it in my lifetime. All we can hope for is to get the best and brightest out of the country and into our economy.

[Buster]

By "headwinds" do you mean "massive and fundamental structural problems?"

[ThePenIsMightier]

Communist/Socialist "long game" is funny.