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What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

nytimes.com

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Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#121

Post by pm90 »

iamshs wrote: post #76
robbiep wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not true that they mainly (or even significantly) employ chinese on Australian Farms - these farms are generally managed by the previous owners or managers and staffed by Australians, with australian Agronomists. In actual fact, very little changes on a day to day basis, except there is more funds available for infrastructure and capital goods purchase (and property values are driven up). Which, when you think…

Well Shepparton and Mooroopna has quite a substantial number if Chinese farm workers. In Safeway, nearly whole Saturday is busy with Chinese farm workers shopping. I haven't really enquired on which specific farm they work, because they generally shun interaction and also due to language barrier. Also, Shepparton has a substantial Punjabi farming population and I can tell you from experience that the farmers do take…

Punjabis are from India and Pakistan, not from China, if that wasn't clear to you.

They have a reputation as good workers in agri businesses. See this article about how they invigorated Italy's cheese business: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/europe/08iht-italy08...

(The article references most workers as being Sikhs. Sikhs are adherents of the religion of Sikhism, but I believe nearly all of them are ethnically Punjabis)

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#122

Post by corpMaverick »

scandox wrote: post #89

Found this quote from Ai Weiwei in yesterday's Guardian very interesting: “Can China be a global power? I don’t think so. It can gain an advantage, that’s true. But it doesn’t have soul. It doesn’t have heart. It doesn’t trust its own people. So it has no self-identity in the sense that it has never accepted human rights as common values. No freedom of speech, no independent judicial system. If those don’t exist, how…

As a counter quote. I can't remember who said though. "China has 1.5 billion people, and all them want to be millionaires". So China may lack freedom but it has big ambitions.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#123

Post by pm90 »

scandox wrote: post #99
fatman13gg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why having freedom of speech, independent judicial system and accepting human rights as common values has to be the prerequisites of being a global power? Technically if you are rich and powerful then you are a global power. Edit: sensing lots of incoming downvotes. Point is that democracy may not be the only way to global power.

I think he's making a deeper point. China can be a global power in the sense that you mean: like just wielding influence in the crudest sense - "an advantage" as he puts it. He's questioning what the meaning of that is without a real Chinese identity expressed via the people. It's more like the power a business exercises which ultimately may be broken up, bought or which is assimilated into the culture it seeks to al…

This is a relatively recent thing, for sure. For most of human history, powerful nations exercised their influence mostly via military power and trade, not through soft power such as promoting a better quality of living (middle class itself is pretty recent, a product of industrial revolutions).

I think its disingenuous to dismiss the very real progress that China has made in industry and military as inessential just because they haven't had the same cultural impact as the US. Prosperity, strong and healthy middle class and political stability are what is necessary for the development of a strong, lasting culture.

There is also the often overlooked fact that the US, being an English speaking country, got to ride the cultural train for free since the British Empire had already established English as the lingua franca of the world. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff going on in Chinese culture which we aren't aware of since its mostly in Chinese.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#124

Post by tzumby »

princeb wrote: post #10

A number of Chinese businesses are setting up 100%-Chinese factory compounds overseas. These compounds are located in a foreign country, but they are fully financed by Chinese, built by Chinese, employ only Chinese, have accommodation for the Chinese employees, have a completely sustaining internal economy where employees can buy food and entertainment and send mail, posts, banking, remittance, insurance, through Chi…

Am I the only one thinking of the Snow Crash novel when reading this ?

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#125

Post by westiseast »

whazor wrote: post #98
grecy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen more of these than I can count in West Africa, and I am told the same is true in the East (I am going there next). The scale of construction here is staggering - I wrote a little about it [1]. It is not only roads - it's dams, deep water ports, high-rise buildings, etc. Basically anything that requires a high degree of competency in engineering. Western governments are now held to account when they make d…

Maybe this is better as well, once citizens have more welfare they have more power to acquire human rights.

I think that's highly debatable; it's obvious human rights aren't a massive priority to China, and neither is transfer of wealth to those countries.

Even if Chinese money does end up in a rush of trade and business, without strong political systems, its debatable whether wealth will make it into the hands of people who will subsequently push for human rights.

Remember also that China is simultaneously creating a blueprint with its own country showing developing nations how to create economic transformations and a level of freedom and opportunity in society without political reform. It's quite likely that even if the push creates wealth and prosperity in a host nation that doesn't have strong democratic institutions, they might start adopting Chinese political norms and techniques.

* as a side note, the western aid model has huge drawbacks too and carries similar if/but criticisms. I think it's just too simplistic for the Chinese side to say "well, everything will be fine once we create wealth!"

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#127

Post by azeotropic »

exogeny wrote: post #4

Author has clearly never been to Pittsburgh's airport.

PIT was the hub for US Air (originally Allegheny Airlines) back when that airport was built. It's pretty vacant now that USAir changed its name, moved the hub to PHI and merged with American, but PIT used to be quite busy.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#128

Post by grecy »

pm90 wrote: post #119
grecy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about citizens getting more welfare? China is stripping these countries bare, and the money goes straight into the pockets of the corrupt ruling class. It is staggering to see the countries with the multi-hundreds-of-billions in resources have the poorest citizens.

I think a distinction must be made between a completely extractive economy and one that is based on manufacturing. So if its simply raw materials being mined and shipped abroad, then yes I agree with the stripping the countries part. If they are actually manufacturing stuff.... Oh actually, if they're employing only Chinese citizens for manufacturing, then I agree with your assessment.

One of the major "problems" with African economies is they manufacture essentially nothing, and everything they export is completely unprocessed raw materials.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#129

Post by soundwave106 »

pm90 wrote: post #123
scandox wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's making a deeper point. China can be a global power in the sense that you mean: like just wielding influence in the crudest sense - "an advantage" as he puts it. He's questioning what the meaning of that is without a real Chinese identity expressed via the people. It's more like the power a business exercises which ultimately may be broken up, bought or which is assimilated into the culture it seeks to al…

This is a relatively recent thing, for sure. For most of human history, powerful nations exercised their influence mostly via military power and trade, not through soft power such as promoting a better quality of living (middle class itself is pretty recent, a product of industrial revolutions). I think its disingenuous to dismiss the very real progress that China has made in industry and military as inessential just…

As a side note, my impression is that cultural exports from Hong Kong have declined a fair bit since China took over the island. (Japan and (especially) South Korea seem to dominate Asian cultural exports at the moment).

I think a big issue regarding China and culture is that, with their need for "great firewalls" and the like, they've effectively removed a huge channel for people to communicate their ideas and culture outside the nation. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff going on in Chinese culture that we don't know about; the problem is, with many Western social media channels blocked inside the country, it is probably much more difficult for Chinese to obtain a non-Chinese audience online even if they wanted to.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#130

Post by mcguire »

whazor wrote: post #98
grecy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen more of these than I can count in West Africa, and I am told the same is true in the East (I am going there next). The scale of construction here is staggering - I wrote a little about it [1]. It is not only roads - it's dams, deep water ports, high-rise buildings, etc. Basically anything that requires a high degree of competency in engineering. Western governments are now held to account when they make d…

Maybe this is better as well, once citizens have more welfare they have more power to acquire human rights.

It's a very long game, though. The end results of the British Empire seem to be a net positive, although in most cases it took several hundred years and numerous wars.

On the other hand, the Spanish empire doesn't seem to have been so beneficial.

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