[mhuffman]

> China is no longer the "world's factory". It will stagnate for 10+ years, similar to Japan's lost decades, but with worser birth rate than Japan today.

idk, Japan seems like it thought the party would go on forever, whereas China does seem to have clear eyes with it comes to world politics (eg. long-term investment in the rest of Asia and Africa).

> We've never seen a large portion (25%+) of a large modern economy vanish in a span of a few years.

Do you recall NAFTA? or the quick rise of China not long after? These are still studied as huge exogenous economic shocks in business schools!

[marianatom]

> China does seem to have clear eyes with it comes to world politics

You're hyping up Xi Jing Ping, who is considered an idiot in most elite circles including Putin, too much. One belt and one road is now considered a failure with Italy, the most prominent member, dropping out of it this year. Most of the countries that took on the debt are unable to pay it back, and China has had to forgive a lot of the loans recently. And no one has aligned US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, India, Australia, Nato quite like China in recent years. The most recent focus in G7 was squarely on China.

> NAFTA

with respect to NAFTA, US manufacturing only consisted of 15% US economy in 1994 https://www.stlouisfed.org/en/on-the-economy/2017/april/us-m..., whereas Chinese manufacturing consisted 30% of China's economy today. Also, the difference is, the laborers in US manufacturing moved to other higher paying jobs, as a result, average income went from 25k to 30k in 2000. Whereas what we're seeing now with Chinese laborers is that they're moving back home to countryside to farm (< $1 a day)

[mhuffman]

>You're hyping up Xi Jing Ping, who is considered an idiot in most elite circles including Putin, too much.

I don't really care what Putin says but I do think they are thinking more long-term. Only here and in Europe do people think in terms of election cycles. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Xi fanboy, and I definitely don't want to the US to be like China in general terms, but I just disagree with you. I think they know that the US-centric money flow was capricious and they have been long making plans for when it isn't what it was.

>with respect to NAFTA, US manufacturing only consisted of 15% US economy in 1994 https://www.stlouisfed.org/en/on-the-economy/2017/april/us-m..., whereas Chinese manufacturing consisted 30% of China's economy today.

Now, put those in real numbers and you will see the effect! Also, do you not think 15% of the world's biggest economy taking a fucking as being significant? We had to pivot to service industries after that!

I can tell that you have a hard-held opinion on this and I am not fighting with you, I just think that your original post was not as nuanced as reality.

[AbrahamParangi]

Long term would be recognizing that almost every authoritarian nation is poorer than almost every democracy. Mexico's gross national income is higher than China's on a per capita basis.

[marianatom]

I think you misread my point. My point regarding NAFTA was that US did not actually lose a portion of its economic output when the manufacturing declined. The old factory workers switched to a more profitable job, thus the income increase. In fact, the country was then joined by migrant workers from Mexico because of NAFTA taking away their farming jobs in Mexico. Thus US's economy thrived in 90s.

But when China lose most of the foreign manufacturing jobs, it lost a significant portion of its economic output. Because now these workers just went back home to countryside to farm.

[pas]

pivoting to service economy is a step-up.

there is a lot wrong with starryeyed libertarianism, but free trade with allies is absolutely not in the bad parts.