12 ms·

China Is Quietly Reshaping the World

121 points by ALee 9y ago

partycoder 9y ago
"Supreme excellence consists on breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." - Sun Tzu
- adventured 9y ago
  What enemy? The world benefits immensely from China no longer being hyper impoverished and no longer being a big negative drain on world aid. Now that China can fully support itself - which is something that is actually relatively recent, only occurring in the last 20 years - more global aid is available to help the remaining very poor nations, and China can contribute to that, accelerating the climb of the global median standard of living. 500 million of the world's poorest people still live in China. While they have a long ways to go yet, every bit of progress helps the rest of the world tremendously.
  - abraae 9y ago
    Thanks somewhat to US domestic politics, China seems to be gradually edging from global enemy towards saviour status. With regard to climate change, they are now more progressive than the US. Perhaps the chinese emphasis on long term thinking and the importance of future generations is counteracting the negative effects of their ruthless and undemocratic regime.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      China starts from a huge deficit in environmental protection that can't really be compared to the USA. They are being aggressive today because 500+ 2.5pm is unlivable.
      - averagewall 9y ago
        Climate change is nothing to do with PM2.5. That's a very short term (falls out of the air in days) local issue. They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US.
        jack9 9y ago
        > They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US The most disingenuous statement in this thread? In other news... High School coach points out his QB completes more passes per game than NFL team QB. Demands equivalent compensation for better performance. Total physical amount of pollution is a quantitative problem. Trying to cut it up per capita by a population grouping is not constructive. Hand waving with this kind of reductionist calculation is political spin. It's "unfair" to discount this measure, but thats because physical/practical problems lie outside political interests.
        abraae 9y ago
        Are you saying a country with 4M people that emits the same as a country with 100M people is doing OK? Per capita is a useful measurement (but not the only one).
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Depends on density if we are talking about local livability, Mongolia would have a lesser problem if everyone didn't live in its capital. CO2, on the other hand, is a global problem, so per capita is more relevant, but has all sorts of tragedy of the commons and prisoner dilemma implications.
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        The solutions are exactly the same. The Chinese people aren't more fired up about solving climate change, but they have a huge immediate pollution problem that needs to be solved yesterday. But coincidentally, getting rid of coal plants helps with climate change, and they don't have the natural gas infrastructure to go with it much anyways. The USA on the other hand, doesn't have that same problem, at least nowhere near on the same scale. Natural gas has worked really well as a more economic substitute to coal even if its CO2 reduction isn't as great. The problem of climate change is less immediate and less local than direct toxic air pollution, making it much more difficult to get people fired up about.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    I know you mean well, but China is a relatively rich country, it doesn't have 500 million of the world's poorest people, those distinctions go to India (poorer than china at 1 billion) and Africa (most of which is poorer than India). China has been the richest country in the world at many points in world history, heck, even at its worse, it has always been self sufficient. They never got global aid like say Ethiopia did. At best, they had some Russian technical help before the sino soviet split.
  - partycoder 9y ago
    The quote said "enemy" so I kept that word. But in the context of trade, I would rather interpret that as "adversary" or "rival". Now, it is important to understand that the Chinese communist party and the US are ideological opposites. And this is reflected in policies such as censorship and redaction of Internet content. Market dominance comes with political influence. These infrastructure projects not only have trade implications but influence implications as well.
qiqing 9y ago
Annoying quibble about the author's carelessness: there's an article from the Economist that this sentence is linked to. "Scholars who looked at Chinese investment in Africa from 1991 to 2010 found that Chinese assistance does not appear to help economic growth..." However, the article linked is actually about Chinese government assistance in Pakistan (not Africa) and the impact on Pakistan's relationship with India -- not about Chinese private investment at all, nor about Africa. >_>
- elgenie 9y ago
  Chinese private investment in other countries is "private" in name only. It's investment by largely state-owned enterprises in the service of government foreign policy.
fspeech 9y ago
"secure the natural resources it needs to grow" This gets repeated a lot. Maybe Chinese propaganda make this point to justify its outward investments to the Chinese people. Statements like this then take on a sinister sheen when discussed in the West. Commodities are fungible and China is rich in natural resources itself. Oil is the one thing it is insecure about yet the insecurity is much more about a potential blockade in time of conflict than insufficiency of suppliers. Yes it has interests to see more supplies so it certainly would encourage investments in natural resources but to control the resources? That doesn't even make sense in the modern (WTO) context. It can't even control rare earth exports when 90% of the supply is based inside China, how can it expect to control supplies outside of China? China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than buying more US Treasury bills.
- hiram112 9y ago
  >China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than buying more US Treasury bills. Why can't China now run a huge deficit like the US is expected / encouraged to do, thus becoming consumers of products built in the US and Europe, instead of the other way around? You say there is no other way around it. Actually there is, but China prefers to play unfairly (though I agree they wouldn't get away with it if our own business and political leaders weren't so corrupt and short-sighted).
  - OnlineCourage 9y ago
    >Why can't China now run a huge deficit like the US is expected / encouraged to do, thus becoming consumers of products built in the US and Europe, instead of the other way around? Because banks and other Govenments believe that there is a ~20% chance that China will implode and have a popular revolution over the next decade for any given decade. That's Morgan Stanley's number, other banks may project different numbers. China is incredibly unstable relative to the US and European countries. Half of China, does not want to be part of China, and not in a joking, "Texas will secede" type of way. There's tons of poverty, not enough water, overpopulation. There's little democratic self correcting mechanisms.
fspeech 9y ago
"most of its largesse comes as loans" These investments are not really Chinese government's money to give unless it wants to tax its people more. What Chinese government has is a very large sway over where Chinese external investments go since it requires exporters to sell their forex earnings and large outward investments require state approvals. But these investments are not taken from depositors as a tax. The depositors still have claims on the Chinese banks. What the Chinese government/banks do is really to provide a guarantee to the domestic depositors as intermediaries. If the investments go bad they will have to plug the financial hole somehow.
princetontiger 9y ago
Another dumb article. No one will ever displace the West. Since Ancient Egypt, it's run the world. Egypt >> Babylon >> Greece >> Rome >> Britain >> America. In a nut shell, of course many beautiful western city states like Venice and Minoans. Not sure what's after America, but it's definitely not the PRC. That's some 1984 scary stuff. I'm sure America and China will meet head to head to settle the score at some point in the next 10-15 years. Democracy vs. Dictatorship.
beambot 9y ago
Wow those numbers are staggering... Staggeringly small compared to US's budget for the War(s) on Terror, that is.
itissid 9y ago
This is just another way to keep GDP growth up by boosting spending. Basically there are a few policies that the Chinese are pursing: 1. Conquering the industries that they are lagging in(i.e auto and semiconductor) by disguising govt subsides as state "support" and flouting WTO rules[1]. 2. Spend money on belt and road thingy to prop up GDP because there is no more to spend on existing overheated asset bubbles. Remember all those years of propping up GDP in construction projects, where the interest on debt(and the debt itself too) becomes too large a portion of the GDP such that most of it goes to just servicing the debt. Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does not[2]. But ultimately with extra spending and little growth they will keep running against fundamental issues like the Impossible Trinity[3] which is like the CAP theorem of macro economics. Unless the economy balances spending and real growth, and if it does not the only Q is when will it burst or become like Japan's decades of stagnation. [1]https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21729442-its-record-industrial-policy-successes-patchy-china-sets-its-sights https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2172944... [2] http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997 http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997 [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity
- mostlystatic 9y ago
  “Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does not[2].” This is often said, but even after reading the linked article it’s not clear why that’s desirable. Why not for example keep growing exports instead of domestic consumption?
  - zdkl 9y ago
    Too much exposition on "non-china" factors?
landryraccoon 9y ago
I am curious about the prevailing fetish for adopting a hyper critical stance towards China's growth rate. Is it just me, or does it seem that when articles are posted portaying China in a positive light, the immediate tendency is to adopt a critical or skeptical stance? Of course a certain amount of skepticism is warranted, but I feel that these criticisms take on a bit more of a personal tinge, as if there is something ominous or threatening about China's growing economic influence. If you feel threatened by the idea of a China that economically dominates, I would honestly like to hear your explanation. Or if your skepticism is ideological e.g., a general belief that undemocratic societies cannot prosper economically, I'd be curious about that as well.
- eradicatethots 9y ago
  I feel threatened by China, because I don’t trust them. There’s not much more to it. I fear that they might abuse their power or use it to destabilize the West. There’s a lot of hatred of the Us, and I don’t want them to try and trample our norms, culture, society... things which I care about and am deeply connected to. That’s not to say they actually would do any of those things, the key point is the lack of trust, specifically trust that they would do anything to benefit us or protect us or that they care about us at all. I don’t trust them, and the specifics of what they could do to hurt us are not really something I consider (but as they become more powerful they have many more options... to the point where one day maybe we are dwarfed by them and have no ability to defend ourselves should we need to.) China is very scary to me.
  - justicezyx 9y ago
    > I fear that they might abuse their power or use it to destabilize the West Totally warranted, look at what happens during cold war, and the conflicts between nations with different ideologies. The mutual-untrustness cannot be reduced in any degree.
  - h8liu 9y ago
    Interesting... Chinese people also feel threatened by the West, because they don't trust you. There's not much more to it. They fear that you might abuse your power or use it to destabilize China. There's a lot of hatred of China, and they don't want you to try and trample Chinese norms, culture, society... things which they care about and are deeply connected to. That's not to say the West actually would do any of those things, the key point is the lack of trust, specifically trust that you would do anything to benefit Chinese people or protect Chinese or that you care about them at all. They don't trust you, and the specifics of what you could do to hurt them are not really something they consider (but as you, the West is already powerful, you have many more options... to the point where one day maybe be the Chinese are dwarfed again by the West, and have no ability to defend themselves should they have to.) The west is very scary to Chinese people. See how this goes?
zhte415 9y ago
Not mentioned in the article is China's desire to develop the western areas of the country, which benefit from Belt and Road. To manufacture a product in Hebei and ship it from Tianjin, or manufacture in Jiangsu and ship from Shanghai/Ningbo, or manufacture in Guangdong and ship from Shenzhen, is pretty cheap. To do the same in western provinces is much harder. There's a big regional disparency. While China's landmass goes far west, (western) Sichuan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, the western provinces I mean are the shanxis, gansu, sichuan, yunan with large population bases. Myanmar was also not mentioned in the article, but will also play an important role as support to southwestern China's access to the ocean.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  It is mentioned, even if not deeply: "...Gwadar is experiencing a storm of construction: a brand-new container port, new hotels, and 1,800 miles of superhighway and high-speed railway to connect it to China’s landlocked western provinces"
NicoJuicy 9y ago
Too many loans, they'll probably fail big and it will be a bang... But it is impressive though, I just can't believe they will actually achieve it. Already done internal loaners are failing and they are holding back European expansion ( Chinese firms) on command of the Chinese government. But as usual, we will see
- kiba 9y ago
  Worse, implosion of the Chinese market affects us all. We're all interconnected for better or for worse.
- asdfasdfasd333 9y ago
  source?
  - NicoJuicy 9y ago
    People who travel there report empty buildings ( cause : loans not paid back and the mortgage are the buildings )+ multiple articles about bank failure ( eg. Google China shadow banking) I always thought China's motto was: Fake it, untill you make it ( their annual growth of 8% is based on a big part on empty buildings and not repaying loans. It is controlled by the governement and they try to eliminate the crisis by expanding influence in the world. Eg. Too big to fail) ---------- In short, the growth of China is artifically inflated to 8% per year, since many years --> huge internal debt. Now they are doing the same on a global scale. We are all doomed :) https://amp.ft.com/content/a6086a9a-5059-11e7-bfb8-997009366969 https://amp.ft.com/content/a6086a9a-5059-11e7-bfb8-997009366... https://theconversation.com/is-china-on-the-verge-of-a-banking-crisis-75784 https://theconversation.com/is-china-on-the-verge-of-a-banki... http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2115011/how-chinas-biggest-creditors-may-struggle-pay-their http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/211... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-financial-crisis_us_587cfe4fe4b0b3c7a7b23394 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-financial-crisis_... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/15/chinas-debt-boom-could-lead-financial-crisis-imf-warns/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/15/chinas-debt-b...
- rdtsc 9y ago
thisisit 9y ago
I might be wrong but didn't something similar happen with Japan too? After the rise of their industrial power they started expanding outside, buying/investing in stuff outside their country in accordance to the BoJ guidance also known as "window guidance". But then the asset bubble burst causing issues for their economy. Chinese loans seem to be on the rise: https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-loans/rpt-update-2-china-new-yuan-loans-rise-more-than-expected-in-september-idUSL4N1MR15L https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-loans/rpt-upda... So, will something similar happen here too?
danmaz74 9y ago
Really interesting article. A couple of comments. Investing in foreign infrastructure and trade is good, as the article itself says, also because it creates a disincentive for war. But we need to keep in mind that economic interest isn't enough to prevent war; before WWI lots of people thought that a new war in Europe was unthinkable, considering the interdependence of Europe economies at the time and how much everybody had to lose with a war. It didn't matter. Another very important point IMHO is that the end result of this will depend a lot on how productive will these investments turn out to be; will they create good returns or not? If returns are good, they will create wealth and everybody will probably be happy in the end. If returns will be poor, I'm afraid they could end up creating very big tensions in the future between China and the countries that are getting indebted now.
NiklasMort 9y ago
China is destroying the world. The amount of ecological damage they do OUTSIDE their own country is staggering.
- oblio 9y ago
  That's how industrialization looks, at this point. For now, you can either choose to be "pure" or "rich". 99% of people choose "rich".
ajiang 9y ago
The amount of comments on this article that are emotion and fear-based, rather than fact and experience-based is surprising for HN.
- sdwa 9y ago
  I think part of the problem is that China has zero respect for human rights for even its own citizens. Pretty common knowledge they farm their own undesirables (human beings) for organs.
- OnlineCourage 9y ago
  HN is primarily read by western web software engineers who have little incentive to understand the nuances of China for now because China's web is effectively a closed ecosystem.
throw6555 9y ago
The internet will go crazy over China now, mostly of which will be: 1. Abuse human rights. 2. A dictatorship. 3. South China sea. But the internet will happily use "Made in China" shamelessly. Hypocrisy at its best. The internet being the western majority crowd who have never seen a world outside of their state. As seen on youtube " Do you support Iraq war" Yeah absolutely. They have WMD. Show me where Iraq is on this map. Points to Madagascar.

121 points by ALee 9y ago

partycoder 9y ago

"Supreme excellence consists on breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." - Sun Tzu

adventured 9y ago
What enemy? The world benefits immensely from China no longer being hyper impoverished and no longer being a big negative drain on world aid. Now that China can fully support itself - which is something that is actually relatively recent, only occurring in the last 20 years - more global aid is available to help the remaining very poor nations, and China can contribute to that, accelerating the climb of the global median standard of living. 500 million of the world's poorest people still live in China. While they have a long ways to go yet, every bit of progress helps the rest of the world tremendously.
- abraae 9y ago
  Thanks somewhat to US domestic politics, China seems to be gradually edging from global enemy towards saviour status. With regard to climate change, they are now more progressive than the US. Perhaps the chinese emphasis on long term thinking and the importance of future generations is counteracting the negative effects of their ruthless and undemocratic regime.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    China starts from a huge deficit in environmental protection that can't really be compared to the USA. They are being aggressive today because 500+ 2.5pm is unlivable.
    - averagewall 9y ago
      Climate change is nothing to do with PM2.5. That's a very short term (falls out of the air in days) local issue. They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US.
      - jack9 9y ago
        > They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US The most disingenuous statement in this thread? In other news... High School coach points out his QB completes more passes per game than NFL team QB. Demands equivalent compensation for better performance. Total physical amount of pollution is a quantitative problem. Trying to cut it up per capita by a population grouping is not constructive. Hand waving with this kind of reductionist calculation is political spin. It's "unfair" to discount this measure, but thats because physical/practical problems lie outside political interests.
        abraae 9y ago
        Are you saying a country with 4M people that emits the same as a country with 100M people is doing OK? Per capita is a useful measurement (but not the only one).
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Depends on density if we are talking about local livability, Mongolia would have a lesser problem if everyone didn't live in its capital. CO2, on the other hand, is a global problem, so per capita is more relevant, but has all sorts of tragedy of the commons and prisoner dilemma implications.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        The solutions are exactly the same. The Chinese people aren't more fired up about solving climate change, but they have a huge immediate pollution problem that needs to be solved yesterday. But coincidentally, getting rid of coal plants helps with climate change, and they don't have the natural gas infrastructure to go with it much anyways. The USA on the other hand, doesn't have that same problem, at least nowhere near on the same scale. Natural gas has worked really well as a more economic substitute to coal even if its CO2 reduction isn't as great. The problem of climate change is less immediate and less local than direct toxic air pollution, making it much more difficult to get people fired up about.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I know you mean well, but China is a relatively rich country, it doesn't have 500 million of the world's poorest people, those distinctions go to India (poorer than china at 1 billion) and Africa (most of which is poorer than India). China has been the richest country in the world at many points in world history, heck, even at its worse, it has always been self sufficient. They never got global aid like say Ethiopia did. At best, they had some Russian technical help before the sino soviet split.
- partycoder 9y ago
  The quote said "enemy" so I kept that word. But in the context of trade, I would rather interpret that as "adversary" or "rival". Now, it is important to understand that the Chinese communist party and the US are ideological opposites. And this is reflected in policies such as censorship and redaction of Internet content. Market dominance comes with political influence. These infrastructure projects not only have trade implications but influence implications as well.

qiqing 9y ago

Annoying quibble about the author's carelessness: there's an article from the Economist that this sentence is linked to. "Scholars who looked at Chinese investment in Africa from 1991 to 2010 found that Chinese assistance does not appear to help economic growth..." However, the article linked is actually about Chinese government assistance in Pakistan (not Africa) and the impact on Pakistan's relationship with India -- not about Chinese private investment at all, nor about Africa. >_>

elgenie 9y ago
Chinese private investment in other countries is "private" in name only. It's investment by largely state-owned enterprises in the service of government foreign policy.

fspeech 9y ago

"secure the natural resources it needs to grow" This gets repeated a lot. Maybe Chinese propaganda make this point to justify its outward investments to the Chinese people. Statements like this then take on a sinister sheen when discussed in the West. Commodities are fungible and China is rich in natural resources itself. Oil is the one thing it is insecure about yet the insecurity is much more about a potential blockade in time of conflict than insufficiency of suppliers. Yes it has interests to see more supplies so it certainly would encourage investments in natural resources but to control the resources? That doesn't even make sense in the modern (WTO) context. It can't even control rare earth exports when 90% of the supply is based inside China, how can it expect to control supplies outside of China? China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than buying more US Treasury bills.

hiram112 9y ago
>China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than buying more US Treasury bills. Why can't China now run a huge deficit like the US is expected / encouraged to do, thus becoming consumers of products built in the US and Europe, instead of the other way around? You say there is no other way around it. Actually there is, but China prefers to play unfairly (though I agree they wouldn't get away with it if our own business and political leaders weren't so corrupt and short-sighted).
- OnlineCourage 9y ago
  >Why can't China now run a huge deficit like the US is expected / encouraged to do, thus becoming consumers of products built in the US and Europe, instead of the other way around? Because banks and other Govenments believe that there is a ~20% chance that China will implode and have a popular revolution over the next decade for any given decade. That's Morgan Stanley's number, other banks may project different numbers. China is incredibly unstable relative to the US and European countries. Half of China, does not want to be part of China, and not in a joking, "Texas will secede" type of way. There's tons of poverty, not enough water, overpopulation. There's little democratic self correcting mechanisms.

fspeech 9y ago

"most of its largesse comes as loans" These investments are not really Chinese government's money to give unless it wants to tax its people more. What Chinese government has is a very large sway over where Chinese external investments go since it requires exporters to sell their forex earnings and large outward investments require state approvals. But these investments are not taken from depositors as a tax. The depositors still have claims on the Chinese banks. What the Chinese government/banks do is really to provide a guarantee to the domestic depositors as intermediaries. If the investments go bad they will have to plug the financial hole somehow.

princetontiger 9y ago

Another dumb article. No one will ever displace the West. Since Ancient Egypt, it's run the world. Egypt >> Babylon >> Greece >> Rome >> Britain >> America. In a nut shell, of course many beautiful western city states like Venice and Minoans. Not sure what's after America, but it's definitely not the PRC. That's some 1984 scary stuff. I'm sure America and China will meet head to head to settle the score at some point in the next 10-15 years. Democracy vs. Dictatorship.

beambot 9y ago

Wow those numbers are staggering... Staggeringly small compared to US's budget for the War(s) on Terror, that is.

itissid 9y ago

This is just another way to keep GDP growth up by boosting spending. Basically there are a few policies that the Chinese are pursing: 1. Conquering the industries that they are lagging in(i.e auto and semiconductor) by disguising govt subsides as state "support" and flouting WTO rules[1]. 2. Spend money on belt and road thingy to prop up GDP because there is no more to spend on existing overheated asset bubbles. Remember all those years of propping up GDP in construction projects, where the interest on debt(and the debt itself too) becomes too large a portion of the GDP such that most of it goes to just servicing the debt. Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does not[2]. But ultimately with extra spending and little growth they will keep running against fundamental issues like the Impossible Trinity[3] which is like the CAP theorem of macro economics. Unless the economy balances spending and real growth, and if it does not the only Q is when will it burst or become like Japan's decades of stagnation. [1]https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21729442-its-record-industrial-policy-successes-patchy-china-sets-its-sights https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2172944... [2] http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997 http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997 [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity

mostlystatic 9y ago
“Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does not[2].” This is often said, but even after reading the linked article it’s not clear why that’s desirable. Why not for example keep growing exports instead of domestic consumption?
- zdkl 9y ago
  Too much exposition on "non-china" factors?

landryraccoon 9y ago

I am curious about the prevailing fetish for adopting a hyper critical stance towards China's growth rate. Is it just me, or does it seem that when articles are posted portaying China in a positive light, the immediate tendency is to adopt a critical or skeptical stance? Of course a certain amount of skepticism is warranted, but I feel that these criticisms take on a bit more of a personal tinge, as if there is something ominous or threatening about China's growing economic influence. If you feel threatened by the idea of a China that economically dominates, I would honestly like to hear your explanation. Or if your skepticism is ideological e.g., a general belief that undemocratic societies cannot prosper economically, I'd be curious about that as well.

eradicatethots 9y ago
I feel threatened by China, because I don’t trust them. There’s not much more to it. I fear that they might abuse their power or use it to destabilize the West. There’s a lot of hatred of the Us, and I don’t want them to try and trample our norms, culture, society... things which I care about and am deeply connected to. That’s not to say they actually would do any of those things, the key point is the lack of trust, specifically trust that they would do anything to benefit us or protect us or that they care about us at all. I don’t trust them, and the specifics of what they could do to hurt us are not really something I consider (but as they become more powerful they have many more options... to the point where one day maybe we are dwarfed by them and have no ability to defend ourselves should we need to.) China is very scary to me.
- justicezyx 9y ago
  > I fear that they might abuse their power or use it to destabilize the West Totally warranted, look at what happens during cold war, and the conflicts between nations with different ideologies. The mutual-untrustness cannot be reduced in any degree.
- h8liu 9y ago
  Interesting... Chinese people also feel threatened by the West, because they don't trust you. There's not much more to it. They fear that you might abuse your power or use it to destabilize China. There's a lot of hatred of China, and they don't want you to try and trample Chinese norms, culture, society... things which they care about and are deeply connected to. That's not to say the West actually would do any of those things, the key point is the lack of trust, specifically trust that you would do anything to benefit Chinese people or protect Chinese or that you care about them at all. They don't trust you, and the specifics of what you could do to hurt them are not really something they consider (but as you, the West is already powerful, you have many more options... to the point where one day maybe be the Chinese are dwarfed again by the West, and have no ability to defend themselves should they have to.) The west is very scary to Chinese people. See how this goes?

zhte415 9y ago

Not mentioned in the article is China's desire to develop the western areas of the country, which benefit from Belt and Road. To manufacture a product in Hebei and ship it from Tianjin, or manufacture in Jiangsu and ship from Shanghai/Ningbo, or manufacture in Guangdong and ship from Shenzhen, is pretty cheap. To do the same in western provinces is much harder. There's a big regional disparency. While China's landmass goes far west, (western) Sichuan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, the western provinces I mean are the shanxis, gansu, sichuan, yunan with large population bases. Myanmar was also not mentioned in the article, but will also play an important role as support to southwestern China's access to the ocean.

danmaz74 9y ago
It is mentioned, even if not deeply: "...Gwadar is experiencing a storm of construction: a brand-new container port, new hotels, and 1,800 miles of superhighway and high-speed railway to connect it to China’s landlocked western provinces"

NicoJuicy 9y ago

Too many loans, they'll probably fail big and it will be a bang... But it is impressive though, I just can't believe they will actually achieve it. Already done internal loaners are failing and they are holding back European expansion ( Chinese firms) on command of the Chinese government. But as usual, we will see

kiba 9y ago
Worse, implosion of the Chinese market affects us all. We're all interconnected for better or for worse.
asdfasdfasd333 9y ago
source?
- NicoJuicy 9y ago
  People who travel there report empty buildings ( cause : loans not paid back and the mortgage are the buildings )+ multiple articles about bank failure ( eg. Google China shadow banking) I always thought China's motto was: Fake it, untill you make it ( their annual growth of 8% is based on a big part on empty buildings and not repaying loans. It is controlled by the governement and they try to eliminate the crisis by expanding influence in the world. Eg. Too big to fail) ---------- In short, the growth of China is artifically inflated to 8% per year, since many years --> huge internal debt. Now they are doing the same on a global scale. We are all doomed :) https://amp.ft.com/content/a6086a9a-5059-11e7-bfb8-997009366969 https://amp.ft.com/content/a6086a9a-5059-11e7-bfb8-997009366... https://theconversation.com/is-china-on-the-verge-of-a-banking-crisis-75784 https://theconversation.com/is-china-on-the-verge-of-a-banki... http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2115011/how-chinas-biggest-creditors-may-struggle-pay-their http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/211... https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-financial-crisis_us_587cfe4fe4b0b3c7a7b23394 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-financial-crisis_... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/15/chinas-debt-boom-could-lead-financial-crisis-imf-warns/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/08/15/chinas-debt-b...
rdtsc 9y ago

thisisit 9y ago

I might be wrong but didn't something similar happen with Japan too? After the rise of their industrial power they started expanding outside, buying/investing in stuff outside their country in accordance to the BoJ guidance also known as "window guidance". But then the asset bubble burst causing issues for their economy. Chinese loans seem to be on the rise: https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-loans/rpt-update-2-china-new-yuan-loans-rise-more-than-expected-in-september-idUSL4N1MR15L https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-loans/rpt-upda... So, will something similar happen here too?

danmaz74 9y ago

Really interesting article. A couple of comments. Investing in foreign infrastructure and trade is good, as the article itself says, also because it creates a disincentive for war. But we need to keep in mind that economic interest isn't enough to prevent war; before WWI lots of people thought that a new war in Europe was unthinkable, considering the interdependence of Europe economies at the time and how much everybody had to lose with a war. It didn't matter. Another very important point IMHO is that the end result of this will depend a lot on how productive will these investments turn out to be; will they create good returns or not? If returns are good, they will create wealth and everybody will probably be happy in the end. If returns will be poor, I'm afraid they could end up creating very big tensions in the future between China and the countries that are getting indebted now.

NiklasMort 9y ago

China is destroying the world. The amount of ecological damage they do OUTSIDE their own country is staggering.

oblio 9y ago
That's how industrialization looks, at this point. For now, you can either choose to be "pure" or "rich". 99% of people choose "rich".

ajiang 9y ago

The amount of comments on this article that are emotion and fear-based, rather than fact and experience-based is surprising for HN.

sdwa 9y ago
I think part of the problem is that China has zero respect for human rights for even its own citizens. Pretty common knowledge they farm their own undesirables (human beings) for organs.
OnlineCourage 9y ago
HN is primarily read by western web software engineers who have little incentive to understand the nuances of China for now because China's web is effectively a closed ecosystem.

throw6555 9y ago

The internet will go crazy over China now, mostly of which will be: 1. Abuse human rights. 2. A dictatorship. 3. South China sea. But the internet will happily use "Made in China" shamelessly. Hypocrisy at its best. The internet being the western majority crowd who have never seen a world outside of their state. As seen on youtube " Do you support Iraq war" Yeah absolutely. They have WMD. Show me where Iraq is on this map. Points to Madagascar.