I can only hope that there are some clear heads in the State Department. But I get the impression it’s infested with crazed idealogues … https://x.com/kanthan2030/status/1709610756906623214?s=61
I get the impression that someone's head is infested with crazed idealogues. But it's not the State Department.
China's young working class has had enough. They're quitting. This will open up jobs for China's unemployed, which sounds like a good thing. Until you realize that these people are adding to the number of unemployed. They seemed to have picked this up from American millennials, in a movement called the Great Resignation. Why China's young people are quitting their jobs and throwing 'resignation parties' | CNN Business I . . . can't . . . get . . . no . . . sa . . . tis . . . faction . . . cause I try . . . and I try . . . and I try. I can't get no . . . satisfaction.
“At this point, China simply trolls the US by existing” … https://x.com/carlzha/status/1710129498543333399?s=61
Pathetic. Even a desperately poor country like North Korea can afford a really nice train for its dear leader. Having a set of really nice trains could be a sign that China knows what it is doing, or it could be a sign that they are good at wasting money. Clearly, China has more money than North Korea, so they can afford more nice things for more people. The real measure is can the average person in China afford to ride this train even once a year. The answer is no, they cannot. In the U.S., the average person can afford to use the preferred methods of long-distance travel: airplanes and cars. The U.S. has invested little in passenger trains because the population density is not large enough to support it in much of the country. Freight trains are well-supported, because they support the economy. Anything that the government builds for the exclusive use of the wealthy can and should be considered a waste of money, and luxury trains fall into that category. This is similar to Dubai building the tallest building in the world. It is a source of pride for the local people, but nothing necessarily worth emulating. When you've spent some time in China and seen different parts of multiple cities and small towns, you realize that a lot of China is really poor and technologically backward in ways that the average American cannot comprehend. Yes, 5-10% of the people are doing very well by western standards, and 40-50% are doing reasonably well, but many people are just scratching out a living and surviving day to day. I remember watching a recycling guy in Lanzhou transporting his haul of scraps on a vehicle that combined a motorcycle attached to the back end of a flat-bed truck, with wood scraps piled up 5-6' high. His wife was lying spread-eagled on top of the pile to hold it down, hoping he didn't hit a large enough bump to launch her off the pile. When is the last time you saw that in the U.S.? Most smaller towns hire elderly women to sweep the sidewalks. Their brooms are thin branches tied to a stick. Some brooms are down to their last few branches, but they keep sweeping. China's economy has left hundreds of millions of people behind. There is no such thing as a minimum wage, and no such thing as a minimum age (kindergarteners were blown up a few years ago while making fireworks for a local company). There is no reason for America to be "jealous" of China's train system. The U.S. should move forward with a high-speed rail system in the northeast, but there is no need to consider it a top priority for the entire nation, or to start spending money left and right to have more HSR track than China with a fourth of China's population, and probably close to a tenth of China's population density in the areas of China that have HSR.
China's economy will be hobbled for years from their property crisis, according to CNN. The article indicated that all of the people in China could not fill all of the apartment vacancies in the country. They literally have twice as much housing as they need in the country. Clearly, an indictment of the incompetence of central planning as well as the level of corruption of communist governments (somebody was likely getting kickbacks to make those loans). China's GDP growth forecast has been slashed from 4.8% to 4.4%, which is the lowest it's been since 1989/90. I have a feeling that that number will go lower. The Chinese have been saving too much of their income rather than spending it (they are saving about 32% of their disposable income), because China's retirement benefits have not been upgraded since 2014. China's economy will be hobbled for years by the real estate crisis | CNN Business
New technology breakthrough might hold the key to breaking China's 92% monopoly on magnet materials. Cambridge researchers have been working on inventing something called tetrataenite, which is something normally found in meteorites. They were finally able to find the right alloy mixture of iron-nickel with a little phosphorus. Scientific breakthrough with mysterious cosmic metal could solve major crisis on Earth: ‘There’s been an urgent search’
Sure, property will be a drag, I think probably for another 7-8 years, but what innumerable "China collapse" theorists over the decades always miss is that a China is a fast developing country. What supports the Chinese economy is constantly changing, and focusing the sectors that China is moving on from as signs of impending collapse inevitably leads to erroneous conclusions. In the late 90s, the mass shuttering of SOEs was pointed to as a sign of collapse, but what was missed was a rise of private enterprises which took its place leading to high growth in the 2000s. In the 2010s dramatic slowing in industrial sector growth was pointed to as a sign of collapse, but what was missed was a rapid rise in the services sector. Right now, the focus is on the property sector. For the past 40+ years China had been rapidly urbanizing, and housing construction was allowed to run amok to avoid the massive slums that many other 3rd world countries experienced when urbanizing and moving their way toward middle-income economy (see India, Brazil, Mexico, etc.). That strategy undoubtedly had its drawbacks, overinvestment in property has caused a simultaneous massive housing surplus yet housing is entirely unaffordable in high tier cities. China is moving on now. The property bubble is being popped, that 30% of the economy is going to fade away. I see the Chinese government only supporting that sector enough to avoid a hard landing, which is why I think it'll happen over a period of ~10 years total (started 2-3 yrs ago) rather than just a couple of years. What they're moving onto is higher tech industries and services. Those sectors combine for ~20% of the economy and is growing at almost 40% annual rate. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/05/china-india-or-japan-asias-edge-isnt-just-cheap-labor-kkr-says.html China is constantly changing, and the lense with which we look at it needs to constantly change as well. Continuing to measure China by yesterday's metrics will always miss the point. China is now a first world economy, albeit barely, and I predict China to continue to be the fastest growing major first world economy for the foreseeable future.
The biggest issue for China is its relationship with its biggest, best, and highest-paying customers, Europe and the U.S. Throughout the last 40 years, the one constant that supported the Chinese economy in good times and bad has been western customers willing to buy whatever "friendly" China was selling. If China's threats against Taiwan continue, and the west continues to look to de-couple from China and support their own manufacturing industries, China's recovery will take much longer. Some experts are already saying that China's economy might be heading toward several decades of malaise, like Japan's did starting in the 1980's. And Japan never offended their best customers (Americans continued to buy Japanese cars the whole time). China has not backed off its intentions of forcing "reunification" with Taiwan, and they have not backed off their intentions to take Philippine fishing waters away from the Philippines (not to mention Vietnam, India and other territorial disputes). So there is no reason for the west to trust China's intentions and change the de-coupling policies. I don't see a full recovery in less than a decade, unless Europe and the U.S. change their policy on China. At some point, the Chinese will be saturated with Chinese high-tech products (although right now, they are afraid to spend money), and then sales will go way down. It's very unlikely that China's economy will do well based only on domestic consumption and sales to countries that don't mistrust them.
A relatively ignorant post that's not completely insane. However, solar panels and electric cars only make up a part of the Chinese economy. A small part, especially when compared to housing (30%). Of course, it is the best part of the Chinese economy because incompetent western leaders allowed China to get a monopoly on rare earth metals. Wake me up when Chinese electric cars make up 10% of the U.S. new car market.
China's wealthiest citizens are getting scared of the impending collapse of the economy, and are looking to move large amounts of cash out of the country. They are using an underground network to move their cash out of the country, even though doing so puts them in collusion with criminals and could send them to prison. China desperately wants their citizens to keep their cash in the country. China's economy is so uncertain that the wealthy are turning to an underground network to secretly move cash out of the country I am fairly certain they don't want to invest in Country Gardens real estate. China's Country Garden says might not meet all debt obligations They definitely were not excited about going out and shopping and traveling during the "Golden Week" holiday. China’s disappointing Golden Week holiday—the first after the end of COVID-zero—shows the country’s consumers are still holding back
If the reported numbers were lower than the forecast - in China - you know the REAL numbers were horrible. No one gets promoted for delivering bad news.
Yeah, I’m not completely insane like the guy who reported that Russian soldiers were surviving on zoo animals.
The irony of propaganda-man criticizing anyone else's information for only being right 99.9% of the time . . .
China has a population problem. See: inverted pyramid. More people in their 60s than in their 20s. Yay for the one child policy.
British intel indicates that China might be testing a blockade against the Philippines (who are trying to access islands claimed by China and the Philippines) to determine how the U.S. might react to a blockade against Taiwan. The general opinion is that the U.S. could destroy most of China's navy, primarily with submarines. Taiwan recently built its own diesel-electric submarine, and plans to build seven more, so it could potentially help to break the blockade. The question is: would the U.S. react militarily to a blockade of Taiwan? The U.S. has committed to repelling an invasion of Taiwan, but has said nothing about a blockade. Will China blockade Taiwan, rather than invade? Two key US weapons say no
China's economy is described as "failing". China, under Chairman Xi, is turning towards military power to achieve his aims instead of economic power. China is stuck in a deflationary downward spiral as its fortunes are reversed. Losing the trust of top customers Europe and the U.S. is a big part of that. Might be time for Chairman Xi to be retired. The Great China Boom is going bust
