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If China and India are going to be so great, why aren’t they so great already? Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea all industrialized faster and have a h

If China and India are going to be so great, why aren’t they so great already? Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea all industrialized faster and have a higher standard of living - all did it in the 1980s - 40 years ago.

drexlspivey 4y ago
According to the world bank China lifted 800m people above the poverty line in 30-40 years. Let that figure sink in for a minute.
- MisterMower 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
  HK, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan all add up to 200m.
ectopod 4y ago
Those countries had been laying the foundations since WWII. China didn't get going until after Mao's death in 1976.
swman 4y ago
India got independence in 1947... from the British Empire. USA has been independent since 1776. And notice I said "century". Were you educated in America?
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
  So what if you said century. Time doesn’t stop for other countries. They’ll continue to progress, unless they become like Hong Kong and China takes them over - which is another clue for you to ignore. No I wasn’t educated in America, not do I live there. You’re moving to personal attacks because you have nothing else.
  - swman 4y ago
    I said "they will dominate the next century" which means you misread what I wrote and asked something about now. Its not my fault your reading comprehension sucks.
pm90 4y ago
HK, Singapore: City states with (relatively) tiny populations. Acted as capitalist hubs/entry points to larger economies (PRC, Malayasia, SE Asia etc). Japan, Korea, Taiwan: Massive financial aid from the west, favorable trade deals for being strategic allies of the west. This isn’t to say that the people in these countries didn’t work to get where they are; they could have absolutely fucked it up. But it’s important to understand structural reasons for why some countries develop faster than the others. Upto the late 18th century, South + East asia were absolutely the dominant economic powers of the world accounting for over 50% of the worlds GDP. Colonialism was a huge setback but both China and India (+ other South/East Asian nations like Bangladesh) are rapidly industrializing.
dirtyid 4y ago
Singapore aside, they all did it under authoritarian governance with massive US/western support at peak of US hegemony as essential vassals. They played great on easy mode. VS PRC which was sanctioned/contained by west, India less so but never the less got fucked with but held back by messy democracy that can't put together an industrial policy. And great is relative, high gdp / standard of living is great for citizens, and ultimately that matters a lot. But a country in terms of comprehensive power can be "great" via modest income and sheer scale, i.e. PRC who developed indigenous military, space, nuclear program (all while sanctioned) and essentially every industrial sector has much more comprehensive power than a Asian Tiger that's dependent on US protection and got US credit card for basically playing part in coldwar PRC containment. PRC generally industrialized faster than any of these countries after detente, through much more sectors, but simply have too many people to ever reach parity per capita income. PRC is doing well on hard mode. Not to mention US aligned authoritarian petro states like Qatar, UAE, somewhat Brunai also do much better than the Asian Tigers. At end of day, being small/medium size country under US patronage get rich. Being authoritarian helps, being a resource based economy helps more. But geopolitically, "greatness" extends to more domains than just standard of living. Otherwise, UAE is greater than US. Except they're obviously not.

drexlspivey 4y ago

According to the world bank China lifted 800m people above the poverty line in 30-40 years. Let that figure sink in for a minute.

MisterMower 4y ago
[flagged]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
HK, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan all add up to 200m.

ectopod 4y ago

Those countries had been laying the foundations since WWII. China didn't get going until after Mao's death in 1976.

swman 4y ago

India got independence in 1947... from the British Empire. USA has been independent since 1776. And notice I said "century". Were you educated in America?

DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
So what if you said century. Time doesn’t stop for other countries. They’ll continue to progress, unless they become like Hong Kong and China takes them over - which is another clue for you to ignore. No I wasn’t educated in America, not do I live there. You’re moving to personal attacks because you have nothing else.
- swman 4y ago
  I said "they will dominate the next century" which means you misread what I wrote and asked something about now. Its not my fault your reading comprehension sucks.

pm90 4y ago

HK, Singapore: City states with (relatively) tiny populations. Acted as capitalist hubs/entry points to larger economies (PRC, Malayasia, SE Asia etc). Japan, Korea, Taiwan: Massive financial aid from the west, favorable trade deals for being strategic allies of the west. This isn’t to say that the people in these countries didn’t work to get where they are; they could have absolutely fucked it up. But it’s important to understand structural reasons for why some countries develop faster than the others. Upto the late 18th century, South + East asia were absolutely the dominant economic powers of the world accounting for over 50% of the worlds GDP. Colonialism was a huge setback but both China and India (+ other South/East Asian nations like Bangladesh) are rapidly industrializing.

dirtyid 4y ago

Singapore aside, they all did it under authoritarian governance with massive US/western support at peak of US hegemony as essential vassals. They played great on easy mode. VS PRC which was sanctioned/contained by west, India less so but never the less got fucked with but held back by messy democracy that can't put together an industrial policy. And great is relative, high gdp / standard of living is great for citizens, and ultimately that matters a lot. But a country in terms of comprehensive power can be "great" via modest income and sheer scale, i.e. PRC who developed indigenous military, space, nuclear program (all while sanctioned) and essentially every industrial sector has much more comprehensive power than a Asian Tiger that's dependent on US protection and got US credit card for basically playing part in coldwar PRC containment. PRC generally industrialized faster than any of these countries after detente, through much more sectors, but simply have too many people to ever reach parity per capita income. PRC is doing well on hard mode. Not to mention US aligned authoritarian petro states like Qatar, UAE, somewhat Brunai also do much better than the Asian Tigers. At end of day, being small/medium size country under US patronage get rich. Being authoritarian helps, being a resource based economy helps more. But geopolitically, "greatness" extends to more domains than just standard of living. Otherwise, UAE is greater than US. Except they're obviously not.