11 ms·

"The question is whether the power and influence of the U.S. will grow similarly over the next 150 years as it has over the last 150." No, I think the question

by rsync 4y ago

"The question is whether the power and influence of the U.S. will grow similarly over the next 150 years as it has over the last 150." No, I think the question is more subtle ... Will the relative power and influence of the US grow similarly. ... and I think that may be a very good bet. The three closest "competitors" - the Eurozone, China and Japan - are, in their own unique ways, dysfunctional basket cases: Europe's northern savers and taxpayers have to pay for southern workers to retire at 60 ... and southern workers need to eat benefit losses to avoid further (br)exits. This is a not-insignificant economic and cultural mismatch and the results of even minor adjustments are riots in the streets[1] ... or boring, orderly referenda[2]. It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth and whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all. Japan is undergoing civilizational and cultural collapse. So ... while there is much dysfunction - both economically and politically - in the United States, it is an enormous, resource rich country that can exist wholly independently from the rest of the world. It also enjoys absolute control of the worlds oceans and brutally dictates economic and geo politics[3]. In a world of troubled and fraught investments, the US is probably the least troubled and fraught. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_withdrawal_from_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_withdrawal_from_the_Euro... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...

cwkoss 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Supermancho 4y ago
  America and Americans are not the same thing.
- GalenErso 4y ago
  I am not American, and I think America is a very, very special country. See this article: https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-states-exceptional/ https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-stat... > The result of all of this is the bizarre situation that the world’s foremost land power is also the world’s foremost naval power, which is also the world’s foremost diplomatic power, which is also the world’s foremost economic power, entrenched in the high ground of most of the world’s international institutions. One may of course argue that this situation is changing, albeit slowly, but at the moment the contrast is startling: the sphere of Russian influence does quite reach Kyiv (about 150 miles from the Russian border) and the sphere of Chinese influence does not quite reach Taipei (about the same distance, but over water), but American influence evidently reaches both despite the former being 4,300 miles and the latter 6,500 miles away from American shores. > That has never happened before; it may well never happen again. We have seen regional hegemons similarly dominant in their local neighborhoods (the Roman Empire, the Han Dynasty, Achaemenid Persia, etc.) and to lack peers locally, but the United States is the first and only country to have done this on a global scale and to lack true peer competitors anywhere. Even as the ‘monopolar moment’ seems to be coming to an end, the United States’ position as ‘first among equals’ among the ‘great powers’ is historically unparalleled; no state has ever been so clearly without peers influence and power except for maybe – wait for it – the Mongols.
  - andrewprock 4y ago
    Yes, for better or worse, the US navy is the moderating force that maintains the Pax Americana. The US essentially controls all oceanic trade. As one might expect, having a global stranglehold over efficient trade corridors puts the US in a very unique situation, militarily, economically, and diplomatically.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  Downvoted because the person you're responding to took the time to make a case, right or wrong, and your response is just this peremptory dismissal that adds nothing and only lowers the tone.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    > It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth Is what really peeved me. Besides wrapping an extreme opinion in "it is unknown whether", it is ridiculous to insinuate that China is on the verge of collapse. They have built more wealth this century than the US and Chinese median wages are rapidly approaching America's. Makes me wonder what nationalist propaganda has convinced that poster that America isn't an even-more dysfunctional basket case.
    - SilasX 4y ago
      That would have been a better insight to share in a comment.
    - kurthr 4y ago
      Umm, I won't comment on nationalist propaganda, but average annual wages in China are less than a quarter of the US or most industrialized countries while debt/GDB was 270% in 2020 and the last few years have not been kind (US including states is <150%). Gini statistic for China is also quite high, but since they don't release enough reliable data it's hard to tell exactly. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...
      - cwkoss 4y ago
        Average annual salary for Chinese people has increased by about 2.5x in the past 10 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278349/average-annual-salary-of-an-employee-in-china/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/278349/average-annual-sa... Average American income has increased by only 33% over a similar period: https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/average-us-income https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/average-us-income While wages in China are still only about 1/4 of US wages, 10 years ago it was 1/12th of US wages. If the trend continues, we should expect Chinese wages to reach parity with US wages in less than 15 years.
bwanab 4y ago
For a civilizational basket case, Japan's GDP/capita has held up pretty well. Their industrial output is very strong for a country with sparse internal resources. Europe's problems are not unlike the U.S. internal problems where the tech and financial centers mainly on the coasts subsidize the rest of the country. The difference of course is that the states of the EU can exit, where the American states cannot. I'm not sure which situation is preferable. China is a black box, but so far recent history has indicated the populace will go along with a lot of pain to avoid chaos.
- scythe 4y ago
  Japan's real limitation here is primarily that they're relatively small (1/3 the size of US/EU), and their most "aligned" neighbors (Korea, Taiwan, Phillippines) don't like them very much. It's not like you could reasonably fit many more people on the islands as it is. US wealth distribution is much flatter than European. The GDP/capita ratio between Mississippi and Connecticut is less than 1:2, while for Germany to Hungary it's more like 1:4. China is... China. You can't call yourself the Communist Party and run the global financial system. The world can only tolerate so much contradiction. The open question now is whether the dollar can be dethroned by nothing: can a basket of currencies become the default reserve?
  - bwanab 4y ago
    <The world can only tolerate so much contradiction.> My guess is the world can tolerate it as long as everybody is making money off it. When that stops, the contradiction might seem intolerable. The world needs a default reserve that's not tied to any single central bank. For all the upsides there are also real downsides for the US having its currency as the default reserve.
    - neffo 4y ago
      It does exist. See SDR/XDRs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights
  - 4y ago
vl 4y ago
([3] link) Are you implying that US sabotaged Nord Stream?
- rsync 4y ago
  Yes. Or that it was sabotaged with our blessing. It was a Keyser Soze move that basically destroyed Russias bargaining position. At the same time, it was an enormous fuck you to EU citizens and, in particular, Germany: "Oh yes you will buy our gas ..." It appears to be panning out in a non-destructive way for the EU citizenry as they muddle through this winter but it was not obvious that would be the case and this (relatively) benign outcome could not have been predicted. If I were an EU citizen (particularly a German) I would be upset. Even as an American I am disturbed ... EDIT: You know that thing ... that crazy thing that Dick Cheney said in that interview[1] ? About how there is no reality and reality is whatever we say it is: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." ... every day that goes by I become more and more convinced that he could be right. NS2 sabotage makes it hard to argue with him. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/04/were-an-empire-now-and-when-we-act-we-create-our-own-reality/202751/ https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/04/were-...
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    > "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." There is an argument going on in the thread about empires size and distance from the capital. The person who makes out the US is an empire which controls a bulk of the globe is getting down voted - I think you are needed there. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275668
  - ShivShankaran 4y ago
    [dead]
- speakfreely 4y ago
  Another one of those interesting discussions that the news seems to have forgotten. It seems Ukraine had the most to gain, but from my limited understanding it's not so easy to robotically place explosives at the bottom of the sea in a precise, destructive manner unless you have a really well-funded naval force. It kind of reminds me of the polonium poisoning that has become a Russian signature move. Despite not taking credit, the number of actors who have the capability to do it is so limited that it's basically outing them regardless.
dmarucco 4y ago
Are you sure that southern workers retires at 60? I don't think so ...
- sgu999 4y ago
  If they are sure, they are wrong. Spain and Sweden retire at the same age. Italy, Greece, Denmark and Norway as well. [1] Yes, France retires at 62 but that'll change very soon... Writing that the "north pays for the south" by looking at the GDP per capita instead of the GDP is... naive. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...
malandrew 4y ago
China is also expected to see population collapse. They are rapidly aging and there’s no sign that that is reversing.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  IMO population "collapse" or demographic "decline" not right lens for unevenly developed country with massive population and high import dependency especially in context of "relative power". TBH it's surface level PRC collapists narrative. What will happen (by design or not) is PRC demographics is being "strategically optimized" with the greatest demographic uplift/upgrade in recorded history. Roughly replacing 2 low skilled, under-educated workers with 1 skilled worker with additional automation. Every ~10 years for the next few decades, PRC will be upgrading / swapping the human capita potential of 1 Nigeria for 1 Japan, it's less people, but much more productive people. With PRC pop base effect this is still multiple more educated labour pool per year than US or other blocs can generate with immigration, and 100s of million more in net talent. Less people also alleviates import dependency, PRC with 1B (400M less) people would have substantially more strategic space to operate. It works towards close relative power potential. CCP wants to smooth out the pyramid with more births for better managed transition, which structurally/culturally PRC with some of the highest house hold savings rate and minimal expectation for safety net is positioned to weather, but long term PRC comprehensive national power is best improved by having less net people, with more % skilled people.
  - cman1444 4y ago
    I think this is a pretty optimistic take. I know there's a constant barrage of articles these days about the demise of China, but it's pretty hard to make the case that such a drastic decline in population is a good thing for their economy or geopolitical power. Yes the Chinese population is becoming more skilled, but I think you're underestimating how much of a drag on the economy and aging population is. Old people don't innovate and require much more healthcare spending. They also cause heavy burdens on their children/grandchildren who must take care of them (see the 4-2-1 family structure). There's also a lot less juice to squeeze out of urbanizing the population which is what drove a lot of GDP growth in the past few decades. About 65 percent of the population is urban now and the rate is starting to level off.
was_a_dev 4y ago
The French rioting is just another Tuesday.
dirtyid 4y ago
>may be a very good bet Trend last few years is PRC closing gap and approaching parity in indicators like GDP (already exceeded by PPP), % of global gdp / trade, science and innovation indexes, value chain upgrades etc. Even PRC military development and diplomacy is sufficient to get countries hedge / not commit to US alignment, which was unthinkable 10+ years ago. IMO US will find it difficult to maintain relative "lead" when, in the words of state department, "China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge" US order. That said, I think US has headroom via dictating economic and geopolitics within her relatively wealthy bloc and grow at the expense of others. >It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth and whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all. Western fixation with PRC real estate waste as proxy indicator of China (econ) collapse is particularly stupid. It's like suggesting US who spends ~20% of GDP on healthcare (approximately PRC real estate) with suboptimal result is spinning development wheels. Same with PRC wasting a few trillion in suboptimal real estate when significant (majority) resources being invested to bring up other (above) indictators that has substantively contributed more to PRC "comprehensive national power". Like US isn't initiating unprecented PRC containment policies because of a bunch of empty of housing units.
acchow 4y ago
> Japan is undergoing civilizational and cultural collapse. Certainly doesn't seem this way when you visit Japan. Sure, they haven't experienced wildly growing excessive consumption like some American states in the past couple decades, but their society is far from undergoing any sort of collapse.
pedrosorio 4y ago
> Europe's northern savers and taxpayers have to pay for southern workers to retire at 60 Using the yellow vests as representative of "southern workers" makes me doubt how well you've researched this answer. Paris is hardly in "southern Europe", and the rest of the southern European countries have retirement ages comparable to those of the "northern savers".
DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
> whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all. I don't think anyone who has seen the development in China over the last 10-15 years first-hand would say this. There has been massive development in nearly every area, both in quantity and quality. Just to give one example, anyone who follows the scientific literature in just about any field will be aware of the massive increase in high-quality publications coming out of China over the last decade. There are one or two examples of "ghost cities" (though most supposed "ghost cities" actually become populated over time), but that doesn't negate the massive, real development that is visible everywhere in China.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by rsync 4y ago

cwkoss 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Supermancho 4y ago
America and Americans are not the same thing.
GalenErso 4y ago
I am not American, and I think America is a very, very special country. See this article: https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-states-exceptional/ https://acoup.blog/2022/07/08/collections-is-the-united-stat... > The result of all of this is the bizarre situation that the world’s foremost land power is also the world’s foremost naval power, which is also the world’s foremost diplomatic power, which is also the world’s foremost economic power, entrenched in the high ground of most of the world’s international institutions. One may of course argue that this situation is changing, albeit slowly, but at the moment the contrast is startling: the sphere of Russian influence does quite reach Kyiv (about 150 miles from the Russian border) and the sphere of Chinese influence does not quite reach Taipei (about the same distance, but over water), but American influence evidently reaches both despite the former being 4,300 miles and the latter 6,500 miles away from American shores. > That has never happened before; it may well never happen again. We have seen regional hegemons similarly dominant in their local neighborhoods (the Roman Empire, the Han Dynasty, Achaemenid Persia, etc.) and to lack peers locally, but the United States is the first and only country to have done this on a global scale and to lack true peer competitors anywhere. Even as the ‘monopolar moment’ seems to be coming to an end, the United States’ position as ‘first among equals’ among the ‘great powers’ is historically unparalleled; no state has ever been so clearly without peers influence and power except for maybe – wait for it – the Mongols.
- andrewprock 4y ago
  Yes, for better or worse, the US navy is the moderating force that maintains the Pax Americana. The US essentially controls all oceanic trade. As one might expect, having a global stranglehold over efficient trade corridors puts the US in a very unique situation, militarily, economically, and diplomatically.
karaterobot 4y ago
Downvoted because the person you're responding to took the time to make a case, right or wrong, and your response is just this peremptory dismissal that adds nothing and only lowers the tone.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  > It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth Is what really peeved me. Besides wrapping an extreme opinion in "it is unknown whether", it is ridiculous to insinuate that China is on the verge of collapse. They have built more wealth this century than the US and Chinese median wages are rapidly approaching America's. Makes me wonder what nationalist propaganda has convinced that poster that America isn't an even-more dysfunctional basket case.
  - SilasX 4y ago
    That would have been a better insight to share in a comment.
  - kurthr 4y ago
    Umm, I won't comment on nationalist propaganda, but average annual wages in China are less than a quarter of the US or most industrialized countries while debt/GDB was 270% in 2020 and the last few years have not been kind (US including states is <150%). Gini statistic for China is also quite high, but since they don't release enough reliable data it's hard to tell exactly. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...
    - cwkoss 4y ago
      Average annual salary for Chinese people has increased by about 2.5x in the past 10 years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278349/average-annual-salary-of-an-employee-in-china/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/278349/average-annual-sa... Average American income has increased by only 33% over a similar period: https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/average-us-income https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/average-us-income While wages in China are still only about 1/4 of US wages, 10 years ago it was 1/12th of US wages. If the trend continues, we should expect Chinese wages to reach parity with US wages in less than 15 years.

bwanab 4y ago

For a civilizational basket case, Japan's GDP/capita has held up pretty well. Their industrial output is very strong for a country with sparse internal resources. Europe's problems are not unlike the U.S. internal problems where the tech and financial centers mainly on the coasts subsidize the rest of the country. The difference of course is that the states of the EU can exit, where the American states cannot. I'm not sure which situation is preferable. China is a black box, but so far recent history has indicated the populace will go along with a lot of pain to avoid chaos.

scythe 4y ago
Japan's real limitation here is primarily that they're relatively small (1/3 the size of US/EU), and their most "aligned" neighbors (Korea, Taiwan, Phillippines) don't like them very much. It's not like you could reasonably fit many more people on the islands as it is. US wealth distribution is much flatter than European. The GDP/capita ratio between Mississippi and Connecticut is less than 1:2, while for Germany to Hungary it's more like 1:4. China is... China. You can't call yourself the Communist Party and run the global financial system. The world can only tolerate so much contradiction. The open question now is whether the dollar can be dethroned by nothing: can a basket of currencies become the default reserve?
- bwanab 4y ago
  <The world can only tolerate so much contradiction.> My guess is the world can tolerate it as long as everybody is making money off it. When that stops, the contradiction might seem intolerable. The world needs a default reserve that's not tied to any single central bank. For all the upsides there are also real downsides for the US having its currency as the default reserve.
  - neffo 4y ago
    It does exist. See SDR/XDRs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_drawing_rights
- 4y ago

vl 4y ago

([3] link) Are you implying that US sabotaged Nord Stream?

rsync 4y ago
Yes. Or that it was sabotaged with our blessing. It was a Keyser Soze move that basically destroyed Russias bargaining position. At the same time, it was an enormous fuck you to EU citizens and, in particular, Germany: "Oh yes you will buy our gas ..." It appears to be panning out in a non-destructive way for the EU citizenry as they muddle through this winter but it was not obvious that would be the case and this (relatively) benign outcome could not have been predicted. If I were an EU citizen (particularly a German) I would be upset. Even as an American I am disturbed ... EDIT: You know that thing ... that crazy thing that Dick Cheney said in that interview[1] ? About how there is no reality and reality is whatever we say it is: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." ... every day that goes by I become more and more convinced that he could be right. NS2 sabotage makes it hard to argue with him. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/04/were-an-empire-now-and-when-we-act-we-create-our-own-reality/202751/ https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/04/were-...
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." There is an argument going on in the thread about empires size and distance from the capital. The person who makes out the US is an empire which controls a bulk of the globe is getting down voted - I think you are needed there. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275668
- ShivShankaran 4y ago
  [dead]
speakfreely 4y ago
Another one of those interesting discussions that the news seems to have forgotten. It seems Ukraine had the most to gain, but from my limited understanding it's not so easy to robotically place explosives at the bottom of the sea in a precise, destructive manner unless you have a really well-funded naval force. It kind of reminds me of the polonium poisoning that has become a Russian signature move. Despite not taking credit, the number of actors who have the capability to do it is so limited that it's basically outing them regardless.

dmarucco 4y ago

Are you sure that southern workers retires at 60? I don't think so ...

sgu999 4y ago
If they are sure, they are wrong. Spain and Sweden retire at the same age. Italy, Greece, Denmark and Norway as well. [1] Yes, France retires at 62 but that'll change very soon... Writing that the "north pays for the south" by looking at the GDP per capita instead of the GDP is... naive. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_in_Europe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

malandrew 4y ago

China is also expected to see population collapse. They are rapidly aging and there’s no sign that that is reversing.

dirtyid 4y ago
IMO population "collapse" or demographic "decline" not right lens for unevenly developed country with massive population and high import dependency especially in context of "relative power". TBH it's surface level PRC collapists narrative. What will happen (by design or not) is PRC demographics is being "strategically optimized" with the greatest demographic uplift/upgrade in recorded history. Roughly replacing 2 low skilled, under-educated workers with 1 skilled worker with additional automation. Every ~10 years for the next few decades, PRC will be upgrading / swapping the human capita potential of 1 Nigeria for 1 Japan, it's less people, but much more productive people. With PRC pop base effect this is still multiple more educated labour pool per year than US or other blocs can generate with immigration, and 100s of million more in net talent. Less people also alleviates import dependency, PRC with 1B (400M less) people would have substantially more strategic space to operate. It works towards close relative power potential. CCP wants to smooth out the pyramid with more births for better managed transition, which structurally/culturally PRC with some of the highest house hold savings rate and minimal expectation for safety net is positioned to weather, but long term PRC comprehensive national power is best improved by having less net people, with more % skilled people.
- cman1444 4y ago
  I think this is a pretty optimistic take. I know there's a constant barrage of articles these days about the demise of China, but it's pretty hard to make the case that such a drastic decline in population is a good thing for their economy or geopolitical power. Yes the Chinese population is becoming more skilled, but I think you're underestimating how much of a drag on the economy and aging population is. Old people don't innovate and require much more healthcare spending. They also cause heavy burdens on their children/grandchildren who must take care of them (see the 4-2-1 family structure). There's also a lot less juice to squeeze out of urbanizing the population which is what drove a lot of GDP growth in the past few decades. About 65 percent of the population is urban now and the rate is starting to level off.

was_a_dev 4y ago

The French rioting is just another Tuesday.

dirtyid 4y ago

>may be a very good bet Trend last few years is PRC closing gap and approaching parity in indicators like GDP (already exceeded by PPP), % of global gdp / trade, science and innovation indexes, value chain upgrades etc. Even PRC military development and diplomacy is sufficient to get countries hedge / not commit to US alignment, which was unthinkable 10+ years ago. IMO US will find it difficult to maintain relative "lead" when, in the words of state department, "China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge" US order. That said, I think US has headroom via dictating economic and geopolitics within her relatively wealthy bloc and grow at the expense of others. >It is unknown whether the CCP can survive any meaningful slowdown in growth and whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all. Western fixation with PRC real estate waste as proxy indicator of China (econ) collapse is particularly stupid. It's like suggesting US who spends ~20% of GDP on healthcare (approximately PRC real estate) with suboptimal result is spinning development wheels. Same with PRC wasting a few trillion in suboptimal real estate when significant (majority) resources being invested to bring up other (above) indictators that has substantively contributed more to PRC "comprehensive national power". Like US isn't initiating unprecented PRC containment policies because of a bunch of empty of housing units.

acchow 4y ago

> Japan is undergoing civilizational and cultural collapse. Certainly doesn't seem this way when you visit Japan. Sure, they haven't experienced wildly growing excessive consumption like some American states in the past couple decades, but their society is far from undergoing any sort of collapse.

pedrosorio 4y ago

> Europe's northern savers and taxpayers have to pay for southern workers to retire at 60 Using the yellow vests as representative of "southern workers" makes me doubt how well you've researched this answer. Paris is hardly in "southern Europe", and the rest of the southern European countries have retirement ages comparable to those of the "northern savers".

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago

> whether much of the growth of the last 10-15 years (enormous empty cities) was substantive or useful at all. I don't think anyone who has seen the development in China over the last 10-15 years first-hand would say this. There has been massive development in nearly every area, both in quantity and quality. Just to give one example, anyone who follows the scientific literature in just about any field will be aware of the massive increase in high-quality publications coming out of China over the last decade. There are one or two examples of "ghost cities" (though most supposed "ghost cities" actually become populated over time), but that doesn't negate the massive, real development that is visible everywhere in China.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]