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China’s Economy Slows Sharply

nytimes.com

211–220 of 260 posts

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#211
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.wik…

I don't think this is the best way of looking at things. China is virtually a continent unto itself. It's a huge and fractous territory. It is little surprise that when the empire fell at the beginning of the 20th century after 4000 years, in the most tumultuous period of world history, that it went through a long phase of war and revolution. It was divided among the West's great powers, repeatedly invaded by a risin…

But you could paint such a dramatic story for many parts of the world.

At the start of the 20th century the UK controlled so much of the world they said the sun never sets on the British Empire. It led the industrialisation of the planet, lost millions of men to the trenches of the first world war, then was nearly wiped out and turned into a slave state by Hitler before successfully liberating Europe with its allies. It went through enormous social turmoil in the middle of the 20th century: socialist governments and ultra-militant unions repeatedly damaged its economy so badly that by the end of the 1970s it was significantly worse off economically than Germany - a country it had flattened in world war just 40 years earlier, and which had then been split in half by the Soviets. Professional and well armed terrorists repeatedly attacked the government, in one case almost managing to assassinate the Prime Minister [1].

That all sounds like a much more traumatic modern history than China's. Despite that there has never been a revolution in the UK. The closest you can find is probably the English Civil War in the mid 1600s, which ended with the king being invited back to become King again after the revolutionaries turned out to suck more than he did.

So I don't think we can just write off China's history or concerns of its leadership by saying it's merely large, and not naturally unstable or violent. For whatever reason China does seem to have gone through far more revolutions than other countries have done despite the apparent lack of external events that could have triggered such instability.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#212
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for that link, I am somewhat that it hasn’t become a political issue given the current environment. Do you know if anyone is trying to address this issue?

Trump has complained about it publicly and is working to withdraw us while the Democrats spin it as Trump trying to withdraw from a 200-year old treaty - we should fix it instead (but we also tried that once and failed in 2016). I haven't followed it closely but it is a political issue, albeit a minor one that neither side for whatever reason wants to escalate into a major talking point. (Not a Trump supporter but ma…

It's amuzing how people feel forced to add the "I didn't vote for Trump" when defending his actions that they like. Lest someone think they're monsters. The reality is that business-wise he's actually working hard for America's economy, addressing structural nonsense like the mail post treaty. Why can't that be simply something you support, regardless of who you voted for. Why is it implied that the other party decides whether a position is right or wrong by simply choosing the opposite of what a politician they hate chooses?

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#213
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for that link, I am somewhat that it hasn’t become a political issue given the current environment. Do you know if anyone is trying to address this issue?

As far as I know, the US is making noise about it. I don't know if any real changes have occurred.

US filed paperwork announcing withdrawal. There's, I believe, a two year period that kicks in for renegotiation. So the process of moving as fast as it can right now.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want the developing world to follow in the West's footsteps, perhaps we should share some of our wealth with them? We are, it's called the global economy, and it has performed a wealth transfer of unprecedented scale these last decades. > we have a lot of reparations to look forward to. Colonial reparations are complete crock, because they are based on counterfactual history speculations, and there are…

Recent history reparations wouldn't be absurd. For instance, the US should start with the American Indians and then the African slave trade.

How about Russia returning the wealth of the Ukrainian people, the Jews, Tuvans, Tatars, Lithuanians,etc? Will you do the numbers please?

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#215
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has complained about it publicly and is working to withdraw us while the Democrats spin it as Trump trying to withdraw from a 200-year old treaty - we should fix it instead (but we also tried that once and failed in 2016). I haven't followed it closely but it is a political issue, albeit a minor one that neither side for whatever reason wants to escalate into a major talking point. (Not a Trump supporter but ma…

It's amuzing how people feel forced to add the "I didn't vote for Trump" when defending his actions that they like. Lest someone think they're monsters. The reality is that business-wise he's actually working hard for America's economy, addressing structural nonsense like the mail post treaty. Why can't that be simply something you support, regardless of who you voted for. Why is it implied that the other party decid…

People do this all the time for everything because it's a cheap way to supposedly increase the value of your commentary since you're otherwise allegedly unpleased by the subject. It also lets you pander to the audience with "I'm not one of those people, but...".

For example, you can see "I don't like {Javascript,PHP,Apple,Google,Facebook,$tech,$website,$thing}, but..." right here on HN, frequently.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the best way of looking at things. China is virtually a continent unto itself. It's a huge and fractous territory. It is little surprise that when the empire fell at the beginning of the 20th century after 4000 years, in the most tumultuous period of world history, that it went through a long phase of war and revolution. It was divided among the West's great powers, repeatedly invaded by a risin…

But you could paint such a dramatic story for many parts of the world. At the start of the 20th century the UK controlled so much of the world they said the sun never sets on the British Empire. It led the industrialisation of the planet, lost millions of men to the trenches of the first world war, then was nearly wiped out and turned into a slave state by Hitler before successfully liberating Europe with its allies.…

"That all sounds like a much more traumatic modern history than China's."

That is so far off the mark.

China was turned into a tributary state by the Western powers. It was repeatedly - successfully - invaded by Japan. Tens of millions died in the fires of civil war and revolution. It industrialised within a span of 50 years. It was hit successively by waves of nationalism, communism, and capitalism in a single century. Nothing compares to ANY of that in the UK's recent history.

The UK was one of the world's great powers at the start of the twentieth century. It drew men, wealth and geopolitical advantage from its empire. It enjoyed the sympathy of Canada and the United States - already far and away the most powerful state in the world. It fought into two world wars, yes, but that did not tear at the fabric of Britain - it never suffered a land invasion, or the realistic prospect of one. Even if Germany had won the air-battle, Britain's navy would always have precluded the possibility of a German armada crossing the channel.

It was not turned into a vassal state by a strange and more powerful civilization. It did not undergo revolution. There were not major ideological explosions. The same political system and governing class stayed in place. Britain had the advantage of industrialising first, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

The modern history of the UK is exceptional for being so stable.

"Socialist governments and ultra-militant unions". The Labour Party was Keynesian in economics, social democratic in politics, supported NATO and trident and yoked itself to America in the Cold War, and was hardly the direct cause of the crisis of the 1970s - a crisis, by the way, that was general to the West. Unions are, almost by definition, on the soft side of the socialist spectrum - certainly in the context of socialism in the 20th century - hence Lenin's quip about 'trade union consciousness'.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#217
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump has complained about it publicly and is working to withdraw us while the Democrats spin it as Trump trying to withdraw from a 200-year old treaty - we should fix it instead (but we also tried that once and failed in 2016). I haven't followed it closely but it is a political issue, albeit a minor one that neither side for whatever reason wants to escalate into a major talking point. (Not a Trump supporter but ma…

It's amuzing how people feel forced to add the "I didn't vote for Trump" when defending his actions that they like. Lest someone think they're monsters. The reality is that business-wise he's actually working hard for America's economy, addressing structural nonsense like the mail post treaty. Why can't that be simply something you support, regardless of who you voted for. Why is it implied that the other party decid…

People need to do that for fear of losing their jobs or damaging their career prospects I think. Is it possible to be a Trump supporter at any of these big bay area tech firms? Many of my friends tell me they pretend to be apolitical for fear of being fired, but I don't know how exaggerated their stories are.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#218
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...

90% of the population isn’t gonna care about such drop. The chinese govt isnt gonna let the media color it bad.

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#219

As a Chinese grew up in China and have been living in US in recent years, I am already used to how US media reports about China. The bottom line: I have not seen _any_ US media reporting China truthfully. NPR is usually the worst, but others not much better. What happens is that, because of untruthful reporting in US media, people in US does not know or understand what's going on in China. It seems a miracle that suc…

Americans and westerners who live or have lived in China are typically more critical about china than those that haven’t. We are the ones who notice the empty buildings and districts, and that mall in Beijing that is never going to attract any stores, or why the apartment buildings we live in is half empty but has a thriving ant tribe in the basement. If anything, reporting on China by western sources doesn’t get any…

>the empty buildings and districts, and that mall in Beijing that is never going to attract any stores, or why the apartment buildings we live in is half empty but has a thriving ant tribe in the basement.

>would never believe it was that crazy.

That doesn't sound crazy at all, as I've seen plenty of all that in the US...

Re: China’s Economy Slows Sharply

#220
post #104

Every economy has a plateau then a fall, then a pull back up again. I think the aggressive trade stance and hard line politics by China might have played a major role. As it’s frightened both the local businesses and foreign businesses and lead to all global powers starting to put tariffs and trade barriers up, all due to China wanting to get away with pretty blatant violations of fair trade, huge import taxes on for…

> blatant violations of fair trade, huge import taxes on foreign goods, great firewall blocking any foreign purchase easily, hugely subsidised mail, forced ownership sharing, lowered safety regulations, lack of pollutant regulation 'Free' trade benefits industrialized nations, while mercantilism benefits developing nations. Every currently industrialized nation has, at some point in its past, been incredible protecti…

>China is just catching up to what the rest of the developed world has gone through

in the past there was no world trade organization and there were no multi-national free trade agreements. It's like saying china should be allowed to enslave people because it happened hundreds of years ago. There are now laws against it

I've seen this argument parroted multiple times on many different websites. It's either just the blind leading the blind or Chinese sock puppets spreading lies to justify blatant trade abuses

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