4 ms·
Isn't this just like 20 years ago when everyone thought the Japanese were going to take over?
by henning 19y ago
Isn't this just like 20 years ago when everyone thought the Japanese were going to take over?
- lupin_sansei 19y agoYep. Exactly like it. People don't seem to understand that China's success is dependant on the US buying products from them.
- donw 19y agoPart of it is, but China has several things that the Japanese do not. Japan has to import pretty much everything they need to keep their economy running. The Japanese population is also about half that of the United States, and during their boom years, there was such a massive problem in finding skilled workers that the Japanese government had to turn a blind eye to the sheer number of illegal immigrants flooding in from the rest of southeast Asia. The Japanese also care very deeply about nature; I have never seen a polluted stream or a park covered in litter there, and I've spent a decent amount of time in the country. Of course, this is one of the bits of Japanese culture that I rather love. grin So, Japan could have probably swallowed the U.S., if they weren't so dependent on imports; it puts a limit to how high their economy can really go. China has a wealth of natural resources, and more than enough skilled workers. China also doesn't care one iota about their ecology, which is why Beijing is not a city to live in if you're a fan of air, or water -- it's also worth noting that, sanitation-wise, mainland China is still very much a third-world country. But unlike Japan, China doesn't need to be importing and exporting to keep their economy going; they've got so much work to do in their own country that they've got growth potential out the wazoo. That said, China is rapidly becoming a toxic wasteland, and I'm curious how well the Chinese business system (all businesses being government entities) will scale; this goes double, given how the culture promotes rampant cronyism and incredible corruption. Well, we live in interesting times. :)
- ilamont 19y agoExactly. Or Spanish. Or French. Or Russian. How many language fads have there been in the last century, based on the perceived importance of the country/countries? Unless you plan to relocate to China or Asia, I think most people considering language study would be better off learning a programming language. I am a proficient Mandarin speaker, and while it helped me greatly when I lived in Taiwan, it has done nothing for my career in the United States, except for a single nibble from a software company that needed a bilingual project manager (they ended up hiring a native speaker).
- davidw 19y agoI think you should learn at least the basics of one other language. It's a brain-expanding thing.
- mynameishere 19y agoJust because I'm in a bad mood: That would have been the case, had Japan been as large as China.
- lg 19y agoI think Japan's problem wasn't population, it was credit. The banks got government license to grow the economy, so they threw it at their well-connected keiretsu friends who wasted it on bad business ideas. After the crash, everyone got "cautious" and money was funneled to big pointless public-works projects. On top of that, the VC's are famously conservative. The end result is that innovative people without business connections never got seed funding. So they come to the US. It's the same story everywhere, and China will probably repeat it.
- procrastitron 19y agoThis part of the article really got to me: "China was the largest economy for centuries because everyone had the same type of economy - subsistence - and so the country with the most people would be economically biggest. Then the Industrial Revolution sent the West on a more prosperous path. Now the world is returning to a common economy, this time technology- and information-based, so once again population triumphs." The exuberance for Japan 20 years ago was a bubble, and as such it was based on a lot of irrational assumptions: The Japanese had better business models, more productive workers, better work culture, etc. However, the advocates for China's rise are just counting on one, objective indicator; they outnumber us.