Chinese Economics Thread

BlackWindMnt

Captain
Registered Member
I remember reading about problems of far eastern Russia a long time ago, as far back as when I first started seriously following development of China.. So it got me into reading up modern sino Russia relationship

More than 10 years. They were already talking about developing this area and fixing the imbalance but so far nothing solid has materialized. I guess this means it's not a big priority or it is simply too difficult am issue to solve.
A lot of things happened in the last 10 years. Ukrain and Crimea happened. The quadrilateral formation accelerated. Obama pivot to Asia happened. Most of those events are either managed or are winding down right now.

Other event started and are now intensifying. So I don't think the development of Siberia is high on the list for both China and Russia at least not with the current leadership.
 

pmc

Major
Registered Member
No, it's basic transport economics

What are these corridors of economic activity supposed to be based on?

Most of Siberia is too remote and relies on expensive road/rail transport, rather than sea transport
It means many industries just can't make economic sense because the customers and/or supplies are located elsewhere
And that elsewhere is primarily inside China, which is where the final demand is, and has much better access to ocean transport.

Resource extraction in Siberia by its nature, doesn't rely on many people

Before thinking about building new transport corridors, look at the existing corridors in Siberia and understand why they are steadily losing jobs and population
Climate change will attract the best and brightest in the World to these locations. and it is not only food / fertlizer production that will determine cost of living. North will be connected to East-West upgraded lines. Arab wealth is already investing in it.
These things are into feed Chinese consumption of helium and plastics. impact will be in trillions.
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wxw456

New Member
Registered Member
China can't even fix its own Northeast.
Does China need to fix the Northeast though? It seems to me that the population migration is simply people moving to locations with better economic opportunities. For example, the 2020 GDP per capita of Heilongjiang was $6,236 and the GDP per capita of Beijing was $23,908. From an individual perspective if somebody in Heilongjiang found a job that payed 3-4x the salary, then why wouldn't they move? Even from a national government perspective taxing somebody making $23,908 yields more than taxing somebody making $6,236. That's not even factoring in that winters are more costly in the Northeast, than the South.

Trying to increase the population in the Northeast is pointless until wages and quality of life rise substantially or equalise with the rest of the country. Furthermore cities in the region are still increasing in population. For example, Harbin's urban population rose from 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 during 2010-2020. The total population of the Harbin prefecture decreased from 10,600,000 to 10,000,000. That means rural population is decreasing, but urban population is still rising. Whether the downsides of decreased consumer demand from a lower population outweigh the benefits of a more urban and competitive labour market remains uncertain for the region.

It's not like the Northeast is deserted either:
ProvinceArea (km squared)PopulationDensity
Heilongjiang454,80031,850,08870.03
Jilin191,12624,073,453125.95
Liaoning145,90042,591,407291.92

CountryArea (km squared)PopulationDensity
France551,69565,239,000118.25
Spain505,99047,450,79593.77
 

HereToSeePics

Junior Member
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Registered Member
This author, citing many analysts, advocates the depreciation of yuan against dollar, also called Plaza Accord 2.0, for the Chinese and American economies to re-couple instead of decoupling. And, very sexily, he suggests that this is actually in the interest of China. Of course, any positive effect on the relieving inflation pressure that US is desperately in need of is purely secondary.

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The potential flaw I see in the article is:

The PBOC will be easing, of course, to avoid a deeper property market slump. And the Fed needs to start hiking interest rates to tame surging consumer prices.


Which is assuming a property market slump is something China wants to avoid and not something they engineered to a degree or seen as a somewhat desirable consequence. They have been trying to pop the property market bubble for some time and would achieve some goals such as making housing more affordable in first, second and third tier cities.
 
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