Edwynn
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk
quote:
ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
You would never guess it from the media coverage, but the change in the guard in Beijing is of roughly equal importance to the recent US Presidential election. It's yet another indication of how unbalanced and Western-centred our 'free press' in the West is.
China, with its billion plus people, is the world's second biggest economy. Within a decade or two, it will overtake the US economy to become the world's biggest. China's purchase of US T-bonds has kept the US afloat for recent years. It is often referred to as the world's "factory".
We really need to know what is happening inside China, and our media are failing badly in their role of keeping us informed about events in that enormous country. The shift in power and wealth from West to East is happening in front of our eyes and it's vital that we are fully informed about events in the 'Middle Kingdom'.
It is wishful thinking that the press whether US or International would be able to penetrate China enough to get what is going on within the PRC Gov't. It just isn't plausible.
I don't really agree that they are within decades of taking over the US Economy in size. That would assume ours will not grow at all. Or that there will be no setbacks there. The over growth driven by hosting the Olympics is long gone and they are living on a lower plain of growth right now. Time will tell if this is enough to keep employment in check and allow them to grow the middle class more.
What I think we fail to see from our view is the age old disputes they have with other countries in the region. Whether those disputes are closed or simply boiling beneath the surface. Those things could cause the US and the West real problems.
One thing that I do agree with is that we need to talk about China more, explore where they are and why and what effects that will have on us.
Well, at least you're paying attention, in a manner that more people need to be paying attention, instead of being antagonistic, for its own sake.
In my international econ class, (which, people should know; the universities were far ahead of Guantanamo, regarding torture, the uni being test ground for that), I had to write a paper on the Chinese domestic economy, which means I actually had to do some research of some sort.
They still have the "five year plan" thing in place. But aside the (still existent) Communist Party still held together ( because it's still about power, howevermuch the actions of the US woke them up to that fact or not), we are seeing a new way of doing "Capitalism."
They have to worry about domestic inflation, and, as counter-intuitive as this might be, local wages and appreciation of the yuan are the remedies to that. The mild recessions in the US
in the fifties had mostly to do with greater productivity resulting in temporary over capacity, from which such recession was ultimately alleviated when the proceeds of that greater productivity was parceled out to the workers (or, at least some of them).
This is what China is going through now. It is not going to be a neat process, they are still relentlessly commodity-grabbing, as we speak. But they are making a F*ck of a lot less noise about it than the US, or the Brits did most recently before that.
< Message edited by Edwynn -- 11/16/2012 12:08:36 AM >
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