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Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices

104 points by wei_jok 7y ago

onion2k 7y ago
If the political system in China collapses everyone should worry. That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen.
- stretchwithme 7y ago
  If he's not careful, REAL communists might overthrow the government. Just kidding. Only people in countries that have been spared its horrors still believe in communism.
  - anm89 7y ago
    I wish I could upvote more than once.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    People that have survived communism just accept high levels of corruption because it's better than the alternative. That's why Putin is popular.
    - ajsnigrutin 7y ago
      Putin is popular, because he's better than what was before (i'm speaking mostly of the old drunk). And also because he does stuff that a lot of russians actually like. A lot of people (mostly westeners) don't understand, that if someone gets back "historic russian territory" from a "neighbor" you don't really like, and noone can do anything about that, that's a good thing for Russia. It's bad for the neighbors, it's bad for NATO, it's bad for everyone else who wants to influece Russia, but for Russia, it's a good thing. It's the same thing with Trump... he does this, he does that, outrage everywhere, and in the end, EU is even more fuc*ed, Chinese send threats but can't do anything, and USA gets richer, old industries come back, people get jobs, get paid more, etc. And some wonder why he won.
      - jaynetics 7y ago
        "but for Russia, it's a good thing." Are you sure? Haven't the resulting sanctions damaged Russia's economic growth and increased prices for consumers? I can see the geo-strategic value of Crimea, but for the ordinary Russian citizen, where is the positive effect?
        puranjay 7y ago
        You have to understand that democracy, even the idea of it, is not native at all to Russians. I was there earlier in June. What struck me the most was how much reverence the Russians still have for all their erstwhile Soviet era dictators (Lenin and Stalin in particular). The former Tsars are particularly venerated. The Russian people called Tsar Nicholas "little father". The assassination was an anomaly; the revolutionaries had to work very hard to hide the bodies because they feared the people would start worshipping the dead Tsars (which is exactly what's happening today). Even with religion, 70 years of Soviet oppression and Russia is now as religious as ever. So when you criticize Putin for crushing dissent, you have to understand that what might be oppression to us is perfectly normal for Russian people. At this point, I have to ask: why do we assume that we know what's better for Russians (or any other nationality) than the Russians themselves?
      - StudentStuff 7y ago
        Citation for that last paragraph? All I've seen is a shrinking coal industry leaving workers unpaid for their last month on the job[1], 25% tariffs slapped on our hardware imports [2] (causing a 30% drop in our sales) and kids being killed by Customs and Border Protection [3]. None of this is good for the USA or my fellow American 1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/kentucky-coal-miners.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/kentucky-coal-miners.h... 2 - https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/08/07/the-long-term-impact-of-us-tariffs-on-china/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/08/07/the-long-term-im... 3 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/20/migrant-child-death-us-border-control-latest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/20/migrant-chil...
        codeisawesome 7y ago
    - varjag 7y ago
      Do dictators have to eradicate every slight manifestation of dissent and turn elections into rigged cargo cult shows because they are so popular?
      - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
        It's subtle, but no, Putin isn't popular in the way freely elected leaders are. He's only preferable to the alternative.
        varjag 7y ago
        Who is the alternative?
    - NicoJuicy 7y ago
      Was popular, a lot of protests happening this year.
  - pandapower2 7y ago
    Actually, true believers are a legitimate problem for the CCP https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-xi-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-...
  - devoply 7y ago
    We have real Communists everywhere, they are called corporations, most people work for such government where once inside they are a number and a cog in a machine that tells them to cooperate and not compete. It was a stupid idea to take this corporate model and try to implement it on the scale of national governance and there is no fitness function to terminate it if it's not working as expected, i.e. everyone is not being a good Communist. You want real Communism simply install unions into any existing corporation and make all employees into shareholders, instant Communism.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      I don't understand what you mean. Corporations as a legal structure are built to compete & live or die, governments are not. The point of having political power is to control it for the sake of prosperity. Having a 'death clause' in your government worker's performance would mean you've failed as a political actor to get enough control to guarantee prosperity. That's a bigger threat to the gov than having useless employees. Controlled incompetence, plausible deniability, ect are all useful political tools. Not always needed, but they are still useful tools. If you want a 'communist corporation', just give every employee shares. You don't need unions or whatever else. You could start a company right now that does that. Some big UK firms do a performance sharing scheme with everybody in the company, even cashiers. Granted it's not much money in real terms, but it's proof how flexible the corporate legal structure can be.
      - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
        > If you want a 'communist corporation', just give every employee shares Co-operatives in this form aren’t communist. They compete for members, vendors and customers. They don’t have a monopoly on violence. They can be held accountable by the rule of law. None of the above apply to communist governments. They have a monopoly on violence and the factors of production. That precludes an independent check on state power which, in turn, precludes the rule of law.
        friendlybus 7y ago
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  - sgjohnson 7y ago
    You joke, but CCP is Communist in the name only. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still some die hard communists around that’d love to seize the power.
- adam_ellsworth 7y ago
  Having not studied economics/politics during my time in college, wow does one qualify "collapse" here? What are the properties?
  - 88840-8855 7y ago
    Dramatic political reforms, similar to what happened in 1991 when the Soviet Union "collapsed". Corruption would skyrocket, Oligarchs would emerge from the state owned enterprises, HK would declare independence, inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, probably Yunnan would follow. Flows of money, including taxes, would be interrupted, people wont get paid. State owned enterprises would not be able to pay their people, the banking system would collapse (as all major banks are state owned - and dont forget, 5 of the 10 largest banks on this planet are Chinese). Shanghai Composite (their stock market index) would plummet. As there are many micro investors, this would radiate into the housing market. hundreds of Millions would lose their homes. Such a collapse would bring China back to the 1980s, increase poverty by hundreds of millions of people, disrupt global supply Chains (50% of the global electronics are shipped from the Pearl River Delta, 50% of all ACs and fridges are made there, Daimler, BMW and GM source 20-30% of their parts from China). Western factories would reduce production as parts are missing. Western companies that export to China would have to reduce output (Volkswagen, GM would have to cut production by 30-40%, Airbus and Boeing by 20-30%). Western stock markets plummet, housing crises emerge, poverty surges, unemployment increases dramatically. All in all, this would not be a great thing and a lose-lose situation. The Soviet Union was not integrated into the global value chains. China is. A collapse would make the 2008 crisis look like a cute little girl on a pink bicycle and bring the global economies back into the 1990s.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      So, you want war, or you want war? Nice choice we have.
      - 88840-8855 7y ago
        I doubt that. People all around the globe want prosperity. Prosperity derives from an expanding economy. An economy can only grow if there is stability that allows to plan and forecast to allow efficient resource allocation and utilisation. War is chaos. War destroys supply chains. War is standing in direct contrast to planability. Nobody wants war. Just look at Russia and its behaviour after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 1991-2000 was pure shit: chaos, corruption, high suicide rates, absolute poverty where poor old Grandmas and Grandpas suffered and committed suicide as there was absolutely nothing. In the early 2000s reforms were made that brought certain stability back to the country. Unfortunately, the economy was depending on resource exploitation - and the government knew that ofc. They tried to open up and integrate themselves into the global economy, e.g. by suggestion to join the NATO (for more stability and less spending on the military) and to join the EU (for better integration into the European markets). The Western nations said no to both suggestions. This is where the wars began: Georgia, North Kaukasus, Ukraine and now Syria. My two cents: it was a huge bullshit made by the USA to 1) fuck the ex Soviet republics after the collapse in 91 - and yes, they had the option for a Marshall plan 2, and 2) to not integrate Russia into the Western military and economy. Shit for Russia, shit for the EU, shit for the US, shit for the global economy. Thanks again, USA.
- devoply 7y ago
  Good. The come up will be a lot sweeter.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    It won’t be good. China doesn’t have a good record on feeding its population during extreme situations.
  - threeseed 7y ago
    Sure. If you're middle/upper class living in a wealthy country. But for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society they will experience hardships not seen since the Great Recession. And the inequality gap will rapidly widen which affects everyone.
    - devoply 7y ago
      I rather live in a world where the CCP failed and a bunch of poor people suffered than a world run by the CCP where 1/2 the world is at their mercy. America can be a tyrant but I believe the CCP would be much much worse.
      - King-Aaron 7y ago
        > a bunch of poor people By that, you mean you are championing the potential mass starvation and violent deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people.... cool
        devoply 7y ago
        > mass starvation and violent deaths of hundreds of thousands America in its reign is responsible for that itself, it's also saved hundreds of thousands if not millions. So it's nothing new. Mao killed millions, was no big thing, and the modern CCP thinks that he's the reason for China's eventual success. CCP around for a hundred or more years something similar is bound to happen, just see what they are doing the Uigurs. So yeah that sort of rhetoric really doesn't fly in the face of political reality where empires kill and starve millions without batting an eye. WWII killed 55 million, and I don't regret that it happened. I wish it didn't have to happen this way, but I don't see any other way to curtail CCP's growth or power... if this does not happen then the most likely outcome is CCP will be triumphant and control the significant portion of the world for many years during which it will exercise its power and cost many people their lives and freedom.
- missosoup 7y ago
  If the alternative is China going unchecked and eating the world. I'll take the economic crash. I grew up in poverty and I'd rather go back to poverty than live under a dystopian surveillance dictatorship.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    I'm not arguing in favor of the current Chinese regime, just that change should come somewhat more slowly than a collapse.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - spectramax 7y ago
    I want to imagine the world with China as a democracy only to assure the world that xenophobia is the first thing that comes to mind when people take an anti-China stance and as a reminder that Chinese culture, their arts, the land and the people are wonderful. I am against this dystopian overwhelmingly powerful and suppressive government. I imagine if 1989 was a turning moment for Democracy in China.
    - missosoup 7y ago
      The wonderful culture and arts you're thinking about is historical. It doesn't really exist in China now. It was mostly wiped out during The Great Leap Forward, along with 30 million people give or take. Fun fact: advanced Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners travel from China to Japan to learn. Japan preserved records of the TCM knowledge that China destroyed during the great leap.
      - WanderPanda 7y ago
        As well as many of their people...
      - powerapple 7y ago
        Not they preserve Chinese artifacts. China has been invaded so many times, the collapse of governments had led foreigners to scoop artifacts from China at no cost. Look at British Museum, Lourve. It happened to all countries have suffered from war. Japanese took most books, paintings, because those are not seen as valuable for westerners. British took most vase, china.
- Iv 7y ago
  If the political system in Chine does not collapse everyone should worry too. Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. I am of a boring old school of thought that thinks democracy is a pretty cool system and that it should be preserved. I really hope the Chinese political system collapses at one point. However we should not underestimate the reputation that has a system that tripled the average wage in the last 10 years. Also I would not trust Bloomberg much outside their field of expertise.
  - txdv 7y ago
    > I am of a boring old school Like authatorian dictatorships are now super hip? :D
    - cameldrv 7y ago
      That does seem to be the trend.
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    The majority of recorded human history China was the #1 economic power though.
    - Iv 7y ago
      And?
      - StreamBright 7y ago
        >> Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. For one, China has been the #1 economic power in the world longer than any other country. Second, they do not spread their views unlike the Western world. How many interventions the US committed in the last 70 years with the approval of the UN? This is exactly the difference between China vs the Western world. They do not force their views on you. This is why they are much more successful in Africa than any Western country ever will be. It is spelled out in the documentary "The Chinese are coming".
- ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
  >That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen. Forgive me for doubting this. It will lead to an internal crash in China, but this won't cause the whole world to crash. There will be a slowdown at worst. Taiwan and Vietnam will likely take up a lot of the slack.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
Given China's population, a lack of economic growth could pose a real, pressing problem to them. China has more to lose in the trade war.
johnsymenns 7y ago
No black people on the picture. I gonna suite them!!!!
johnsymenns 7y ago
No black people on the picture. I will suite them!!!
christkv 7y ago
I expect China to clamp down harder and harder on its population as well as deflect attention from it as the economy slides to try keep the party in power. Look for the social credit system to expand even more and also more rhetoric about it all being the fault of evil foreigners.
- spectramax 7y ago
  It is scary. Man's psychology is vulnerable and governments taking advantage of it can only end bad as history has taught us.
  - AFascistWorld 7y ago
    To better understand China, you will have to understand that the CCP was nothing but peasant rebels not too long ago, the notion of "the country was built by us" so that anything is our rewards and have to be governed by our progeny, is deep-rooted. And think of the core governning clique as a criminal gang.
    - ashildr 7y ago
      Nowadays that last sentence alone does not give away whether your post is about China, the US or Russia.
      - thepaperone 7y ago
        Hyperbole serves no one
      - t0ughcritic 7y ago
        Agreed most upper echelons of governments can be seen as gangs.
- rqs 7y ago
  Hate to say it but it's already happening and getting more clear day by day. I start to suspect all of this is intentional, including all of those trade war "failures". You have a threat (The trade war with USA, well and maybe South China sea etc) and a slowing economy. Now many Chinese companies are in need of help from the CCP government, and the help is not for free. In Zhejiang, their government want to send "Government representatives" to private firms[0] to "help" them on site. I will not be in total surprise if one day all of those companies turn themselves to "State controlled". [0] https://www.voachinese.com/a/China-To-Send-Officials-To-100-Private-Firms-20190923/5094648.html https://www.voachinese.com/a/China-To-Send-Officials-To-100-... (Chinese, but the URL already told the story)
ur-whale 7y ago
Paywall workaround : http://archive.is/ErJXw http://archive.is/ErJXw
- webda2l 7y ago
  Or, Inspect and add new CSS rule: p { display: block !important }
franklingu 7y ago
Just another article of predicting that China is going to collapse -- these kind of articles have been popping up since 1991. China is just another big country with a lot of problems. So is US. Even if China is really going to collapse, what is in it for average people in the US or other countries? To prove that the democracy you believe is correct -- even if that means nearly all the people in the world will suffer from economic slowdown?
- NicoJuicy 7y ago
  China made it personal ( for me) messing with democracy and the EU through the sham "16+1". Which is not meant to break the EU's democracy and getting more votes. Nothing else. I wish Hong Kong and Taiwan the very best, even this far away China is overreaching it's influence. They shouldn't be surprised that they have lost all sympathy from a lot of westerners. Before I forget, if you try to loan halve of the world money ( there are no real investments from China), you are not a developing country and shouldn't abuse our help. There is also no way that Alibaba would have gotten that big without being a developed country and the Postal Union financial assistance. We basically financed it.
  - cdmckay 7y ago
    So China is bad because they invested in eastern EU countries?
    - SubiculumCode 7y ago
      Chinese apologist.
    - NicoJuicy 7y ago
      It's not investing :D Everyone can see that, it's loans and you get a cheaper loan when you use Chinese workers. It's also shell companies, that do nothing ( from a research of the Netherlands) It's a scam
- laughinghan 7y ago
  Why 1991? Surely such articles predate 1991. I'm not sure why you think writers at Bloomberg, a Wall Street-oriented outlet, represent average people in the US. I'm also not sure why you think anyone would want China to collapse in order to "prove democracy correct", as if to win a bet. Democracy is a means to an end. "Average people" think that in China, though many people are doing great under the current system, there are also people not doing great, average people just like them, who are being oppressed, harassed for reading banned books, punished for criticizing party officials, put into re-education labor camps, even having their organs harvested, and they want that to stop. If China stopped all that tomorrow without collapsing, most people would be ecstatic about that. But they won't, and average people believe the best way to permanently stop that kind of thing is for everyone to get a voice and a vote in their government—indeed, for a hundred flowers to bloom, or 百花齐放, if you will.
howtofly 7y ago
China's success proves that democracy is not the only way. These guys just cannot accept this simple fact. LOL
- puranjay 7y ago
  Democracy imposed on countries where the demand for it never arose organically usually ends in failure. The west has a biased perspective on this issue, but the idea of democracy is not innate to vast majority of the world
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  China proved the Washington Consensus to be utter garbage.
- franklingu 7y ago
  this kind of article will just pop up again and again until the day your comment is not down voted so many times
Animats 7y ago
The increase in pork prices is due to a swine fever epidemic that started in Liaoning province.[1] SCMP has a reasonably good article. China's huge boom is starting to level off. Down from 10%/yr to 7% a year. The US is under 3%/yr. That happened to all the "Asian tigers", as they caught up to the developed world. Its a long way from a recession. [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/chinas-pork-prices-hit-record-level-2019-due-african-swine https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/c...
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  The problem in China is that they're likely to get old before they get rich. China's GDP per capita is still only a quarter (or less) of Japan, Singapore or South Korea: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/japan https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/japan
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - bakuninsbart 7y ago
    This is a really serious risk, but it is also important to consider that China isn't reallly one country. - Even internal migration is restricted. If you look at cities like Shanghai, Nanjing or Beijing, there's a subtantial minority already basically living with western living standards. That number is still growing quickly. Furthermore, China has little problem letting old people work longer - or potentially even implement pretty brutal policies regarding the elderly. So while China is growing old very quickly, and this will slow down progress, I do not believe it will lead to a halting of progress.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      China still has a mandatory retirement age of 55 for women and 60 for men. This doesn’t mean much in the private sector, but is sort of strictly applied in the public sector. Obviously it isn’t sustainable at any rate.
d-d 7y ago
Whether you're browsing HN or farming wild jackabees off the grid; there is no escaping the political news machine.
- billychow 7y ago
  It's true...
chloerei 7y ago
I'm Chinese and live well in China. Of course, I only represent myself. If you want to know more about China, see some Chinese travel YouTuber or come to China yourself. Instead of believing in a media publish "The Big Hack" without evidence. I'm curious that HN is full of articles and comments that uglify China. Many Chinese developer read HN to learn and integrate into the world. Now I think Chinese understand the world more than the world understand China. By the way, isn't this off-topic according to HN guidelines?
tarsinge 7y ago
As a French the amount of (bad) news regarding China on American websites I browse (hn, reddit, newspapers websites...) is really disturbing compared to home. I try to think rationally but the coincidence with the trade war is hard to ignore. As an outsider it looks like nothing has changed (China is a communist country, fresh news!) but suddenly the media is all over it. The media pattern now is so obvious every time there are geopolitical tensions to justify a conflict that it's hard to ignore (please remember Irak). I'm not a geopolitical expert, I really like Americans (obviously, otherwise I would not be on this site), but I don't understand how nobody notice this pattern, especially here.
- UIZealot 7y ago
  And any time there's an article about China, people who knows nothing about China, besides that it's ruled by the communist party, comes out of the woodwork to take a dump on China. People look down on Trump and ridicule him endlessly when he spews bullshit about things he knows nothing about. But if you spew bullshit about China, you get lots of upvotes.
  - deleted 7y ago
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- throwaway1997 7y ago
  In Asia we mostly hear bad news as well. The economy of China really is slowing down and there is a massive housing bubble which is evidenced by huge numbers of unoccupied newbuilds which are already crumbling down. And it's a fact that growth is slowing down and there are lots of political issues which are further damaging the outlook.
- franklingu 7y ago
  If things are going to be like in Iraq, then the world is basically doomed for human race. China is definitely no match for US in terms of military power. But if US is trying to ruin China like how it ruined Iraq, then I guess mostly China will choose to die together instead of just accepting the defeat. Just think of the old war in Korea -- they will go to war with US even at that time they were not even comparable at all
epiphanitus 7y ago
One of the things I learned when I took Intnl econ in college was that keeping a currency's value artificially low can boost exports, but will also put downward pressure on real wages domestically. Maybe that's playing a role here.

104 points by wei_jok 7y ago

If the political system in China collapses everyone should worry. That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen.

stretchwithme 7y ago
If he's not careful, REAL communists might overthrow the government. Just kidding. Only people in countries that have been spared its horrors still believe in communism.
- anm89 7y ago
  I wish I could upvote more than once.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  People that have survived communism just accept high levels of corruption because it's better than the alternative. That's why Putin is popular.
  - ajsnigrutin 7y ago
    Putin is popular, because he's better than what was before (i'm speaking mostly of the old drunk). And also because he does stuff that a lot of russians actually like. A lot of people (mostly westeners) don't understand, that if someone gets back "historic russian territory" from a "neighbor" you don't really like, and noone can do anything about that, that's a good thing for Russia. It's bad for the neighbors, it's bad for NATO, it's bad for everyone else who wants to influece Russia, but for Russia, it's a good thing. It's the same thing with Trump... he does this, he does that, outrage everywhere, and in the end, EU is even more fuc*ed, Chinese send threats but can't do anything, and USA gets richer, old industries come back, people get jobs, get paid more, etc. And some wonder why he won.
    - jaynetics 7y ago
      "but for Russia, it's a good thing." Are you sure? Haven't the resulting sanctions damaged Russia's economic growth and increased prices for consumers? I can see the geo-strategic value of Crimea, but for the ordinary Russian citizen, where is the positive effect?
      - puranjay 7y ago
        You have to understand that democracy, even the idea of it, is not native at all to Russians. I was there earlier in June. What struck me the most was how much reverence the Russians still have for all their erstwhile Soviet era dictators (Lenin and Stalin in particular). The former Tsars are particularly venerated. The Russian people called Tsar Nicholas "little father". The assassination was an anomaly; the revolutionaries had to work very hard to hide the bodies because they feared the people would start worshipping the dead Tsars (which is exactly what's happening today). Even with religion, 70 years of Soviet oppression and Russia is now as religious as ever. So when you criticize Putin for crushing dissent, you have to understand that what might be oppression to us is perfectly normal for Russian people. At this point, I have to ask: why do we assume that we know what's better for Russians (or any other nationality) than the Russians themselves?
    - StudentStuff 7y ago
      Citation for that last paragraph? All I've seen is a shrinking coal industry leaving workers unpaid for their last month on the job[1], 25% tariffs slapped on our hardware imports [2] (causing a 30% drop in our sales) and kids being killed by Customs and Border Protection [3]. None of this is good for the USA or my fellow American 1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/kentucky-coal-miners.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/kentucky-coal-miners.h... 2 - https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/08/07/the-long-term-impact-of-us-tariffs-on-china/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/08/07/the-long-term-im... 3 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/20/migrant-child-death-us-border-control-latest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/20/migrant-chil...
      - codeisawesome 7y ago
  - varjag 7y ago
    Do dictators have to eradicate every slight manifestation of dissent and turn elections into rigged cargo cult shows because they are so popular?
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      It's subtle, but no, Putin isn't popular in the way freely elected leaders are. He's only preferable to the alternative.
      - varjag 7y ago
        Who is the alternative?
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    Was popular, a lot of protests happening this year.
- pandapower2 7y ago
  Actually, true believers are a legitimate problem for the CCP https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-xi-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-...
- devoply 7y ago
  We have real Communists everywhere, they are called corporations, most people work for such government where once inside they are a number and a cog in a machine that tells them to cooperate and not compete. It was a stupid idea to take this corporate model and try to implement it on the scale of national governance and there is no fitness function to terminate it if it's not working as expected, i.e. everyone is not being a good Communist. You want real Communism simply install unions into any existing corporation and make all employees into shareholders, instant Communism.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    I don't understand what you mean. Corporations as a legal structure are built to compete & live or die, governments are not. The point of having political power is to control it for the sake of prosperity. Having a 'death clause' in your government worker's performance would mean you've failed as a political actor to get enough control to guarantee prosperity. That's a bigger threat to the gov than having useless employees. Controlled incompetence, plausible deniability, ect are all useful political tools. Not always needed, but they are still useful tools. If you want a 'communist corporation', just give every employee shares. You don't need unions or whatever else. You could start a company right now that does that. Some big UK firms do a performance sharing scheme with everybody in the company, even cashiers. Granted it's not much money in real terms, but it's proof how flexible the corporate legal structure can be.
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > If you want a 'communist corporation', just give every employee shares Co-operatives in this form aren’t communist. They compete for members, vendors and customers. They don’t have a monopoly on violence. They can be held accountable by the rule of law. None of the above apply to communist governments. They have a monopoly on violence and the factors of production. That precludes an independent check on state power which, in turn, precludes the rule of law.
      - friendlybus 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
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- sgjohnson 7y ago
  You joke, but CCP is Communist in the name only. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still some die hard communists around that’d love to seize the power.
adam_ellsworth 7y ago
Having not studied economics/politics during my time in college, wow does one qualify "collapse" here? What are the properties?
- 88840-8855 7y ago
  Dramatic political reforms, similar to what happened in 1991 when the Soviet Union "collapsed". Corruption would skyrocket, Oligarchs would emerge from the state owned enterprises, HK would declare independence, inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, probably Yunnan would follow. Flows of money, including taxes, would be interrupted, people wont get paid. State owned enterprises would not be able to pay their people, the banking system would collapse (as all major banks are state owned - and dont forget, 5 of the 10 largest banks on this planet are Chinese). Shanghai Composite (their stock market index) would plummet. As there are many micro investors, this would radiate into the housing market. hundreds of Millions would lose their homes. Such a collapse would bring China back to the 1980s, increase poverty by hundreds of millions of people, disrupt global supply Chains (50% of the global electronics are shipped from the Pearl River Delta, 50% of all ACs and fridges are made there, Daimler, BMW and GM source 20-30% of their parts from China). Western factories would reduce production as parts are missing. Western companies that export to China would have to reduce output (Volkswagen, GM would have to cut production by 30-40%, Airbus and Boeing by 20-30%). Western stock markets plummet, housing crises emerge, poverty surges, unemployment increases dramatically. All in all, this would not be a great thing and a lose-lose situation. The Soviet Union was not integrated into the global value chains. China is. A collapse would make the 2008 crisis look like a cute little girl on a pink bicycle and bring the global economies back into the 1990s.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    So, you want war, or you want war? Nice choice we have.
    - 88840-8855 7y ago
      I doubt that. People all around the globe want prosperity. Prosperity derives from an expanding economy. An economy can only grow if there is stability that allows to plan and forecast to allow efficient resource allocation and utilisation. War is chaos. War destroys supply chains. War is standing in direct contrast to planability. Nobody wants war. Just look at Russia and its behaviour after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 1991-2000 was pure shit: chaos, corruption, high suicide rates, absolute poverty where poor old Grandmas and Grandpas suffered and committed suicide as there was absolutely nothing. In the early 2000s reforms were made that brought certain stability back to the country. Unfortunately, the economy was depending on resource exploitation - and the government knew that ofc. They tried to open up and integrate themselves into the global economy, e.g. by suggestion to join the NATO (for more stability and less spending on the military) and to join the EU (for better integration into the European markets). The Western nations said no to both suggestions. This is where the wars began: Georgia, North Kaukasus, Ukraine and now Syria. My two cents: it was a huge bullshit made by the USA to 1) fuck the ex Soviet republics after the collapse in 91 - and yes, they had the option for a Marshall plan 2, and 2) to not integrate Russia into the Western military and economy. Shit for Russia, shit for the EU, shit for the US, shit for the global economy. Thanks again, USA.
devoply 7y ago
Good. The come up will be a lot sweeter.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  It won’t be good. China doesn’t have a good record on feeding its population during extreme situations.
- threeseed 7y ago
  Sure. If you're middle/upper class living in a wealthy country. But for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society they will experience hardships not seen since the Great Recession. And the inequality gap will rapidly widen which affects everyone.
  - devoply 7y ago
    I rather live in a world where the CCP failed and a bunch of poor people suffered than a world run by the CCP where 1/2 the world is at their mercy. America can be a tyrant but I believe the CCP would be much much worse.
    - King-Aaron 7y ago
      > a bunch of poor people By that, you mean you are championing the potential mass starvation and violent deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people.... cool
      - devoply 7y ago
        > mass starvation and violent deaths of hundreds of thousands America in its reign is responsible for that itself, it's also saved hundreds of thousands if not millions. So it's nothing new. Mao killed millions, was no big thing, and the modern CCP thinks that he's the reason for China's eventual success. CCP around for a hundred or more years something similar is bound to happen, just see what they are doing the Uigurs. So yeah that sort of rhetoric really doesn't fly in the face of political reality where empires kill and starve millions without batting an eye. WWII killed 55 million, and I don't regret that it happened. I wish it didn't have to happen this way, but I don't see any other way to curtail CCP's growth or power... if this does not happen then the most likely outcome is CCP will be triumphant and control the significant portion of the world for many years during which it will exercise its power and cost many people their lives and freedom.
missosoup 7y ago
If the alternative is China going unchecked and eating the world. I'll take the economic crash. I grew up in poverty and I'd rather go back to poverty than live under a dystopian surveillance dictatorship.
- onion2k 7y ago
  I'm not arguing in favor of the current Chinese regime, just that change should come somewhat more slowly than a collapse.
- deleted 7y ago
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- spectramax 7y ago
  I want to imagine the world with China as a democracy only to assure the world that xenophobia is the first thing that comes to mind when people take an anti-China stance and as a reminder that Chinese culture, their arts, the land and the people are wonderful. I am against this dystopian overwhelmingly powerful and suppressive government. I imagine if 1989 was a turning moment for Democracy in China.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    The wonderful culture and arts you're thinking about is historical. It doesn't really exist in China now. It was mostly wiped out during The Great Leap Forward, along with 30 million people give or take. Fun fact: advanced Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners travel from China to Japan to learn. Japan preserved records of the TCM knowledge that China destroyed during the great leap.
    - WanderPanda 7y ago
      As well as many of their people...
    - powerapple 7y ago
      Not they preserve Chinese artifacts. China has been invaded so many times, the collapse of governments had led foreigners to scoop artifacts from China at no cost. Look at British Museum, Lourve. It happened to all countries have suffered from war. Japanese took most books, paintings, because those are not seen as valuable for westerners. British took most vase, china.
Iv 7y ago
If the political system in Chine does not collapse everyone should worry too. Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. I am of a boring old school of thought that thinks democracy is a pretty cool system and that it should be preserved. I really hope the Chinese political system collapses at one point. However we should not underestimate the reputation that has a system that tripled the average wage in the last 10 years. Also I would not trust Bloomberg much outside their field of expertise.
- txdv 7y ago
  > I am of a boring old school Like authatorian dictatorships are now super hip? :D
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    That does seem to be the trend.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  The majority of recorded human history China was the #1 economic power though.
  - Iv 7y ago
    And?
    - StreamBright 7y ago
      >> Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. For one, China has been the #1 economic power in the world longer than any other country. Second, they do not spread their views unlike the Western world. How many interventions the US committed in the last 70 years with the approval of the UN? This is exactly the difference between China vs the Western world. They do not force their views on you. This is why they are much more successful in Africa than any Western country ever will be. It is spelled out in the documentary "The Chinese are coming".
ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
>That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen. Forgive me for doubting this. It will lead to an internal crash in China, but this won't cause the whole world to crash. There will be a slowdown at worst. Taiwan and Vietnam will likely take up a lot of the slack.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

Given China's population, a lack of economic growth could pose a real, pressing problem to them. China has more to lose in the trade war.

johnsymenns 7y ago

No black people on the picture. I gonna suite them!!!!

johnsymenns 7y ago

No black people on the picture. I will suite them!!!

christkv 7y ago

I expect China to clamp down harder and harder on its population as well as deflect attention from it as the economy slides to try keep the party in power. Look for the social credit system to expand even more and also more rhetoric about it all being the fault of evil foreigners.

spectramax 7y ago
It is scary. Man's psychology is vulnerable and governments taking advantage of it can only end bad as history has taught us.
- AFascistWorld 7y ago
  To better understand China, you will have to understand that the CCP was nothing but peasant rebels not too long ago, the notion of "the country was built by us" so that anything is our rewards and have to be governed by our progeny, is deep-rooted. And think of the core governning clique as a criminal gang.
  - ashildr 7y ago
    Nowadays that last sentence alone does not give away whether your post is about China, the US or Russia.
    - thepaperone 7y ago
      Hyperbole serves no one
    - t0ughcritic 7y ago
      Agreed most upper echelons of governments can be seen as gangs.
rqs 7y ago
Hate to say it but it's already happening and getting more clear day by day. I start to suspect all of this is intentional, including all of those trade war "failures". You have a threat (The trade war with USA, well and maybe South China sea etc) and a slowing economy. Now many Chinese companies are in need of help from the CCP government, and the help is not for free. In Zhejiang, their government want to send "Government representatives" to private firms[0] to "help" them on site. I will not be in total surprise if one day all of those companies turn themselves to "State controlled". [0] https://www.voachinese.com/a/China-To-Send-Officials-To-100-Private-Firms-20190923/5094648.html https://www.voachinese.com/a/China-To-Send-Officials-To-100-... (Chinese, but the URL already told the story)

ur-whale 7y ago

Paywall workaround : http://archive.is/ErJXw http://archive.is/ErJXw

webda2l 7y ago
Or, Inspect and add new CSS rule: p { display: block !important }

franklingu 7y ago

Just another article of predicting that China is going to collapse -- these kind of articles have been popping up since 1991. China is just another big country with a lot of problems. So is US. Even if China is really going to collapse, what is in it for average people in the US or other countries? To prove that the democracy you believe is correct -- even if that means nearly all the people in the world will suffer from economic slowdown?

NicoJuicy 7y ago
China made it personal ( for me) messing with democracy and the EU through the sham "16+1". Which is not meant to break the EU's democracy and getting more votes. Nothing else. I wish Hong Kong and Taiwan the very best, even this far away China is overreaching it's influence. They shouldn't be surprised that they have lost all sympathy from a lot of westerners. Before I forget, if you try to loan halve of the world money ( there are no real investments from China), you are not a developing country and shouldn't abuse our help. There is also no way that Alibaba would have gotten that big without being a developed country and the Postal Union financial assistance. We basically financed it.
- cdmckay 7y ago
  So China is bad because they invested in eastern EU countries?
  - SubiculumCode 7y ago
    Chinese apologist.
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    It's not investing :D Everyone can see that, it's loans and you get a cheaper loan when you use Chinese workers. It's also shell companies, that do nothing ( from a research of the Netherlands) It's a scam
laughinghan 7y ago
Why 1991? Surely such articles predate 1991. I'm not sure why you think writers at Bloomberg, a Wall Street-oriented outlet, represent average people in the US. I'm also not sure why you think anyone would want China to collapse in order to "prove democracy correct", as if to win a bet. Democracy is a means to an end. "Average people" think that in China, though many people are doing great under the current system, there are also people not doing great, average people just like them, who are being oppressed, harassed for reading banned books, punished for criticizing party officials, put into re-education labor camps, even having their organs harvested, and they want that to stop. If China stopped all that tomorrow without collapsing, most people would be ecstatic about that. But they won't, and average people believe the best way to permanently stop that kind of thing is for everyone to get a voice and a vote in their government—indeed, for a hundred flowers to bloom, or 百花齐放, if you will.

howtofly 7y ago

China's success proves that democracy is not the only way. These guys just cannot accept this simple fact. LOL

puranjay 7y ago
Democracy imposed on countries where the demand for it never arose organically usually ends in failure. The west has a biased perspective on this issue, but the idea of democracy is not innate to vast majority of the world
Gibbon1 7y ago
China proved the Washington Consensus to be utter garbage.
franklingu 7y ago
this kind of article will just pop up again and again until the day your comment is not down voted so many times

Animats 7y ago

The increase in pork prices is due to a swine fever epidemic that started in Liaoning province.[1] SCMP has a reasonably good article. China's huge boom is starting to level off. Down from 10%/yr to 7% a year. The US is under 3%/yr. That happened to all the "Asian tigers", as they caught up to the developed world. Its a long way from a recession. [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/chinas-pork-prices-hit-record-level-2019-due-african-swine https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/c...

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
The problem in China is that they're likely to get old before they get rich. China's GDP per capita is still only a quarter (or less) of Japan, Singapore or South Korea: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/japan https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/japan
- deleted 7y ago
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- bakuninsbart 7y ago
  This is a really serious risk, but it is also important to consider that China isn't reallly one country. - Even internal migration is restricted. If you look at cities like Shanghai, Nanjing or Beijing, there's a subtantial minority already basically living with western living standards. That number is still growing quickly. Furthermore, China has little problem letting old people work longer - or potentially even implement pretty brutal policies regarding the elderly. So while China is growing old very quickly, and this will slow down progress, I do not believe it will lead to a halting of progress.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    China still has a mandatory retirement age of 55 for women and 60 for men. This doesn’t mean much in the private sector, but is sort of strictly applied in the public sector. Obviously it isn’t sustainable at any rate.

d-d 7y ago

Whether you're browsing HN or farming wild jackabees off the grid; there is no escaping the political news machine.

billychow 7y ago
It's true...

chloerei 7y ago

I'm Chinese and live well in China. Of course, I only represent myself. If you want to know more about China, see some Chinese travel YouTuber or come to China yourself. Instead of believing in a media publish "The Big Hack" without evidence. I'm curious that HN is full of articles and comments that uglify China. Many Chinese developer read HN to learn and integrate into the world. Now I think Chinese understand the world more than the world understand China. By the way, isn't this off-topic according to HN guidelines?

tarsinge 7y ago

As a French the amount of (bad) news regarding China on American websites I browse (hn, reddit, newspapers websites...) is really disturbing compared to home. I try to think rationally but the coincidence with the trade war is hard to ignore. As an outsider it looks like nothing has changed (China is a communist country, fresh news!) but suddenly the media is all over it. The media pattern now is so obvious every time there are geopolitical tensions to justify a conflict that it's hard to ignore (please remember Irak). I'm not a geopolitical expert, I really like Americans (obviously, otherwise I would not be on this site), but I don't understand how nobody notice this pattern, especially here.

UIZealot 7y ago
And any time there's an article about China, people who knows nothing about China, besides that it's ruled by the communist party, comes out of the woodwork to take a dump on China. People look down on Trump and ridicule him endlessly when he spews bullshit about things he knows nothing about. But if you spew bullshit about China, you get lots of upvotes.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway1997 7y ago
In Asia we mostly hear bad news as well. The economy of China really is slowing down and there is a massive housing bubble which is evidenced by huge numbers of unoccupied newbuilds which are already crumbling down. And it's a fact that growth is slowing down and there are lots of political issues which are further damaging the outlook.
franklingu 7y ago
If things are going to be like in Iraq, then the world is basically doomed for human race. China is definitely no match for US in terms of military power. But if US is trying to ruin China like how it ruined Iraq, then I guess mostly China will choose to die together instead of just accepting the defeat. Just think of the old war in Korea -- they will go to war with US even at that time they were not even comparable at all

epiphanitus 7y ago

One of the things I learned when I took Intnl econ in college was that keeping a currency's value artificially low can boost exports, but will also put downward pressure on real wages domestically. Maybe that's playing a role here.