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Let's talk about China

According to FSI who train diplomats in languages, for an English-native, Mandarin takes approximately four times more hours to master than Spanish, about 2.5 more than German, and twice that of languages like Farsi and Russian.

I used to listen to a shortwave broadcast put on by the Chinese government. They taught Mandarin and you could write in for free materials. I gave up after a while because it's such a tonal language. It was difficult with my bad hearing to distinguish between words that were similar or the same, but with a different tone. Spanish wasn't difficult at all by comparison.
 
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A lot of those headlines are actually reasonable. China is having a slowdown, their Covid response was a disaster, there remains a reasonable case that they have passed their global peak power, and there has been a struggle to reform China's economy. And the Great Fall of China article is specifically about share prices which were tumbling in China at the time of the article.

The flipside of media predicting a crisis is all the predictions in western media that they will be the number 1 economy by 2020 as well as sorts of predicted achievements that have never come to fruition.


Edit:

Also looks very likely these predictions will be disproved in the coming years:

Largest by 2024:

Largest by 2026:

Largest by 2028:

Largest by 2030:

Or by 2060, if ever...
 
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A lot of those headlines are actually reasonable. China is having a slowdown, their Covid response was a disaster, there remains a reasonable case that they have passed their global peak power, and there has been a struggle to reform China's economy. And the Great Fall of China article is specifically about share prices which were tumbling in China at the time of the article.

The flipside of media predicting a crisis is all the predictions in western media that they will be the number 1 economy by 2020 as well as sorts of predicted achievements that have never come to fruition.


Edit:

Also looks very likely these predictions will be disproved in the coming years:

Largest by 2024:

Largest by 2026:

Largest by 2028:

Largest by 2030:

Or by 2060, if ever...
I was responding particularly to the telegraphs

China is on the verge of economic and social implosion​

... That's not a "slowdown" that's the usual daily swivel eyed nonsense that rag churns out like a sewer on a British beach
 
I was responding particularly to the telegraphs

China is on the verge of economic and social implosion​

... That's not a "slowdown" that's the usual daily swivel eyed nonsense that rag churns out like a sewer on a British beach
I just read the article you refer to, and the content is much more sober than the headline and is pretty reasonable I would say.

The headline is just editorialising and I'm sure you can find equally alarmist headlines in western media for the 2008 financial crisis or any number of things really.

E.g.


This doesn't mean that we just dismiss the content of such articles as alarmist.

The "west predicts China collapse AGAIN!" trope is a typical Chinese propaganda method to avoid having to address critics, and is basically dishonest as usually nobody is actually predicting a collapse, but instead pointing out structural problems with the economy. These structural problems haven't came to crisis point yet largely because the Chinese government has continued to kick the can down the road longer than anyone expected, by continuing to prop up real estate through bailouts and growing debt longer than anyone thought possible, but the people pointing out it was a problem weren't wrong either.
 
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well fair enough...IMPLOSION literally means COLLAPSE though, and there is a lot of wishful thinking out there in the western capitalist press regarding the Chinese economic and political model and particular in it not complying to the WASP regime

(eta: this was fascinating article from an ideoogical point of view in the Wall Street Journal https://archive.ph/7nhtm

"Communist Party Priorities Complicate Plans to Revive China’s Economy
Ideology is driving Beijing’s economic policy to a degree not seen since the opening to the West nearly half a century ago."
...whereas the WSJ is ideology free of course!)
 
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The real problem is the rubrics of bourgeois economics might be good for your stock picks but they don't really describe political-economic reality.
 
well fair enough...IMPLOSION literally means COLLAPSE though, and there is a lot of wishful thinking out there in the western capitalist press regarding the Chinese economic and political model and particular in it not complying to the WASP regime

(eta: this was fascinating article from an ideoogical point of view in the Wall Street Journal https://archive.ph/7nhtm

"Communist Party Priorities Complicate Plans to Revive China’s Economy
Ideology is driving Beijing’s economic policy to a degree not seen since the opening to the West nearly half a century ago."
...whereas the WSJ is ideology free of course!)
Evergrande stock fell another 90% today
 
well fair enough...IMPLOSION literally means COLLAPSE though, and there is a lot of wishful thinking out there in the western capitalist press regarding the Chinese economic and political model and particular in it not complying to the WASP regime

(eta: this was fascinating article from an ideoogical point of view in the Wall Street Journal https://archive.ph/7nhtm

"Communist Party Priorities Complicate Plans to Revive China’s Economy
Ideology is driving Beijing’s economic policy to a degree not seen since the opening to the West nearly half a century ago."
...whereas the WSJ is ideology free of course!)

The WSJ obviously has ideology too but it is rather puzzling as to why the Communist Party under Xi seems to oppose boosting consumer led growth, with an economy which is still largely dependent on export to western consumers at a time when western countries are looking to derisk, diversify, or reshore from China.

As the article states, continuing to borrow money to build infrastructure has increasingly diminishing returns at this point. It is strange that Xi views a lack of social spending as fiscal discipline, but continuing to increase the debt burden by building more roads to nowhere and white elephants is acceptable. Especially given the demographic issues China has, spending in a state pension system would make a lot of sense.

I think, less than ideology, what is happening is fewer voices able to speak at the top and policy is increasingly made based on the prejudices of a small group of out-of-touch elites with similar background and worldview.

Welfarism is coded as Western and decadent in contrast to Chinese vitality and industriousness so it's a stubborn no.

State directed investment spending has worked so far so it must keep going. I suspect there must also be some degree of Xi using this to keep his patronage networks loyal, by ensuring state funding continues to flow to companies connected to his political allies.

I think there is indeed less rational economics going on here. It is similar in a way to the logic of Tory austerity, which was advised against by the IMF and a lot of neoliberal economists, but it had become an unquestionable sacred cow amongst the Tory elite cliques and was also benefiting a lot of private contractors allied with the Tory Party who were taking on previously public sector roles; ultimately it comes down to stubborn out-of-touch elite prejudices and self-interest, albeit in different contexts.
 

In other news, election polls look like DPP is heading for a third term, with KMT potentially relegated to a third party position.

This is quite a big deal as KMT, as a Chinese Nationalist Party and former government of China, are Taiwan's main link with China and are regarded by Beijing as the default rulers of Taiwan. Their arguments for "One China Policy" rely a lot on the legacy of KMT rule, which represented China at the UN for quite some time and sought to eventually retake the mainland. But if Taiwan no longer regards itself as the Chinese government and the Chinese-identifying descendants of the losing side of the civil war have become politically marginal, then talking about "One China Policy" becomes meaningless.

Their attempts at peaceful reunification have involved fostering relationships with influential KMT members and KMT-linked businessmen, and they have been keen to get KMT back in power. Them being relegated to a third party will force Beijing to reassess its strategy.

Whether this would mean war or not is unclear. Anybody who tells you with 100% certainty than a war will or won't happen is talking shit, most likely Beijing doesn't even know itself yet but war is certainly an option on the table and they are taking all the steps you'd expect them to take, the question is whether they are willing to take the gamble or not, which nobody really knows.
 
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In other news, election polls look like DPP is heading for a third term, with KMT potentially relegated to a third party position.

This is quite a big deal as KMT, as a Chinese Nationalist Party, are Taiwan's main link with China and are regarded by Beijing as the default rulers of Taiwan. Most of their attempts at peaceful reunification have involved fostering relationships with influential KMT members and KMT-linked businessmen, and they have been keen to get KMT back in power. Them being relegated to a third party will force Beijing to reassess its strategy.
Oh I think the ccp has a plan b
 
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Yeah I edited my post while you were replying. We all know what plan b is, the question is whether they will take the risk.
Tbh atm it is not that much of a risk in comparison to how it would be in 5 years time. The American forces are transitioning to a posture against China, China's got home advantage, america has sent a fuck ton of weapons to Ukraine - at the moment the military situation is about as favourable as it will get for China. Politically? Economically? Probably not. But on the balance of forces and ability to establish facts on the ground? If you read American military authors on war with China it's plain the USA would a) struggle to mobilise and transport forces within the continental United states in the face of a range of possible Chinese tactics and b) the forces the US could deploy in the Western Pacific like aircraft carrier groups are vulnerable to a range of weapons China could deploy. For my money it's 2025 but 2024 is certainly on the cards
 
Tbh atm it is not that much of a risk in comparison to how it would be in 5 years time. The American forces are transitioning to a posture against China, China's got home advantage, america has sent a fuck ton of weapons to Ukraine - at the moment the military situation is about as favourable as it will get for China. Politically? Economically? Probably not. But on the balance of forces and ability to establish facts on the ground? If you read American military authors on war with China it's plain the USA would a) struggle to mobilise and transport forces within the continental United states in the face of a range of possible Chinese tactics and b) the forces the US could deploy in the Western Pacific like aircraft carrier groups are vulnerable to a range of weapons China could deploy. For my money it's 2025 but 2024 is certainly on the cards

I worry that Trump's contestation of the 2024 election could lead to some form of serious civil unrest in the US which Beijing might see as an opportune moment to act. "Now or never."

I agree that time is not on China's side and it will get harder the longer they leave it. However they are also quite risk averse and they might prefer to delay action and hope the situation improves. That seems to be their approach to the economy after all.
 

In other news, election polls look like DPP is heading for a third term, with KMT potentially relegated to a third party position.

This is quite a big deal as KMT, as a Chinese Nationalist Party and former government of China, are Taiwan's main link with China and are regarded by Beijing as the default rulers of Taiwan. Their arguments for "One China Policy" rely a lot on the legacy of KMT rule, which represented China at the UN for quite some time and sought to eventually retake the mainland. But if Taiwan no longer regards itself as the Chinese government and the Chinese-identifying descendants of the losing side of the civil war have become politically marginal, then talking about "One China Policy" becomes meaningless.

Their attempts at peaceful reunification have involved fostering relationships with influential KMT members and KMT-linked businessmen, and they have been keen to get KMT back in power. Them being relegated to a third party will force Beijing to reassess its strategy.

Whether this would mean war or not is unclear. Anybody who tells you with 100% certainty than a war will or won't happen is talking shit, most likely Beijing doesn't even know itself yet but war is certainly an option on the table and they are taking all the steps you'd expect them to take, the question is whether they are willing to take the gamble or not, which nobody really knows.
We're getting to the stage where no war would be a bigger surprise than war
 
Get depressed when think about our closest neighboring countries are Russia, China and the DPRK.

Bit scarier than having Ireland and France beside ye...
 
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