Fair point, but their Middle class has EXPLODED from pretty much NONE to thriving in the last few decades.
I know some who lives in Taiwan teaching English, and makes shit wages compared to here, but everything is so cheap, he makes a decent living there.
Somehow I ‘liked’ this post without actually liking it (nothing personal ;-)) and I can’t change it back…
China did not have a desperately backwards collapsing economy 30 years ago. Off the top of my head, maybe 2 years, 3 years tops out of the last 37 have been negative in terms of growth, and many of those years experienced double-digit growth. One of the things a lot of people do (not saying you, but this is a very common mistake IMO) is fail to put analysis of the Chinese economy into perspective. Prior to the revolution, China practically had zero industrialization. So basically, at 1950 the Chinese economy was more comparable to the US economy a century prior, immediately after the civil war. Undertaking heavy industrialization was a must for the survival of the state, which Mao knew would be predicated on economic strength, not military might. After order was restored following the communist revolution, The Chinese economy grew in fits and starts- which should be, in hindsight, expected. If you compare this period to the industrial revolution in the US, which was marked by regular recessions every 5-7 years or so, you’ll see a lot of similarities (both economic and more broadly social.)
By the time Xiaoping came to power in the late seventies, the industrial conditions begun with the Great Leap had China well positioned for the path towards economic power. As I mentioned in my other comment, if Chinese growth continues humming along at 7-9% or more, their economy will be roughly equivalent in terms of GDP with the US by the early-to-mid twenties.
In other words, It took the Chinese 75 years to accomplish what the US did in 150.
I’d say China’s critical mass is in the middle and upcoming economic strata.
They want, badly, and have millennia of success to push them. They are pre-leisure, they are exposed to poverty if they do not succeed, there is nothing like the level of drug and alcohol use the western world sees.
It’s kind of simple - they’re strolling into the lead, at every level. They’re claiming teleportation success today in the news.
Meanwhile, the west is sliding backwards, embarrassing ourselves on the world stages with ridiculous leaders and shameful hypocrisy.
A little discipline and we can ensure a more balanced future for the world.
Sounds like you are trying to bring facts to an Outrage.
Weird. I re-read that post, and strangely enough, I found only rhetoric, unsupported by facts.
I also took the time to re-read the other posts, and actually found facts. Missing? Outrage.
Not to speak for @Mangochin but their words are likely to be familiar to anyone who knows the least bit about China’s economic development and are quite easily verifiable.
Also perhaps I’m unclear on which meaning of rhetoric you intended
Rhetoric. Chinese GDP growth in 1987 was 11.7%. 4 out of the 5 prior years to that growth was also in the double digits.
Rhetoric. The World Bank estimates the Chinese poverty rate has dropped from ~88% in the early 80’s to about 6.5% by the early 10’s.
China has lifted more people out of poverty than anywhere else in the world: its per capita income in increased fivefold between 1990 and 2000, from $200 to $1,000. Between 2000 and 2010, per capita income also rose by the same rate, from $1,000 to $5,000, moving China into the ranks of middle-income countries. Between 1990 and 2005, China’s progress accounted for more than three-quarters of global poverty reduction and is the reason why the world reached the UN millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty.
Edited to note that in no way do I support any repressive Chinese social policies. Strictly speaking from an economic perspective, what’s occurred in China over the last 40 years is historically without precedent. Carry on.
After looking at the World Bank page for China here I see where your numbers come from. Not to refute the experts but I do have a bit of concern about this particular set of numbers due to a phrase I frequently hear from market analysts: “chinese statistics” which can be akin to reading tea leaves in that there is the numbers released by the State and the estimates analysts come up with by looking at secondary indicators and the gap between the two.
The GDP growth there may be true from certain perspectives or by certain measurements but in fact in 87 lots of China outside of very specific areas seems to have been in shit shape.
Probably a rather insulting way to put it, but what is true is that any official version of statistics emanating from China will be arranged to serve a purpose. There is no “clear, cold and irrefutable” statistic, and there is no reliable alternative.
Personally, I don’t believe anything. It’s all designed to move the needle in favour of China - and good going to them! Remember the old American adage - Never Give a Sucker an Even Break - when Americans finally breech the racially cooked rhetoric that Chinese people just “work hard and deliver the goods”, they’ll notice who at the poker table is the patsy. And it isn’t China.
The world has been somewhat soporific towards China. I’m actually and weirdly in support of the US’s military stance towards China - don’t allow them to dominate. They really don’t have a good history with human rights - like, really. We’re in a real, total, geopolitical game - but most of the west are utterly unaware, consuming liberally on credit cards day by day.
Just consider the Chinese stance towards the UK. They have not, and will never, forgiven the atrocity of the Opium wars. The Chinese population is easily led.
It’s kind of like allowing a drug cartel’s political primacy to surge. Eventually, you will die at the fountain of money they’re holding out. They’re great trading partners, but boy, if we allow them to be emperors - oops.
Then again, maybe we should be considering our role in the world over the last 200 years. Crumbs! That’s what - Four generations!?
Sorry for the pedantry, but “Xiaoping” is his given name, surname “Deng”
It helps that they didn’t have to invent everything themselves. That advantage decreases as they approach the US/developed world tech/GDP frontier, growth gets more expensive and slows down.
That said… China has 4x the US population. Any future world that doesn’t ultimately involve its GDP being 4x as large as ours is both unlikely and unjust. Ditto India.
That helped the West too. Remember where we got the gunpowder and porcelain from?
Absolutely, but a few big inventions diffusing out over centuries doesn’t quite have same impact as importing the entire industrial revolution within the span of a single human lifetime.
The U.S. imported the industrial revolution from Europe.
True, but considering that that started when we were still a British
colony, and that later immigrants in that period were mostly still
European, I’m not sure it’s quite the same thing.
In any case, yes, of course, civilizations have been trading, studying, and
stealing technology from each other forever. The difference is one of scale.
Again, without a baseline to judge growth, what we are talking about is not so much of “amazing change” as it is “catching up with the rest of the world” after the economic mayhem perpetrated by Mao for 30+ years. The fact that a country of such size was at 88% poverty from the outset until the early 80’s put it far below most Communist countries at the time!
If one ignores Japan’s shift from a feudal medieval society to a developed nation from 1868-1905.
If you want a sure sign of a country whose economic policies are out of control, here you go
That wiki’s opening line is quite the understatement!
BTW the stats for Japan’s growth after WWII and SK’s growth after the extended conflict there are probably also worth noting as well.
South Korea’s growth is a great example of a “Democracy Dividend”. Their economy really took off when they finally got rid of the succession of dictators and had a real democratic government in the late 80’s. .
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