[w1ntermute]

I wonder if the rest of the Sinosphere will eventually suffer from the same sort of economic malaise as Japan, once they reach first-world status. They all have hierarchical cultures that make creative destruction difficult. So while they can quickly catch up to the West through efficient social organization, they can't break them down and replace them with something better.

[dmix]

Counter to most western thought, you can in fact have heavy social control but small-government in terms of economics ala Singapore and have a country make rapid economic process.

China's CRC can loosen their grip on business, or selectively ignore it often enough, while still maintaining heavy control of culture and social issues, while still maintaining high growth rates. As we've seen in the last few decades.

It didn't seem to stop them previously, why would they try now? Other than civilian revolt which is non-existent in China.

[w1ntermute]

> you can in fact have heavy social control but small-government in terms of economics ala Singapore and have a country make rapid economic process.

Singapore's rapid economic progress is due to anything but small government. If you read Lee Kuan-yew's memoirs, you'll see the lengths to which the Singaporean government went to kowtow to Western (and later, Japanese) multinationals. They rolled out the red carpet over and over, for years, before any of those companies made significant investments in Singapore.

Also, there are several reasons why generalizing the Singaporean experience to Sinosphere countries doesn't work:

1. Although Singapore has a lot of ethnic Chinese, the country is inherently multicultural and has adopted many British cultural traditions and practices.

2. The country is very small, making social control much easier than in a country the size of China.

3. Lee Kuan-yew himself has said that the Chinese government won't be able to maintain social control as the Chinese population migrates to the cities[0]. The system will have to change, and that will be very difficult.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlkPuamwrlg#t=2m52s

[dmix]

Regarding #3, he said that the reason they can't control people as they move to cities is to:

a) the use of cellphones/internet spreads information

b) their ability to collectivize and locally share information in high-density cities

But have you read any recent books on China post-internet? They have largely succeeded in maintaining control of the peoples perceptions of vast amounts of issues. They might not be able to stop CNN/Tweets from getting out but they have an incredibly powerful propoganda machine that makes sure all the citizens distrust Western dissent.

So even with access people question it and

Second, the government employees a massive '50-cent army' to sway opinion all over the internet. Thousands of people who endless comment on websites in highly deceptive ways.

Third, the party co-opts popular influencial youth such as Han-han [0] and Zhou Xiaoping [1], and makes sure their message is anti-western and pro-state (with degrees of restraint to make it non-obvious).

Fourth, those cell phones have nothing but helped the Chinese party pick up and 'disappear' any dissidents.

So I disagree with Lee Kuan-yew that China can not maintain control. They have and are.

1 out of 3 people in China work for the party, how can they not maintain control?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Han

[1] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/10/21/is_this_the...

[seanmcdirmid]

The government's ability to guide public opinion is quite limited, especially in the cities with the urban aspiring young who are already quite cynical. They get their best influence by pushing nationalism buttons, but this doesn't work very well for domestic issues.

I would say rather that the CPC manages to hang on to public opinion because they are quite stable and the economy does well enough under their leadership. But all the stuff that they do to control the minds of the public (censorship, wumao's, controlling the bloggers) is pretty much a failure, they hang on despite this.

[dageshi]

Can you point to any other examples other than Singapore or Hong Kong?

Both of these to me take advantage of inefficient neighbouring countries (in a doing business sense) to offer a safe place for those with the resources to do business. I don't know if you can apply that example to somewhere like China.

I also cannot see them lessening their grip on business. Ultimately money is power and in the past the Communist party has always seemed to favour maintaining political control over economic consequences. I cannot see them allowing potentially competing power structures to develop outside of the Communist party structure.

[dmix]

I agree that it is a bad idea to apply Singapore as an example for China. Just as people can't apply Finland to America. But there may be something about small-isolated economic-centric city-states. They might have way less overhead for political progress and action and the highest-levels are in sync with local issues, since local issues is targetted.

For example, Silicon Valley might have different issues with immigration than say Texas. But SV has to deal with Texas congressmen regarding policy.

[nl]

Singapore is a pro-business, large government benevolent dictatorship with a small population and almost limitless supplies of cheap, non-citizen labour.

Their society is a miraculous achievement, but it isn't clear that model generalizes to larger countries.

It's also not really in the 'Sinosphere', unless you consider all ASEAN countries to be (which they would strongly disagree with!)

I agree with your points about China though.

[seanmcdirmid]

Scary that the Chinese leadership does see Singapore as its best role model. Not sure if it will work out though, for the reasons you stated.

Taiwan, South Korea, and even Japan had or have governing structures that would be dubious by western standards, but still have succeeded well enough in reaching developed status (the former being dictatorships until recently, the latter being a reluctant democracy).

[nl]

I think Chinese leadership sees Singapore as an aspirational goal, rather than a development model.

For all their faults, the Chinese leadership is rarely dumb.

[nl]

China: 3 major shifts in power since WW2 (Communist takeover, Cultural revolution, embracing capaitalism) and your summary is that their culture makes creative destruction difficult.

On the contrary, I'd argue that the evidence is that Chinese leadership has historically been able to embrace creative destruction better than most Western governments.

[seanmcdirmid]

In the earlier part of the Qing dynasty, China was the richest country in the world, not to mention it had this status for much of its history. It should be no surprise that China rises to that status again, temporary mishaps (later Qing to present) not withstanding.

[jim_greco]

It's conveinent to see things through western or SV capitalism eyes, but Japan's 'malaise' is all about demographics and a 20 year inept Government response to deflation. If you look at metrics like GDP per working age adult, household net worth, etc then it's a very different story.

[adventured]

Japan hasn't suffered any meaningful deflation in the last 25 years. In fact, they've suffered immense inflation, as have most major economies. That's why they have among the highest costs of living on earth, their consumer goods are expensive, and almost everything in Tokyo costs a fortune.

Run 2% deflation against 25 years, and tell me consumer goods in Japan should cost what they do.

The only thing Japan suffered, was the bursting of a real estate bubble. Following that, they accumulated insane sums of debt trying to fake continued prosperity and avoid the standard of living drop that was inevitable (and is now arriving anyway). Asset prices going down is not inherently deflation, in the case of Japan it was fake wealth that never should have existed in the first place.

[seanmcdirmid]

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/inflation-cpi

Set the start date to 1990. Inflation has never risen above 4%, and most of the time hovers around 2%, which is considered normal and hardly "immense". You even see deflation at a few points, which is almost unheard of in developed economies and always considered quite bad.

I've traveled to Japan a few times, and noticed that it is a bit cheaper to go now than before. Definitely not expensive outside of hotels and shinkansen tickets.

[w1ntermute]

> Japan's 'malaise' is all about demographics and a 20 year inept Government response to deflation.

Why do you think the demographic issue exists? Low birth rates are due to gender inequality and long working hours, both of which are endemic in the Sinosphere. And the government's failure (which goes far beyond not tackling deflation) is due to its cozy relationships with incumbent firms - a factor that makes it very difficult for creative destruction to occur.

[enupten]

By that logic, Western europe's low birth rates are due to ... ding ding ding! gender inequality and long working hours. Pah.

[kissickas]

Good point. Without looking anything up, I'm pretty sure the demographic difference is due to differences in immigration policy, correct?

[w1ntermute]

Did you even bother to look at the statistics before making such an ignorant comment? The fertility rates in countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore are much lower than in Western Europe.

[adventured]

That's false. Much of Europe is in the same exact demographic spiral. Europe as an overall, is in worse shape than is Asia. Most of the countries making up the bottom of the low fertility club, are in Europe.

Births per 1,000 people

Japan: 8.07; Singapore: 8.10; Germany: 8.42; Slovenia: 8.54; Taiwan: 8.55; Austria: 8.76; Greece: 8.80; Italy: 8.84; Bulgaria: 8.92; Hungary: 9.26; Romania: 9.27; Hong Kong: 9.38; Portugal: 9.42; Poland: 9.77; Czech: 9.79; Spain 9.88

[DominikR]

Without immigration Europe would have already experienced a demographic collapse.

A society needs on average a fertility rate of 2.1 children born per female.

My country (Austria) has a fertility rate of 1.44, Germany even has a fertility rate of 1.38. Without immigration the fertility rate would be at 0.9 - 1.1.

This would be equal to or lower than the worst fertility rates the Russians experienced after the fall of the Soviet Union (1.1), when even life expectancy fell by 10 years on average.

Today with much better socioeconomic conditions Russias fertility rate has risen again to 1.8. That should give a clear indication of how important socioeconomic conditions are for reproduction.

[CyberDildonics]

It isn't due to gender inequality, it is due to health care, education, and economic reasons.

[moogleii]

Huh? Chinese culture (whether we're talking about the losers of the civil war or the victors) is not nearly as hierarchical as Japan's (or Korea's).

[seanmcdirmid]

They are all pretty Confucian, but China is a lot more heterogeneous (in culture at least) than Japan or Korea.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

On the other hand, recorded history.