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There’ve been two new generations of kids that have been born since the “China is doomed” headlines have dominated the news. At some point, maybe, everyone shou

There’ve been two new generations of kids that have been born since the “China is doomed” headlines have dominated the news. At some point, maybe, everyone should take them a bit more seriously? If one calls current US administrations methods “course correcting”, the same person should assume that another giant can do the same.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
[flagged]
- snapcaster 2y ago
  Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too. I can understand thinking Xi isn't great but i don't see how him being a dictator plays into it when looking at China's leaders
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too Deng was a classical dictator, à la Sulla. The point is he stepped down and continued the peaceful transfer of power that characterised the CCP since Mao. That transfer not only provides face-saving flexibility. It also promotes introspection through intraparty competition. Xi, on the other hand, is dictator for life. He can't flag much less correct past fuck-ups because they were his fuck-ups. His treatment of his predecessor takes passing the torch off the table. And his corruption purges have routed out the political competition that could have given Beijing more options. It's thus much more difficult for China under Xi yesterday, today and tomorrow, to e.g. tell India it's changed than it was for Biden or Trump to say they're different from Obama.
    - rangestransform 2y ago
      > characterised the CCP since Mao there's a conspiracy theory that this was due to Mao having no suitable heirs. More generally, there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor or a succession conflict involving the autocrat, see: martial law Taiwan
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor Isn’t the clearer history one of civil war?
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        Liberalization while the autocrat is still alive (if at all). Civil war once he's dead, unless the liberalization has time to take root before the autocrat dies.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        If you have sources for this theory, I'd love to see them. From what I've seen, autocracies in developing countries are "more prone to political instability because oppressed citizenries and displaced groups have no other mechanism to voice dissent other than active mobilization in the streets or subversive activities against the state" [1]. Autocracies are only more stable if they can promote "Rentier-state economic systems," like in North Korea, though that comes at the cost of putting that society further and further behind its international peers. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01 https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        No, no sources. I was just saying that, if there was a trend of autocrats trying to liberalize, it was not necessarily inconsistent with a trend of civil war.
      - quuxplusone 2y ago
        Coincidentally, I was just reading this relevant couple of posts when I saw yours: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-khamenei-die https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-kha... https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ Notice the pre-Ukraine-war dates, especially on the former. Quote from the latter: "The aim of just about every Greek tyrant in the long term was to consolidate power into their family in a durable way, which is to say, convert a tyranny into a kingship. [To a first approximation] they all failed."
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      I can't even get myself to write anything about China, because I don't want to sound like a China-shill. But, my entire point is, they course correct. A lot actually. They publish literal documents that can be read as course corrections (Government Work Report). They've shown they're willing to take big risks to achieve their written and published goals. And given the recent developments and their achievements in tech/improving QoL of locals, they deserve respect for accomplishments. They're obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run They should absolutely be taken seriously. But nothing you put forward suggests pivots, but minor course corrections. (Granted, that puts them a rung above most of the world's dictatorships.) What's holding Beijing back is the wolf warrior nonsense from before Covid. China has the best industrial supply chains on the planet within any single border, but their neighbors don't trust them. As a result, America can scale using European, Japanese and Korean (and now Indian and Middle Eastern) assets while China has to rely on itself. (And Russia and Iran, the new sick dogs of Europe and Asia, respectively.) Contrast that with e.g. the Trump-Biden-Trump pivots. A lot of that was and will be chaos. But some of it was fruitful policyspace exploration. (A lot of it was course correcting from previous mistakes.) Like, imagine if we replaced Obama's presidency with W. Bush. That is the handicap Beijing is forced to play with.
        tokioyoyo 2y ago
        Again, I've been hearing it since 2000s, how China is going to fall. So far, no predictions, especially the forced RE market collapse ones have panned out. I think a lot of people want China to fall, so they can point at the political ideology that's not compatible with ours and say "ha, we told you so!". But it just hasn't happened yet. They're smoking the west in a good chunk sectors as well. Also, I think you're underestimating how quickly public perception can turn if the leader becomes disliked. People will flock to be friendly with China, if there's any need.
lnxg33k1 2y ago
I still remember Russia going to default 2 months into the war… western media is… like media everywhere else
- banku_brougham 2y ago
  The propaganda is so effective in the west, we really believe the news is news.
NemoNobody 2y ago
No. I'm afraid that this comment demonstrates that you have not researched this topic and are making baseless statements. The reality is that the Chinese population is in crisis, solely and directly due to their societal position of less than replacement reproduction as law, and the consequences of that position over time. 2 ppl = 1 person + repeat x number of times per generation + time, decades of time even... uuhh, how could that not have serious detrimental effects to the replacement rate? We won't see it right away obviously, like with Japan it's taken time to begin to see what it will really look like to have a population age out, but tho long ago predicted, the prediction is still playing out. Population trends are not supposed to move like China's did - had it naturally occured, their would have naturally been an increase too offset, these things happen for reasons. There MUST always be more of us.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  Population problems won't hit them for the next 15 years or so. That's enough time to figure out an immigration solution if nothing else comes up. Just like literally any developed country does, as nobody has positive fertility rates. It's not like no government is aware of their issues, that's the reason why Japan is increasing their immigration targets every year. Despite all the calamity about immigration in the US, they will also keep being immigration friendly for these reason. These problems exist everywhere.
  - nradov 2y ago
    Immigration from where? China might allow in a few immigrants from neighboring countries with bad economies but the notion that they would take millions of poor people from South Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Central/South America is just ludicrous. The level of xenophobia and racism in China makes that a non-starter regardless of the consequences. And the scale of their demographic time bomb that will explode in 15-20 years is enormous.
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      s/China/Japan/. You could say the same thing, yet they're rolling ahead with immigration reforms. Really underestimating how fast the human nature can change when you're desperate.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

[flagged]

snapcaster 2y ago
Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too. I can understand thinking Xi isn't great but i don't see how him being a dictator plays into it when looking at China's leaders
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too Deng was a classical dictator, à la Sulla. The point is he stepped down and continued the peaceful transfer of power that characterised the CCP since Mao. That transfer not only provides face-saving flexibility. It also promotes introspection through intraparty competition. Xi, on the other hand, is dictator for life. He can't flag much less correct past fuck-ups because they were his fuck-ups. His treatment of his predecessor takes passing the torch off the table. And his corruption purges have routed out the political competition that could have given Beijing more options. It's thus much more difficult for China under Xi yesterday, today and tomorrow, to e.g. tell India it's changed than it was for Biden or Trump to say they're different from Obama.
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    > characterised the CCP since Mao there's a conspiracy theory that this was due to Mao having no suitable heirs. More generally, there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor or a succession conflict involving the autocrat, see: martial law Taiwan
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor Isn’t the clearer history one of civil war?
      - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        Liberalization while the autocrat is still alive (if at all). Civil war once he's dead, unless the liberalization has time to take root before the autocrat dies.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        If you have sources for this theory, I'd love to see them. From what I've seen, autocracies in developing countries are "more prone to political instability because oppressed citizenries and displaced groups have no other mechanism to voice dissent other than active mobilization in the streets or subversive activities against the state" [1]. Autocracies are only more stable if they can promote "Rentier-state economic systems," like in North Korea, though that comes at the cost of putting that society further and further behind its international peers. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01 https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        No, no sources. I was just saying that, if there was a trend of autocrats trying to liberalize, it was not necessarily inconsistent with a trend of civil war.
    - quuxplusone 2y ago
      Coincidentally, I was just reading this relevant couple of posts when I saw yours: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-khamenei-die https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-kha... https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ Notice the pre-Ukraine-war dates, especially on the former. Quote from the latter: "The aim of just about every Greek tyrant in the long term was to consolidate power into their family in a durable way, which is to say, convert a tyranny into a kingship. [To a first approximation] they all failed."
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    I can't even get myself to write anything about China, because I don't want to sound like a China-shill. But, my entire point is, they course correct. A lot actually. They publish literal documents that can be read as course corrections (Government Work Report). They've shown they're willing to take big risks to achieve their written and published goals. And given the recent developments and their achievements in tech/improving QoL of locals, they deserve respect for accomplishments. They're obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run They should absolutely be taken seriously. But nothing you put forward suggests pivots, but minor course corrections. (Granted, that puts them a rung above most of the world's dictatorships.) What's holding Beijing back is the wolf warrior nonsense from before Covid. China has the best industrial supply chains on the planet within any single border, but their neighbors don't trust them. As a result, America can scale using European, Japanese and Korean (and now Indian and Middle Eastern) assets while China has to rely on itself. (And Russia and Iran, the new sick dogs of Europe and Asia, respectively.) Contrast that with e.g. the Trump-Biden-Trump pivots. A lot of that was and will be chaos. But some of it was fruitful policyspace exploration. (A lot of it was course correcting from previous mistakes.) Like, imagine if we replaced Obama's presidency with W. Bush. That is the handicap Beijing is forced to play with.
      - tokioyoyo 2y ago
        Again, I've been hearing it since 2000s, how China is going to fall. So far, no predictions, especially the forced RE market collapse ones have panned out. I think a lot of people want China to fall, so they can point at the political ideology that's not compatible with ours and say "ha, we told you so!". But it just hasn't happened yet. They're smoking the west in a good chunk sectors as well. Also, I think you're underestimating how quickly public perception can turn if the leader becomes disliked. People will flock to be friendly with China, if there's any need.

lnxg33k1 2y ago

I still remember Russia going to default 2 months into the war… western media is… like media everywhere else

banku_brougham 2y ago
The propaganda is so effective in the west, we really believe the news is news.

NemoNobody 2y ago

No. I'm afraid that this comment demonstrates that you have not researched this topic and are making baseless statements. The reality is that the Chinese population is in crisis, solely and directly due to their societal position of less than replacement reproduction as law, and the consequences of that position over time. 2 ppl = 1 person + repeat x number of times per generation + time, decades of time even... uuhh, how could that not have serious detrimental effects to the replacement rate? We won't see it right away obviously, like with Japan it's taken time to begin to see what it will really look like to have a population age out, but tho long ago predicted, the prediction is still playing out. Population trends are not supposed to move like China's did - had it naturally occured, their would have naturally been an increase too offset, these things happen for reasons. There MUST always be more of us.

tokioyoyo 2y ago
Population problems won't hit them for the next 15 years or so. That's enough time to figure out an immigration solution if nothing else comes up. Just like literally any developed country does, as nobody has positive fertility rates. It's not like no government is aware of their issues, that's the reason why Japan is increasing their immigration targets every year. Despite all the calamity about immigration in the US, they will also keep being immigration friendly for these reason. These problems exist everywhere.
- nradov 2y ago
  Immigration from where? China might allow in a few immigrants from neighboring countries with bad economies but the notion that they would take millions of poor people from South Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Central/South America is just ludicrous. The level of xenophobia and racism in China makes that a non-starter regardless of the consequences. And the scale of their demographic time bomb that will explode in 15-20 years is enormous.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    s/China/Japan/. You could say the same thing, yet they're rolling ahead with immigration reforms. Really underestimating how fast the human nature can change when you're desperate.