Will China really take over?
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- drgz0
One of my friends works in China. He has 12subordinate engineers and 50 assistants of some kind. He and the assistants never talk to each other, he talks only to the engineers. The engineers are from many parts of China, but what's special about them is that their parents are either military officers or provincial party officials, etc. so by Chinese standards you wouldn't call them simple people. From them he learns about the real life of simple people in China.
He has a work visa and is allowed to travel everywhere where tourists are not allowed, except Tibet and the Uighurs, unstable areas. How he explains it:
There are so-called economic zones, where people still have rights. In all other areas -- only duties. Free areas are also the former territories of the CER (local ethnic groups, non-Chinese).
People in rural areas continue to multiply like rabbits. If you have more than one kid, the extra children will never have a passport, never go to school and would never be able to seek medical help. Ie, people who do not exist, who work in factories from the age of 6 literally for one meal a day.
All the statistics you read about China are based on the economic zones, not the industrial part of China, factories where even lazy europeans would keep 2 workers, in China they hold 50-100 employees for the stupidest tasks possible, only one them actually receives a salary, everyone else works for food -- literaly. People are in abundance like garbage.
If China is to transfer all of its production to its consumption, there will be only enough money to pay for it once, and secondly the prices of goods will be more expensive than in Europe and Japan.
China is a myth. Never buy anything Chinese, idiots.
I still own a Siemens TV with black and white screen - it has everything I need. Made in Germany, the farewell batch.
- I assure you that a vast majority of what you own is made in China!utopian
- even his dildo is most likely made in china. erm. i wouldn't know.ephix
- I handcraft everything I own from wooddrgz
- by wood he means the imported dildos from china. translation error.ephix
- damn, pretty interesting. drgz comment. not the dildos.IRNlun6
- People seem surprised by drgz's comment. China has been, always will be a fascist dictatorship country.74LEO
- sorry i didn't read it. maybe tomorrow.ephix
- ukit0
Interesting article
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/20…
Four years ago, China’s leadership decreed that certain “pillar” industries, including automaking, telecommunications, mines, energy production and steel manufacturing, should be dominated by companies under government control.
Today, those newly assertive state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are snapping up domestic rivals, expanding their market share and elbowing aside Western investors such as the Washington- based Carlyle Group in the quest for assets. Their rise comes as China surpasses Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy, and has helped inspire a new school of thought called the Beijing Consensus, which holds that state-directed capitalism can help developing nations avoid the financial upheavals associated with free markets.
- cannonball19780
When it comes down to it we owe China a lot of money and then we can be like "Nah bitch. I ain't paying."
- TheBlueOne0
I agree with drgz, China is an illusion built on a multitude of lies (that's not saying the US house of cards financial crony capitalism isn't either..)
But how soon do people forget that modern "China" is held together by a totalitarian, coercive state power through systemic violence, and has a millenia's worth of history of being a fragmented, internecine warfare filled geographical region.
e.g. Villagers in Minhou county, Fujian Province, fight against forced demolition.
- mydo0
There seems to be far too much attention in this thread to the communist state and the poor people at the bottom. don't forget the hundreds of millions of middle classes, and hundreds of thousands of millionaires, whom, like the west wield a lot of power.
Look further than the media spin, China's government is trying really hard to find a political system which is fair for everyone, environmentally friendly, uncorrupted and stable.
Middle classes just want good education for their children,
Millionaires want yachts not world domination.Don't believe the hype. What is happening here is far less bloody than our own industrialisation. And far more complex, as we didn't have CNN bitching about our cotton mills and beat downs.
don't buy Chinese? don't buy American? don't buy African? don't buy things made my humans? This government didn't set up the factory, your government didn't design and order the product, it's all people like you and me.
- less bloody because the chickens haven't come home to roost yet. they will.TheBlueOne
- Please give me % of china's middle class to it's poor, and it's geographical locationTheBlueOne
- And you;re using the China's Ruling Class's spin....TheBlueOne
- I don't get the critique - they have brought millions of people out of povertyukit
- At least the trendlines are pointing upward, as opposed to say in the US, right? :Pukit
- well, that is a valid point...TheBlueOne
- ukit0
I agree with mydo, I think there is a little bit of denial going on in the Western world. How do any of the things drgs mentioned make China, a myth or an illusion?
Hows this for a myth - sometime within the next decade or so China will officially surpass U.S. as the #1 economic power. That will be an interesting moment to watch.
- mydo0
^ if we're just talking numbers, i think china will probably overtake the US in a few months won't it?
- I guess it depends what metric you use
http://www.marketwat…ukit
- I guess it depends what metric you use
- ETM0
China has problems in that they have no true middle class yet and they are at the whim of the western world to buy their stuff, so they have little self sufficiency. The other side of that sword, however, is that a middle class will mean workers will want more, and demand more from employers, driving up costs of production with the long term potential of making them less favorable for manufacturing. That will perpetuate the cycle and opening up an opportunity for yet another developing country or region to join the sweat shop regime.
That is one thing the west still has, in theory, is the ability to both manufacture and consume said goods . If we didn't all want 3 TVs for cheap and disposable products we replace every year, we might still be manufacturing a lot more here.
- I guess this also relates to drgz post above as well.ETM
- Beeswax0
they are cheap until they get rich.
- TheBlueOne0
..and there's been no mention of the incredible massive corruption that underlies the entire economic system there. I tried to source some fabric there a few years back for my old business. It was a fucking nightmare dealing with pay this guy, pay this guy, fuck that.. ended up doing business in Brazil. No less corrupt, but they don't play the inscrutable, holier than thou card like they do in China while they rip you off...
- e-pill0
i just got off the phone with my co-worker who is in GZ {guangzhou}
is saying none of the 6 factories we have chosen are willing to tackle 1 of my designs, saying it is too complicated for them..but i wonder.. will they just say that to take my design and produce it under a different brand or label or not even market it outside of Mainland China itself??
scary times to be Batesoled when you feed them the work..
i miss my own sample room..
control is key.
- squidbrains0
Read "Poorly Made in China" if you've got a chance.
- Read "What does China Think" if you have the chancemydo
- http://www.amazon.co…mydo
- ukit0
What does China's success say about the effectiveness of state capitalism or socialist capitalism vs free market capitalism?
You can say this for the Chinese - their government is actually able to carry out policies on a large scale that are the logical steps forward for their country. When was the last time you saw that in America?
- Josev0
I still feel like their success is due largely to their ability to exploit the working poor in their country. Maybe I'm wrong, but where will they be without that cheap labor? The poor, from the few articles I've read about it this year, are starting to push back.
- true. though is it the chinese exploiting the poor, or us?mydo
- jetSkii0
@ Josev - America has had over 300 years of exploiting black slaves in their country. How in the world did China catch up so quickly?
- Josev0
I don't disagree that we've exploited people in the past, and in our present day (Latin Americans).
- That was more in response to the comment about China's policies. I don't think their success is built on those policies.Josev
- policies. I think it was built on exploitation. And, yeah, the US has that in it's past, so do we give it a free pass? Im against exploiting undocumented workers, too.Josev
- policies. I think it was built on exploitation. And, yeah, the US has that in it's past, so do we exploiting undocumented workers, too.Josev
- UGH, ignore the third box. I meant to say I'm against exploiting undocumented workers in our country, too.Josev
- JSK0
I wonder what Tiger Woods thinks of all this.
Does it keep him awake at night?
- jetSkii0
Hmmmm... then i wonder if it could be due to the massive amounts of people they have over there in China. I haven't been there, but I'd work for $1/ hour if rent was less than $100/mo. Which I'd have to be, else how can anyone survive over there?
