[skippyboxedhero]

It is an insight into human irrationality to see a country where hundreds of millions have been lifted out of crushing absolute poverty, that has built one of the world's best infrastructure from nothing...in the 70s, China was poorer than every country in Africa bar one.

...the problem is that some people are concerned only with how things are done, this is feudal government, this is pre-industrial economic growth, who does things, how they do it, make sure nothing new is every tried because that is dangerous and might lead to the elite losing control. China (and much of East Asia) succeeded because they are concerned only with outcomes, and this is all that people care about anyway. Unfortunately, the West is now controlled by people who see change as dangerous, and nothing is more dangerous than a country leapfrogging them in development because it proves that their leadership is bankrupt and incompetent.

[xtracto]

Western societies are blinded by the narrative their governments have fed them in the last 50 years: China Bad.

But us in 3rd world countries have the ability to see both Western and Eastern societies' development and compare it ij a more unbiased way.

Frankly the China bet looks more successful.

[christkv]

Are you willing to submit to my one party state and be ok with being disappeared if you have an unpopular opinion or being enslaved if you are the wrong minority?

[echelon]

That isn't the powerful criticism that a lot of people think it is. You can keep saying this until you're blue in the face. It doesn't stop China's growth in power and scale. It doesn't impact their citizens at all. It's cheerleading with hot air and ignores the real work that the West needs to put in to effectively compete or counter.

In fact, we should be worried about what the success of such a large non-democratic institution means to developing nations seeking their own model. Or what it means to those in power back at home. Your manner of argument doesn't successfully address the incredible success China has achieved, and if anything, it risks calling the basis of your argument -- the importance of democratic institutions -- into question.

The things the West can do to compete are to work harder on education, become an attractive destination for immigration, foster productive innovation, and focus on key industries and supply chains. Right now the US in particular is doing the opposite, and it's damaging America's standing and ability to compete with China. It comes at a time where it's critical to perform.

By all means, China should be the north star incentive to work harder. During the Cold War we used the threat of the Soviets being better than us to do some of the best engineering and science we've ever done. If our response to China is to call them names and hope that their growth stalls, then I think I can predict a very different and very mediocre outcome for the West in the coming century.

This is our opportunity to rise to the occasion again and be better than we were. Let's not be arrogant and dismissive. Let's not fumble.

[roughly]

Look I get it’s a little early to really draw that line in the US, but we were in a hell of a lot better position to have this argument a couple months ago.

[skippyboxedhero]

If I told you that a government would exist in Africa that would eliminate poverty across most of the continent in three decades, would you think it strange if people thought this was a terrible thing?

[twodave]

I don’t think anyone who understands geopolitics can agree with this take.

China has been able to (for a time) sustain this kind of rapid industrialization because of globalization, a model of hyper-inflation and by taking advantage of wage inequality (i.e. paying their workers less) in order to dump goods into other countries’ markets. Take away globalization and China starves in the dark, because the part of their population that is largest, most productive and knows how to even feed itself (China is a heavy net importer of food, especially pork) is also very old. And when those people are too old to work, China is going to rely on the rest of the world to sustain its (rapidly declining) population.

There are a lot of other Asian countries in a similar situation, but China is unique in how bleak the future could be for hundreds of millions of people.

A year ago I would have said “who knows when the scale will tip?” With what’s going on lately it seems that it may have already happened. Whether you agree with the economic policy of this administration or not, the ramifications are astounding. The US is positioned to come out of this the best, at the expense of the rest of the world. This is why China is all of a sudden calling the US bullies. They would never admit weakness, but they are suddenly feeling the heat. If the US took it a step further and decided to stop securing the seas in that part of the world, all hell would break loose.

For instance, do you think Japan and China would just “play nice” with no incentive to? I’m not so sure, and China has no access to the ocean without going through Japan.

[echelon]

This argument is Peter Zeihan's thesis too, and I'm not sure it'll be what actually comes to pass.

China still has an enormous population, and if they convert their society from production to domestic consumption and ride the value-add wave, they'll follow the American growth equation. And with more people to bolster that economy, to boot. You can already see this in their dominance of electronics, drones, EVs, and green tech. They're doing advanced, bleeding edge work in all of the industries that matter.

BYD, DJI, Eufy/Anker (vs iRobot), Lenovo, Alibaba, ... China is a formidable powerhouse in advanced products and value-add. These companies absolutely rival the best of what America and the West have to offer. And if your argument is one of demographics, these companies are staffed with young educated workers from a huge and healthy pipeline of STEM grads.

I think of all the predictions about the future of China - from the incredibly bearish ones like Zeihan's "death of China", to the bullish ones that declare this the "Chinese century" - I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I don't see how China doesn't become a larger version of Japan or Germany or the US. Despite some demographic and economic headwinds, they've got an incredible head start.

If America aims to compete and remain in the top, it needs to stop doing things that look like Brexit that lead to degrowth and isolation. China isn't magically going to get weaker and provide free opportunity to the United States. On the contrary, it's fantastic peer-level competition that the US should use as motivation to work harder.

China is an incredible growth and innovation story, and a bar that all countries should hold themselves to. It's no time to slouch. Competition fosters the best innovation anyway.

[skippyboxedhero]

Hyperinflation? They have been exporting deflation. Wage inequality? It is a productivity inequality, relative to the US. The idea that everyone should just be paid the same wage is quite an odd inference when you start the comment with explaining how everyone else just doesn't understand the things you do.

China moved away from the export-led model of growth about ten years ago (the largest exporter of deflation today is Germany and has been for a number of years).

China does have too many people...there is nothing they can do about that and that will limit their living standards for a long time.

China's future is only bleak if you are unaware of their history. They were poorer than every country in Africa bar one a few decades ago, what they have done is still regarded as impossible even after they did it. It is like winning the lottery and then grousing because there is someone else richer than you (which, btw, most people probably would do).

China does not trade with the US intensively anymore. The US doesn't really make anything that anyone needs, and is a big export market but not at the margin anymore...total exports to the US are 3% of GDP. Their economy has been rebalancing for decades (again, proof that their leaders are just smarter...Trump is flailing around in the darkness with tariffs rather than actually being able to design good policy, China started this ten years ago and almost done already, it would make more sense to target the EU).

China has a long coastline, their primary products mainly come through the Malacca strait...again, it is hard to take someone seriously who starts talking about their expertise in geopolitics but doesn't know which trade routes China actually uses.

[aianus]

This is nonsense, ~zero rich people in third world send their kids to study in Shanghai instead of Boston or immigrate to Beijing instead of NYC to park their capital.

In fact it’s the rich Chinese who continue to move to Vancouver and London and Irvine to escape China and have a better future.

[erxam]

The old-guard rich people don't, that much is true. But the middle classes sure as hell are.

There's the fact that Chinese companies are basically hoovering up all the talent. In Latin America, Huawei alone eats up entire graduating classes of engineers. Pretty much every 'industry' event in any sector is nearly 100% Chinese. University staff are increasingly forming themselves via Chinese companies, and are thus transmitting that to their students. Chinese scholarships are popping up like mushrooms. Again, Huawei alone has provided more of them in the past year than the US Embassy has done in the past three decades.

People still dream about going to the US, sure. But MAGA is doing their damned best to whittle that lead away.

[em-bee]

that is provably false. there are many african students in china. and they all must have some amount of wealth from home to afford that, at least compared to the local average which is a lot lower than in the west.

[graemep]

I know many people in third world countries who fear China. I did when living in one (and continue to do so as a citizen of one with still close connections to it).

China is a success for whom? Exploited factory workers, Tibetans and Uyghurs?

[skippyboxedhero]

For the hundreds of millions of people who have incomes more than $1 per day now. Simple.

China produced one of the greatest economic miracles ever seen in an age when every economic authority said that miracles were impossible. This is still the legacy today where people argue, even after China has thrown up cities housing 20m people in two decades, that isn't real...because it fundamentally overturns basic aspects of the pre-China account of economic growth (which was itself largely based on lies to create support for politicians).

Never forget that economic growth is dangerous to vested interests.