Blackstone
Brigadier
What do you think Xi Jinping said when the CCP cadre said the same thing to him?
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
- Start date
I gave you a like because it got a response out of me, but I cant say I agree with what you are saying.
I dont understand economics, however I did come across an article written by economic commentator who suggested that even after China successfully ransitioned through to a consumer driven economy, he thought it would only grow at 3 to 4%
Unfortunately I deleted a bookmark which described the Chinese as a most innovative people and went on to discuss a couple of thousand years of Chinese innovation. I also forgot who wrote it.
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antiterror13
Brigadier
Well, what wrong with respecting older people ... nothing wrong with it ... respecting and following blindly are not the same thing. Confucius never said we should following what older people say. I don't think there is any serious issues in China for that matter, unlike in Japan
Not so simple, Japan's modernization and industrial revolution in the late 19th century and early 20th century was part of specific policies which promoted it and circumstances which enabled it, which both fed into each other.
It could be argued that China's lost years/century of humiliation was in part due to lack of similar policies which in turn allowed other circumstances to occur that made modernization more difficult and caused both to in turn feed into each other, causing a downwards spiral.
Jura The idiot
General
I just saw a headline yesterday ... do you have link(s) to article(s) worth reading in the pub in the middle of Europe?
now I glanced at the Shanghai Stock Exchange and to my untrained eye it looks unaffected:
(at the time of Brumby's post I quoted
Jan 11, 2016
that Index was also about 3000)
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Wealth inequality happens because, surprise surprise, it's far easier to make more money when you already have money.
It's an uneven playing field, where rewards do not match effort and ability.
Everywhere in the world, the rich and powerful leverage their wealth and power to gain more wealth and power. The crutial difference between China and the rest of the world is that it is only in China that the central government is actually actively working hard to counter this, whereas in most other major countries, it's quite the opposit, with central government passing laws and taxes that increase the advantages enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful.
It all boils down to the simple fact that no system is perfect or remotely close to being so, but it's only China that seems to recognise this, and is constantly looking to improve, whereas most others seem more interested in highlighting difficiencies of others as a means of distracting from their own shortcomings. In fact, most of the time the prevailing attitude is to put the blame on individuals rather than admit there are any difficiencies with the system.
The Chinese have a saying for that, changing the soup without changing the ingredients. You can throw the soup out, but so long as you keep using the same ingredients when starting again, you are just going to end up with another batch of the same crap at the end.
It's an uneven playing field, where rewards do not match effort and ability.
Everywhere in the world, the rich and powerful leverage their wealth and power to gain more wealth and power. The crutial difference between China and the rest of the world is that it is only in China that the central government is actually actively working hard to counter this, whereas in most other major countries, it's quite the opposit, with central government passing laws and taxes that increase the advantages enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful.
It all boils down to the simple fact that no system is perfect or remotely close to being so, but it's only China that seems to recognise this, and is constantly looking to improve, whereas most others seem more interested in highlighting difficiencies of others as a means of distracting from their own shortcomings. In fact, most of the time the prevailing attitude is to put the blame on individuals rather than admit there are any difficiencies with the system.
The Chinese have a saying for that, changing the soup without changing the ingredients. You can throw the soup out, but so long as you keep using the same ingredients when starting again, you are just going to end up with another batch of the same crap at the end.
Ultra
Junior Member
China is long term competitor is neither Korea nor Japan. China's long term competitor is America, and America is far more innovative than China currently is, in every level - institutionally, politically, strategically, and economically..etc. Culturally, chinese are adverse to change.
You mean this?
Joseph Needham (also known as 李约瑟; : 李約瑟 - 1900–1995), a known for his research on the history of Chinese science and documented an extensive list of historic Chinese inventions through his book "Science and Civilisation in China"
Yes, historically China was the most technologically advanced, most innovative civilization for a long time. But all that means NOTHING if you don't ask the question - how did the most innovative, most advanced country for a long time became the most backward, least innovative country in the world?
I also noticed there is an arrogance nowadays amongst the chinese - thinking they "made it" - China is now rich, the world is now its oyster. Any problem just throw money into it, throw more men into it and problem will be solved. It is as if ascendence of China to be the superpower is certain. China's future at this point is quite uncertain IMO. The massive issue of aging, its unstable economy that we witness for the past year, all shows China is future is more uncertain than ever. The economic prosperity will also brings out the voice of the middle class, and soon, democracy will also be a critical agenda that CPC will not be able to ignore or suppress. I know there are already some pilot program for election at county level, but that's far from full democracy. And democracy will also bring out all the headaches and societal ills to the fore for China. It will also dramatically slow down Chinese economy as democracy often makes changes slow.
The future for China will soon be more uncertain than ever, because China will soon running out of role model to follow. It will soon start to learn to fail and innovate on its own.
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What do you mean Chinese are adverse to change ? China has changed more in the past 37 years than any other country in the world or in history.
Ultra
Junior Member
That's a question most sinologists have been asking for a long time - how did China, the world's richest, most innovative, technologically advanced civilization for thousands of years falls so far behind the west?
Why wasn't there a Chinese industrial revolution back then?
One of the most convincing theory I have read so far is the "High-level equilibrium trap" theory:
"The high-level equilibrium trap is a concept developed by environmental historian to explain why never underwent an indigenous , despite its wealth, stability, and high level of scientific achievement. Essentially, he claims that the Chinese pre-industrial economy had reached an equilibrium point where were well balanced. Late imperial production methods and trade networks were so efficient and labor was so cheap that investment in capital to improve efficiency would not be profitable.
At the same time, an intellectual from to among the intelligentsia moved the focus of academic inquiry from and , which were conceived of under Taoism as investigations into the mystical nature of the universe, to studies of and under Confucianism. According to Elvin, this produced an intellectual climate that was not conducive to technical innovation.
By comparison, the economy of at the time of the Industrial Revolution was vastly smaller and less efficient than the late imperial Chinese economy. Labor was comparatively more expensive, and internal trade far less efficient than in China. This produced large imbalances in the forces of , leading to economic problems which provided a large financial incentive for the creation of and advances designed to address them. At the same time, the had shifted the focus of academic inquiry towards , providing the basis for many technical innovations."
An example he gave was the spinning wheel:
"According to Elvin, Chinese knowledge of , , and in the 14th century was far more advanced than anywhere else in the world. He presents the case study of the , a device used to assist in the production of from plant which increased the efficiency of a worker by orders of magnitude. An automatic, water-powered spinning wheel for fiber was described in Chinese scientific manuals by the early 14th century; comparable devices would not be invented in Europe until the 18th century.
Despite providing an enormous gain in worker productivity, the Chinese spinning wheel fell into disuse over the subsequent centuries and was completely unknown by the 17th century, whereas the mechanical automation of spinning in Europe in the 18th century (from manual precursors of the 13th century ultimately sourced from Asia Minor) led directly to a process of technical refinement and engineering improvements that resulted in the and widespread mechanization of production of goods beyond yarn."
My own explanation is this - it is like why people don't upgrade to the latest operating system, a large percentage of people in the world (30%!) are still on Windows XP!
It is because they are so used to the way it works, and people have refined and became so efficient at operating it, there is little incentive to upgrade to a costly new operating system that may perform worse than Windows XP (Vista remember? Windows 8 remember?). So people stopped upgrading and stucked at the old operating system.And China is like that for a while.