Do you see china as "the enemy"?

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I suspect China is not innovating because they are still trying to catch up. Their master plan calls for first copying the west until they get even then innovating to pass them. Japan did this with some success and China will if it can avoid political and civil unrest as well as not provoke the anger of its trading partners with its mercantilist policies.

It's going to be hard to change, since the attitude is so ingrained in the culture. The education is especially bad. It requires the students to listen to the teacher and memorize what is said. Success is determined by who can best follow the standard. Look at how they learn to write. They must write the same character several times using the teacher's as the standard. The teacher then marks the paper and criticizes the student for each stroke that deviates from the teacher's original. No one is allowed to have their own style. This is further encouraged by making it competitive. Students grades are made available to everyone. Highest grades and ranked and rewarded. The basic system is that they compete to conform.

[Winston]

I like to listen to mindseye on topics such as these. One reason is that he knows what he's on about and manages to convey it to others in a rather eloquent and convincing manner. Another reason is that posters with opposing views seem to be immensely disinclined to address the points he raises, even when he's replying directly to them.

[mindseye]

My personal policy is that if I disagree with GePap on anything, I better have a d@mn good reason. In fact, I think our exchange was less a disagreement than me clarifying what I think about China, which basically amounts to: "?"

It's weird to live somewhere, observe it closely, and steadily become less certain in which direction it's going. But as DaShi accurately pointed out, many people who've lived here a while reach this point. The variables are so huge, moving or growing so quickly, the scale so large, the weird mix of factors so unprecendented, so many records already broken, so many predictions already defied ... it all comes down to a bewildered shrug of the shoulders. It could go anywhere!

There's even a standard joke about this, one variation:
"If you visit China for a week, you can write a book. If you stay a month, you can write an essay. If you live there a year, you can tell some interesting dinner tales."

Unrelated, I just got a photo developed, I now have pix of the view from my 22nd story living room window, seperated by two years. It's just phenomenal. I'll post them very soon.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Vesayen

Is the political stability and more importantly, military protection we provide Brazil with, worth more then the economic competition we give them?

I knew you couldn't do it. This is the downfall of Americans. They cannot, even for a moment, imagine themselves from another viewpoint.

For now, Brazils independance is guaranteed by american guns and political power.

Like a Mafia protection racket, yes?

A more apt example, how do you think France looks at the U.S.?

If tommorow Germany invaded France(we can only hope) the American people themselves would *DEFINATLEY* not favor intervention and its hard to predict if our politicians would either.

Irrelevant. You are looking at the world through war-colored glasses.

[The Mad Viking]

Well, I think that "Widespread economic collapse is a deeply unrealistic scenario" is a true statement.

A major hiccup would not be unlikey when you consider the recent prodigous growth. It would also be irrelevant to the overall trend of the next half-century.

Japan had its hiccup, and recovered nicely.

The difference is that the potential size of the Chinese economy, as it follows a rough approximation of the Japanese model, means that it will surpass the US economy.

A realistic observation of the last 40 years suggest that this result is very likely . The only question, really, is how long it will take.

How many people realize that the USA has the 2nd most extreme distribution of wealth of any populous country in the world ? (e.g excluding Brunei)

And that they are 2nd only to... China.

The word "communist" could not posisbly be more of a misnomer.

[mindseye]

dp

[GePap]

Originally posted by DaShi
That's because you don't understand how politics works in China. Your scernario is only possible if the party's power is transfered peacefully to a new power. That has never happened in China, rarely in most of the world, and extremely unlikely given the way the party has been lately.

That a peaceful transfer of power has never occured does not mean that one can;t happen. That is point 1. But point two is simpler-even if the transfer of power is not peaceful, a non-peaceful transfer of power does not equate to national collapse. Think of Romania, or Latin America over and over. New technologies and ideologies mean new outcomes. This isn't 1912.

I don't understand you. How can I be wrong when I said that you believed this? You have a strange way of looking at things. Look at this post. It's absurd to think that political chaos won't have a negative effect on the Chinese economy. You also make the assumption that the I think that reaching a post industrial economy only happens in "the West" or to immitators (immitator? this doesn't even make sense). Where have I said this?

Because when I say China is the future, I am not saying "in 20 years", or even in my lifetime perhaps. That is not the point. The point is that one day China will reach economic maturity (as it is measured today), and that day, given its simple size, it will be either the richest, or second richest state. That simple.

Yes, thanks the executions and import of Han Chinese people by putting them in power of the Tibetans. No way, the Tibetans would want their country back even if they were the minority. You're living in a sinophilic fantasy. As for Xinjiang, China's strength comes from stability. In chaos, China falls apart. Each little leader looks to become a big one. Even Mao in his rise would have settled for a carving a small country out China of his own had fate not taken him in a different direction. Without the CCP to be the be all and end all, the country will erupt in chaos. Until a system is in place to remedy this, China is in serious danger if the government collapses.

This is where I think you are completely wrong. The modern instruments of the state have changed the game. Tibetans are weak, politically irrelevant, and unorganized. What chance would they have of actually breaking off, specially when they are not even a majority within the area they would seek to gain, if they even tried?

It seems to me, all you do is extrapolate from Chinese history of 40 years ago and make pronouncements that "you know China". That to me is a pretty weak hand, because we are not talking about China in 1912, or 28, or 44. We are talking China in 2005.

That very nationalism could fuel civil war as several parties vying for power will claim to be the true China if the current government collapses or shows enough vulnerability. This is how it works in China. This is how Mao came to power to rule the country.

A civil war in a state with nuclear weapons? Anyone who got the backing of the military and large industrial concerns would come into power, period. Governors and locals might have their little corrupt economic fiefdoms, but the simple fact is they simply don;t have the power to compete with whomever controls the military-industrial complex. Raising an army isn't about getting men anymore, Its about advanced weapons, something just any yahoo can;t make. A civil war in a poor country were veen the military is weak is one thing, civil war in a multi-ehtnic state as it collapses into multiple independent states, another. Civil war within a state in which multiple parties vie for power? Care to name the last such example? The new nature of military and economic power have changed that, and now that China is an industrial state, it falls under new rules.

Yes, obviously. So?

So how is it an ill that is somehow specially Chinese, as some yahoos seem to insinuate?

[Barnabas]

I thought China was the country with the most dollars in its central bank, is that right?

[Jonah5]

China is more of an enemy than any of ya'll think!
Ya'll better hope that Bush can get our missile defense program up and running soon!

[Ted Striker]

The whole China as an enemy is the silliest thing ever.

Why does USA always need a damn enemy?


I've said it time and time again --DUH

DONT GO LOOKING FOR TROUBLE CAUSE TROUBLE COMES LOOKING FOR YOU

[mindseye]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

How many people realize that the USA has the 2nd most extreme distribution of wealth of any populous country in the world ? (e.g excluding Brunei)

And that they are 2nd only to... China.

Mad Viking, that's a very surprising claim. The USA is bad in this respect, but world's second worst??? What metric are you thinking of? The Gini index is often used to measure wealth distribution across populations. I did a quick check in the CIA Factbook and got these Gini index figures. I chose the countries for comparative purposes (not random).


Country ------ Gini Index (year of data)

Namibia ----- 70 (2003)
Brazil ------ 60.7 (1998)
S Africa ---- 59.3 (1993)
Colombia ---- 57.1 (1996)
Chile ------- 57.1 (2000)
Mexico ------ 53.1 (1998)
Zambia ------ 52.6 (1998)
Thailand ---- 51.1 (2002)
Nigeria ----- 50.6 (1996)
Peru -------- 49.8 (2000)
Malaysia ---- 49.2 (1997)
Phil'pines -- 46.6 (2003)
USA ------- 45 (2004)
Kenya ------- 44.9 (1997)
China ----- 44 (2002)
Turkey ------ 42 (2003)
Pakistan ---- 41 (1998)
Ethiopia ---- 40 (1995)
India ------- 37.8 (1997)
Indonesia --- 37 (2001)
UK ---------- 36.8 (1999)
S Korea ----- 35.8
Australia --- 35.2 (1994)
Egypt ------- 34.4 (2001)
France ------ 32.7 (1995)
Spain ------- 32.5 (1990)
Canada ------ 31.5 (1994)
Germany ----- 30 (1994)
Belgium ----- 28.7 (1996)
Italy ------- 27.3 (1995)
Sweden ------ 25 (1992)
Japan ------- 24.9 (1993)
Denmark ----- 24.7 (1992)

Source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...elds/2172.html

(Mad Viking, you owe me a Canadian beer for formatting that list.)

How can the US be "above" China? While the breadth of the disparity in China is enormous, much greater than in the US, the index is a bit lower because so many people in China are still equally poor.

The word "communist" could not posisbly be more of a misnomer.

Couldn’t agree more on that. Once capitalist entrepreneurs were admitted into the CCP, the jig was up.

Japan had its hiccup, and recovered nicely.

The difference is that the potential size of the Chinese economy, as it follows a rough approximation of the Japanese model, means that it will surpass the US economy.

A realistic observation of the last 40 years suggest that this result is very likely . The only question, really, is how long it will take.

That's a good point, but are you sure Japan is the model China is following?

Some of the possible scenarios floating around are more persuasive than others, here is one I think is really interesting: what's happening now is a natural re-alignment of wealth into something closer to the standard developing world model. The current re-distribution is soon to be "locked-in" at the present highly unequal conditions, rather than continuing indefinitely until every Average Zhou owns a car.

After the CCP took over, income distribution in China was extremely level - nearly everyone was dirt poor. Once the Party stopped trying to run the whole show and stepped out of the way in the late 1970s, wealth has began to re-distribute itself into patterns more typical of a developing nation, i.e. a tiny elite with most of the cash and influence, a small middle class in the urban centers, and the masses at a far lower level; cities with cores of modern hi-rises surrounded by rings of slums.

This argument usually continues along these lines: much of the current wealth generation taking place in China is based on the export of cheap manufactured goods, and using a big chunk of the returns for massive investment in national infrastructure. The oomph behind the former is running out, as sharpening upward pressure on Chinese labor costs is going to begin costing China a lot of sweatshop business. Factory wages are being pressured upward due to growing factory labor shortages, something that sounds impossible for China, but is true. Factory labor shortages are happening because Hu's attempts to improve the situation of the countryside is making rural life more attractive, and it doesn’t take much to make it more attractive than the labor camp conditions many migrant factory workers find themselves in.

The foreign-investor factories that flocked so quickly to China can just as quickly flock elsewhere when labor somewhere else is suddenly cheaper than China, especially if other business environments offer less corruption and theft of intellectual property issues. When China's manufacturing exports begin to slow, economic mobility will quickly decrease, and the membership of the middle class will stabilize at its new level.

In other words, China is becoming another Brazil.

I'm generalizing, and there are lots of supporting arguments, such as estimates of the resources required to bring most of China's population to current Chinese urban levels (may be beyond world's known supplies), and so on.

I think one big problem with this argument is the role in China's development played by investment from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese (huge!), whose motivations included a strong sense of pride in assisting in the mainland's development. They may be reluctant to re-locate operations unless the labor cost differences become very significant, so China's factory wages may have significant room for improving before endangering the economic miracle.

Enough tea-leaf gazing.

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
The whole China as an enemy is the silliest thing ever.

Why does USA always need a damn enemy?

[Jonah5]

someday....maybe someday someone will remember that this was a topic of discussion and will think, how could we be so foolish to say China is not our enemy!

In fact, the USA is being to nice to them because we want to be friends, while they build up their army. Everyday they are growing stronger and stronger militarily, but what do we do or say....nothing!

Answer me this, why would they be building up a large army if not to attack someone, they allready have plenty of military to keep all of their neighbors at bay.
If you have a defense for them think about this.
It is the second largest country in the world, and has the second largest(i could be wrong but N. Korea is the first) standing army in the world, yet the military keeps growing. We all know that N. Korea would never declare war on China. Russia is very friendly with the Chinese and India has no desire to quarry with China. It is as if China wants to declare war on some nation that has a large army. (Who knows maybe they need oil so bad they are going to attack all the oil producing nations) Japan and Taiwan don't have the best relationship with China and the USA is totally on the side of Taiwan, not to mention that the USA is a democracy. France and Russia have even openly admitted that if China attacks Taiwan they will politically agree with China. Of the "big 5" those are not good odds in favor of Taiwan or the USA. I am not sure where Britian stands on this but I would hope they would agree with the USA. If the UK agrees with the USA that put it 3 to 2. Why would France and Russia agree with China on attacking another nation, I am aware that China and many other nations do not consider Taiwan an independent nation but why not, cause they don't want to offend the "Giant", China.

I think enough has been said about the Economy of China so I will not mention that.
Dang I should find out all of my sources where I got my info and post it.

[Ted Striker]

Which country has attacked more nations in the past 20 years, the USA or China?


CASE CLOSED

[Kuciwalker]