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> They seem to be doing pretty well, economically-speaking. This is all relative. In an absolute sense, China's level of economic development on Bulgaria, Mexi

> They seem to be doing pretty well, economically-speaking. This is all relative. In an absolute sense, China's level of economic development on Bulgaria, Mexico or Kazakstan. They've had a long period of high growth, but that's only because of the abject poverty the Maoists left the country in. Before Deng's reforms, the country was essentially North Korea. China's prosperity is much more of a "most-improved award" rather than a gold medal. Their current system has certainly proved better than Stalinism, but that's a pretty low bar. There's no reason to believe that Xi Jinping thought can produce an economy that in any way is competitive with liberal capitalist democracy.

scarmig 6y ago
> There's no reason to believe that Xi Jinping thought can produce an economy that in any way is competitive with liberal capitalist democracy. Isn't it already? Speaking broadly of economic trends for the past 30 years, China has dominated manufacturing, at levels of increasing sophistication. To the extent it's running into issues, it's been a victim of its own success: laborers in China are increasingly too expensive for China to be a cost effective exporter at the low end. And in exchange it's developed Shenzhen, which has pretty much no competition in its niche. And as far as tech goes, on the whole China is still behind the USA, but at the same time solidly ahead of every other country. The entirety of the EU area doesn't have a Baidu or Bytedance, let alone a Tencent or Alibaba.
- peteretep 6y ago
  > Speaking broadly of economic trends for the past 30 years, China has dominated manufacturing, at levels of increasing sophistication. To the extent it's running into issues, it's been a victim of its own success: laborers in China are increasingly too expensive for China to be a cost effective exporter at the low end. That’s just it. It’s grown because it had massive amounts of cheap labour but now it doesn’t. Can they transition into a competitive economy up the food chain?
  - pishpash 6y ago
    There were massive amounts of cheap (and cheaper) labor elsewhere. What happened to those places?
    - peteretep 6y ago
      They liberalised as they got richer
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  You're confusing having a very large population at middle income for being a developed country. China is four times larger than the largest developed nation. Even at Bulgaria-level income development, that guarantees that they'll "dominate" most aggregate measurements. Doesn't really say anything about the success of their economy. Even within their area of strength, manufacturing, China severely lags the liberal democracies. On a per capita basis, its manufacturing output is more than three times lower than Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Korea, Sweden or the Netherlands. It even produces less than half per capita as the US or UK, who don't even specialize in manufacturing. China is barely above Brazil or Turkey on a per capita metric. And outside manufacturing, China's level of development is abysmal. It produces virtually nothing competitive in the service sector. China exports essentially zero financial services, media, software, professional services, or travel services. China has internally developed barely any internationally successful pharmaceuticals, Internet properties, film or television franchises, marketable brand names, banking franchises, auto models, jet aircraft, or microprocessors. The success of China's tech companies is almost certainly because the Chinese government doesn't allow much stronger American competitors to enter the market. The reason Europe doesn't have a Baidu is because Google was allowed to compete in Europe. The entire Chinese tech industry's sole global success has been TikTok. The inability to compete on the global market proves that the Chinese tech industry does not measure up to their American counterparts. This is corroborated by the fact that not a single major software project has ever come out of China.
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    Yes, China punches under its weight in software, and yes, China's services are not particularly visible in the US, but I assure you they're already making a huge impact, particularly in the developing world, and that impact is only going to growing in the next 5-10 years. Alibaba/Aliexpress are massive for consumer online shopping, particularly in Russia & Eastern Europe. Alipay payments are increasingly accepted across SE Asia. JD.com (which nobody ever hears about, but is considerably larger than Ali) operates directly and indirectly in many SE Asian countries. Tencent Games owns and operates a huge slew of globally popular games, including Fortnite, League of Legends, the Supercell suite (Brawl Stars, Clash of Clans etc). Yes, most of these games are still produced primarily in the West, but for long? Trip.com has been run out of China since 2017 since it was acquired by Ctrip. Meituan/Dianping dominate food delivery in China and are started to branch out to other markets like Australia and Singapore.
deleted 6y ago
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sudosysgen 6y ago
It's not just most-improved, it's actually the best economic system in large countries (thus more easily corrupt) that were not benefactors of classical imperialism if all you care about is development. This is simply an incontrovertible fact - India, Nigeria, Congo, etc... were in similar initial conditions and fared much worse economically. Far from being worse than liberal capitalist economies - which are the majority of the world - it's 73 in GDP PPP per capita out of 193 - solidly above average. It's also not had a period of high growth, it is still having a period of high growth, with 2.4% growth in 2020 which is by far the highest out of all major economies, and a predicted 7.3% next year. This is better than a lot of low income countries, coming from a medium-high income country. It's also set on escaping the middle income trap in 2-5 years as GDP per capita goes above 12500$, which is something that most liberal capitalist economies cannot achieve. So no, it's really not just in relative sense. In performance with its current position, it really is doing better than alternate models of liberal capitalism, and by quite a margin. I don't support the political reality that makes it work at all, but it is clear that liberal capitalism is not the undisputed king anymore.
- pnw_hazor 6y ago
  CCP China is thriving because of liberal capitalism -- the flood of hard currency that otherwise was unobtainable made all the difference. CCP China should build monuments to President Bush (#41) and President Clinton. Otherwise they would have went the way of the USSR. edit: and President Bush (#43) for making most-favored-nation trading status with CCP China permanent.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    This does not bear out in the data - of 60+% employment in the public sector as well as higher performance than (much more) liberal capitalist countries.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Maybe the people who live there, set the policy and literally built everything deserve a little credit?
greggman3 6y ago
Visiting China (Shanghai, Beijing, Nanking, Hangzhou) they all seemed like modern cities. Shops, restaurants, enormous shopping centers, coffeeshops, co-working spaces, theaters, bars, dance clubs, etc... Other than knowing I happened to be in China it certainly appear that in day to day life things are pretty good and the experience of living is similar to living in any modern western city.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  Beijing[1], as China's richest city and capitol, has a GDP per capita is $38,000. That's comparable to the GDP per capita found in other middle income capitals, like Istanbul[2] ($45k) or Mexico City[3] ($43k)[3] or Bangkok[4] ($36k). Certainly substantially behind the level of development found in the capitols of highly developed nations, like Washington DC[5] ($85k), London ($74k), or Tokyo[6] ($69k). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_provinces_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_provinces_by_G... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thai_provinces_by_GPP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thai_provinces_by_GPP [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_regions_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_regions_by_GDP_(P... [6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_prefectures_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_prefectures_b...
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    What is the GDP PPP of Beijing vs New York, San Franciso, or Chicago? GDP Nominal is not a good indicator here in a country which seems to be devaluing it's currency willingly or unwillingly.
    - dcolkitt 6y ago
      All the numbers I've cited (including Beijing's $38k) have been PPP. New York is $74k, San Francisco is $95k, and Chicago is $61k. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP_(PPP)_pe...
dirtyid 6y ago
> economy that in any way is competitive with liberal capitalist democracy. Fixation on only economy and relative development indexes distract from the measure that matter: comprehensive national power or other similar composite measures. Apart from 1st rate turbojets engines and semiconductors, China has indigenous capability for nearly every sector. Compared to US, no other country is remotely competitive in a comprehensive sense. Relative measures only disguises how far China has come in terms of national capabilities, very few countries have: indigenous nuke, space, military, light/heavy industries, tech, media etc. When US policy makers reference peer competition, it's not referring to other OECD countries, it's referring to China because no one else has similar levels of comprehensive hard/soft power to remotely matter. "Most improved" hides the fact that China holds the silver medal after brief development period, or that the gap between gold and silver are closer than gap between bronze and no-name junior varsity bench player. In that sense, the Chinese system (tuned to specific Chinese conditions) has already out competed nearly everyone else when considering aggregate factors to general power which enables prosperity. The question is whether Xi thought can make China competitive enough with US to create multipolar world. Seeing as to how everyone is hedging against Sino/US coldwar, right now it's seems to be between strong maybe and probably. Ultimately, Chinese scales means never reaching per capita parity can still outcompete in general. Doing so as middle income country with massive income disparity and relative easier gains only works in Xi's favour.

scarmig 6y ago

> There's no reason to believe that Xi Jinping thought can produce an economy that in any way is competitive with liberal capitalist democracy. Isn't it already? Speaking broadly of economic trends for the past 30 years, China has dominated manufacturing, at levels of increasing sophistication. To the extent it's running into issues, it's been a victim of its own success: laborers in China are increasingly too expensive for China to be a cost effective exporter at the low end. And in exchange it's developed Shenzhen, which has pretty much no competition in its niche. And as far as tech goes, on the whole China is still behind the USA, but at the same time solidly ahead of every other country. The entirety of the EU area doesn't have a Baidu or Bytedance, let alone a Tencent or Alibaba.

peteretep 6y ago
> Speaking broadly of economic trends for the past 30 years, China has dominated manufacturing, at levels of increasing sophistication. To the extent it's running into issues, it's been a victim of its own success: laborers in China are increasingly too expensive for China to be a cost effective exporter at the low end. That’s just it. It’s grown because it had massive amounts of cheap labour but now it doesn’t. Can they transition into a competitive economy up the food chain?
- pishpash 6y ago
  There were massive amounts of cheap (and cheaper) labor elsewhere. What happened to those places?
  - peteretep 6y ago
    They liberalised as they got richer
dcolkitt 6y ago
You're confusing having a very large population at middle income for being a developed country. China is four times larger than the largest developed nation. Even at Bulgaria-level income development, that guarantees that they'll "dominate" most aggregate measurements. Doesn't really say anything about the success of their economy. Even within their area of strength, manufacturing, China severely lags the liberal democracies. On a per capita basis, its manufacturing output is more than three times lower than Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Korea, Sweden or the Netherlands. It even produces less than half per capita as the US or UK, who don't even specialize in manufacturing. China is barely above Brazil or Turkey on a per capita metric. And outside manufacturing, China's level of development is abysmal. It produces virtually nothing competitive in the service sector. China exports essentially zero financial services, media, software, professional services, or travel services. China has internally developed barely any internationally successful pharmaceuticals, Internet properties, film or television franchises, marketable brand names, banking franchises, auto models, jet aircraft, or microprocessors. The success of China's tech companies is almost certainly because the Chinese government doesn't allow much stronger American competitors to enter the market. The reason Europe doesn't have a Baidu is because Google was allowed to compete in Europe. The entire Chinese tech industry's sole global success has been TikTok. The inability to compete on the global market proves that the Chinese tech industry does not measure up to their American counterparts. This is corroborated by the fact that not a single major software project has ever come out of China.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  Yes, China punches under its weight in software, and yes, China's services are not particularly visible in the US, but I assure you they're already making a huge impact, particularly in the developing world, and that impact is only going to growing in the next 5-10 years. Alibaba/Aliexpress are massive for consumer online shopping, particularly in Russia & Eastern Europe. Alipay payments are increasingly accepted across SE Asia. JD.com (which nobody ever hears about, but is considerably larger than Ali) operates directly and indirectly in many SE Asian countries. Tencent Games owns and operates a huge slew of globally popular games, including Fortnite, League of Legends, the Supercell suite (Brawl Stars, Clash of Clans etc). Yes, most of these games are still produced primarily in the West, but for long? Trip.com has been run out of China since 2017 since it was acquired by Ctrip. Meituan/Dianping dominate food delivery in China and are started to branch out to other markets like Australia and Singapore.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sudosysgen 6y ago

It's not just most-improved, it's actually the best economic system in large countries (thus more easily corrupt) that were not benefactors of classical imperialism if all you care about is development. This is simply an incontrovertible fact - India, Nigeria, Congo, etc... were in similar initial conditions and fared much worse economically. Far from being worse than liberal capitalist economies - which are the majority of the world - it's 73 in GDP PPP per capita out of 193 - solidly above average. It's also not had a period of high growth, it is still having a period of high growth, with 2.4% growth in 2020 which is by far the highest out of all major economies, and a predicted 7.3% next year. This is better than a lot of low income countries, coming from a medium-high income country. It's also set on escaping the middle income trap in 2-5 years as GDP per capita goes above 12500$, which is something that most liberal capitalist economies cannot achieve. So no, it's really not just in relative sense. In performance with its current position, it really is doing better than alternate models of liberal capitalism, and by quite a margin. I don't support the political reality that makes it work at all, but it is clear that liberal capitalism is not the undisputed king anymore.

pnw_hazor 6y ago
CCP China is thriving because of liberal capitalism -- the flood of hard currency that otherwise was unobtainable made all the difference. CCP China should build monuments to President Bush (#41) and President Clinton. Otherwise they would have went the way of the USSR. edit: and President Bush (#43) for making most-favored-nation trading status with CCP China permanent.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  This does not bear out in the data - of 60+% employment in the public sector as well as higher performance than (much more) liberal capitalist countries.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Maybe the people who live there, set the policy and literally built everything deserve a little credit?

greggman3 6y ago

Visiting China (Shanghai, Beijing, Nanking, Hangzhou) they all seemed like modern cities. Shops, restaurants, enormous shopping centers, coffeeshops, co-working spaces, theaters, bars, dance clubs, etc... Other than knowing I happened to be in China it certainly appear that in day to day life things are pretty good and the experience of living is similar to living in any modern western city.

dcolkitt 6y ago
Beijing[1], as China's richest city and capitol, has a GDP per capita is $38,000. That's comparable to the GDP per capita found in other middle income capitals, like Istanbul[2] ($45k) or Mexico City[3] ($43k)[3] or Bangkok[4] ($36k). Certainly substantially behind the level of development found in the capitols of highly developed nations, like Washington DC[5] ($85k), London ($74k), or Tokyo[6] ($69k). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_provinces_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Turkish_provinces_by_G... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thai_provinces_by_GPP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thai_provinces_by_GPP [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_regions_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_regions_by_GDP_(P... [6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_prefectures_by_GDP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_prefectures_b...
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  What is the GDP PPP of Beijing vs New York, San Franciso, or Chicago? GDP Nominal is not a good indicator here in a country which seems to be devaluing it's currency willingly or unwillingly.
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    All the numbers I've cited (including Beijing's $38k) have been PPP. New York is $74k, San Francisco is $95k, and Chicago is $61k. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP_(PPP)_pe...

dirtyid 6y ago

> economy that in any way is competitive with liberal capitalist democracy. Fixation on only economy and relative development indexes distract from the measure that matter: comprehensive national power or other similar composite measures. Apart from 1st rate turbojets engines and semiconductors, China has indigenous capability for nearly every sector. Compared to US, no other country is remotely competitive in a comprehensive sense. Relative measures only disguises how far China has come in terms of national capabilities, very few countries have: indigenous nuke, space, military, light/heavy industries, tech, media etc. When US policy makers reference peer competition, it's not referring to other OECD countries, it's referring to China because no one else has similar levels of comprehensive hard/soft power to remotely matter. "Most improved" hides the fact that China holds the silver medal after brief development period, or that the gap between gold and silver are closer than gap between bronze and no-name junior varsity bench player. In that sense, the Chinese system (tuned to specific Chinese conditions) has already out competed nearly everyone else when considering aggregate factors to general power which enables prosperity. The question is whether Xi thought can make China competitive enough with US to create multipolar world. Seeing as to how everyone is hedging against Sino/US coldwar, right now it's seems to be between strong maybe and probably. Ultimately, Chinese scales means never reaching per capita parity can still outcompete in general. Doing so as middle income country with massive income disparity and relative easier gains only works in Xi's favour.