4 ms·

From the article: "The result: like steel mills, theme parks and housing before them, the country now faces a glut of innovation centers as another top-down po

by chvid 10y ago

From the article: "The result: like steel mills, theme parks and housing before them, the country now faces a glut of innovation centers as another top-down policy backfires to leave white-elephant projects and a further buildup of debt." Western media have always had a skewed one-sided perspective on China and today that perspective is predominantly negative. So negative that it is almost silly. The other side of the story is: No other place has a middle class of that size growing that strongly. Internet giants Facebook and Google are excluded from the market leaving big room for smaller companies to innovate. Electronics are produced right next door opening for all sorts of crossplay innovation between hardware and software.

JPKab 10y ago
While I agree with the often one-sided and biased western view of China, these innovation centers are being built in droves, and remain empty. A commenter below who lives in China and works next to one of these new innovation centers describes it as yet another "ghost mall". In all fairness, the US economy has it's own version of ghost malls, which is defense spending. We spend billions of dollars on military hardware that just floats and flies around with nothing to do and no purpose except to fight a war that's almost certainly not going to happen in that equipment's lifetime.
- ctvo 10y ago
  We do have our own version of ghost malls. Actual ghost malls. The US is where that term was coined. Most of the time those developments involved partly public funds (directly or via tax incentives). And I wouldn't characterize our military spending as ghost malls. They serve a purpose even when not actively used: deterrent. You can argue how important that is but it's not useless.
  - Retric 10y ago
    [Source?] US has dead malls, but those had actual stores at some point. ex: http://www.businessinsider.com/23-haunting-photos-of-a-dead-mall-in-ohio-2015-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/23-haunting-photos-of-a-dead-... Often because a much better mall was built in the area, or just completion from online shopping. As retail goes online you just don't need as many stores. Malls take a critical mass of shoppers and stores to keep going. If not enough stores move in they can be stillborn but I assume that's really rare in the US.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > US has dead malls, but those had actual stores at some point. The US has dead malls that never had stores, includes ones that were abandoned while under construction or prior to stores moving in (a number of these were abandoned around the time of the finance crisis in 2007-2009 when whole planned or in progress housing developments were either put on hold or abandoned, along with the commercial development that were being built to support them.)
      - Retric 10y ago
        Sounds like the developer went broke. However, malls as physical assets tend to be resold in bankruptcy even if they get turned into office parks or something. Do you have any actual examples of completed structures that sit abandoned without ever being used?
  - JPKab 10y ago
    At what point does adding a 17th aircraft carrier increase the effect of deterrence when you pretty much are already maxed out. Is there a single nation on the planet that will look at our defense spending, and decide that if we spend $100 billion less, then they can attack us or our allies? I'm not arguing that a deterrent effect isn't valuable, I'm just saying that it's absolute, 100% overkill that is useless.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > In all fairness, the US economy has it's own version of ghost malls, which is defense spending. We spend billions of dollars on military hardware that just floats and flies around with nothing to do and no purpose except to fight a war that's almost certainly not going to happen in that equipment's lifetime. That's not its purpose. Its the power the US projects that it could quickly win in the event you engage with it. Said defense equipment fulfills its mission simply by being gassed up and ready to go.
  - JPKab 10y ago
    I'm not talking about the first $700 billion in spending and first trillions in defense assets: I'm talking about the hundreds of billions of additional defense spending on top of that. You can't increase your "don't fuck with us or you will be annihilated" factor past 100% once it's already there. The largest Air Force in the world is the US Air Force. The second largest is the US Navy's fleet of aircraft. At what point is this not enough?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      > At what point is this not enough? Excellent question, and as a far left socialist who would love to see more defense spending go towards universal healthcare instead, I agree with you that the current spending is excessive. I'm unsure of where that line is, but would love for someone to research it.
googletazer 10y ago
My perspective exactly. Another article by MSM with the theme "we are better/smarter/more free than the Chinese". Proactively building new cities - inflating their real estate bubble. Technological innovations - unfair competition/theft of IP. Government censorship - how terrible! Never mind mentioning any three letter acronyms. MSM devolved into USSR level propoganda.
- ringwalt 10y ago
  You can play the moral relativist all you want, but American three-letter agencies are nothing close to the Great Firewall. There's a massive difference between out-of-sight surveillance (do you think China is any better than the NSA when it comes to spying on its own citizens?), and the chilling effect on free speech caused by banning things like any mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I don't think the MSM has ever been any less propaganda than it is now, either. People are only able to take a more objective look at the news now because of unrestricted access to information.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by chvid 10y ago

JPKab 10y ago

While I agree with the often one-sided and biased western view of China, these innovation centers are being built in droves, and remain empty. A commenter below who lives in China and works next to one of these new innovation centers describes it as yet another "ghost mall". In all fairness, the US economy has it's own version of ghost malls, which is defense spending. We spend billions of dollars on military hardware that just floats and flies around with nothing to do and no purpose except to fight a war that's almost certainly not going to happen in that equipment's lifetime.

ctvo 10y ago
We do have our own version of ghost malls. Actual ghost malls. The US is where that term was coined. Most of the time those developments involved partly public funds (directly or via tax incentives). And I wouldn't characterize our military spending as ghost malls. They serve a purpose even when not actively used: deterrent. You can argue how important that is but it's not useless.
- Retric 10y ago
  [Source?] US has dead malls, but those had actual stores at some point. ex: http://www.businessinsider.com/23-haunting-photos-of-a-dead-mall-in-ohio-2015-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/23-haunting-photos-of-a-dead-... Often because a much better mall was built in the area, or just completion from online shopping. As retail goes online you just don't need as many stores. Malls take a critical mass of shoppers and stores to keep going. If not enough stores move in they can be stillborn but I assume that's really rare in the US.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > US has dead malls, but those had actual stores at some point. The US has dead malls that never had stores, includes ones that were abandoned while under construction or prior to stores moving in (a number of these were abandoned around the time of the finance crisis in 2007-2009 when whole planned or in progress housing developments were either put on hold or abandoned, along with the commercial development that were being built to support them.)
    - Retric 10y ago
      Sounds like the developer went broke. However, malls as physical assets tend to be resold in bankruptcy even if they get turned into office parks or something. Do you have any actual examples of completed structures that sit abandoned without ever being used?
- JPKab 10y ago
  At what point does adding a 17th aircraft carrier increase the effect of deterrence when you pretty much are already maxed out. Is there a single nation on the planet that will look at our defense spending, and decide that if we spend $100 billion less, then they can attack us or our allies? I'm not arguing that a deterrent effect isn't valuable, I'm just saying that it's absolute, 100% overkill that is useless.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
> In all fairness, the US economy has it's own version of ghost malls, which is defense spending. We spend billions of dollars on military hardware that just floats and flies around with nothing to do and no purpose except to fight a war that's almost certainly not going to happen in that equipment's lifetime. That's not its purpose. Its the power the US projects that it could quickly win in the event you engage with it. Said defense equipment fulfills its mission simply by being gassed up and ready to go.
- JPKab 10y ago
  I'm not talking about the first $700 billion in spending and first trillions in defense assets: I'm talking about the hundreds of billions of additional defense spending on top of that. You can't increase your "don't fuck with us or you will be annihilated" factor past 100% once it's already there. The largest Air Force in the world is the US Air Force. The second largest is the US Navy's fleet of aircraft. At what point is this not enough?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > At what point is this not enough? Excellent question, and as a far left socialist who would love to see more defense spending go towards universal healthcare instead, I agree with you that the current spending is excessive. I'm unsure of where that line is, but would love for someone to research it.

googletazer 10y ago

My perspective exactly. Another article by MSM with the theme "we are better/smarter/more free than the Chinese". Proactively building new cities - inflating their real estate bubble. Technological innovations - unfair competition/theft of IP. Government censorship - how terrible! Never mind mentioning any three letter acronyms. MSM devolved into USSR level propoganda.

ringwalt 10y ago
You can play the moral relativist all you want, but American three-letter agencies are nothing close to the Great Firewall. There's a massive difference between out-of-sight surveillance (do you think China is any better than the NSA when it comes to spying on its own citizens?), and the chilling effect on free speech caused by banning things like any mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I don't think the MSM has ever been any less propaganda than it is now, either. People are only able to take a more objective look at the news now because of unrestricted access to information.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]