"Oh woe is us. Who will save us from downing in all this Chinese money."
There were exactly the same concerns about Japanese investment back in the 80s. Now doing business with Japanese firms and companies like Sony owning major American firms is just natural. They're not weird alien creatures from space anymore, they're our business partners and investors. It's normal. The same will happen with China.
This seems to ignore the main objection. It's not that Chinese companies are investing in European economies, it's that these companies are run by the Chinese state, and that China is not providing reciprocal access to its own market to Western companies. This is not natural free-market activity, it is a state-sponsored effort to take technology and expertise from European companies and feed it into state-owned Chinese ones.
For all the fears raised recently about rising Western nationalism and protectionism, the Chinese regime is blatantly and unashamedly nationalist and protectionist as a matter of course. The state decides who wins and who loses, and they will simply not allow foreign companies to gain a dominant market position in any significant sector. All market activity, including foreign investment, is tolerated only so long as it is subservient to the nationalist goal of Chinese hegemony.
For years, Western politicians and businesses have turned a blind eye to China's flagrant disregard for the basic rules of free global trade. Partly out of greed for Chinese money and market access, and partly due to an entirely wishful assumption that this is only a phase, and that China will eventually start playing by the rules and acting like a "normal" free market economy.
This delusion demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how autocratic regimes like China operate. Just as they cannot, and will not, tolerate any significant internal competition to their own authority, they will, in the long term, not tolerate any external competition either, either political, military or economic. The Chinese state will never be satisfied being one powerful economic actor amongst others, all playing by the rules of a global market. They will never accept being checked by laws of trade or other country's interests, any more than they will tolerate being checked by democratic accountability or rule of law.
> The Chinese state will never be satisfied being one powerful economic actor amongst others, all playing by the rules of a global market. They will never accept being checked by laws of trade or other country's interests, any more than they will tolerate being checked by democratic accountability or rule of law.
The same could be said about the US i guess. It's the EU that looks like a naive child on the World Stage...
> The same could be said about the US i guess. It's the EU that looks like a naive child on the World Stage...
Sad but true. As a European I feel embarassed seeing that American, Russian, and Chinese leaders are all carefully protecting their practical interests whereas European leaders seem more concerned with pushing their idealogical dream.
As opposed to "naive child" of EU? Was anyone from the UK tried at the ICC for Iraq war? Anyone from Belgium held responsible for Congo yet? I mean, they have Hague real close, shouldn't be a problem..
So you say that the trade policies of nations and trade unions like the EU are not actions and positions that have to be viewed in their respective geopolitical climate?
> a state-sponsored effort to take technology and expertise from European companies and feed it into state-owned Chinese ones.
These were the terms of the deal between Western and Chinese governing "elite". The West's gamble was that the Chinese would not (could not) maintain their ideological stance when exposed to Western societal norms. The Chinese gamble was that they would catch up and reach technological parity while maintaining their hold on the Chinese nation. No use complaining about it now.
I think you're absolutely right, but most of the harm China's policies cause is inflicted in China. They get less foreign investment, less foreign expertise and their distorted local market increases costs for Chinese consumers and companies. Of course the Chinese government is fine with that as long as it helps them maintain political and economic control.
In contrast, we get a pretty good deal. We get Chinese investment and better access to Chinese markets. Win-win.
Excellent points! It is not a question of capitalism playing out, its state directed (and funded) economic expansion to further the national interest of China (more specifically, Communist Party). You can see this in the "investments" made by China in Africa, and the Chinese string of pearls in the Indian Ocean, among others.
But it is capitalism playing out. Global democracy isn't, but that's disconnected from capitalism lately in certain countries.
If the owners of a shop sell it, they can't complain they are forbidden to open a shop on a private land somewhere, whether or not the buyer happens to be the same.
Same happens on a larger scale too.
Sure, you can complain is not ethical, but capitalistic? This is capitalism itself in its final amalgamated state where countries and big multinationals control large swat of resources.
Who will stop them?
It was all fun and games when corporations were small and countries not experienced in the game, capitalism seems natural in that environment. Nowadays, this is the new reality.
China is capitalist only on the small scale. Huge chunks of the economy are directed by the government and it selects winners and losers all the time.
The goal was capitalist efficiency gains without loss of control. So, yea plenty of people competing to sell lunch, nobody competing supply electricity.
May i point out, that this is a excellent moment to completely and utterly trust the holy st. market to fix itself. After all its a state controlled market economy, attacking a free market economy, it can not win.
Be strong in your faith in the market brother.
Your doubts times of tests of prevents salvation.
What a ridiculous comment. The Chinese Communist Party has not found an "equilibrium" - it imposes it at gunpoint. Freedom of speech does not interfere with economic growth, it underpins it!
There is a difference between stability, which is bottoms up and inherent to the system, and order which is imposed top down. The population already revolts - hundreds of times a year around China. The economy is obviously not efficient; entire ghost cities are a sad example, as is the stock market volatility and extraordinary market interventions by the state of a few months ago.
You come across as a apologist for the current regime.
I hope so. But China is going to be a much larger thing to chew and swallow. Also Japan depended (and does) on "the West" for military protection. And military might ultimately sets the bounds for what you can get away with in trade.
Considering that "the West" is reliant upon China for cheap labor for high tech goods, as much as China is reliant upon exporting to "the West", and with global military powers at a MAD stalemate, I don't think that is much concern for the near future outside of elites figuring out how to maintain their own local monopolies and playing it off the public to get an advantageous deal.
The government had cleared the deal on Sept. 8 but Aixtron said that the Economy Ministry had now canceled the clearance certificate for Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP (FGC), a Chinese investment fund controlled by businessman Zhendong Liu, and planned to reopen a review of the takeover. The decision to rescind the approval was based on “previously unknown security-related information,” Germany’s Deputy Economy Minister Matthias Machnig told German daily newspaper Die Welt, without being more specific.
Aixtron hasn't been doing too well lately. So there is definitely a positive side to an acquisition.
From Aixtron's website on November 17 [1]:
>CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] informed the parties that it plans to recommend to the U.S. President that the transaction be prohibited based on CFIUS’ conclusion that there would be no reasonable way to mitigate the U.S. national security risks perceived by CFIUS on the basis of the mitigation proposals submitted by the parties to date.
> Both, GCI and AIXTRON have decided not to follow such recommendation as a result of which the matter has been referred to the U.S. President for decision in line with CFIUS statutes.
If I understand that correctly, Aixtron SE has investments in the USA and the CFIUS is now moving to block the acquisition because they think if GCI owns these investments that the national security is threatened.
I recall there being an article here a month or so ago about this actual takeover. Basically Aixtron had this large customer in China, but at the last moment, un-expectantly, they cancelled the order. Therefore Aixtron shares plummeted and then this investment fund comes in to buy them out. The article also found that there was a hidden connection between the customer and the investment fund and that both used state money.
So there is definitely something fishy going on, and China as a state is wielding its money to gain all of the technology for itself.
They will have to become more democratic and accountable to their population first. Up to now they have been able to buy off their middle classes with rising incomes, once that stops as it inevitably will those people will start calling for more representation.
China has had a central government for a long time. Before Roman civilization was more than a bunch of farmers.
"people will start calling for more representation"
No, people seldom have started calling for more representation. Rather, a portion of the intelligentsia has yearned for a system with more representation, based either on ideals originating in philosophy (europe) or out of spite of colonial masters (americas).
Now, the question is - based on what philosophical framework would the intelligentsia base their request?
I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just pointing out that a european or american view of history will skew the political intuition around a framework that can lack a basis once one leaves these spheres of influence.
Possibly, but again Japan provides a case study of an alternate possible future for China. Japan also had a massive property bubble which burst spectacularly. It also had a single party with an effective monopoly on political power. Yet they avoided social upheaval and stayed in power, even in a democracy, by drowning the government in debt for decades. AT first the 90's were referred to as the 'lost decade', but even now they're still not out of the woods 26 years in. I think a similar scenario may play out in China. Today's excesses will be paid for by a generation of stagnation.
Interestingly, Trump's economic plan will likely have the same effect in the end. High spending and low taxes will inevitable inflate government debt. In the short term that will create economic stimulus, the current generation of Americans might benefit, but America may well be looking at persistent stagnation for a generation or more after.
Japan was hit by a recession around 2012 (or the aging workforce starts to play a bigger role), but before that the GDP per capita development wasn't actually that bad.
> They will have to become more democratic and accountable to their population first.
I respectfully disagree. There is no need to do it as long as near total control over information is possible - and it is . Western, money-and-profit-oriented business don't see or don't care that any help they deliver in exchange for money will kill them later when internal-external asymmetry of Chinese economical and political system becomes too cumbersome to deal with.
China is positioning itself as a global monopoly externally but cutthroat capitalism internally. External players are allowed in only if they bring more than they take out - again, they might not notice or not think it's a problem.
The CP clearly believes that as long as growth is maintained and people's lives improve, there won't be any political resistance. I'm inclined to agree.
We have a lot of examples of people protesting and calling for more representation when they're not doing well economically but do we have any examples, any evidence, any indication at all of people doing that when things go well economically?
The potential loss of quality of life associated with such resistance failing is massive and the probability of a failure is high. The people have too much to lose by calling for more representation and honestly not that much to gain.
When people are well fed and happy they don't see the need to up end the status quo. When there's no bread for people to eat then heads will roll. Therefore it will be interesting to see how long China can keep the growth up, and if there is ever a bust, what kind of change will happen. For all we know they could just go down the path of having a dictator of some form again.
This is the point I'm trying to make, they have had a long period of economic growth, people will put up with a lot if they see their situation is getting better. The question is what happens when the growth flounders.
You borrow massively to prop up employment and reflate asset markets. The Chinese government has plenty of scope to do this as they are well into the black, holding vast reserves of American treasuries. That gives them a massive war chest, and plenty of scope to assume equally large debts if needs be. They will buy economic stability in return for saddling future generations of Chinese with crippling debt. And it will work.
The growth will of course slow down eventually as it has in Europe and the US. Slow growth might still be considered acceptable enough by most as to not be too much of a problem.
I don't see this happening in the immediate future, except maybe temporarily due to global economic issues. I'd expect it to take at least a decade until this becomes a problem and as the article shows, China is certainly planning that far ahead and is able to execute these plans.
Making and executing long term plans is definitely something China has a significant advantage in compared to the democracies in the west.
A bit like how our own middle classes are not doing so great anymore compared to years prior and how our own population is calling for more representation. Which is why, as speculated by many, Trump got elected and Britain voted in favor of Brexit.
We better make sure we are still relevant by the time the Chinese have some internal chaos.
This is a plenty democratic place, I recommend coming and observing it with your eyes, asking people here questions, and assessing the history of the revolution yourself.
I have been there. I went on a business trip to visit our offshore development office in Beijing. A few of the devs went sightseeing with me one weekend and we ended up going to see the forbidden city. The cab dropped us off at Tienamen Square and I asked if we could spend some time there before going across the street. There was general consternation as to why I was interested in such a boring place. I said I wanted to see where the iconic photo of the man standing in front of the tank was taken, just to pay my respects to such an act of bravery. Not one of the six Chinese devs had ever seen that photo or had any knowledge of what happened there. That history has been censored so completely that very few Chinese are aware of it.
You can't be democratic with that level of censorship. A functioning democracy requires and informed electorate. For proof of this, look no further than the recent US presidential election.
The Tiananmen square incident is well known outside of China but almost nothing else about China is. The average American who can tell you a story about the tank man very likely can't name three Chinese leaders since Mao.
Inside China, educated people tend to be familiar with the event but discussing it with a tourist is absolutely the last thing they are going to do.
There are many possible interpretations of your anecdote, but I wouldn't read too much into it. With all due respect, you brought up a minor (to them) and yet sensitive point of Chinese history, and your guests, reasonably enough, declined to discuss it with you. Another way of saying it might be that you committed a social faux pas and they changed the topic in a way that saved as much face as possible for everyone.
I don't understand why every single discussion about China has to touch this issue and this is the first thing people do when they visit China.
Do you talk to Germans by starting off discussing how Hitler killed millions of people? Do you talk to Japanese people about WW2 and how was the experience being bombed by nukes after saying hello? Do you expect non-US citizens to start talking to you about the massacres of indigenous peoples of the Americas during the first meeting?
You don't go to a country just to re-visit their dark history. Regardless of how bad the censorship is, that is just rude behavior. Show some respect first, if you are really interested, make friends with them, then talk about it, they'd be happy to discuss it with a friend but not a stranger.
The difference is that if you start a discussion with Germans about Hitler, they will probably know more about it then you, because it gets taught in schools.
Bottomline is, every country has its own unpleasant history, maybe China has more of those and is not willing to share them with its citizens. But as a foreigner visiting China, is it a nice gesture to poke about it with people you barely know?
Sorry for being awfully off-topic. Just had to type this out. Won't reply to anything further.
Americans are taught about the atrocities visited on native Americans. I went to high school in the early nineties and we were taught all about it. Get some better info. Or, you know, actually verify the stuff you're conjecturing about.
True, but try talking to a Japanese about WWII, and you'll be surprised how little they know about what happened, it's NOT taught in school, not all the facts.
Government brainwash is not exclusive to communist countries.
As a Chinese I have to say it's hard to believe “Not one of the six Chinese devs had ever seen that photo or had any knowledge of what happened there”, it's more likely they don't want to tell you what they really think.
When I was in Uni, the Tiananmen square videos are all over the university intranet, including the documentary shot by Hongkong journalist and some shorter documentaries made by the west in later times. Everyone in my class has watched them and we all know what happened on 04/06/1989.
The censorship power of chinese government has been greatly over estimated.
My guess is not that it's been censored, per se. I believe that it's been contextualized by the government in a way that's out of alignment with the way the rest of the world views that event. Outside of China, we view that as a symbolic event of an unknown, brave individual standing up to an oppressive government. Inside China, it's likely seen as a relatively inconsequential event. Their reactions to my interest included both "what event are you interested in?" or "why are you interested in that event?"
I don't think this is unique to China and I think it happens to some extent in the US. I think people, especially the right wing Republican voters, are shielded from the viewpoints of the rest of the world on many topics. Having been outside the US for almost the entire election cycle, I don't think most voters in the US realize just how much Trump is ridiculed outside of the US. In the US, the comparison with Clinton is roughly 50-50. Outside the US, I've yet to meet one person who doesn't believe that Trump could be a serious choice. There's recognition that Clinton isn't perfect and we should have nominated someone better, but there's general consternation that our country could have made the choice that it did. Granted, I've been mostly in Asian, Muslim countries where Trump's rhetoric about Muslims has an even greater ring of ignorance to it. But the US media has contextualized a lot of what went on in the election cycle very differently from the way the media in the rest of the world has.
The difference, of course, is that the recontextualizing in China is at the behest of the Chinese government. It's disturbing and dangerous no matter how it happens. But it's undemocratic when the government is the one doing it.
How many of OP's taxi drivers were savvy university graduates in your opinion?
Censorship being soft and porous does not help - it keeps the outrage from bubbling over as the 5% of smart potential leaders who could give a voice to discontent will (a) work around the censors in ways that the 95% can't or don't bother [VPN etc] and their discontent has an outlet, and (b) these 2% can be kept in line by offering or refusing career opportunities based on compliance to the mainstream party line... [if you speak out against current policy, you won't get that professorship or that managerial role or your company returns will be tax audited in a way your corrupt competitors aren't]
You misread the OP, he's talking to 6 dev people, not 6 taxi drivers. I'd be surprised if anyone without a uni degree can find a dev job in a foreign company in Beijing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro censorship. But you and many in the west assume people in China are all brain washed and incapable of seeing their own history. Sure, a large part of the population can't be bothered, but I'd bet it's not 95% as you assumed, and they have increasingly less influence in today's China.
And speaking of which, you don't think the west is ruled by 2% of elites and manipulate the media to tame the rest?
I doubt if they really understood which event you were referring to or if they ever told the truth. My dad was an undergraduate in 1989 in China, and he constantly tells me what he had suffered during those days. So I'm pretty clear about what happened back then. I used to discuss this event with my friends and most of them had heard about it.
Even if it's not in the history textbook and it's not allowed to be discussed in the public, most of the Chinese citizens who were alive in 1989 have heard of this event. I can't say children in next generations would remember it, but at least in 2016, Chinese people do remember it.
Other way around....it's censored but the event aren't given the historical importance...so someone might be aware a rash of protests broke out that day but not the tank dude or how big they were.
A bit like how some countries gloss over wars they lost or ended in a true....China takes it to the next level for some reason...it's not like the tank ran over the dude.
You just have the confirmation bias. That is it. I am sure most Chinese know about it. Do you know Chinese call that event way differently from the English version? Not some direct translation. Show some respect, don't try to prove how knowledgeable you are and how brainwashed Chinese are.
There were exactly the same concerns about Japanese investment back in the 80s. Now doing business with Japanese firms and companies like Sony owning major American firms is just natural. They're not weird alien creatures from space anymore, they're our business partners and investors. It's normal. The same will happen with China.