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China is becoming an absolute economic monster. I mean that with no negative connotations. And we're not talking trailing-edge tech here, but leading-edge. FTA

China is becoming an absolute economic monster. I mean that with no negative connotations. And we're not talking trailing-edge tech here, but leading-edge. FTA: “The institution established after the first major oil crisis in 1973 said 165 gigawatts of renewables were completed last year, which was two-thirds of the net expansion in electricity supply. Solar grew by 50 percent, with almost half new plants built in China.” See also: https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GlobalEVOutlook2017.pdf https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publicatio... “In 2016, China was by far the largest electric car market, accounting for more than 40% of the electric cars sold in the world and more than double the amount sold in the United States” And: http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pro... “Mainland China has 37 nuclear power reactors in operation, about 20 under construction, and more about to start construction. The reactors under construction include some of the world's most advanced, to give a 70% increase of nuclear capacity to 58 GWe by 2020-21. Plans are for up to 150 GWe by 2030, and much more by 2050.” Economies by GDP PPP: http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gd... China: 23,194.411 USA: 19,417.144 India: 9,489.302 Japan: 5,420.228 Germany: 4,134.668 Rest: meh (in billions of $ of course) I'm sure there are lots more examples.

dfsegoat 9y ago
To your point RE: the electric car market: It is noteworthy that the GM announcement this past week - that they will be focusing on an "All electric" future - seems to have been a strategic decision made largely because China is pushing the entire auto-market in that direction.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Indeed, they all seem to have made it a priority to meet China's aggressive push for EVs: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/china-to-start-new-energy-vehicle-production-quota-from-2019 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/china-to-... Regulated capitalism does work. Who knew?!
  - stuaxo 9y ago
    Funny.. The market only exists because of the rule of law, we just argue about the detail.
- melling 9y ago
  GM sells more cars in China than the US. https://www.wired.com/story/general-motors-electric-cars-plan-gm/ https://www.wired.com/story/general-motors-electric-cars-pla...
adventured 9y ago
GDP PPP is a near worthless reference for countries like China and India. India has a billion people living in extreme poverty, with the word extreme not doing the context justice. China still has about half a billion people living in that type of poverty as well. Both of those are semi-masked by the fantasy PPP figures. PPP is a way of pretending that just because you can afford a Starbucks cup of coffee in Beijing, you're economically equivalent to someone earning $60,000 per year in Frankfurt. Back in reality, there are vast objective economic differences of reality that go with comparing China vs highly developed nations on PPP. Can you afford to travel to Paris or Toronto? Can you afford a BMW or Mercedes (cheap Chinese cars are death boxes on wheels)? Can your savings or income get you out of cities with extreme pollution so you can live better? Do you have access to the kind of healthcare available in Finland or Denmark? What kind of social safety net does your nation provide? Once you get much beyond comparing hamburger prices, the value of the PPP premise collapses when comparing highly developed nations vs eg China.
- ben_w 9y ago
  Every system is flawed. Even within a single nation, a salary of £26,000 is great if you live in Aberystwyth, a struggle if you live in London.
- igravious 9y ago
  Rubbish. Where are the numbers to prove what you're saying? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/8-facts-about-chinas-economy/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/8-facts-about-chinas-... In 2012 extreme poverty in India was 20%, bit less than 10% in China. And shrinking each year. “At the outset of the reforms in 1978, China was poor. It had a GDP per capita level similar to Zambia – lower than half of the Asian average and lower than two thirds of the African average. China experienced an average GDP growth of close to 10% per year until 2014, raising per capita GDP almost 49-fold, from 155 current US Dollars (1978) to 7,590 US Dollars in 2014, lifting 800 million people out of poverty – an unparalleled achievement. In urban centres in China, poverty has been virtually eliminated.” --- At market rates China's economy will be the biggest in the world sometime in the mid-20s. I have never seen anywhere that PPP† is a worthless metric. Point me to a decent source that corroborates your opinion. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity
mtgx 9y ago
I remember reading an article several years ago about China's economic leadership. At that time it said that it's not quite clear whether or not China leads the U.S., but even if it led it, it probably wouldn't make a big deal out of it, because it doesn't want to have that responsibility of being the most powerful nation on Earth (at least economically). I think China is starting to become ready to take that leadership role, especially when the U.S. government seems to run around like a headless chicken, arguing about the role of science, or whether or not coal has a future, or that climate change is real, having schizophrenic and increasingly more bully-like foreign policies, and so on. I'm not particularly looking forward to China becoming the world's leader, because just like the US had a positive influence on other democracies in the past decades, I expect China to have a mainly negative influence on other democracies in terms of human rights and other stuff like that. I'm just saying that this is going to happen, while the U.S. decays. It also helps that China has 4x the population of U.S., so it's almost as if it's only a matter of time before China has a stronger economy. Well, unless AI does steal everyone's jobs, and then I suppose China would have a bigger problem on its hands than anyone else...
- adventured 9y ago
  China isn't close to having a larger economy than the US. The US is ~60% larger and is growing its economy as fast as China in dollar terms. 2014 to 2015, the US added roughly $650b to its economy, China added $580b. 2015 to 2016, the US added $530b, China added $140 billion (due to the dollar's return to being strong). And if we're talking coal, China is the king of coal. They have no plans what-so-ever to do away with it any time soon. They're not reducing their use of coal, in fact they're expanding their coal use, while simultaneously adding a lot of renewable energy. Meanwhile the US has reduced its coal use by about 1/3 in a decade. This chart says it all: https://i.imgur.com/hcPeoAB.png https://i.imgur.com/hcPeoAB.png > having schizophrenic and increasingly more bully-like foreign policies Uh, you mean like using military aggression to annex a massive area of six other nation's territories in the South China Sea? Or did you mean the constant military threat to use force to invade and annex the independent nation of Taiwan? When was the last time the US annexed territory like that or the last time official US policy was to annex another nation when a convenient opportunity presents? Imagine, tomorrow the US decides to annex all of Mexico's gulf water territory, and then some more territory in the Caribbean Sea from six or seven other nations. The next day, the US declares that Toronto and Vancouver belong to the US, and that it has the right to invade at any time to force that outcome. That would be almost equivalent to what China is doing right now.
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
Macro economics aside - the demand for renewables and EV in China is outsized due to how polluted it's become: https://youtu.be/2nFZaSbkf0U https://youtu.be/2nFZaSbkf0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOBRH56Ic0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOBRH56Ic0
- LMYahooTFY 9y ago
  Doesn't that make it more acute rather than outsized? Is anyone rational committed to long-term/indefinite use of fossil fuels? If not, isn't this simply a matter of switching over?
simonebrunozzi 9y ago
Please, when making comparison, don't use PPP - it's misleading for most people.
- kwhitefoot 9y ago
  Please explain.
  - imaginenore 9y ago
    PPP is inherently tied to the basket of goods, but the baskets aren't standard. Even if they had the same products in it (they don't), products themselves can vary a lot. Some yogurt can be made from real milk made in a clean factory or can be a fake based on palm oil mixed in a dirty garage with rats and no health controls. It also includes the cost of housing, so you end up comparing building-controlled and highly regulated areas like Bay Area with who knows what in India.
jonnycomputer 9y ago
that might be the case; but many economists worry about China over-investing in infrastructure at the moment. ..
- nradov 9y ago
  The USA also over invested in infrastructure at various points. During the transcontinental railroad boom companies built way more tracks than were actually needed at the time. Some companies when bankrupt, but eventually demand caught up with supply and those tracks delivered major benefits for long-term economic growth. The same thing happened with backbone fiber optic lines during the first Internet boom.
eighthnate 9y ago
China has 100 cities with a population greater than 1 million. And they are planning to build another 100 cities with 1 million+ people in the next 10 year. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cities-populations-bigger-liverpool https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cit... To put that into perspective, europe has 33. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_cities_by_population_within_city_limits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_cities_by_pop... We have 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... There has been a correlation between cities and civilization. The rise of cities and economic growth/production. And the rise of cities and power. It happened with ancient civilizations. It happened with europe. It happened with the US. The question is whether this will hold for china and what it will mean for the world. They are building a university every week. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35776555 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35776555 This is similar to what we did in the US in the 1800s as our economy grew by leaps and bounds. Most of our top universities from stanford to MIT were founded in the 1800s. Will the european and american model of the past 500 years hold for china? How will they maneuver through the current international order to get the resources they need for their cities and to gain access to markets? If the model holds, then we are looking at an explosion of science, culture, innovation and growth. But the worrisome part is that europe and american also expanded, stole land, resources and conquered territories.
- igravious 9y ago
  Again, more proof if one needed it. And fascinating links that you provide that shows the societal changes are massive in terms of urbanisation and education. I think the difference this time is that there is nowhere to expand to that is way "behind". The world has already globalised to a great degree. You raise interesting questions and I'm glad you put your thoughts as questions rather than the usual "this will happen" or "that will happen" when the truth is it'll only be obvious through hindsight or unless we get far better societal predictive tools.
- vonmoltke 9y ago
  > China has 100 cities with a population greater than 1 million. Correction: China has 102 (specifically) urban areas over 1 million people. The same report lists 42 for the US (I didn't bother to count Europe, but I think it's larger). "City" is an arbitrary and unreliable unit of measure. For example, there are over 6 million people in South Florida, but no city over 500,000 people and only two over 200,000.

dfsegoat 9y ago

To your point RE: the electric car market: It is noteworthy that the GM announcement this past week - that they will be focusing on an "All electric" future - seems to have been a strategic decision made largely because China is pushing the entire auto-market in that direction.

mtgx 9y ago
Indeed, they all seem to have made it a priority to meet China's aggressive push for EVs: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/china-to-start-new-energy-vehicle-production-quota-from-2019 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/china-to-... Regulated capitalism does work. Who knew?!
- stuaxo 9y ago
  Funny.. The market only exists because of the rule of law, we just argue about the detail.
melling 9y ago
GM sells more cars in China than the US. https://www.wired.com/story/general-motors-electric-cars-plan-gm/ https://www.wired.com/story/general-motors-electric-cars-pla...

adventured 9y ago

GDP PPP is a near worthless reference for countries like China and India. India has a billion people living in extreme poverty, with the word extreme not doing the context justice. China still has about half a billion people living in that type of poverty as well. Both of those are semi-masked by the fantasy PPP figures. PPP is a way of pretending that just because you can afford a Starbucks cup of coffee in Beijing, you're economically equivalent to someone earning $60,000 per year in Frankfurt. Back in reality, there are vast objective economic differences of reality that go with comparing China vs highly developed nations on PPP. Can you afford to travel to Paris or Toronto? Can you afford a BMW or Mercedes (cheap Chinese cars are death boxes on wheels)? Can your savings or income get you out of cities with extreme pollution so you can live better? Do you have access to the kind of healthcare available in Finland or Denmark? What kind of social safety net does your nation provide? Once you get much beyond comparing hamburger prices, the value of the PPP premise collapses when comparing highly developed nations vs eg China.

ben_w 9y ago
Every system is flawed. Even within a single nation, a salary of £26,000 is great if you live in Aberystwyth, a struggle if you live in London.
igravious 9y ago
Rubbish. Where are the numbers to prove what you're saying? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/8-facts-about-chinas-economy/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/8-facts-about-chinas-... In 2012 extreme poverty in India was 20%, bit less than 10% in China. And shrinking each year. “At the outset of the reforms in 1978, China was poor. It had a GDP per capita level similar to Zambia – lower than half of the Asian average and lower than two thirds of the African average. China experienced an average GDP growth of close to 10% per year until 2014, raising per capita GDP almost 49-fold, from 155 current US Dollars (1978) to 7,590 US Dollars in 2014, lifting 800 million people out of poverty – an unparalleled achievement. In urban centres in China, poverty has been virtually eliminated.” --- At market rates China's economy will be the biggest in the world sometime in the mid-20s. I have never seen anywhere that PPP† is a worthless metric. Point me to a decent source that corroborates your opinion. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity

mtgx 9y ago

I remember reading an article several years ago about China's economic leadership. At that time it said that it's not quite clear whether or not China leads the U.S., but even if it led it, it probably wouldn't make a big deal out of it, because it doesn't want to have that responsibility of being the most powerful nation on Earth (at least economically). I think China is starting to become ready to take that leadership role, especially when the U.S. government seems to run around like a headless chicken, arguing about the role of science, or whether or not coal has a future, or that climate change is real, having schizophrenic and increasingly more bully-like foreign policies, and so on. I'm not particularly looking forward to China becoming the world's leader, because just like the US had a positive influence on other democracies in the past decades, I expect China to have a mainly negative influence on other democracies in terms of human rights and other stuff like that. I'm just saying that this is going to happen, while the U.S. decays. It also helps that China has 4x the population of U.S., so it's almost as if it's only a matter of time before China has a stronger economy. Well, unless AI does steal everyone's jobs, and then I suppose China would have a bigger problem on its hands than anyone else...

adventured 9y ago
China isn't close to having a larger economy than the US. The US is ~60% larger and is growing its economy as fast as China in dollar terms. 2014 to 2015, the US added roughly $650b to its economy, China added $580b. 2015 to 2016, the US added $530b, China added $140 billion (due to the dollar's return to being strong). And if we're talking coal, China is the king of coal. They have no plans what-so-ever to do away with it any time soon. They're not reducing their use of coal, in fact they're expanding their coal use, while simultaneously adding a lot of renewable energy. Meanwhile the US has reduced its coal use by about 1/3 in a decade. This chart says it all: https://i.imgur.com/hcPeoAB.png https://i.imgur.com/hcPeoAB.png > having schizophrenic and increasingly more bully-like foreign policies Uh, you mean like using military aggression to annex a massive area of six other nation's territories in the South China Sea? Or did you mean the constant military threat to use force to invade and annex the independent nation of Taiwan? When was the last time the US annexed territory like that or the last time official US policy was to annex another nation when a convenient opportunity presents? Imagine, tomorrow the US decides to annex all of Mexico's gulf water territory, and then some more territory in the Caribbean Sea from six or seven other nations. The next day, the US declares that Toronto and Vancouver belong to the US, and that it has the right to invade at any time to force that outcome. That would be almost equivalent to what China is doing right now.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

Macro economics aside - the demand for renewables and EV in China is outsized due to how polluted it's become: https://youtu.be/2nFZaSbkf0U https://youtu.be/2nFZaSbkf0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOBRH56Ic0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwOBRH56Ic0

LMYahooTFY 9y ago
Doesn't that make it more acute rather than outsized? Is anyone rational committed to long-term/indefinite use of fossil fuels? If not, isn't this simply a matter of switching over?

simonebrunozzi 9y ago

Please, when making comparison, don't use PPP - it's misleading for most people.

kwhitefoot 9y ago
Please explain.
- imaginenore 9y ago
  PPP is inherently tied to the basket of goods, but the baskets aren't standard. Even if they had the same products in it (they don't), products themselves can vary a lot. Some yogurt can be made from real milk made in a clean factory or can be a fake based on palm oil mixed in a dirty garage with rats and no health controls. It also includes the cost of housing, so you end up comparing building-controlled and highly regulated areas like Bay Area with who knows what in India.

jonnycomputer 9y ago

that might be the case; but many economists worry about China over-investing in infrastructure at the moment. ..

nradov 9y ago
The USA also over invested in infrastructure at various points. During the transcontinental railroad boom companies built way more tracks than were actually needed at the time. Some companies when bankrupt, but eventually demand caught up with supply and those tracks delivered major benefits for long-term economic growth. The same thing happened with backbone fiber optic lines during the first Internet boom.

eighthnate 9y ago

China has 100 cities with a population greater than 1 million. And they are planning to build another 100 cities with 1 million+ people in the next 10 year. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cities-populations-bigger-liverpool https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cit... To put that into perspective, europe has 33. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_cities_by_population_within_city_limits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_cities_by_pop... We have 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... There has been a correlation between cities and civilization. The rise of cities and economic growth/production. And the rise of cities and power. It happened with ancient civilizations. It happened with europe. It happened with the US. The question is whether this will hold for china and what it will mean for the world. They are building a university every week. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35776555 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35776555 This is similar to what we did in the US in the 1800s as our economy grew by leaps and bounds. Most of our top universities from stanford to MIT were founded in the 1800s. Will the european and american model of the past 500 years hold for china? How will they maneuver through the current international order to get the resources they need for their cities and to gain access to markets? If the model holds, then we are looking at an explosion of science, culture, innovation and growth. But the worrisome part is that europe and american also expanded, stole land, resources and conquered territories.

igravious 9y ago
Again, more proof if one needed it. And fascinating links that you provide that shows the societal changes are massive in terms of urbanisation and education. I think the difference this time is that there is nowhere to expand to that is way "behind". The world has already globalised to a great degree. You raise interesting questions and I'm glad you put your thoughts as questions rather than the usual "this will happen" or "that will happen" when the truth is it'll only be obvious through hindsight or unless we get far better societal predictive tools.
vonmoltke 9y ago
> China has 100 cities with a population greater than 1 million. Correction: China has 102 (specifically) urban areas over 1 million people. The same report lists 42 for the US (I didn't bother to count Europe, but I think it's larger). "City" is an arbitrary and unreliable unit of measure. For example, there are over 6 million people in South Florida, but no city over 500,000 people and only two over 200,000.