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> WHEN ROMER EXPLAINS charter cities, he likes to invoke Hong Kong. For much of the 20th century, Hong Kong’s economy left mainland China’s in the dust, proving
by jkot 10y ago
> WHEN ROMER EXPLAINS charter cities, he likes to invoke Hong Kong. For much of the 20th century, Hong Kong’s economy left mainland China’s in the dust, proving that enlightened rules can make a world of difference.
Charter cities are only possible because they concentrate capital, trade and workforce from mother country. It can not be done globally, entire China can not turn into Hong Kong
- adrianratnapala 10y agoChina's government is far from perfect, but ever since Deng took over, it has been been implementing policies that resemble British Hong Kong more than they resemble Maoist China -- and it's working just fine. Life is not a zero-sum game. Rich places get rich not by stealing the cream, but rather by being less evil and stupid as other places.
- douche 10y agoMost things work better than Maoist China... Getting away from actively sabotaging your industrial and agricultural output with ideologically, rather than reality-based five year plans is a good start. Leaves a lot less dead bodies, too.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoSomeone should try this in the US. Of course it's called "off-shoring" not "Maoism", but the effects on US industry have been very similar.
- andrepd 10y agoAssessing the success of your policies by comparing them with Maoist China is going for a rather low bar. And is it working fine? Socially China has huge problems. I suggest you look beyond the GDP figure to assess whether a country is doing fine or not.
- tim333 10y agoI'd say that's not the case with Hong Kong. It didn't rely much on capital or workers from the UK if that's what you mean by the mother country. It flourished mostly as a sensible governed base for Chinese entrepreneurs at a time then China was governed terribly. China has been turning into Hong Kong in many ways. For example Guangzhou old http://www.angellam.com/ghostwife/ http://www.angellam.com/ghostwife/ and recent http://skyrisecities.com/news/2016/01/viewfinder-guangzhou-skyline http://skyrisecities.com/news/2016/01/viewfinder-guangzhou-s...
- tomjen3 10y agoExcept that to cross into Hong Kong from China you need a special permit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Closed_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Closed_Area So they couldn't concentrate the Chinese workforce, whereas there is nothing to prevent that concentration just on the other side of the border.
- BurningFrog 10y agoChina has eased up a bit, but you still can't travel freely inside the country.