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China’s Economy Slows Sharply

nytimes.com

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Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#191

Post by senectus1 »

malloryerik wrote: post #66
rrggrr wrote: post #5

I continue to believe - as I've said in prior HN comments - that the Chinese leadership welcomes this slowdown and the related trade dispute as a means to rebalance the domestic economy, while placing the blame for the rebalancing on the United States. I note that at least one distinguished China watcher agrees: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/27/china-s-best-option...

Rebalancing the domestic economy toward greater household income is necessary to provide sustained growth in China, and that's what Michael Pettis argues in your link to his blog. Make no mistake though, the national and Party leadership is deathly afraid of low growth and it is exactly what they seek to avoid. The leadership knows they must create domestic consumer demand and that this must happen through an increas…

> China has a long history of civil unrest

oh come on... China has a long history. (period)

within that is periods of civil unrest and various degrees of prosperity and peace.

Its a bit unfair to paint them as a chaotic state... they're far from that.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#192

Post by cm2187 »

sho wrote: post #181
malloryerik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebalancing the domestic economy toward greater household income is necessary to provide sustained growth in China, and that's what Michael Pettis argues in your link to his blog. Make no mistake though, the national and Party leadership is deathly afraid of low growth and it is exactly what they seek to avoid. The leadership knows they must create domestic consumer demand and that this must happen through an increas…

> China has a long history of civil unrest > The return to authoritarianism can be seen as battening down the hatches Obligatory not a "China expert" but I think you're very much correct. A lot of people don't seem to understand how different, and explosive, the political situation is in China. There is very little social trust, certainly little trust in government, and things could fly apart quickly and violently. T…

But also isn’t China half way through its industrial revolution, with still a massive rural population almost living in the previous century? Are there other examples of countries that stalled in that process and the political consequences of a two tier population?

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#193

Post by _jgdh »

sho wrote: post #181
malloryerik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebalancing the domestic economy toward greater household income is necessary to provide sustained growth in China, and that's what Michael Pettis argues in your link to his blog. Make no mistake though, the national and Party leadership is deathly afraid of low growth and it is exactly what they seek to avoid. The leadership knows they must create domestic consumer demand and that this must happen through an increas…

> China has a long history of civil unrest > The return to authoritarianism can be seen as battening down the hatches Obligatory not a "China expert" but I think you're very much correct. A lot of people don't seem to understand how different, and explosive, the political situation is in China. There is very little social trust, certainly little trust in government, and things could fly apart quickly and violently. T…

I can't speak to the rest of your comment, but tax overhaul is certainly a high priority for the Party right now.

https://www.economist.com/china/2018/12/01/why-only-2-of-chi...

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#194

Post by discordance »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #7
rrggrr wrote: post #5

I continue to believe - as I've said in prior HN comments - that the Chinese leadership welcomes this slowdown and the related trade dispute as a means to rebalance the domestic economy, while placing the blame for the rebalancing on the United States. I note that at least one distinguished China watcher agrees: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/27/china-s-best-option...

This is actually pretty genius. Perhaps the Chinese economy is recession-proof. But I doubt it. It's at the height of a 30-year bull market. It doesn't seem insane that a downturn could happen. And the party seems to be pretty weak when the Chinese economy isn't doing swimmingly. If things finally do turn sour, what a convenient time. You can just blame it on someone else.

Fyi Australia's economy has also been without a recession in 30 odd years

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#195

Post by brownbat »

senectus1 wrote: post #191
malloryerik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebalancing the domestic economy toward greater household income is necessary to provide sustained growth in China, and that's what Michael Pettis argues in your link to his blog. Make no mistake though, the national and Party leadership is deathly afraid of low growth and it is exactly what they seek to avoid. The leadership knows they must create domestic consumer demand and that this must happen through an increas…

> China has a long history of civil unrest oh come on... China has a long history. (period) within that is periods of civil unrest and various degrees of prosperity and peace. Its a bit unfair to paint them as a chaotic state... they're far from that.

Interesting point. To expand on it... By analogy, western Europe has a long history of basically continual war, generally featuring some combination of France, Prussia, England, and Spain.

No one analyzes Brexit as a return to literal western European warfare, at most as an analogy of interests.

The last century featured advances in weaponry that changed the cost benefit of armed conflict in a way to make some types of historically prevalent warfare much more rare.

You could argue that the difference with China is the fear that information control and the other authoritarian elements of the communist party are masking significant internal discontent, making the political situation more volatile than can be reliably observed.

And... that civil wars aren't the type of warfare that technology has made more rare. (Really just limiting superpower territorial invasions of other superpowers?).

But who knows. China is such an enormous complicated country that there are basically no parallel examples to help us predict its future... Even China's past is limited help. China of the Tang dynasty was more similar in population to present day Myanmar. Its problems and issues and politics might have basically no discernable relationship to China's real issues today.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#196

Post by chillacy »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #136
resters wrote: post #133

Much like the now disgraced/debunked Judith Miller article helped garner massive support for Bush's Iraq war, this article is meant to support Trump's anti-China rhetoric and trade war. We're supposed to conclude that Trump's tariffs have dealt a serious blow to China's economy, and thus to suppress our disgust with the policy, since it will not take much more time for China to beg for respite. It should be obvious b…

> our disgust with the policy a prediction: the next US president (almost certainly a Democrat) will continue these policies or other very similar policies. the next president will not suddenly "lighten up" on China.

I wonder if TPP would have fared better than tariff threats. That seemed to be the way Democrats we’re going to contain China, by forging trade alliances with SEA and chinas neighbors.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#197

Post by samfisher83 »

30 year their economy was on par with India. Now it's on par with the us. Would some personal freedoms be great? Yep but I think having food in your stomach is more important. As long as they continue to do that Communist party will be ok.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#198

Post by [deleted] »

senectus1 wrote: post #191
malloryerik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebalancing the domestic economy toward greater household income is necessary to provide sustained growth in China, and that's what Michael Pettis argues in your link to his blog. Make no mistake though, the national and Party leadership is deathly afraid of low growth and it is exactly what they seek to avoid. The leadership knows they must create domestic consumer demand and that this must happen through an increas…

> China has a long history of civil unrest oh come on... China has a long history. (period) within that is periods of civil unrest and various degrees of prosperity and peace. Its a bit unfair to paint them as a chaotic state... they're far from that.

[deleted]

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#199

Post by PakG1 »

senectus1 wrote: post #191
malloryerik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebalancing the domestic economy toward greater household income is necessary to provide sustained growth in China, and that's what Michael Pettis argues in your link to his blog. Make no mistake though, the national and Party leadership is deathly afraid of low growth and it is exactly what they seek to avoid. The leadership knows they must create domestic consumer demand and that this must happen through an increas…

> China has a long history of civil unrest oh come on... China has a long history. (period) within that is periods of civil unrest and various degrees of prosperity and peace. Its a bit unfair to paint them as a chaotic state... they're far from that.

China has had 4 or 5 revolutions (depending on whether you want to count the Cultural Revolution; it was perhaps an anti-revolution where while revolutions normally attempt to overthrow the government, the cultural revolution attempted to maintain the government's power) in the last century. There are few countries in the world that can say they've gone through five revolutions within the last century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Revolution

I believe it has a long history of unrest in the modern era compared to all large countries (measured by population) out there. The Chinese government knows their own history and people well, and I believe they are managing the risk with a serious mindset. Their methods may be up for debate, but they're not of the mindset that there's no risk.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#200

Post by simonh »

cm2187 wrote: post #192
sho wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China has a long history of civil unrest > The return to authoritarianism can be seen as battening down the hatches Obligatory not a "China expert" but I think you're very much correct. A lot of people don't seem to understand how different, and explosive, the political situation is in China. There is very little social trust, certainly little trust in government, and things could fly apart quickly and violently. T…

But also isn’t China half way through its industrial revolution, with still a massive rural population almost living in the previous century? Are there other examples of countries that stalled in that process and the political consequences of a two tier population?

The rural labour pool is running pretty low at this point, it’s mostly just kids growing up and going to work in the cities rather than actual untapped capacity. Of course given China’s scale that’s still millions of workers looking for jobs every year. I’d say at this point China is very much an industrialised country with a young but burgeoning domestic economy.

Wages for manufacturing workers have been rising steadily as a result though and low value manufacturing that relies on the lowest wages is moving on to places like Vietnam. It’s still pretty rough out in the countryside, my wife is Chinese and I’ve been out in the countryside, but it is getting better.

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