101–110 of 120 posts
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I think China is going to be greatest civilization... or that's their aim. And with their population and level of growth they may very well get there.
They will have to become more democratic and accountable to their population first. Up to now they have been able to buy off their middle classes with rising incomes, once that stops as it inevitably will those people will start calling for more representation.
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As a Chinese I have to say it's hard to believe “Not one of the six Chinese devs had ever seen that photo or had any knowledge of what happened there”, it's more likely they don't want to tell you what they really think. When I was in Uni, the Tiananmen square videos are all over the university intranet, including the documentary shot by Hongkong journalist and some shorter documentaries made by the west in later tim…
How many of OP's taxi drivers were savvy university graduates in your opinion? Censorship being soft and porous does not help - it keeps the outrage from bubbling over as the 5% of smart potential leaders who could give a voice to discontent will (a) work around the censors in ways that the 95% can't or don't bother [VPN etc] and their discontent has an outlet, and (b) these 2% can be kept in line by offering or refu…
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro censorship. But you and many in the west assume people in China are all brain washed and incapable of seeing their own history. Sure, a large part of the population can't be bothered, but I'd bet it's not 95% as you assumed, and they have increasingly less influence in today's China.
And speaking of which, you don't think the west is ruled by 2% of elites and manipulate the media to tame the rest?
"Oh woe is us. Who will save us from downing in all this Chinese money." There were exactly the same concerns about Japanese investment back in the 80s. Now doing business with Japanese firms and companies like Sony owning major American firms is just natural. They're not weird alien creatures from space anymore, they're our business partners and investors. It's normal. The same will happen with China.
This seems to ignore the main objection. It's not that Chinese companies are investing in European economies, it's that these companies are run by the Chinese state, and that China is not providing reciprocal access to its own market to Western companies. This is not natural free-market activity, it is a state-sponsored effort to take technology and expertise from European companies and feed it into state-owned Chine…
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The same happened in Poland (and other countries from behind the Iron Curtain). Most stuff here has German or French owners now.
Do you live in Poland? I live in Prague, and here, I'm surprised at how little people care about the foreign investment aspect of the privatization process. Even though almost everyone complains that it is corrupt, people here are mostly pro-west. The economy is strong here, and people don't see a big problem. Sure, we were among the richest countries in Europe pre WWII, but that was a long time ago, and people are n…
At the time (during the 90s), most of those companies that had foreign investors/management grew and survived and those that didn't were often tunneled-out by a corrupt management and were closed down. There were definitely some pretty big cases in 90s. Also there was a big public discussion about this at the time, and many politicians were against the foreign investments in general.
So I simply don't think that it's so clear-cut issue and that it's not like most of Czech people are completely unaware of the problem.
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Do you live in Poland? I live in Prague, and here, I'm surprised at how little people care about the foreign investment aspect of the privatization process. Even though almost everyone complains that it is corrupt, people here are mostly pro-west. The economy is strong here, and people don't see a big problem. Sure, we were among the richest countries in Europe pre WWII, but that was a long time ago, and people are n…
On the other hand, I remember that there were lot of Czech companies that were privatized into Czech hands and most of them do not exist anymore, because they went bankrupt a long time ago. At the time (during the 90s), most of those companies that had foreign investors/management grew and survived and those that didn't were often tunneled-out by a corrupt management and were closed down. There were definitely some p…
But if škoda had gone bankrupt, then that wouldn't have been an end to the Kolín, Mladé Boleslav, Leipzig industrial triangle. Cars would still be made here, given the huge amount of equipment and expertise in the area. But with škoda owned by VW, it cements a market dominance which is hard to shake. In a way, capital ownership is perminant.
A worse case is that of the swiss owned coal mines in the north. We behave as though those are still state owned mines. We kick people out of their houses with the power of the law. But the profits flow across the border to the west. Personally, I think that the government should pass a law that would re-nationalize the mines, without paying anything for them. The Chinese would certainly re-nationalize their mines if they were in the same situation. Right now, we behave as if capitalism is absolute, and democracy is relative to capitalism. The people cannot vote to confiscate the mines, but the companies can certainly bribe elected officials into privatizing them. So privatization is a one way process which puts more power into the hands of capitalists and takes power from the voters.
And now the Chinese are buying assets in democratic countries, and we are sitting here with our hands folded, saying "well, capitalism must come first. Democracy must never be allowed to interfere with the needs of capitalism." Which will be the death of democracy, unless we learn to dissobey capitalism and vote for things that break the rules of absolute and perminant ownership.
[rant] I have first hand experience with this. In China there is a law which states that in certain sectors and above a certain level of "security" (guess who defines security) the supplier company must be Chinese and its legal representative must be a Chinese national. Of course this law is loosely enforced. It's not that they prevent you from doing business there. Simply it's like a gun pointed to your head. When t…
For those interested in more about the legal representative /'fa ren' (literally, legal person) there's a good overview here: http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2011/08/11/roles-and-resp... TXV: Not a law about the role of legal representative in general, right, but that industries that are defined as 'protected' are not open to foreign owned companies? The role of the legal representative is to represent the company…
I agree that the terminology is not very clear, as customary of Chinese laws. It states that the physical person or the legal entity investing in the company must be Chinese, where the term you cited /'fa ren' 法人 refers to the legal entity (e.g. a company) and the legal representative I cited is the physical person investing in the company (the president or the owner, which if I'm not mistaken is the same guy who represents the company before the law).
Terminology aside, it goes even further. It even states that 工作人员仅限于中国公民 the workers of that company must be Chinese nationals!
When the Czech republic and other ex-soviet states dropped communism and started "moving west", the west greeted these countries with open arms and a chorus of "opening your countries up to foreign investments will spur growth and make your economies flower!" The Czech Republic responded, by allowing foreign investments essentially without reservations. This lead to a highly corrupt fire sale, called the "privatizati…
At the same time, there is a similar smell of unfairness. Chineese companies a free to invest in the west, but western companies aren't free to invest in China. China is like "we're all for free trade, but no, Google can't buy Baidu" or whatever.
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This is a plenty democratic place, I recommend coming and observing it with your eyes, asking people here questions, and assessing the history of the revolution yourself.
With all due respect... I have been there. I went on a business trip to visit our offshore development office in Beijing. A few of the devs went sightseeing with me one weekend and we ended up going to see the forbidden city. The cab dropped us off at Tienamen Square and I asked if we could spend some time there before going across the street. There was general consternation as to why I was interested in such a borin…
"Oh woe is us. Who will save us from downing in all this Chinese money." There were exactly the same concerns about Japanese investment back in the 80s. Now doing business with Japanese firms and companies like Sony owning major American firms is just natural. They're not weird alien creatures from space anymore, they're our business partners and investors. It's normal. The same will happen with China.
This seems to ignore the main objection. It's not that Chinese companies are investing in European economies, it's that these companies are run by the Chinese state, and that China is not providing reciprocal access to its own market to Western companies. This is not natural free-market activity, it is a state-sponsored effort to take technology and expertise from European companies and feed it into state-owned Chine…
When I lived in Asia, I noticed this Bullshit and locals believed it was OK because they see it as a David versus Goliath battle.
Too be fair, in a free market, GE or Philips and other big western firms would have crushed or bought out their Asian competitors decades ago.
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> The Chinese state will never be satisfied being one powerful economic actor amongst others, all playing by the rules of a global market. They will never accept being checked by laws of trade or other country's interests, any more than they will tolerate being checked by democratic accountability or rule of law. The same could be said about the US i guess. It's the EU that looks like a naive child on the World Stage…
There are very few practical problems for foreign companies to establish, operate, and sometimes dominate in the U.S. market.