China Expat makes some interesting observations in comparing the latest Chinese growth to current day Japan. It’s interesting the perspectives taken are a very westernized look at how China compares up with the rest of the world. Westerners seem to view China as Japan’s successor in economics, with the stock markets to burst at any day now and their technology being inferior to anything in the West. Even with the latest move by the United States to strongarm China due to manufacturing practices and safety regulations alongside the whole “environmental” factor that China Expat had no problems mentioning.
However, on the flip side, I personally find that the communist government and the piracy and other types of “hinders” are what makes China powerful. What’s taken the West to bring about advances in the last fifty years, China is doing in ten. The growth is a controlled explosion all the while playing on other nation’s greed to drive their economic growth forward. For example, no one bothers to point out that the manufacturing practices have been going on the same fashion for the last two decades yet, suddenly in 2007, the American government mysteriously finds out? Screams of a political play to me. Stock market ready to burst? Not on your life. Someone will get executed for corruption before that happens. And when people point the finger overseas at the corruption in the Chinese government, perhaps they should take a look at what’s under our own roof with the Abramoff scandal.
In my opinion, China is far from where Japan fell economically and in a different environment entirely. Growth is controlled, yet much of the reins have been let go for sake of capitalism. It’s amazing the things that greed can foster, eh? In any case, the Chinese won’t have the same blowout recession as Japan. Not by a long shot.
(Photo credit: Charles Chan)
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ancient one wrote:
A few somewhat random notes on this subject:
It shouldn’t be surprising that the blog is from a western viewpoint, given that the web site seems aimed at expatriates living in China.
Corruption is not an absolute, the are scales of corruption. According to Transparency international, Singapore is less corrupt than the US, which is less corrupt than China.
Are you saying the stock market in China will never burst? I seem to remember hearing similar things in Silicon Valley during the late 90’s, and I recall people saying that about real estate just a few years ago. When people tell me that some market can never go down, I want to run for the exits - bubble coming! I would expect that someone would get executed after the bubble bursts, not before. Alibaba stock fairly valued? Hmm.
China is like Japan (and much of the West including the US) in that it will have the same issues with the graying of the population as Japan is now experiencing. China’s experience will be exacerbated because of the 1 child rule.
Posted on 14-Nov-07 at 11:13 pm | Permalink
Phil wrote:
Always defending and bragging on China. Folks like you keep asians in the perpetual foreigner category.
Posted on 05-Dec-07 at 7:30 am | Permalink