The China Thread

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

Yes, vastly superior, like years, maybe a decade ahead already, and they will only continue to pull further ahead while the west demographics change. I have friends from China, and their families back home are amazed at the conditions of the USA compared to China. Granted, it is Shanghai and the larger areas these people are from, but the USA is becoming primitive v. these areas.

China definitely has quite a bit of high tech that was handed to them by Western multi-nationals or other Western individuals, and they might have even innovated one or two things, but after living there I find it difficult to believe they can implement it large scale the way we do in the West.

The in-joke among foreigners and locals was that Shanghai was so much better than anywhere else in the country that it wasn't even really China. Shanghai is its most advanced city, but I also see the problems that show how inconsistently "advanced" China really is and that much of it is a facade, like the Ghost Cities, the fake GDP based on fake stats, etc.

In 2009 a brand new 13-storey apartment building in Shanghai just fell over on its side while the final inspector was checking it before occupancy, and sadly he perished. https://archive.is/QmiB

There was a high speed rail head-on collision in 2011 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, and the govt. literally buried the train cars in an attempt to cover up the story.

Chinese anger over alleged cover-up of high-speed rail crash

Authorities accused of muzzling media coverage after crash in Zhejiang province kills at least 38 people and injures 192

www.theguardian.com

I worked in aviation and the young men training to repair aircraft came from families who could afford college, which means out of thousands I knew, only a handful had ever changed a bicylce tire because they had always paid someone else to do that.

None had ever checked the oil of an engine of any kind, and that remained true during their two years in aviation repair college, where they mostly memorized Maoist theory and, despite few of them even being conversational in English, were also required to memorize reams of English text about exotic tools I'd never heard of. There was other, more practical material in the curriculum, like some simulators, but not much.

Next, they got about six months of formal on-the-job training before assignemnt to a crew. I knew one of the crew leaders because he was my landlord back in the city, and he was sharp enough to troubleshoot and repair common problems in some very mature technology.

He explained to me that he supervised by watching everything very closely and that's my admittedly limited understanding of how Chinese technology works: one smart-enough supervisor watching 10-15 guys who can turn a wrench if you tell them exactly where, exactly how, and then double-check their work. But you can't double-check all that work and the results showed it. Western aviation inspectors told me it was just barely good enough to not get failed: C- or D+.

Our inter-dependence on China has resulted in the rising of their quality of living and a lowering of ours, as well as our technological standards, such that we seem to be headed to a final resting place in the middle. While we don't have high speed rail in the USA and there are many other problems, my daily life in a Tier-1 city in China was less technologically advanced than here, and every "advancement" they had contained many frustrating bugs.

But hey, I'm just one guy and that's my take on it.

 

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

The thing is China has such a huge population that the sheer number of smart engineers, data scientists, etc is quite large compared to USA and Europe even if the percentage of smart people is much less.

This is a logical statement until you meet many thousand Chinese over a period of many years. They do have some number of smart people, but it's not even logarithmic.

 

[thinkreadwritecode]

This is a logical statement until you meet many thousand Chinese over a period of many years. They do have some number of smart people, but it's not even logarithmic.

The other flaw in the logic is assuming smart people are good for society without taking into account their morality, culture, religion, and how they were brought up. I personally don't know if raw intelligence is sufficient to advance a society peaceably. I read a book 'China, Inc' back in 2008 or 2009 that detailed a lot of economic activity the Chinese engage in, and it's essentially wholesale theft and ripping companies off, because to the Chinese, it would be shameful not to steal the source code. As Tolkien once said, evil cannot create, it can only distort and destroy what has been made by the forces of good.

 

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

The other flaw in the logic is assuming smart people are good for society without taking into account their morality, culture, religion, and how they were brought up. I personally don't know if raw intelligence is sufficient to advance a society peaceably. I read a book 'China, Inc' back in 2008 or 2009 that detailed a lot of economic activity the Chinese engage in, and it's essentially wholesale theft and ripping companies off, because to the Chinese, it would be shameful not to steal the source code. As Tolkien once said, evil cannot create, it can only distort and destroy what has been made by the forces of good.

In China, outside of decent white collar jobs, if you apply to some factory you will have trouble getting hired if you come off as someone smart enough to steal. The reason is that it is very common and pretty much socially acceptable to rip off your boss's business by learning his trade, snagging his supplier and client list, stealing some money, and then setting up an identical business literally next door to him, next revealing to his clients all of his costs as well as the various profit margins he makes off each different customer, so they have leverage to force him into negotiations, and finally, if your old boss is somehow still in business, undercut him. I knew several business men who told me about how this happened to them and all of them seemed like decent guys, which was exceptional. The one guy I knew the best was betrayed by his cousin.

 

[Samseau]

Supposedly the Chinese have these excellent family values and yet, they just killed their families less than 25% of their country will be reproducing. I don't think the old family culture will survive such a shock.

 

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

They were conned into the one-child policy by those who sent Kissinger, a trade-off for becoming "partners" with the West, which was demographic suicide from which there is not really any feasible recovery. It's not total extinction, but the perverse outcomes from the one-child policy have almost put a final nail into China's coffin after Mao had driven in the previous however many just before the casket was lowered.

I hope there is a long-term benefit to China being raised up from cannibalistic poverty because no one deserves to go through that kind of hell on earth. Chinese people are very predictable and there is nothing to gain from ginning up a war with them or imagining they are our true enemies. We have made them our rivals; our so-called leaders did this. It doesn't have to go past that.

 

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

The last three Chinese presidents were all engineers. You can't be world leaders in infrastructure, civil engineering, transport, logistics, semiconductors, EVs etc with a low-IQ labor force. BYD employs 105,000 people in its R&D department. China graduates 5 million STEM students every year, their universities are now world class.

I don't know man. I met too many of these engineers who knew absolutely nothing.

I had a foreign friend who worked at an LED company and knew an electrical engineer there who'd been out of college for maybe 10 years on the job at factories producing lighting and other electrical components. For no reason whatsoever he plugged in a 100 meter long by 1 meter wide spool of LED lights while it was still rolled up, apparently thinking, "Hey, these LED's produce very little heat, so this will be fine."

As any person who's ever done anything with electricity would expect, the spool melted down in a short time because it was rolled tightly and self-insulating. This is a typical story of Chinese STEM in my experience.

I personally knew a girl with a masters in Chemistry from a major university. Not one of the top 4, but I think it was Nanjing Univ. She did not know what the periodic table of elements was.

As far as Chinese IQ, this is the best overview of the evolutionary dynamics which has shaped Chinese culture in the last 4,000 years, from Ron Unz:

American Pravda: The Racial Roots of China's Rise

Challenging Nine Nobel Laureates in Economics Although the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was not one of the awards originally established by Alfred Nobel, most of the world's population and media treat it as such, with that impression strengthened because it is announced around the...

www.unz.com

More specifically:

How Social Darwinism Made Modern China

A thousand years of meritocracy shaped the Middle Kingdom.

www.unz.com

Thanks, I will read this.

 

[Australia Sucks]

The other advantage that China has is that their economy is arguably less financialized and so a lot of their brightest minds end up in STEM jobs as opposed to the USA where a lot of the best and brightest end up working on wall street or working as lawyers and doing nothing productive for society because those are by far the most well compensated positions financially.

 

[Samseau]

Incredible takedown of China by ZH yesterday:

Beijing Stops Publishing "Hundreds Of Statistics" To Cover Up Economic Collapse | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Basically, the situation is China is so bad they've just stopped publishing their stats. They can't even fake it anymore, China is dying like the old USSR.

Their entire command economy was predicated on selling cheap stuff to the USA. The COVID lockdowns ruined them, and now the tariffs are finishing them off.

All those nice shiny cities across China are just bubble cities. There are no fundamentals underneath them. Youth unemployment is estimated to be over 50%.

 

[Thomas More]

The other advantage that China has is that their economy is arguably less financialized and so a lot of their brightest minds end up in STEM jobs as opposed to the USA where a lot of the best and brightest end up working on wall street or working as lawyers and doing nothing productive for society because those are by far the most well compensated positions financially.

I have had the understanding that China is leveraged to the hilt with massive under-collateralized debt.

 

[Cooper]

I have had the understanding that China is leveraged to the hilt with massive under-collateraized debt.

The main bubble in China was their real estate bubble, which was popped earlier this decade. This was a somewhat conscious political decision, because Chinese planners wanted to redirect bank loans towards businesses and growing sectors like the auto and semiconductor markets. They've also made that decision in order to keep housing affordable for young families and rural migrants who aren't part of the 90% home ownership class.

Incredible takedown of China by ZH yesterday:
Basically, the situation is China is so bad they've just stopped publishing their stats. They can't even fake it anymore, China is dying like the old USSR.
Their entire command economy was predicated on selling cheap stuff to the USA. The COVID lockdowns ruined them, and now the tariffs are finishing them off.
All those nice shiny cities across China are just bubble cities. There are no fundamentals underneath them. Youth unemployment is estimated to be over 50%.

The US market represents 17% of China's exports, and the export market itself is less than 1/5 the size of their domestic market, so US exports represent today around 3% of their GDP. The Chinese anticipated this moment, going back to the first Trump mandate, and planned ahead, aggressively developing markets like SE or Central Asia, Africa, LatAm etc.



Also, China's economy is not at all a command economy like the USSR, it is an hybrid economy where the government pushes certain industries or general guidelines, but also creates and leverages very high levels of market competitiveness in order to achieve its goals. That's the reason they dominate the EV market today, they started out with nearly 400 EV companies and now are down to few dozen, which will further whittle into a handful of mega companies, economies of scale being a major factor in that industry. The domestic competition in China is cutthroat, this is not Mao's or Stalin's economy.

Youth unemployment in China is high due to a glut of recent college graduates who can't find work in their field and won't settle for more menial jobs, and the fact that China has a very large population of GenX and relatively few Boomers (see their population pyramid below). That's the reason youth unemployment is very low in countries like Canada or the UK with very large Boomer populations that have already started retiring 10 years ago creating a lot of demand for new grads.



As to the US tariffs, it's going to be a standoff between Trump and Xi, both countries will take short term hits, the US will have high inflation and shortages on products like say, toasters at Walmart or furniture at Target, while China will lose around 2% of its market. I think they will come to a compromise later this year in anticipation of the US midterm elections.

 

[Samseau]

The US market represents 17% of China's exports, and the export market itself is less than 1/5 the size of their domestic market, so US exports represent today around 3% of their GDP. The Chinese anticipated this moment, going back to the first Trump mandate, and planned ahead, aggressively developing markets like SE or Central Asia, Africa, LatAm etc.

Sorry man, but your stats look bogus. Just CCP fake stats that they won't even publish anymore. Meanwhile I've never seen ZH make a wrong call since they started in 2008.

If ZH says China is in deep trouble, then you'd be a fool to bet against it.

 

[Cooper]

Sorry man, but your stats look bogus. Just CCP fake stats that they won't even publish anymore. Meanwhile I've never seen ZH make a wrong call since they started in 2008.

If ZH says China is in deep trouble, then you'd be a fool to bet against it.

I haven't gone to ZH that much in the past few years, but my impression is that ZH leans ziocon. They are pro-Russia and anti-China generally speaking. It's a decent alternative source on domestic politics and outside the box business reporting, but they are more than halfway towards Gordon Chang/Peter Zeihan and RW China doomers when it comes to China.

About 80%-90% of reporting on Russia and the Ukraine war is fake. What makes you think some of that doesn't apply to China as well?

 

[Samseau]

I haven't gone to ZH that much in the past few years, but my impression is that ZH leans ziocon. They are pro-Russia and anti-China generally speaking. It's a decent alternative source on domestic politics and outside the box business reporting, but they are more than halfway towards Gordon Chang and RW China doomers when it comes to China.

About 80%-90% of reporting on Russia and the Ukraine war is fake. What makes you think some of that doesn't apply to China as well?

Ziocon is pro Russia? You're not making any sense.

ZH is pro truth and they have the best track record of any news source today.

ZH is critical of everyone and everything. They are a buzzsaw that does not mince words.

 

[Cooper]

Ziocon is pro Russia? You're not making any sense.

There are a lot of Russian Jews that are pro-Israel and pro-Russia.

ZH is pro truth and they have the best track record of any news source today.

Here's a ZH article from today, I could do without that kind of ZOG apologism:

Pulitzer Prize Awarded To Palestinian Writer Accused Of Virulent And Antisemitic Commentary | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

 

[Samseau]

There are a lot of Russian Jews that are pro-Israel and pro-Russia.

Russia is one of the few countries that actually criticize Israel and call Gaza war "collective punishment."

Here's a ZH article from today, I could do without that kind of ZOG apologism:

Pulitzer Prize Awarded To Palestinian Writer Accused Of Virulent And Antisemitic Commentary | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

That's not ZH. ZH is just linking to someone who espousing a certain view. Anytime you see, "Authored by XXX" then it's not ZH. ZH links to a wide variety of opinions not their own in order to generate clicks, present a wide range of views (as they are pro free speech and pro debate).

For an actual ZH opinion, it won't say "authored by" anywhere in the article. It will be the editorial. Those are few and far between, and they are always accurate (so far). ZH is making the claim China is a house of cards and they rarely make such claims, except when they are very confident, such as when they called out the Russia hoax, or that Russia would prevail, or that tariffs would actually work out okay.

They are economists and real thinkers and I have yet to see them make any big misses. But they are still a blog that publishes a wide variety of sources in order to generate clicks, which is why the attribute it to a source. That's not reflective of ZH staff.

 

[Cooper]

Russia is one of the few countries that actually criticize Israel and call Gaza war "collective punishment."

That's not ZH. ZH is just linking to someone who espousing a certain view. Anytime you see, "Authored by XXX" then it's not ZH. ZH links to a wide variety of opinions not their own in order to generate clicks, present a wide range of views (as they are pro free speech and pro debate).

For an actual ZH opinion, it won't say "authored by" anywhere in the article. It will be the editorial. Those are few and far between, and they are always accurate (so far). ZH is making the claim China is a house of cards and they rarely make such claims, except when they are very confident, such as when they called out the Russia hoax, or that Russia would prevail, or that tariffs would actually work out okay.

They are economists and real thinkers and I have yet to see them make any big misses. But they are still a blog that publishes a wide variety of sources in order to generate clicks, which is why the attribute it to a source. That's not reflective of ZH staff.

Who is "they" here? The owner is a Bulgarian guy with limited credentials and a Jewish-sounding name. Who are the other people?

ZH is making the claim China is a house of cards

A lot of pundits have been making these kinds of claims for several decades now, they have never even come close to materializing. Those predictions are based more on folklore than anything else, no substance. China is on the verge of cornering the world auto market, artificial intelligence and pretty soon civil aviation and semiconductors, just to name a few key sectors.

Published in 2001.

 

[Samseau]

Who is "they" here? The owner is a Bulgarian guy with limited credentials and a Jewish-sounding name. Who are the other people?




A lot of pundits have been making these kinds of claims for several decades now, they have never even come close to materializing. Those predictions are based more on folklore than anything else, no substance. China is on the verge of cornering the world auto market, artificial intelligence and pretty soon civil aviation and semiconductors, just to name a few key sectors.

Published in 2001.

That's cool, back in 2008 after the crash ZH was telling people to buy and invest into China and that they would profit huge from the growing trade deficit. So ZH was right on the money then, and there's no reason to doubt them now.

Your bias is clouding your mind, you are reflexly anti-American, but ZH is ultra critical of America as well. But they are fair, and that's the difference. You can be neutral and evaluate things as they are, not as we would like them to be.

China will either: 1.) Release insane stimulus or 2.) bend the knee to Trump.

And option 1 is just a "kick the can down the road" kind of solution, it's not a real solution. China is a house of cards. Over 1/3 of their economy depends on selling to the USA, and they are indebted much worse than America or Europe.

You were telling me that Ukraine would run out of missles/tanks, you were wrong back then too. China is in a terrible position right now and they will be forced to submit to America during Trump's presidency.

 

[Caduceus]

 

[Cooper]

That's cool, back in 2008 after the crash ZH was telling people to buy and invest into China and that they would profit huge from the growing trade deficit. So ZH was right on the money then, and there's no reason to doubt them now.
Your bias is clouding your mind, you are reflexly anti-American, but ZH is ultra critical of America as well. But they are fair, and that's the difference. You can be neutral and evaluate things as they are, not as we would like them to be.
China will either: 1.) Release insane stimulus or 2.) bend the knee to Trump.
And option 1 is just a "kick the can down the road" kind of solution, it's not a real solution. China is a house of cards. Over 1/3 of their economy depends on selling to the USA, and they are indebted much worse than America or Europe.

Our main point of contention here is in the bolded part. The largest trading blocks for China today are ASEAN, the EU, and the US in that order, with the US representing between 13% and 17% of Chinese exports. As well, a significant part of these exports are items that cannot be easily replaced like phones, PCs, batteries etc and key inputs in the US supply chain. It's not just toasters and dollar store trinkets.

You were telling me that Ukraine would run out of missles/tanks, you were wrong back then too. China is in a terrible position right now and they will be forced to submit to America during Trump's presidency.

They did pretty much run out of AA missiles, the Russians have been able to drop glide bombs with impunity across the frontlines. They are running short on shells, cannons and tanks as well. What they still have in large numbers are cheap drones.

I don't think Trump can sustain his curent tariff regime without a significant jump in inflation and shortages on many products imported from China, the current policy is going to come at a political cost going into the midterm elections. Therefore I think both parties will meet halfway later this year.