China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order • Hacker News Board

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#101

Post by narrowrail » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:12 PM UTC

thablackbull wrote: post #47

aaron-lebo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any other source than that chart? I was looking for a supporting document to explain those figures but there's nothing apparently on that link besides that chart, which looks impressive but without context is as good as meaningless. edit: So Googling this, I came across this article, which agrees with the trends, but also notes: But the vast majority of the actions — 89 of the 145 — came in the form of anti-…

They are apparently using data from Global Trade Alerts http://www.globaltradealert.org/ I good intro would be their 19th Global Trade Alert Report http://www.globaltradealert.org/gta-analysis/global-trade-pl...

Not to be pedantic (It's an unfortunate consequence of nuance), but just so you know, there is no country called "America." We have north, central, and south American continents with many countries; the U.S is one country in North America.

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#102

Post by throwaway053 » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

giis wrote: post #69

With 60+ countries agreed to attend the event, Its interesting to note: India refused to take part on this OBOR project. China's arch rival Japan sent a official team, but India refused to attend the submit. China repeatedly blocked India's move to Ban terrorist Azad[1], blocked their NSG bid and their flip-flop on Arunachal. so India prefers to stay away from China-led project. Russia is watchful about rising Chines…

the event isn't that impressive

"The Chinese government had hoped to assemble a weightier guest list to Mr Xi’s premier international forum. But many heads of state and government, especially from G7 and OECD nations, were reluctant to participate in what they thought might be little more than a propaganda coup for China’s ruling Communist party.

Only seven EU heads of state or government, most from smaller eastern European countries, accepted Mr Xi’s invitation"

https://www.ft.com/content/f89060ac-36c7-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0f...

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#103

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:15 PM UTC

giis wrote: post #69

With 60+ countries agreed to attend the event, Its interesting to note: India refused to take part on this OBOR project. China's arch rival Japan sent a official team, but India refused to attend the submit. China repeatedly blocked India's move to Ban terrorist Azad[1], blocked their NSG bid and their flip-flop on Arunachal. so India prefers to stay away from China-led project. Russia is watchful about rising Chines…

[deleted]

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#104

Post by KaoruAoiShiho » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

kcanini wrote: post #54

nostromo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American technology companies don't rely on IP restrictions as much as they used to. You couldn't copy Facebook, Google, Apple, or Amazon's products and services effectively on a global scale even if they had no IP restrictions. And China is the second largest market for American movies, which absolutely require IP law to function. So I think this concern is overstated.

China has shown that they are very adept at copying American high-tech innovation. * Facebook: WeChat/Weibo * Google: Baidu * Apple: already being made in China, clones everywhere * Amazon: Alibaba

Google copied baidu not the other way around. And how is Alibaba a copy of Amazon... It's nothing like Amazon in terms of how it actually works and make money. An Alibaba in the US doesn't even exist.

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#105

Post by ori_b » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:32 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #29

thablackbull wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems it lacks structure to be able to handle itself without risk of collapse. Could you clarify? China was stable for like a millennium while Europe was fighting each other to no end.

I meant as internal structure, not international stability.

I don't know what that means.

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#106

Post by losteric » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #60

Animats wrote: post #21

The "Belt and Road" scheme is well known. The first container freight train from Yiwu, China to Barking, England, arrived January 15, 2017. Coast to coast travel time: two weeks.[1] Conveniently, China uses a 4' 8.5" track gauge, unlike Russian metric gauge, so they can move freight cars all the way without a gauge change. Soon, of course, heavier rails, longer trains, faster trains, more trains, better gradients, mo…

With that timetable,compared to sea shipping we're talking about 3-5x faster time, but the cost will be about double - $8K-10K/container. But of course that saves money in warehousing and financing. So financially, today it makes sense for the more expensive goods, at $1.5M per container. And it's best because there's not a lot of capacity vs sea routes. But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc,…

> But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc, become close to sea shipping, such that aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping, start using rail ?

Absolutely! China's labor costs are not the cheapest anymore, but their tight infrastructure saves more than enough money to keep over-all production costs extremely competitive. This is simply a continuation of their economic strategy.

However, I doubt Europe will let Aliexpress dominate... China will be required to let other companies purchase and ship out of China as well.

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#107

Post by prodmerc » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:40 PM UTC

marcell wrote: post #77

I'm struck by China's ability to attempt large, ambitious projects like this, compared to America's inability to do, well, anything really. The largest infrastructure project I'm aware of in the USA is California's High Speed Rail (~$60B+), was approved a decade ago and is barely making any progress. The federal government is in complete gridlock. The most ambitious legislation passed in the last decade, the ACA, cau…

I reckon it's really easy when there's one party in power that controls pretty much everything in the country - you just say it's in the nation's interest, most of the party is similar minded and will agree, and billions are immediately available for the project.

Very different than the US and EU, sadly...

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#108

Post by taway_1212 » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:41 PM UTC

marcell wrote: post #77

I'm struck by China's ability to attempt large, ambitious projects like this, compared to America's inability to do, well, anything really. The largest infrastructure project I'm aware of in the USA is California's High Speed Rail (~$60B+), was approved a decade ago and is barely making any progress. The federal government is in complete gridlock. The most ambitious legislation passed in the last decade, the ACA, cau…

Aren't the projects in China executed at complete disregard to the rights of individual citizens? I.e. if your house is in the way, sorry, we'll give you some laughable amount of money and send police over to brutalize you until you leave. Under such conditions, it's easy to make lots of change quickly (in such spirit, Stalin was even more efficient - he essentially enslaved a part of his nation via Gulags and used the free slave labor to get done quickly various massively ambitious projects around the country).

Another aspect is environment protection - it's much easier to build infrastructure if you don't mind wrecking the natural environment around it.

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#109

Post by kcanini » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #104

kcanini wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has shown that they are very adept at copying American high-tech innovation. * Facebook: WeChat/Weibo * Google: Baidu * Apple: already being made in China, clones everywhere * Amazon: Alibaba

Google copied baidu not the other way around. And how is Alibaba a copy of Amazon... It's nothing like Amazon in terms of how it actually works and make money. An Alibaba in the US doesn't even exist.

> Google copied baidu not the other way around

How so?

Re: China's $1T Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order

#110

Post by prodmerc » Sat, May 13, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #8

Bravo China. Instead of overspending on military conquer the world thru trade and investment.

Uhm, yeah, well the Soviet Union also conquered quite a bit through investment.

The member states and allies were willing participants, but we all know the threat of open or covert military and economic action was always implied and played a huge role.