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China has also totally rejected environmentalism and monetary discipline. Need energy? Burn coal with no scrubbers and fake the air quality data. Have waste? Du

by api 8y ago

China has also totally rejected environmentalism and monetary discipline. Need energy? Burn coal with no scrubbers and fake the air quality data. Have waste? Dump it in rivers and bribe local officials. Economy slowing? Print money. Need infrastructure? Print the money to pay for it. Western liberals say ignoring the environment will catch up to them. Western conservatives say you can't ignore fiscal discipline forever. So far both are wrong. These go along with IP as things China is ignoring. They seem to be calling BS on all forms of large scale socioeconomic restraint that might restrain GDP growth. Strap a brick to the accelerator and go. It's an interesting experiment and as others have pointed out not that different from America in the 19th century.

toyg 8y ago
The USSR looked similarly all-powerful between ‘45 and ‘78, roughly. If we say “new China” started its rise in the late ‘80s/ early ‘90s, we should expect another decade or so of its power looking “inevitable” before cracks start to be a bit too big to ignore - possibly longer, considering their superior scale.
- westiseast 8y ago
  The timescales are slightly shorter than many people think - the 1970s-90s were basically a whole scale westernization of Chinese society. Big economic reforms in the mid-late 1990s really freed up the economy from the burdens of inefficient state enterprise, and then real insane growth started in the 2000s and post 2008 with huge quantitive easing. A lot of the “China can’t fail” rhetoric suggests it’s been a 40-50yr trend that defies all critics, but it’s only in the last 10-20 years we’ve seen a rise of this insane wealth, massive debt fueled economy, reverse in liberalization trends etc.
tim333 8y ago
They're working on the enviro bit: > China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.

by api 8y ago

toyg 8y ago

The USSR looked similarly all-powerful between ‘45 and ‘78, roughly. If we say “new China” started its rise in the late ‘80s/ early ‘90s, we should expect another decade or so of its power looking “inevitable” before cracks start to be a bit too big to ignore - possibly longer, considering their superior scale.

westiseast 8y ago
The timescales are slightly shorter than many people think - the 1970s-90s were basically a whole scale westernization of Chinese society. Big economic reforms in the mid-late 1990s really freed up the economy from the burdens of inefficient state enterprise, and then real insane growth started in the 2000s and post 2008 with huge quantitive easing. A lot of the “China can’t fail” rhetoric suggests it’s been a 40-50yr trend that defies all critics, but it’s only in the last 10-20 years we’ve seen a rise of this insane wealth, massive debt fueled economy, reverse in liberalization trends etc.

tim333 8y ago

They're working on the enviro bit: > China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.