9 ms·

China is becoming a data black hole, says short seller Aandahl

83 points by hker 3y ago

jemmyw 3y ago
China's leadership seem fairly intent recently on destroying the areas where China's economy was picking up. Tech companies, software developers, and now anything innovative that would benefit from external investment to get off the ground.
- grey-area 3y ago
  They’re trying to cover up a massive crash, in real estate especially. They’re also preparing for war over Taiwan amidst tightening US sanctions. Long term for the country it is terrible strategy, unfortunately short term for the dictator and his cronies it is profitable.
  - kyleyeats 3y ago
    The China and the US are both doing this in some kind of twisted PR standoff. The only way anything the US is doing makes any sense is through this lens.
    - grey-area 3y ago
      This is not just PR, it's real and the current trade war is likely to lead to real war in the next few years.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    If they are trying to cover up a crash, it'll be a typical example of why centralised control fails so hard at economics. A crash isn't like a storm or something where a new force appears; it is a recognition that past decisions were not as effective as people at the time thought. Trying to fight a crash just keeps people doing destructive work for longer instead of moving on and finding some other activity.
    - grey-area 3y ago
      Yes I agree, but in a dictatorship the interests of the country and the interests of those at the top are not aligned. Another example of this recently - imprisoning your top entrepreneurs is a great way to ensure that your tech industry completely dies, but only over a long time frame as nobody comes up to replace the current companies (they all leave if they can). In the short term it offers great opportunities to enrich the leadership at the expense of all that wealth generated in previous decades, and at the expense of course of the country's future wealth. So long term a disastrous decision for the country, short term it pays out for the current leaders if their cover up domestically is sufficiently thorough and there are other events to distract the populace (e.g. expansion through war).
      - graemep 3y ago
        > in a dictatorship the interests of the country and the interests of those at the top are not aligned. I wish that was a problem only in dictatorships. > long term a disastrous decision for the country, short term it pays out for the current leaders if their cover up Dictators will remain in charge long term. To that extent their interests are better aligned with those of the country. I decision that will be bad in the medium term can be quite good for the ruling party in a democracy if they lose the next election and can persuade the electorate to blame whoever is in charge at the time.
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        No, not how dictatorships work. They usually work by keeping the supporting 2nd layer below the dictor happy and under control, which has nothing to do with country as such. Coincidentally, things could align, but they often don't.
        natmaka 3y ago
        Isn't Chinese history the elephant in the room here? IMHO most Chinese citizens remember that whenever they fight each other (civil war...) disasters happen, and therefore the most important mission of the government is to squash any growing quarrel. Everything else is ancillary.
  - powerapple 3y ago
    there are people thinking government should leave economy alone, there are people thinking central banks should use financial tools to control inflation and other things. China is not covering up, it is trying to control a crash.
    - grey-area 3y ago
      The lack of any reliable data specifically is a cover up, that is what the article is about.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  China does not need external (as in 'foreign') investment. They have huge amounts of cash. The strategy seems more about decoupling and independence from foreign interference and potential sanctions. Likewise, when foreign investors leave it is also because they've seen what was done to Russia and thus don't want to repeat that with China, which would be massively more costly. Edit with data: In 2022 Chinese households accumulated $1tn in savings, just over that year (this is something typical in China because of lack of safety net and lack of investments avenues, hence also why everyone wants to buy property to invest their cash): https://www.crugroup.com/knowledge-and-insights/spotlights-blogs/2023/how-china-s-households-unleash-savings-is-key-to-recovery/ https://www.crugroup.com/knowledge-and-insights/spotlights-b... China also has $3.2tn in foreign cash reserves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-exchange_reserves_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-exchange_reserves_of_C... They also use that cash as a tool of foreign policy with loans to foreign countries in excess of $240bn: https://www.reuters.com/markets/china-spent-240-bln-bailing-out-belt-road-countries-study-2023-03-27/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/china-spent-240-bln-bailing-...
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - berserk1010 3y ago
    They do? Probably should tell the average citizens in China who are having trouble withdrawing cash out then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9odXNPldCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9odXNPldCI. I think some banks were kind enough to tell their customers to withdraw in a few months. Other banks just zeroed out their customer's bank account.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - vbezhenar 3y ago
    Potential? China is under heavy sanctions right now. They need to surrender or to fight. For now they chose the latter.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  FWIW between Blue Orca Capital LLC and China I would choose China all the time. They are simply trying to short China to profit, like they did before so many times. This is not even news: in "Regulation of platform market access by the United States and China: Neo-mercantilism in digital services" published in 2022 you can read Since 2009, both countries have progressively restricted access to each other's domestic information services markets. In both cases, the primary stated rationale involved national security claims rather than trade policy concerns It's happening both ways.
  - paganel 3y ago
    [flagged]
- gdc8 3y ago
  For who is that innovation? Tech companies are examples of runaway mindlessness. Their scale has lost purpose long ago. They are over valued and over rated from a social cost stand point. Their capabilities don't translate to real world reduction in health costs, education costs, housing costs, energy costs, defense costs etc. They infact increase those cost for everyone with time. It's pseudo innovation from con men or the clueless. Natural that govts are reacting and overreacting. Good times are over world over. Jurassic Park is out of control.
  - dsab 3y ago
    Interesting opinion, could you please elaborate how tech companies increases cost of housing?
    - justinclift 3y ago
      You've heard of San Francisco yeah? ;)
      - inglor_cz 3y ago
        On the other hand, a widespread capability of WfH, which wouldn't be possible without tech, or at least not in contemporary volume, is likely putting a downward pressure on housing in attractive areas. If a well-earning programmer settles somewhere in a rural place, it means a) more money spent in a small community, b) one fewer affluent person seeking housing in an urban hotspot. I would guess that the aggregated effect worldwide is an order of magnitude higher than whatever passes in Portland and SF.
        justinclift 3y ago
        > ... likely putting a downward pressure on housing in attractive areas. The theory is good. Unfortunately, that downward pressure doesn't seem to be having any effect for cities in many western nations. Pretty close to runaway house pricing these days. :(
- russli1993 3y ago
  not really. Chinese government was regulating specific behaviors of companies, all are legit concerns, not against the companies themselves. Example: companies fighting each other using monopolistic tactics that doesn't bring benefit for anyone (Tencent music locking exclusive rights, Taobao forcing sellers for exclusivity, Taobao can only use Alipay). Online lending coupled with financial instruments (Alipay giving out loans to anyone without credit checks and using asset-backed security scheme to massively increase amount they can lend out (ABS is cause of US 08 financial crisis, controlling this in 2020 might have avoided a systematic crash this year due to housing problems). All other activities are fine, and specific areas basically are real tech are very much supported, eg, semi, semi equipment, chip design, EDA, etc. Chinese gov are saying instead of thousands of smartest phds trying to figure out how to play financial games, get them to build the lithography machine, cuz the latter creates real economic value.
- nirui 3y ago
  That's what I always say. Contrary to popular belief, the current ruling party of China poses a much bigger threat to China than any external factor such as the US, Taiwan or India would ever achieve. There is an meme online titled "When China made a decision", followed by a picture of the Prime Minister of Singapore laughing (see link 0 for sample), hinting the fact that due to many mistakes made under Xi's administration, companies/economic entities (including Chinese founded ones) are moving away from China to Singapore, often citing social control and economic reasons. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/comments/162oc8g/%E6%9D%8E%E6%98%BE%E9%BE%99%E6%B2%BB%E5%B0%8F%E5%9B%BD%E8%8B%A5%E5%A5%B3%E4%B8%8A%E4%BD%8D/ https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/comments/162oc8g/%E6... However, I don't really think that's all Xi's fault. There are so many things you just simply don't know if you're a child of nepotism. The party highleaders created their own social class, and as result, they and their offspring became disconnected from the reality more and more generation by generation. Most of them has so little experience of real people and so many experience of nepotism, it is already a miracle if they can still maintain a healthy mental condition, let alone the capabilities needed to do things right. The same kind of disconnection can also explain why the highleaders believed that the Wolf Warrior Tactic was a smart move: they simply don't understand how politics work, so the most primitive solution became the most obvious to them.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    I thought of this as why authoritarian regimes are so so bad at propaganda -- they have no experience in interacting with a normal, sometimes adversarial media landscape. At home, they say the sky is red, everyone says "Yes" or gets a visit from the secret police. So they do the same thing elsewhere, and there's criticism, memes, humor, apologism, etc... all the features of a more open information space with diverse opinions. But they have little basis for how to interact with that, because they didn't need any of the nuanced soft power skills at home. And so you get Russia endlessly repeating 'Everything is proceeding as planned in the special military operation' and China saying the Philippines "deliberately stirred up trouble" by navigating and claiming Philippine UNCLOS-EEZ waters in the Spratlys.
    - 0dayz 3y ago
berserk1010 3y ago
Did China's youth jobless rate really hit 46.5%? https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Did-China-s-youth-jobless-rate-really-hit-46.5 https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Did-China-s-youth-j... takes into account the Chinese youth's laying flat and full time children movement.
- sparrowInHand 3y ago
  They promised there children programming jobs and a golden future. But the party wants them to work in factories, just like dad did. They created the ilusion of upwards mobility in a society with no upwards mobility and burden those youngsters at the same time with a aging population. If you can not win, why even play?
  - russli1993 3y ago
    but don't American political sphere think Americans want factory jobs? Did the role switch? Chinese don't want factories jobs and Americans do? Or does American political sphere overestimates how much real people in American want factory jobs?
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  most probably it's exaggerated, China youth unemployment rate should be similar to that of my Country, Italy, which is at 22% officially, a couple points down unofficially (off the books jobs, people getting state benefits that should not get etc. etc.) EDIT: in Italy we measure youth unemployment for people up to 34 years old in the range 15-24 (the one used in the linked article) the unemployment rate is 40.2% on average, 38.8% for men and 42.6% for women
jeo123 3y ago
[flagged]
- khuey 3y ago
  Yes when I think of Putin's recent invasion of Ukraine I definitely think that it was well planned and prepared for.
rob74 3y ago
> China’s restrictions on overseas access to data are driving investors away, according to short seller Blue Orca Capital LLC If (big if, I know) only short sellers are complaining, that's probably a good thing...
- berserk1010 3y ago
  Not just. Probably why big funds are pulling out. Norway's 1.4 trillion pension fund is shutting its Shanghai office https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-shuts-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-s... Ark invest with 9B is entirely out of China https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pulls-her-investments-out-of-china/article_a934d289-606e-539c-a7f8-2e5611611530.html https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pul...
  - paganel 3y ago
    In the case of Norway there’s most probably some geo-politics in play, too, as they’re a NATO country. Looks bad to have NATO money help develop an ideological enemy.
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    > Norway's 1.4 trillion pension fund is shutting its Shanghai office https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-s https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-s... from the article it owned shares worth about $42 billion in some 850 Chinese companies. Those investments will be managed in future from its Asia hub in Singapore, it said. The decision to close its Shanghai office was driven by “operational considerations” and doesn’t affect the fund’s investments or its investment strategy in China, NBIM said in a statement on Thursday. > Ark invest with 9B is entirely out of China https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pul https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pul... We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. I don't know you, but I don't trust someone who will only let me read a piece of information in exchange for stealing my personal data...
novolunt 3y ago
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Beijinger 3y ago
China has an uncanning ability to shot herself in the knee. Best example would be the fleed of Zheng He. "He was buried at sea, and the fleet turned back to China. Soon after, the emperor, supported by Confucian officials, ordered the ships to be burned and outlawed most maritime trade. In what was a purely political move, all official records of the voyages were systematically destroyed." This fleet was light-years ahead of what Columbus had available. But it was Europe who conquered the world and colonized the so called new world, not China.
- emptyfile 3y ago
  [dead]
- mojo74 3y ago
  For those interested: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-China-Discovered-World-ebook/dp/B0091R30MS https://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-China-Discovered-World-eb...
  - ranting-moth 3y ago
    But keep in mind: "His book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, is a work of sheer fiction presented as revisionist history. Not a single document or artifact has been found to support his new claims on the supposed Ming naval expeditions beyond Africa." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies#Criticism
    - Beijinger 3y ago
      I had a look into his book. It is not written very scientifically. From a review: "A true academic work would have been far more careful to distinguish between what is hard evidence and what is inference, assumption, and hypothesis." But it is a fact that America was known and had settlements before Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows
      - 3y ago
lgvln 3y ago
“Black hole” is probably the wrong metaphor here, supernova might be more appropriate - repulsing investors/data, not attracting them.
renegade-otter 3y ago
The fans of "illiberal democracies" should probably pay attention - and China is not anywhere near a democracy. When your system relies on the whims of a single man, who sooner or later will become much smaller than his ego, bad things are going to happen. Not going to psychologically profile Xi here, but he really reminds me of the Valley and crypto bros who walked into easy money during the past decade and are now convinced they are financial and leadership prodigies. Also: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/business/china-evergrande-country-garden.html?searchResultPosition=2 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/business/china-evergrande...
- coldtea 3y ago
  Who said it relies "on the whims of a single man"? Knowing the history of such governments, there would be all kinds of higher level competitors, party factions, bureucracy, lower-level party and local government interests (and thus resistance to things going against it), and so on. With enough of their support, anybody at the top can be toppled, or even arrested. It's a nation of 1.4 billion people, with complicated politics and a well entrenched party rule, it's not some solitary James Bond villain running the show. We just get the simplified cartoon version of it.
  - renegade-otter 3y ago
    There are obviously internal dynamics - Xi is not sitting there micromanaging every province with his morning coffee, and neither does Putin. They deputize, but unfortunately for them - personal loyalty becomes more of an asset than competence, and then it becomes a problem. Anybody at the top can be toppled - if you understand the risks to you and your family when your, uh, eccentricities become known.
  - tromp 3y ago
    Xi used to face some opposition prior to the last party Congress but he managed to have much of them replaced by loyalists [1] [2]. So it's increasingly becoming a one man show. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-congress.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/23/xi-jinping-chooses-yes-men-over-economic-growth-politburo-purge-china https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/23/xi-jinping-cho...
dalbasal 3y ago
I feel like economics has gone backwards, for generations now, in its understanding of monetary/debt/macroeconomic inflation. I don't think we ha "The Answer" before. But now we don't even have the questions anymore. A country/economy can't "borrow from the future," or save for the future. We can invest in the future. We can eat the seedcorn, but those are very limited. China used debt creation, like other economies did/do to catalyze increased economic activity. That economic activity is from the present, not the future. Present construction workers doing work, getting paid.. It demonstrably represents economic potential being realised. The "unsustainable" part is the debt. Meanwhile, paying back the debt (the economy as a whole) creates the reverse process. Economic activity recedes. I think the prevalence of "jubilee" in ancient culture is a clue. Economies really do need a debt cancellation mechanism to be stable. Bankruptcy is insufficiently scalable. The west's "solution" has been nationalisation of debt. But, instead of a preprepared plan, it's a chaotic, emergency event that only a handful of bankers understand before it's too late. We need some new ideas here. China too.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  Using debt to buy a better future is a tried and tested economic mechanism. The idea being that your eventual economy is so much bigger than the debt. Taiwan is an example where it was even potentially risky but still paid off. China did use debt like this but it has added too much debt at the provincial and company level for things that won't pay back ever. Western countries do this too. If the US used debt to fund some of the infrastructure projects it sorely needs then that might pay off. If it uses debt to keep taxes lower then that can't have a payoff. It does both of course, but more on taxes and maintenance than on infrastructure. What countries could do with is a way to stop themselves being able to make these bad decisions on spending. The EU had an idea of fiscal rules that you needed to implement to be part of the club, and that did help clean up some newly joining economies... but then everyone in the EU already just ignores the rules.
- addicted 3y ago
  China’s borrowing from the future involves more than just debt. And also, the direction of the debt is not as clear as you would think. For 1, the Chinese have built up unsustainable infrastructure with very limited usage that needs to be maintained. Even if you jubilee away the debts picked up future generations will still be paying for the maintenance of infrastructure that simply doesn’t have the usage to justify it. For 2, a very significant amount of debt, especially in the property sector, is owed by massive hundred billion dollar businesses to ordinary people who invested their entire life savings into buying an apartment which has not been built. If you forgive the debt, you end up with the poorest people subsidizing the biggest companies in the world.
0dayz 3y ago
China represents the perfect argument for why aristocratic and or authoritarian regimes inevitably collapses, due to lack of sustainable procedures and viewing social and especially political progress as a threat. 1st is that fascistic regimes is in theory one of the most efficient government you can have as you can easily circumvent due process and fast track whatever you want. However in practice only investing or making the decision happen is what gets fast tracked, the actual task of running saif facility is another story entirely, where sustainable practices will degrade and corruption, stagnation and negligence will grow. 2nd is due to the lack of political, cultural and social research, innovation and development. Instead the (hardliners of) CCP (like Xi Jinping) views these as fundamental threat to their rule, however these are just as crucial to your society as economic, scientific and technological research, innovation and development is. It's why we in the west still have democracy, democracy is a lot more inefficient but its very flexible and sustainable. The issue is even we haven't been focusing on these 3 policy areas as such we see certain negative cultural, political and social stagnation and degradation due to the insistence of neopolitics (neo-con, neo-lib, third way) that we only need to focus on economic, technological and scientific progress.
- vmfunction 3y ago
  >It's why we in the west still have democracy, democracy is a lot more inefficient but its very flexible and sustainable. Democracy will only work when the population is well educated. US currently is an oligarchy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877447
  - 0dayz 3y ago
    You don't need a well educated population to sustain democracy, you need however an active population that knows that democracy is more than just voting, it's joining a political party, lobbying, working to maintain and expand institutions. And an honest desire to see the country prosper.
    - vmfunction 3y ago

83 points by hker 3y ago

China's leadership seem fairly intent recently on destroying the areas where China's economy was picking up. Tech companies, software developers, and now anything innovative that would benefit from external investment to get off the ground.

grey-area 3y ago
They’re trying to cover up a massive crash, in real estate especially. They’re also preparing for war over Taiwan amidst tightening US sanctions. Long term for the country it is terrible strategy, unfortunately short term for the dictator and his cronies it is profitable.
- kyleyeats 3y ago
  The China and the US are both doing this in some kind of twisted PR standoff. The only way anything the US is doing makes any sense is through this lens.
  - grey-area 3y ago
    This is not just PR, it's real and the current trade war is likely to lead to real war in the next few years.
- roenxi 3y ago
  If they are trying to cover up a crash, it'll be a typical example of why centralised control fails so hard at economics. A crash isn't like a storm or something where a new force appears; it is a recognition that past decisions were not as effective as people at the time thought. Trying to fight a crash just keeps people doing destructive work for longer instead of moving on and finding some other activity.
  - grey-area 3y ago
    Yes I agree, but in a dictatorship the interests of the country and the interests of those at the top are not aligned. Another example of this recently - imprisoning your top entrepreneurs is a great way to ensure that your tech industry completely dies, but only over a long time frame as nobody comes up to replace the current companies (they all leave if they can). In the short term it offers great opportunities to enrich the leadership at the expense of all that wealth generated in previous decades, and at the expense of course of the country's future wealth. So long term a disastrous decision for the country, short term it pays out for the current leaders if their cover up domestically is sufficiently thorough and there are other events to distract the populace (e.g. expansion through war).
    - graemep 3y ago
      > in a dictatorship the interests of the country and the interests of those at the top are not aligned. I wish that was a problem only in dictatorships. > long term a disastrous decision for the country, short term it pays out for the current leaders if their cover up Dictators will remain in charge long term. To that extent their interests are better aligned with those of the country. I decision that will be bad in the medium term can be quite good for the ruling party in a democracy if they lose the next election and can persuade the electorate to blame whoever is in charge at the time.
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        No, not how dictatorships work. They usually work by keeping the supporting 2nd layer below the dictor happy and under control, which has nothing to do with country as such. Coincidentally, things could align, but they often don't.
        natmaka 3y ago
        Isn't Chinese history the elephant in the room here? IMHO most Chinese citizens remember that whenever they fight each other (civil war...) disasters happen, and therefore the most important mission of the government is to squash any growing quarrel. Everything else is ancillary.
- powerapple 3y ago
  there are people thinking government should leave economy alone, there are people thinking central banks should use financial tools to control inflation and other things. China is not covering up, it is trying to control a crash.
  - grey-area 3y ago
    The lack of any reliable data specifically is a cover up, that is what the article is about.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
China does not need external (as in 'foreign') investment. They have huge amounts of cash. The strategy seems more about decoupling and independence from foreign interference and potential sanctions. Likewise, when foreign investors leave it is also because they've seen what was done to Russia and thus don't want to repeat that with China, which would be massively more costly. Edit with data: In 2022 Chinese households accumulated $1tn in savings, just over that year (this is something typical in China because of lack of safety net and lack of investments avenues, hence also why everyone wants to buy property to invest their cash): https://www.crugroup.com/knowledge-and-insights/spotlights-blogs/2023/how-china-s-households-unleash-savings-is-key-to-recovery/ https://www.crugroup.com/knowledge-and-insights/spotlights-b... China also has $3.2tn in foreign cash reserves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-exchange_reserves_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-exchange_reserves_of_C... They also use that cash as a tool of foreign policy with loans to foreign countries in excess of $240bn: https://www.reuters.com/markets/china-spent-240-bln-bailing-out-belt-road-countries-study-2023-03-27/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/china-spent-240-bln-bailing-...
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  [flagged]
- berserk1010 3y ago
  They do? Probably should tell the average citizens in China who are having trouble withdrawing cash out then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9odXNPldCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9odXNPldCI. I think some banks were kind enough to tell their customers to withdraw in a few months. Other banks just zeroed out their customer's bank account.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- vbezhenar 3y ago
  Potential? China is under heavy sanctions right now. They need to surrender or to fight. For now they chose the latter.
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
FWIW between Blue Orca Capital LLC and China I would choose China all the time. They are simply trying to short China to profit, like they did before so many times. This is not even news: in "Regulation of platform market access by the United States and China: Neo-mercantilism in digital services" published in 2022 you can read Since 2009, both countries have progressively restricted access to each other's domestic information services markets. In both cases, the primary stated rationale involved national security claims rather than trade policy concerns It's happening both ways.
- paganel 3y ago
  [flagged]
gdc8 3y ago
For who is that innovation? Tech companies are examples of runaway mindlessness. Their scale has lost purpose long ago. They are over valued and over rated from a social cost stand point. Their capabilities don't translate to real world reduction in health costs, education costs, housing costs, energy costs, defense costs etc. They infact increase those cost for everyone with time. It's pseudo innovation from con men or the clueless. Natural that govts are reacting and overreacting. Good times are over world over. Jurassic Park is out of control.
- dsab 3y ago
  Interesting opinion, could you please elaborate how tech companies increases cost of housing?
  - justinclift 3y ago
    You've heard of San Francisco yeah? ;)
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      On the other hand, a widespread capability of WfH, which wouldn't be possible without tech, or at least not in contemporary volume, is likely putting a downward pressure on housing in attractive areas. If a well-earning programmer settles somewhere in a rural place, it means a) more money spent in a small community, b) one fewer affluent person seeking housing in an urban hotspot. I would guess that the aggregated effect worldwide is an order of magnitude higher than whatever passes in Portland and SF.
      - justinclift 3y ago
        > ... likely putting a downward pressure on housing in attractive areas. The theory is good. Unfortunately, that downward pressure doesn't seem to be having any effect for cities in many western nations. Pretty close to runaway house pricing these days. :(
russli1993 3y ago
not really. Chinese government was regulating specific behaviors of companies, all are legit concerns, not against the companies themselves. Example: companies fighting each other using monopolistic tactics that doesn't bring benefit for anyone (Tencent music locking exclusive rights, Taobao forcing sellers for exclusivity, Taobao can only use Alipay). Online lending coupled with financial instruments (Alipay giving out loans to anyone without credit checks and using asset-backed security scheme to massively increase amount they can lend out (ABS is cause of US 08 financial crisis, controlling this in 2020 might have avoided a systematic crash this year due to housing problems). All other activities are fine, and specific areas basically are real tech are very much supported, eg, semi, semi equipment, chip design, EDA, etc. Chinese gov are saying instead of thousands of smartest phds trying to figure out how to play financial games, get them to build the lithography machine, cuz the latter creates real economic value.
nirui 3y ago
That's what I always say. Contrary to popular belief, the current ruling party of China poses a much bigger threat to China than any external factor such as the US, Taiwan or India would ever achieve. There is an meme online titled "When China made a decision", followed by a picture of the Prime Minister of Singapore laughing (see link 0 for sample), hinting the fact that due to many mistakes made under Xi's administration, companies/economic entities (including Chinese founded ones) are moving away from China to Singapore, often citing social control and economic reasons. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/comments/162oc8g/%E6%9D%8E%E6%98%BE%E9%BE%99%E6%B2%BB%E5%B0%8F%E5%9B%BD%E8%8B%A5%E5%A5%B3%E4%B8%8A%E4%BD%8D/ https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/comments/162oc8g/%E6... However, I don't really think that's all Xi's fault. There are so many things you just simply don't know if you're a child of nepotism. The party highleaders created their own social class, and as result, they and their offspring became disconnected from the reality more and more generation by generation. Most of them has so little experience of real people and so many experience of nepotism, it is already a miracle if they can still maintain a healthy mental condition, let alone the capabilities needed to do things right. The same kind of disconnection can also explain why the highleaders believed that the Wolf Warrior Tactic was a smart move: they simply don't understand how politics work, so the most primitive solution became the most obvious to them.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  I thought of this as why authoritarian regimes are so so bad at propaganda -- they have no experience in interacting with a normal, sometimes adversarial media landscape. At home, they say the sky is red, everyone says "Yes" or gets a visit from the secret police. So they do the same thing elsewhere, and there's criticism, memes, humor, apologism, etc... all the features of a more open information space with diverse opinions. But they have little basis for how to interact with that, because they didn't need any of the nuanced soft power skills at home. And so you get Russia endlessly repeating 'Everything is proceeding as planned in the special military operation' and China saying the Philippines "deliberately stirred up trouble" by navigating and claiming Philippine UNCLOS-EEZ waters in the Spratlys.
  - 0dayz 3y ago

berserk1010 3y ago

Did China's youth jobless rate really hit 46.5%? https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Did-China-s-youth-jobless-rate-really-hit-46.5 https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Did-China-s-youth-j... takes into account the Chinese youth's laying flat and full time children movement.

sparrowInHand 3y ago
They promised there children programming jobs and a golden future. But the party wants them to work in factories, just like dad did. They created the ilusion of upwards mobility in a society with no upwards mobility and burden those youngsters at the same time with a aging population. If you can not win, why even play?
- russli1993 3y ago
  but don't American political sphere think Americans want factory jobs? Did the role switch? Chinese don't want factories jobs and Americans do? Or does American political sphere overestimates how much real people in American want factory jobs?
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
most probably it's exaggerated, China youth unemployment rate should be similar to that of my Country, Italy, which is at 22% officially, a couple points down unofficially (off the books jobs, people getting state benefits that should not get etc. etc.) EDIT: in Italy we measure youth unemployment for people up to 34 years old in the range 15-24 (the one used in the linked article) the unemployment rate is 40.2% on average, 38.8% for men and 42.6% for women

jeo123 3y ago

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khuey 3y ago
Yes when I think of Putin's recent invasion of Ukraine I definitely think that it was well planned and prepared for.

rob74 3y ago

> China’s restrictions on overseas access to data are driving investors away, according to short seller Blue Orca Capital LLC If (big if, I know) only short sellers are complaining, that's probably a good thing...

berserk1010 3y ago
Not just. Probably why big funds are pulling out. Norway's 1.4 trillion pension fund is shutting its Shanghai office https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-shuts-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-s... Ark invest with 9B is entirely out of China https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pulls-her-investments-out-of-china/article_a934d289-606e-539c-a7f8-2e5611611530.html https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pul...
- paganel 3y ago
  In the case of Norway there’s most probably some geo-politics in play, too, as they’re a NATO country. Looks bad to have NATO money help develop an ideological enemy.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > Norway's 1.4 trillion pension fund is shutting its Shanghai office https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-s https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/investing/china-norway-fund-s... from the article it owned shares worth about $42 billion in some 850 Chinese companies. Those investments will be managed in future from its Asia hub in Singapore, it said. The decision to close its Shanghai office was driven by “operational considerations” and doesn’t affect the fund’s investments or its investment strategy in China, NBIM said in a statement on Thursday. > Ark invest with 9B is entirely out of China https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pul https://www.news-journal.com/arena/thestreet/cathie-wood-pul... We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. I don't know you, but I don't trust someone who will only let me read a piece of information in exchange for stealing my personal data...

novolunt 3y ago

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Beijinger 3y ago

China has an uncanning ability to shot herself in the knee. Best example would be the fleed of Zheng He. "He was buried at sea, and the fleet turned back to China. Soon after, the emperor, supported by Confucian officials, ordered the ships to be burned and outlawed most maritime trade. In what was a purely political move, all official records of the voyages were systematically destroyed." This fleet was light-years ahead of what Columbus had available. But it was Europe who conquered the world and colonized the so called new world, not China.

emptyfile 3y ago
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mojo74 3y ago
For those interested: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-China-Discovered-World-ebook/dp/B0091R30MS https://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-China-Discovered-World-eb...
- ranting-moth 3y ago
  But keep in mind: "His book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, is a work of sheer fiction presented as revisionist history. Not a single document or artifact has been found to support his new claims on the supposed Ming naval expeditions beyond Africa." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies#Criticism
  - Beijinger 3y ago
    I had a look into his book. It is not written very scientifically. From a review: "A true academic work would have been far more careful to distinguish between what is hard evidence and what is inference, assumption, and hypothesis." But it is a fact that America was known and had settlements before Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows
    - 3y ago

lgvln 3y ago

“Black hole” is probably the wrong metaphor here, supernova might be more appropriate - repulsing investors/data, not attracting them.

renegade-otter 3y ago

The fans of "illiberal democracies" should probably pay attention - and China is not anywhere near a democracy. When your system relies on the whims of a single man, who sooner or later will become much smaller than his ego, bad things are going to happen. Not going to psychologically profile Xi here, but he really reminds me of the Valley and crypto bros who walked into easy money during the past decade and are now convinced they are financial and leadership prodigies. Also: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/business/china-evergrande-country-garden.html?searchResultPosition=2 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/business/china-evergrande...

coldtea 3y ago
Who said it relies "on the whims of a single man"? Knowing the history of such governments, there would be all kinds of higher level competitors, party factions, bureucracy, lower-level party and local government interests (and thus resistance to things going against it), and so on. With enough of their support, anybody at the top can be toppled, or even arrested. It's a nation of 1.4 billion people, with complicated politics and a well entrenched party rule, it's not some solitary James Bond villain running the show. We just get the simplified cartoon version of it.
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  There are obviously internal dynamics - Xi is not sitting there micromanaging every province with his morning coffee, and neither does Putin. They deputize, but unfortunately for them - personal loyalty becomes more of an asset than competence, and then it becomes a problem. Anybody at the top can be toppled - if you understand the risks to you and your family when your, uh, eccentricities become known.
- tromp 3y ago
  Xi used to face some opposition prior to the last party Congress but he managed to have much of them replaced by loyalists [1] [2]. So it's increasingly becoming a one man show. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-congress.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/23/xi-jinping-chooses-yes-men-over-economic-growth-politburo-purge-china https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/23/xi-jinping-cho...

dalbasal 3y ago

I feel like economics has gone backwards, for generations now, in its understanding of monetary/debt/macroeconomic inflation. I don't think we ha "The Answer" before. But now we don't even have the questions anymore. A country/economy can't "borrow from the future," or save for the future. We can invest in the future. We can eat the seedcorn, but those are very limited. China used debt creation, like other economies did/do to catalyze increased economic activity. That economic activity is from the present, not the future. Present construction workers doing work, getting paid.. It demonstrably represents economic potential being realised. The "unsustainable" part is the debt. Meanwhile, paying back the debt (the economy as a whole) creates the reverse process. Economic activity recedes. I think the prevalence of "jubilee" in ancient culture is a clue. Economies really do need a debt cancellation mechanism to be stable. Bankruptcy is insufficiently scalable. The west's "solution" has been nationalisation of debt. But, instead of a preprepared plan, it's a chaotic, emergency event that only a handful of bankers understand before it's too late. We need some new ideas here. China too.

jemmyw 3y ago
Using debt to buy a better future is a tried and tested economic mechanism. The idea being that your eventual economy is so much bigger than the debt. Taiwan is an example where it was even potentially risky but still paid off. China did use debt like this but it has added too much debt at the provincial and company level for things that won't pay back ever. Western countries do this too. If the US used debt to fund some of the infrastructure projects it sorely needs then that might pay off. If it uses debt to keep taxes lower then that can't have a payoff. It does both of course, but more on taxes and maintenance than on infrastructure. What countries could do with is a way to stop themselves being able to make these bad decisions on spending. The EU had an idea of fiscal rules that you needed to implement to be part of the club, and that did help clean up some newly joining economies... but then everyone in the EU already just ignores the rules.
addicted 3y ago
China’s borrowing from the future involves more than just debt. And also, the direction of the debt is not as clear as you would think. For 1, the Chinese have built up unsustainable infrastructure with very limited usage that needs to be maintained. Even if you jubilee away the debts picked up future generations will still be paying for the maintenance of infrastructure that simply doesn’t have the usage to justify it. For 2, a very significant amount of debt, especially in the property sector, is owed by massive hundred billion dollar businesses to ordinary people who invested their entire life savings into buying an apartment which has not been built. If you forgive the debt, you end up with the poorest people subsidizing the biggest companies in the world.

0dayz 3y ago

China represents the perfect argument for why aristocratic and or authoritarian regimes inevitably collapses, due to lack of sustainable procedures and viewing social and especially political progress as a threat. 1st is that fascistic regimes is in theory one of the most efficient government you can have as you can easily circumvent due process and fast track whatever you want. However in practice only investing or making the decision happen is what gets fast tracked, the actual task of running saif facility is another story entirely, where sustainable practices will degrade and corruption, stagnation and negligence will grow. 2nd is due to the lack of political, cultural and social research, innovation and development. Instead the (hardliners of) CCP (like Xi Jinping) views these as fundamental threat to their rule, however these are just as crucial to your society as economic, scientific and technological research, innovation and development is. It's why we in the west still have democracy, democracy is a lot more inefficient but its very flexible and sustainable. The issue is even we haven't been focusing on these 3 policy areas as such we see certain negative cultural, political and social stagnation and degradation due to the insistence of neopolitics (neo-con, neo-lib, third way) that we only need to focus on economic, technological and scientific progress.

vmfunction 3y ago
>It's why we in the west still have democracy, democracy is a lot more inefficient but its very flexible and sustainable. Democracy will only work when the population is well educated. US currently is an oligarchy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18877447
- 0dayz 3y ago
  You don't need a well educated population to sustain democracy, you need however an active population that knows that democracy is more than just voting, it's joining a political party, lobbying, working to maintain and expand institutions. And an honest desire to see the country prosper.
  - vmfunction 3y ago