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China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

nytimes.com

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Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#81

Post by gammateam »

bilbo0s wrote: post #52
gammateam wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Germany count? Obviously Post WWII without any of their acquisitions, debilitated infrastructure, and debt Yet third time's a charm!

They didn't pay market prices. We gave them most of the stuff via the Marshall Plan. (You could say the same thing about Japan. We gave them all the stuff they needed to rebuild.) I'm wondering if anyone has ever actually paid for the stuff they need?

Perhaps not!

Also when it comes to private persons, I find many examples of the currently wealthy 1% having done things that elevated and cemented their status that are no longer legal today. I dare say most.

Its not just that the laws changed and they coincidentally were a common practice at the time, its that those were the particular nuanced laws they were using.

Everything from selling securities door to door 100 years ago, to self-benefitting charities using overlooked and accidental combinations of tax code.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#82

Post by gammateam »

gammateam wrote: post #31
neya wrote: post #2

Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet train where China pretended to contract Japan for the bullet train, but used it to steal their IP, patent it all and screw them over. Here's a really good documentary on how much engineering went into Japan's bullet trains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4a…

All great nations are built by theft of a valuable resource. It's the sure fire way to get ahead in any game.

well okay guys, after a cumulative -2 on the above, I want to disclose that I'm open to counterpoints if you have a compelling one!

Just because an ego is bruised or you want a better world doesn't mean you need to project that through downvoting, it is effectively censorship when you do that

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#83

Post by 40acres »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #73
40acres wrote: post #59

China has mastered the balancing act between authoritarian and free market policies. In a way, the West's persistence that eventually prosperity would lead to Democratic policies always seemed a bit condescending and short sighted to me, democracy is a strong form of government, but why does it have to be the only one? The big variable here is growth, the social contract between China and it's citizens seems to be on…

Mastered? Far too soon to say that. Within the span of a few decades they moved from party rule where there seemed to be a meritocracy in place, to authoritarian rule by their president, which included an "anti-corruption" campaign that conveniently consolidated power and removed other power blocs. Doesn't sound like they are maintaining the balance you extol

You're correct, it might be too soon to say mastered. But they are striking a balance that has not been seen in the modern world, the fact that their economy is so strong and so central to the global economy is a very big advantage.

It's one thing to try to balance authorities and free market policies in Venezuela, or even Russia, but China has a massive advantage in population and strength of the economy. The USSR was no where near where China is even at the height of its powers. China is moving more into a service based economy and has plans to become a major importer. Xi honestly IS the biggest threat but relatively speaking, there have been really successful nation-states that have similar consolidated power and have been historically successful.

I think we are way to sure of ourselves that China will fail with this model, but so far they are doing an excellent job all things considered.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#84

Post by 40acres »

neya wrote: post #2

Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet train where China pretended to contract Japan for the bullet train, but used it to steal their IP, patent it all and screw them over. Here's a really good documentary on how much engineering went into Japan's bullet trains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4a…

You could argue that stealing IP is necessary fuel for any striving world power. As bad as China is with respect to IP abuse we need to realize that they are ready to turn the corner and start developing IP of their own. China is too self-reliant to continue to rely on US/EU based semiconductors and aerospace technology for long. I honestly think it's too late to halt China's growth from the outside.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#85

Post by ardy42 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #72

I think it is still too soon to blow the horn on China's model. Yes, China has become successful through authoritarianism, but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent. History shows that, on longer time scales, it is difficult to continuously install competent and benevolent leaders, and when a leader comes along that is not competent or benevolent, authoritarian…

> but it has only had 2 successful authoritarian leaders, both of whom were competent and benevolent.

Which ones were benevolent?

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#86

Post by ardy42 »

liftbigweights wrote: post #45
diminish wrote: post #22

"The West was sure the Chinese approach would not work. It just had to wait. It’s still waiting." Waiting, crossing fingers, thinking wishfully, hoping, and acting upon it. China is doing something right.. or maybe West is indeed helping the Chinese success?

"The west was sure the chinese approach would not work"? Is that why the west invested trillions of dollars in china over the past 4 decades? I expect very little from the nytimes, but this is a new low for them. Did the nytimes assume Gordon Chang is "the west" and then run with that false premise? If anything, we have gambled our future and put all our eggs in one basket - china. We looked to china to be the manufa…

> The west helped create modern china. It was our money, resources, expertise, technology and markets that helped create modern china. Why would we invest trillions in a country expecting it to fail?

I think the expectation was that it's political system would fail, not the country itself, and a liberal democracy would emerge from that failure. Much of the investment was sanctioned by the (now disproven) idea that capitalism invariably brings democracy and liberalization with it.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#87

Post by scottlegrand2 »

archibaldJ wrote: post #43
whooshee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That strategy is not uncommon for big companies, think about Facebook, Microsoft.

I guess at least they don't pretend to be interested in funding or collaborating with another company before stealing, say, design/code/algorithms from them. Or are there any anecdotes about these big conglomerates doing disgraceful things like that as well?

From talking to friends, I can think of 3 examples from MSFT, GOOG, and AMZN right off the bat. Capitalism is dog eat dog by nature IMO.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#88

Post by vixen99 »

scarcely wrote: post #53
Edmond wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP theft is an important part of the Chinese "Miracle" but it is short-sighted to focus too much on that...If IP access is all it took, I think we would have seen the Chinese achievement replicated in many other places.

America owes its very existence to the land it stole from Native Americans. It owes a huge part of its prosperity to the entire lives it stole from generations of black people by using them as draft animal (hence freeing the white man to think about science, mathematics, whatever). The entire material infrastructure that enabled the production of these fruits of the intellect is stolen, with direct violent human cons…

So who are these groups of people with morally irreproachable ancestors who've contributed so much to our world?

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#89

Post by IllogicalLogic »

foobarian wrote: post #70
scarcely wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America owes its very existence to the land it stole from Native Americans. It owes a huge part of its prosperity to the entire lives it stole from generations of black people by using them as draft animal (hence freeing the white man to think about science, mathematics, whatever). The entire material infrastructure that enabled the production of these fruits of the intellect is stolen, with direct violent human cons…

Don't forget how much American intellectual progress actually came from Europe. Europe did the hard work of educating and raising generations of scientists and other cream of the crop intellectual elites, who then proceeded to get chased away by wars and persecution and ended up in America. I heard some execs in startup land joke about how they managed to "get their Russian scientists" with relief that their intellec…

Yes, America stole the fruits of European theft....

We all should realize that Pre-15th century most of Europe could barely do basic math. All the books about advanced sciences and mathematics were translated from Persian (which were compiled from Ancient Greek, Chinese, Indian, and Arab knowledge).

The biggest thieves in history are just mad that the involuntary investors in their societies are coming to get a return on their investments.

Don't forget when Europeans basically stole land and labor from whole continents, resulting in enough wealth to develop certain technologies.

This is all part of the cycle empires go through and we in the West are on the tail end of one hell of a ride.

This isn't controversial, this is history.

Re: China Rules – The Land That Failed to Fail

#90

Post by _cs2017_ »

neya wrote: post #2

Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet train where China pretended to contract Japan for the bullet train, but used it to steal their IP, patent it all and screw them over. Here's a really good documentary on how much engineering went into Japan's bullet trains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4a…

Any experienced businessman understands that there's a risk of being duped. Like you imply, the risk depends on the country of origin of your business partner: China is worse than the US; the US is worse than Scandinavia; etc. It also depends on the industry, the reputation and history of the company and its owners, the nature of the deal, and many other factors. It's just part of doing business.

If IP theft (or other dishonest behavior) is too extreme, eventually that country would lose foreign business. This is what happened in Russia soon after Gorbachev opened it up: many foreign companies and investors gave up their attempts to enter Russia because they could not handle the amount of trickery being done to them. It took many years for Russia to fix that to some extent.

The fact that foreign businesses are still very much present and expand in China means that IP theft and other deceitful practices are within the limits of accepted business risks.

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