The Chinese Economy - Page 4

On September 06 2012 10:09 haduken wrote:
OP, are you able to post a version of your thread without music/pic?

At work at the moment, bored shitless but our PCs are monitored for data usage.

On September 06 2012 02:37 stew_ wrote:
amazing read. could you do one for japan? i've never fully understood why their economy got completely owned in the late 80's.

On September 06 2012 21:28 JieXian wrote:


... that sucks like hell man. What kind of company are you working in? Or is it related to your ISPs?




you know he's Chinese and not Japanese and they are both different things despite both being in Asia right??

... right???

On September 06 2012 21:33 jpak wrote:

Maybe he knows something since he made at least one comparison to it.

I do not know much about China (except in relation to North Korea), but this was a good read. Thanks for writing.

On September 06 2012 05:17 Sub40APM wrote:
This skips a lot of really important stuff on modern Chinese economy. This would be akin to explaining America to someone who knows nothing about America by talking about George W Bush and then Obama.

Specifically:

Yu've managed to skip everything about 1980s style reforms in China, the Zhejiang model and the rise of the genuine capitalist class except for that, now fabled, farmers-blood contract. Why no mention of China's first millionaire and his venture, Idiot's Seeds?

Youve ignored Zhu Ronji reforms in response to the near collapse of the state banking sector and did not mention the big four State owned 'Asset Management Companies' and their balance sheets and interactions with the Big 4 state owned banks.
You've barely touched on local property prices and their importance to local governments' budgets and
literally have one line mentioned the off balance sheet vehicles local governments have set up to hide the debts [by the way, who are they hiding that debt from?]
You've not mentioned the rise of the shadow banking sector in China, nor the rise of the "Investment Managers" that promise 40% returns annually and the concern that this elicits from the PBOC
You havent even touched the currency peg to the dollar and the consequent straight jacket this puts on Chinese monetary policy.
You've also somehow managed to skip the whole privatization scheme for the Big Four banks.
You seem to have understood only half of the reason why Bo Xilai's 'Congqing model' was so popular with so many in the Party and among the general populace. (it was not just about planting trees and building up Chonqing's local SOEs!)
You've confused the already completed quasi-IPOs of stuff like China Telecom and China mobile [in terms of JP Morgan and Goldman inputs] and the future plans for any attempts at privatization.
You've seemed to have completely ignored the inability of either Wen or Hu to get China moving away from its current economic model, consumption as a % of the economy is at an all time low of 38%. This is a historic record.

You have completely ignored the importance of Chinese overseas diaspora in terms of factor relocation, especially Hong Kong's role in it.
You also seemed to have attributed China's strategic decisions, invading Vietnam because Vietnam just invaded China's puppet state Cambodia, with some sort grand bargain with the Americans. The Americans and the Chinese have already become quasi-allies in the 70s due to the antipathy to the Soviet Union. The big breakthrough here occurred under Nixon and Mao and once the Vietnam war was finally wound down nothing stood in the way of the blooming friendship (A couple weeks after the PLA massacred its own people in Tienanmen, George Bush the first sent his NSA and his Secretary of State to toast the Chinese, in Beijing, and to assure them that while publicly he condemned the bloodshed privately the US-PRC alliance against the Soviet Union was still on)

By the way, the projection that 'privatization' and 'quasi-democracy' are coming in 6 more years, that projection has been made in 1996, in 2000, in 2006, and now in 2012. And the total number of state owned firms has fallen. Its just that the ones that are left standing are all massive, and dominate their industries. And somehow mysteriously that final push to privatization never quite happens.



But other than that, its a nice blog post.

If people are genuinely interested in China's economy ya'll should check out these three books:
http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Chinese-Characteristics-Entrepreneurship-State/dp/0521898102/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346876203&sr=8-1&keywords=capitalism with chinese characteristics

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Capitalism-Financial-Foundation-Extraordinary/dp/0470825863/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346876203&sr=8-2&keywords=capitalism with chinese characteristics

http://www.amazon.com/Factions-Finance-China-Conflict-Inflation/dp/B005E014EM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346876239&sr=8-2&keywords=factions and finance china

On September 06 2012 23:29 Shady Sands wrote:

Very good comment. In regard to the last book you linked (Factions & Finance), I'd like to point out that a lot of my own interest in China was sparked when I first met Victor Shih my freshman year of college. He (and Kenneth Dam) were tremendous influences on my decision to go into econ/int'l politics for study and a career.

On September 07 2012 02:25 wklbishop wrote:


I'm a bit dissappointed that you didn't mention how when the leadership saw student protestors, they did not see democracy lovers, rather they saw the Red Guard version 2 and most of the leadership during that time were the ones being beaten the crap out of by the original red guard which was also made up of students. That I feel like is something that people need to understand to truly get China's economic and political thought. .

On September 07 2012 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:

eh? Li Peng was the main driver for a bloody crackdown and no one touched him during the Cultural Revolution. The other guy who was strongly in favor of martial law was Yao Yilin and he also had a relatively harmless Cultural Revolution.
Li Peng's patron, Chen Yun, was 'purged' but not violently, he was demoted from official posts and made a factory manager but by the time the Gang of Four were removed he was in a prominent enough position to petition to have Deng's disgrace and exile overturned.

Zhao Ziyang, on the other hand, was purged during the cultural revolution yet he was also the guy out there negotiating with the students.
Qiao Shi went to jail during the Cultural Revolution and probably suffered the most physical abuse yet instead of voting for the killing of the students he abstained, which was a big deal.
Hu Qili also opposed martial law and was expelled from the standing committee for it.


So I guess I disagree with the way you formulated that. I dont think most members of the standing committee thought the kids out in 89 were like the Red Guards at all. And the ones who suffered the most at the hands of the Red Guards were also the ones who were the most reluctant to actually use force. Considering the fact that Cun Yun wanted to slow down the Deng economic reforms, it seems like a better argument was that the conservative members of the standing committee used the student movement to derail the Deng project.