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Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

bloomberg.com

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Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#11

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

andrew_ wrote: post #2

Anyone else learn a new meaning to the word "founder"? Thought it was a typo for "flounder" only to learn that it can also mean "to give way, collapse." Stay weird, English.

I didn't know this either. Amusing.

Many founders do founder.

verb (used without object)

(of a ship, boat, etc.) to fill with water and sink.

to fall or sink down, as buildings, ground, etc.:

Built on a former lake bed, the building has foundered nearly ten feet.

to become wrecked; fail utterly:

The project foundered because public support was lacking.

to stumble, break down, or go lame, as a horse:

to become ill from overeating.

Veterinary Pathology. (of a horse) to suffer from laminitis.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#12

Post by AnimalMuppet »

toadworrier wrote: post #3
andrew_ wrote: post #2

Anyone else learn a new meaning to the word "founder"? Thought it was a typo for "flounder" only to learn that it can also mean "to give way, collapse." Stay weird, English.

I think of it as "The ship foundered on the rocks". Of course I suppose if a fish did the same thing we might have a foundering flounder.

dictionary.com says that flounder may have come from a combination of flounce and founder (back around 1570 or 1580).

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#13

Post by AnimalMuppet »

baybal2 wrote: post #5

The key quote: >"It’s worth considering all this misdirected spending in the context of the Soviet Union’s decline. Around the middle decades of the 20th century, Moscow presided over a China-style economic miracle that caused many in the West to fear they would be overtaken."

The key question may be to what degree China's economy resembles Russia's. If China's is some free-market lipstick on a planned-economy pig, they are likely to suffer Russia's fate. To the extent that the free-market reforms are real, they have a better chance of escaping it.

My personal opinion is that China's free market is real, but the state intervention is still fairly heavy for a "free market economy". What does that translate into in terms of China's chance to avoid collapse? I don't know.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#14

Post by walrus01 »

One interesting project is the mostly Chinese-funded port of Gwadar, in Balochistan, Pakistan. They're trying to develop it as a deep water port as an alternative to Karachi. So far not with very much success, because of political instability and difficulty of attracting other foreign investors to the region.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gwadar+port+china&ie=utf-8&o...

Now this part is just my opinion, but the really, really hard part is the proposed road or high-speed rail cargo link from Gwadar to Western China. The Karakorum highway is no joke. It's narrow, twisty, carved into steep rocky mountain passes. I've driven from Islamabad via Gilgit to the Chinese border. It will take many, many billions of dollars of tunneling and road construction to bring it up to the standard of a highway that can take a large volume of 20/40ft cargo container traffic. Right now trucks spend a great deal of time in 1st gear crawling along at 15km/h.

https://www.google.com/search?q=karakoram+highway&ie=utf-8&o...

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#15

Post by [deleted] »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13
baybal2 wrote: post #5

The key quote: >"It’s worth considering all this misdirected spending in the context of the Soviet Union’s decline. Around the middle decades of the 20th century, Moscow presided over a China-style economic miracle that caused many in the West to fear they would be overtaken."

The key question may be to what degree China's economy resembles Russia's. If China's is some free-market lipstick on a planned-economy pig, they are likely to suffer Russia's fate. To the extent that the free-market reforms are real, they have a better chance of escaping it. My personal opinion is that China's free market is real, but the state intervention is still fairly heavy for a "free market economy". What doe…

[deleted]

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#16

Post by Anarch157a »

>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline.

This describes the US better than China. The US spends 7.8% of it's GDP on the military, while China spends only 1.9%. If any country is over-exerting itself and "starving the economy of capital", that's America.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#18

Post by kyrieeschaton »

Meanwhile, the USA will dump 1 trillion dollars at a time on things like the Obama stimulus to apparently no effect, a decade of massive subsidies to an insolvent financial sector, billions of dollars on failed school districts... China might overpay, eventually, if they actually invest their claimed amount of money (doubtful), but they do appear to at least get a road when they pay for a road.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#19

Post by rgbrenner »

Anarch157a wrote: post #16

>Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become overextended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline. This describes the US better than China. The US spends 7.8% of it's GDP on the military, while China spends only 1.9%. If any country is o…

I was with you on the first sentence.. but where did you get 7.8%? We only spend 3.5%. [Edit: World bank puts it at 3.1: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...]

And according to the military, most of this higher than average spending is due to the military being voluntary, and needing to compete on wages in one of the highest earning countries in the world. Whether you agree with the military's assessment or not, it's true that a significant portion of US military spending is spent on wages/compensation. A lot (not all though) of the difference between the US and russia/china is due to the later having much cheaper labor.

Also the last sentence certainly isn't true... there are many countries that spend far more a percent of GDP on their military: Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the typical example of military excess: north korea.

Re: Soviet Collapse Echoes in China’s Belt and Road

#20

Post by logicx24 »

kiliantics wrote: post #7

Were the West Indies productive before the ports and sugar plantations? Was India productive before its railways were built? Something smells of anti-China propaganda in this highly speculative piece.

India had the world's largest GDP under the Mughals and had continued positive growth, but by the end of the British Raj, was facing stagnant population growth and actually reduced agricultural productivity. So contrary to everything you're saying, India was not only productive before the British, it was actually worsened by Britain's exploitation.
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