I think figuring out what it is that China wants will go a long way to deciding how far Asian countries and the US need to go to counter China. Though the Chinese communists' irredentist ambitions make complete accommodation impossible.
One slight mitigating factor in terms of China's size is that the working age population has already peaked.
That factor IMO is actually a very big one. Due to population momentum it's looking like the working age population will fall by at least a third from its peak over the coming decades, while retirees more than double. They created a massive, historically unprecedented tailwind for themselves with the one child policy following the biggest baby boom in history, then invested heavily around it like a company - But that's going to reverse and become quite the headwind, further exacerbated by a huge gender imbalance unique to China. I've no idea how to gauge just how big an impact it will have though, but I really wonder.
Gender imbalance is definately not a good thing. A lot of otherwise unoccupied males.... sending them off to war seems like something that will pop into someones mind sooner or later.
Because of this post you sent me down a Google trail, talking about the missing women of China. Which also led me to the aging population of China. 25% will be retirement age by 2050. It kind of made me bearish on China’s future.
There are no 'missing women'. That was a propaganda meme, like 'ghost cities' and invisible massacres. Nor is aging a problem for a country whose retirement ages are 50/55 and whose productivity doubles every ten years.
Great article, I agree and feel like this is soon to be the biggest challenge going forward. The sooner the West and allies get serious strategically the more options they will still have (kinda like with covid). However, I feel like the role of age demographics doesn't get looked at enough in regards to the rise of the Chinese economy and its economic model. Surely the massive baby boom they had roughly in the 60-70's and the one child policy that followed (leading to few dependents for them) played a big role? Now the consequences are starting to hit and its demographics look worse than all but the very worst in east Asia. Notable is when they ended the one child policy, births only went up for a single year before hitting new lows. In comparison, its developing neighbors and US demographics look quite good. As the shrinking of the Chinese work force accelerates, how big an effect do you think it will have?
Let's not forget African nations in this gang. I heard an interesting Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast recently with a former minister of Liberia. His point was that China was willing to engage economically with a part of the world that at the time Western countries only looked at from a humanitarian aid perspective. Given the crippling shortage of infrastructure in parts of Africa, it is hard to imagine them forming a coalition with the rest of Asia or the West. I agree with you that trade pacts and long term alliances are needed, not least because China is capable and willing to play the long game and can plan across time horizons that no democracy can.
RCEP is the 1st among a pack of aces fielded by PRC in COVID times for the struggling nations of the ASEAN ! RCEP has knitted the ASEAN into the PRC garment.dindooohindoo
The PRC has identified for the world,the “gateway to enter PRC”, via ASEAN. As time passes,wage increases and the rise in cost of living,in urban agglomerations,will provide the impetus to outsource,and shift manufacturing,to ASEAN.Rising costs are a signal,of the obsolescence of the business model and technology – and the driver,to re-engineer the manufacturing value chain.
This outsourcing to ASEAN,will soak up the entire manufacturing capacity of ASEAN,boosting profits and wages in ASEAN nations.Chinese can partake in this wealth creation,in the ASEAN nations,as under:
Lending to ASEAN companies by Chinese Banks like CCB etc.
VC and PE stakes in ASEAN companies,with exits on the HKEX or NYSE
JV with ASEAN companies
Hence,there will be a continuous pipeline of transfer of technology and products from PRC to ASEAN at a competitive cost,and with a stand-by financing from Chinese Banks.
This will make the ASEAN people and the ASEAN governments DEPENDENT on PRC,and enable ASEAN to be partners in the PRC success story.Thereafter,excluding Nippon and South Korea,no other nation will ally with the Americans,and might also, not allow their ports,to be used by the US Navy – as the financial and economic loss,will be tangible and huge – with no ostensible strategic benefits,to the ASEAN nations.
RCEP has knitted the ASEAN into the PRC garment.
Meanwhile PRC companies can focus on AI,Robotics and Nano to drive up the manufacturing value chain – with collaborations with EU companies and keep the Chinese skilled workers at the cutting edge of change.
Simultaneous with the above, the RCEP region (minus Nippon and Australia) can use the Yuan as the FX and even conclude agreements with OPEC or Saudis,and other Break Bulk Raw Material supply nations,to settle all purchases in Yuan (for the RCEP,as trading block).
History,Geneaology,Providence,Culture and Geography,have destined PRC and ASEAN,to be an integrated block.
What place does India have,in the block ?
Nippon and Aussies bring in technical and management excellence (which India never had )
Pakistan HAS to be given a choice to join RCEP,on the thesis that any SEZ of PRC,or a ASEAN owned SEZ o/s ASEAN, with an investment of,in excess of say,USD 35 Billion,can be DEEMED to be an EXTENSION,of the RCEP.
POST RCEP, The Path for EU manufacturers is as clear,as the white sand on a black clay beach.German manufacturers have to relocate to ASEAN,for manufacturing,and THEN export to PRC,else they will lose tarriff and non-tarriff costs,of at least 5-10%.
For those who complain about manufacturing regulations in PRC,and the costly and complex legal systems in PRC,the solution is to make in ASEAN,and seek legal redressal in ASEAN – and further,export their output to PRC.This will also secure the EU manufacturers,who wish to secure their assets,in democracies”.
The inevitable crisis of AI,Nano and Robotics,will make most humans redundant,even in EU manufacturing.The least the EU can do,is to offshore production to ASEAN,to crash the costs for EU consumers – so that,if the EU has to feed 200 million people (after they are rendered redundant),they can be fed at the lowest cost.
If the EU is PROTECTING its markets and industry, from the Chinese invasion,and thus,forfeiting unrestricted access for EU exporters to the market of PRC – that is a disaster -as the current manufacturing in EU,will ,in any case, become obsolete.
You're arguing against a strawman. The question is not whether the Asians can balance China; the question is whether the Asians, even with the United States can balance China in the long run. The issue is one of horizons. In the short term, the United States enjoys a significant military and diplomatic edge. In particular, it enjoys maritime primacy in the Western Pacific still, even though China's reconaissance-strike complex can hold US surface assets at risk; and, importantly, the US enjoys escalation dominance for the simple reason that it enjoys nuclear superiority over China. Diplomatically, the United States can count all the rich, important and competent states in the world as its permanent allies. China's got North Korea and maybe Cambodia. Russia is as much a competitor as an ally. https://twitter.com/policytensor/status/1321897273530351616
In the medium term, China will perhaps grow larger and tower over others around it. We're sort of at the turn of the century stage if you take the American clock. But then it faces the extreme challenge of demographic decline, if indeed not the vanishing of productivity growth as well. So the long term is hard to predict. What is clear is that it will be a pole of the system. Indeed, my wager has been that we're looking at a tripolar world virtually in perpetuity. https://policytensor.com/2015/01/03/what-will-be-the-polarity-of-the-international-system-in-2100/
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I'm not sure I agree with your read of Germany -- I think the evidence from Tooze and DeLong is that German productive capacity was not so enormous; instead, it was their military prowess and extraordinary daring that made them such a formidable foe.
Historical correction : Germany was not alone fighting WW1. It had the Austro-Hungarian empire as partner (about 50 million people, third industrial producer in Europe...) and the Ottoman Empire. The latter, although less industrialised, opened a lot of fronts that depleted Allied forces resources. It was not called World War for nothing ! The fate of both empires after the war should be a strong lesson for Russia today. Choosing the wrong partner can be fatal...
China will grow more in 2021 than any country in world history has ever grown, adding $2.4 trillion to its economy.
And by next June, 2021 there will be more hungry children, drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, and imprisoned people in America than in China.
As for "China claims Taiwan," it does so because Taiwan is part of China, according to the constitutions of both Taiwan and the PRC and, of course, the United Nations.
And abut "absorbing all of their territories and populations into its nation as it did with Tibet and Xinjiang, it did so before the UK did the same with Wales, so the issue has passed its sell-by date for most sane observers.
All of these 'terrified' neighbors have deepened and strengthened their relationships with China, as the signing of the RCEP agreement last week demonstrates. As a resident of SE Asia, can tell you that China's neighbors have both high opinions of China and high expectations of prospering with China's help.
Why not refute my claims with contrary evidence? Generally, people use ad hominem attacks like yours for one of four reasons:
1. You believe that an argument is a simple competition in which winning or dominating is the goal.
2. You believe that the absolutely correct position is already known to you but do not wish to reveal it.
3. You believe that argument is entirely about social positioning: that the only meaningful outcome concerns which person looks best in the eyes of third parties.
4. You mistakenly assess your cognitive ability as greater than it is and, by inference, greater than the person you are attacking (the Dunning–Kruger effect).
Godfree Roberts is a propagandist for the Chinese regime; his answers on Quora are hallucinogenic. Even Wumaos think he's way over the top.
His manipulation of statistics is worthy of the world's most dedicated tankies.
His claim that China's stats are as good (as reliable?) as Canada's is spurious. Not one analyst, even inside China, believes this. They all use incredibly jury-rigged proxies to get at real data.
"Cherry picked" would be charitable to describe these sorts of claims.
Ok, three more things. (Sorry, this China stuff takes up an inordinate amount of my brain space):
- How much of this China stuff is about America being big dog? I hear a lot of China takes from Americans, and the undertone seems to be we Americans will be the hero’s once again! To be honest, I think I’m susceptible to thinking and fall into it a lot.
- Are we have ignoring human rights abuse we could, arguably, more easily impact (I.e. Starvation in Yemen) because it doesn’t connect to the hero American complex as much (or for other reasons)? And more importantly, does that undercut are credibility vis a vis China?
- What are specific things the US might participate in (as opposed to lead), which might provide more leverage for other democratic countries?
- This exchange between Tyler Cowen always gets me:
COWEN: “Given Taiwan’s remarkable success with the pandemic, its amazing success with high-quality semiconductor chips, why are there in relative terms so few successful Taiwanese software companies? And to what features of the Taiwanese psyche do you attribute that?”
Tang: “ There are very successful Taiwanese software companies. They are new in the software world. Trend Micro is another one. But because these are less directly to users, to customers, and so maybe they are less well known, that’s a fact. The Taiwanese psyche, I think, is mostly about being okay with that. I guess the hashtag #TaiwanCanHelp, #TaiwanIsHelping really says it on the tin, that we don’t quite do this egoism. You don’t have to thank Taiwan every 20 seconds if our innovations have helped you. We really just want the world to be better.”
- What measure(s) do you use to evaluate China’s economic performance? Is there a specific data source you trust? My buddy in China said it’s tough to find a job now, but it’s unclear whether his situation is representative of a larger trend.
By alternative indicators, I am referring to how people track electricity consumption etc. as an indicator of economic growth. So, if this is what you mean, then yes I’m interested.
That being said, my question was pretty tangential to the post, so no rush responding.
Unemployment figures are contested everywhere. People like John Williams, to whose expensive newsletter(http://www.shadowstats.com), most large corporations subscribe, and former Treasury Undersecretary and professor Paul Craig Roberts put our real unemployment at 20%.
Certainly, China's labor force participation has been much higher than ours, which suggests that their unemployment stats are closer to the truth.
By far the best source is the Chinese government. It's stats are as good as Canada's, for example. See The quality of China's GDP statistics☆ by Carsten A. HOLZ ⁎
Godfree Roberts is a propagandist for the Chinese regime; his answers on Quora are hallucinogenic. Even Wumaos think he's way over the top.
His manipulation of statistics is worthy of the world's most dedicated tankies.
His claim that China's stats are as good (as reliable?) as Canada's is spurious. Not one analyst, even inside China, believes this. They all use incredibly jury-rigged proxies to get at real data.
"Cherry picked" would be charitable to describe these sorts of claims.
You hide behind a false name and, without evidence, insult people who don't.
Why not refute my claims with contrary evidence? Generally, people use ad hominem attacks like yours for one of four reasons:
1. You believe that an argument is a simple competition in which winning or dominating is the goal.
2. You believe that the absolutely correct position is already known to you but do not wish to reveal it.
3. You believe that argument is entirely about social positioning: that the only meaningful outcome concerns which person looks best in the eyes of third parties.
4. You mistakenly assess your cognitive ability as greater than it is and, by inference, greater than the person you are attacking (the Dunning–Kruger effect).
I'm familiar with your work in several forums. I also speak with Chinese people who are aware of you. You appear in various media making the most absurd possible claims about China, specifically about the CCP, and then you engage in exactly this sort of thing.
I'm a scholar of China and Asia, generally; I've lived in China; I know senior members of the CCP personally; I've dealt with people like you on many occasions.
I have no illusions about being able to have useful discussions with you. The same has been said by many, many people.
You appear in comment threads in disparate media making the same claims. You use specious statistics and cherry-picking.
Some people are tankies; you're not. You write as a denialist.
I don't mean to actually argue with you - your version of reality is so hallucinatory, it's pointless. I've seen you argue the most incredible things. IF ever you're in a position to be exposed, you cut off discussion and disappear, or shut it down. It's not even that you're a propagandist, it's more like you're a troll - you only "debate" in the cheap, highschool sense.
I once spoke with a CCP official in Shanghai about characters like you. I dropped your name as one among many. He said, to summarize, such people are useful idiots in the leninist sense, but in the case of three individuals (you included), the level of deceit and deception was beyond the pale. Not even the United Front Department would openly work with people like you.
Specifically, he said that a minority of those who had once worked within China in various propaganda agencies. As China changed, they found their jobs more or less surplus. Having employed them for so long, there wasn't much to do with them. However, their boosterism and commitment to the cause of aggrandizement was too much to simply discard. However embarrassing, they couldn't just be dumped, so so a gentle discard was usually arranged.
A few of them were considered so over the top, they were more or less marginalized, but they keep popping up all over. He had no idea if this was true of you, but you fit the bill - a propagandist so extreme, so hyper-real, that not even the United Front Department would countenance it.
I actually had this conversation. But don't fret - you weren't that big a deal. As I recall him saying, his words were to the effect of, "Sad examples like this are left scattered around. They're not very effective, but this has never been China's strength. What we learned about leveraging easily co-opted foreigners we learned from the Russians, but we weren't very good students."
As an example, I called up two of your posts, one on Quora, another on some other site. It engendered intense laughter from this official.
Needless to say, he had a lot to say about the hiring of people like you, and the sad fate of such Westerners once their usefulness had passed. He wondered what Western people thought of them.
I have no illusions that actually debating anything with you will be useful - gerrymandering and intellectual whitewashing is your stock in trade, lies and carefully calibrated deceit a method of daily life - but it's useful for others who read your comments to be made aware.
Again - you use invented stats and charts, and as one prominent Chinese scholar said in a discussion about whether the CCP practiced "true democracy where the people had real political power", what you say is so unrelated to reality that it's not even a case of you being wrong. You're not even wrong - it's like having heated debates about what kind of cheese the moon is made of.
As I said, even CCP officials think people like you (and when shown what you write, you specifically) are laughable and dishonest to a level so extreme that it's not even possible to have real discussions.
I would spend all of my time battling assertions contrary to even the most basic reality; I would need to establish some kind of baseline reality first. And this is where it's impossible - to discuss a subject when the other person insists on making things up.
I've also seen what you do in discussions. I could spend hours and hours putting together facts to show you how the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, but this is wasted time. In the end, you'd just claim that hokey made up stats are real, and deny the facts as presented in the real world.
This is why, in the words of at least one CCP official I spoke with about people like you, you make a poor propagandist: your hallucinations represent nothing like reality.
You never debate these things with Chinese critics. This is something else I've noticed. You're extremely careful about this.
I knew a professor at a European university who made endless claims about life in the Soviet Union. When pressed why he never discussed this with ex-Soviets, he deflected and eventually demurred. His entire gambit was misrepresenting reality to make specious points about positions he maintained as a kind of alternative worldview or reality. When ex-Soviets actually confronted him, he'd say they were CIA plants or not representative, or whatever.
No amount of time spent arguing with such people is useful. It's foolish and a waste of time to try.
I think figuring out what it is that China wants will go a long way to deciding how far Asian countries and the US need to go to counter China. Though the Chinese communists' irredentist ambitions make complete accommodation impossible.
One slight mitigating factor in terms of China's size is that the working age population has already peaked.
That factor IMO is actually a very big one. Due to population momentum it's looking like the working age population will fall by at least a third from its peak over the coming decades, while retirees more than double. They created a massive, historically unprecedented tailwind for themselves with the one child policy following the biggest baby boom in history, then invested heavily around it like a company - But that's going to reverse and become quite the headwind, further exacerbated by a huge gender imbalance unique to China. I've no idea how to gauge just how big an impact it will have though, but I really wonder.
Gender imbalance is definately not a good thing. A lot of otherwise unoccupied males.... sending them off to war seems like something that will pop into someones mind sooner or later.
I'm going to do a post on China aging soon
Because of this post you sent me down a Google trail, talking about the missing women of China. Which also led me to the aging population of China. 25% will be retirement age by 2050. It kind of made me bearish on China’s future.
Looking forward to your take.
There are no 'missing women'. That was a propaganda meme, like 'ghost cities' and invisible massacres. Nor is aging a problem for a country whose retirement ages are 50/55 and whose productivity doubles every ten years.
Great article, I agree and feel like this is soon to be the biggest challenge going forward. The sooner the West and allies get serious strategically the more options they will still have (kinda like with covid). However, I feel like the role of age demographics doesn't get looked at enough in regards to the rise of the Chinese economy and its economic model. Surely the massive baby boom they had roughly in the 60-70's and the one child policy that followed (leading to few dependents for them) played a big role? Now the consequences are starting to hit and its demographics look worse than all but the very worst in east Asia. Notable is when they ended the one child policy, births only went up for a single year before hitting new lows. In comparison, its developing neighbors and US demographics look quite good. As the shrinking of the Chinese work force accelerates, how big an effect do you think it will have?
Be interested to get a perspective from any Vietnamese people on here.
Let's not forget African nations in this gang. I heard an interesting Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast recently with a former minister of Liberia. His point was that China was willing to engage economically with a part of the world that at the time Western countries only looked at from a humanitarian aid perspective. Given the crippling shortage of infrastructure in parts of Africa, it is hard to imagine them forming a coalition with the rest of Asia or the West. I agree with you that trade pacts and long term alliances are needed, not least because China is capable and willing to play the long game and can plan across time horizons that no democracy can.
Western countries used to build infrastructure in Africa. When they ruled it.
Today, they still do, when they trust the government involved. https://www.worldhighways.com/index.php/wh3/feature/rwanda-highway-rwandas-major-highway-construction-aids-regional-integration
Somewhat related: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/technology/china-coronavirus-censorship.html the ending got me. what a completely insane Gov't.
Proclaiming the need to save Asian countries is, historically, more likely to exacerbate this country's internal divisions than straighten them out.
RCEP is the 1st among a pack of aces fielded by PRC in COVID times for the struggling nations of the ASEAN ! RCEP has knitted the ASEAN into the PRC garment.dindooohindoo
The PRC has identified for the world,the “gateway to enter PRC”, via ASEAN. As time passes,wage increases and the rise in cost of living,in urban agglomerations,will provide the impetus to outsource,and shift manufacturing,to ASEAN.Rising costs are a signal,of the obsolescence of the business model and technology – and the driver,to re-engineer the manufacturing value chain.
This outsourcing to ASEAN,will soak up the entire manufacturing capacity of ASEAN,boosting profits and wages in ASEAN nations.Chinese can partake in this wealth creation,in the ASEAN nations,as under:
Lending to ASEAN companies by Chinese Banks like CCB etc.
VC and PE stakes in ASEAN companies,with exits on the HKEX or NYSE
JV with ASEAN companies
Hence,there will be a continuous pipeline of transfer of technology and products from PRC to ASEAN at a competitive cost,and with a stand-by financing from Chinese Banks.
This will make the ASEAN people and the ASEAN governments DEPENDENT on PRC,and enable ASEAN to be partners in the PRC success story.Thereafter,excluding Nippon and South Korea,no other nation will ally with the Americans,and might also, not allow their ports,to be used by the US Navy – as the financial and economic loss,will be tangible and huge – with no ostensible strategic benefits,to the ASEAN nations.
RCEP has knitted the ASEAN into the PRC garment.
Meanwhile PRC companies can focus on AI,Robotics and Nano to drive up the manufacturing value chain – with collaborations with EU companies and keep the Chinese skilled workers at the cutting edge of change.
Simultaneous with the above, the RCEP region (minus Nippon and Australia) can use the Yuan as the FX and even conclude agreements with OPEC or Saudis,and other Break Bulk Raw Material supply nations,to settle all purchases in Yuan (for the RCEP,as trading block).
History,Geneaology,Providence,Culture and Geography,have destined PRC and ASEAN,to be an integrated block.
What place does India have,in the block ?
Nippon and Aussies bring in technical and management excellence (which India never had )
Pakistan HAS to be given a choice to join RCEP,on the thesis that any SEZ of PRC,or a ASEAN owned SEZ o/s ASEAN, with an investment of,in excess of say,USD 35 Billion,can be DEEMED to be an EXTENSION,of the RCEP.
POST RCEP, The Path for EU manufacturers is as clear,as the white sand on a black clay beach.German manufacturers have to relocate to ASEAN,for manufacturing,and THEN export to PRC,else they will lose tarriff and non-tarriff costs,of at least 5-10%.
For those who complain about manufacturing regulations in PRC,and the costly and complex legal systems in PRC,the solution is to make in ASEAN,and seek legal redressal in ASEAN – and further,export their output to PRC.This will also secure the EU manufacturers,who wish to secure their assets,in democracies”.
The inevitable crisis of AI,Nano and Robotics,will make most humans redundant,even in EU manufacturing.The least the EU can do,is to offshore production to ASEAN,to crash the costs for EU consumers – so that,if the EU has to feed 200 million people (after they are rendered redundant),they can be fed at the lowest cost.
If the EU is PROTECTING its markets and industry, from the Chinese invasion,and thus,forfeiting unrestricted access for EU exporters to the market of PRC – that is a disaster -as the current manufacturing in EU,will ,in any case, become obsolete.
You're arguing against a strawman. The question is not whether the Asians can balance China; the question is whether the Asians, even with the United States can balance China in the long run. The issue is one of horizons. In the short term, the United States enjoys a significant military and diplomatic edge. In particular, it enjoys maritime primacy in the Western Pacific still, even though China's reconaissance-strike complex can hold US surface assets at risk; and, importantly, the US enjoys escalation dominance for the simple reason that it enjoys nuclear superiority over China. Diplomatically, the United States can count all the rich, important and competent states in the world as its permanent allies. China's got North Korea and maybe Cambodia. Russia is as much a competitor as an ally. https://twitter.com/policytensor/status/1321897273530351616
In the medium term, China will perhaps grow larger and tower over others around it. We're sort of at the turn of the century stage if you take the American clock. But then it faces the extreme challenge of demographic decline, if indeed not the vanishing of productivity growth as well. So the long term is hard to predict. What is clear is that it will be a pole of the system. Indeed, my wager has been that we're looking at a tripolar world virtually in perpetuity. https://policytensor.com/2015/01/03/what-will-be-the-polarity-of-the-international-system-in-2100/
Sounds about white. Cope you little dork.
Hi @Noah Smith
Interesting article! Thanks for sharing!
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I'm not sure I agree with your read of Germany -- I think the evidence from Tooze and DeLong is that German productive capacity was not so enormous; instead, it was their military prowess and extraordinary daring that made them such a formidable foe.
Historical correction : Germany was not alone fighting WW1. It had the Austro-Hungarian empire as partner (about 50 million people, third industrial producer in Europe...) and the Ottoman Empire. The latter, although less industrialised, opened a lot of fronts that depleted Allied forces resources. It was not called World War for nothing ! The fate of both empires after the war should be a strong lesson for Russia today. Choosing the wrong partner can be fatal...
China will grow more in 2021 than any country in world history has ever grown, adding $2.4 trillion to its economy.
And by next June, 2021 there will be more hungry children, drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, and imprisoned people in America than in China.
As for "China claims Taiwan," it does so because Taiwan is part of China, according to the constitutions of both Taiwan and the PRC and, of course, the United Nations.
And abut "absorbing all of their territories and populations into its nation as it did with Tibet and Xinjiang, it did so before the UK did the same with Wales, so the issue has passed its sell-by date for most sane observers.
All of these 'terrified' neighbors have deepened and strengthened their relationships with China, as the signing of the RCEP agreement last week demonstrates. As a resident of SE Asia, can tell you that China's neighbors have both high opinions of China and high expectations of prospering with China's help.
Thanks for your take, CCP bot
Why not refute my claims with contrary evidence? Generally, people use ad hominem attacks like yours for one of four reasons:
1. You believe that an argument is a simple competition in which winning or dominating is the goal.
2. You believe that the absolutely correct position is already known to you but do not wish to reveal it.
3. You believe that argument is entirely about social positioning: that the only meaningful outcome concerns which person looks best in the eyes of third parties.
4. You mistakenly assess your cognitive ability as greater than it is and, by inference, greater than the person you are attacking (the Dunning–Kruger effect).
Which fits you best?
Godfree Roberts is a propagandist for the Chinese regime; his answers on Quora are hallucinogenic. Even Wumaos think he's way over the top.
His manipulation of statistics is worthy of the world's most dedicated tankies.
His claim that China's stats are as good (as reliable?) as Canada's is spurious. Not one analyst, even inside China, believes this. They all use incredibly jury-rigged proxies to get at real data.
"Cherry picked" would be charitable to describe these sorts of claims.
Ok, three more things. (Sorry, this China stuff takes up an inordinate amount of my brain space):
- How much of this China stuff is about America being big dog? I hear a lot of China takes from Americans, and the undertone seems to be we Americans will be the hero’s once again! To be honest, I think I’m susceptible to thinking and fall into it a lot.
- Are we have ignoring human rights abuse we could, arguably, more easily impact (I.e. Starvation in Yemen) because it doesn’t connect to the hero American complex as much (or for other reasons)? And more importantly, does that undercut are credibility vis a vis China?
- What are specific things the US might participate in (as opposed to lead), which might provide more leverage for other democratic countries?
One more thing (Lordy, I’m terrible):
- This exchange between Tyler Cowen always gets me:
COWEN: “Given Taiwan’s remarkable success with the pandemic, its amazing success with high-quality semiconductor chips, why are there in relative terms so few successful Taiwanese software companies? And to what features of the Taiwanese psyche do you attribute that?”
Tang: “ There are very successful Taiwanese software companies. They are new in the software world. Trend Micro is another one. But because these are less directly to users, to customers, and so maybe they are less well known, that’s a fact. The Taiwanese psyche, I think, is mostly about being okay with that. I guess the hashtag #TaiwanCanHelp, #TaiwanIsHelping really says it on the tin, that we don’t quite do this egoism. You don’t have to thank Taiwan every 20 seconds if our innovations have helped you. We really just want the world to be better.”
One thing:
- What measure(s) do you use to evaluate China’s economic performance? Is there a specific data source you trust? My buddy in China said it’s tough to find a job now, but it’s unclear whether his situation is representative of a larger trend.
In terms of unemployment? I know this paper about historical stuff: https://www.nber.org/digest/oct15/official-statistics-understate-chinese-unemployment-rate
But I don't know a good updated series.
Ah, I should have been more specific. Unemployment was the main thing I had in mind, though. Thanks for the study!
Do you mean general alternative macroeconomic indicators for China? There are a bunch of sources...
By alternative indicators, I am referring to how people track electricity consumption etc. as an indicator of economic growth. So, if this is what you mean, then yes I’m interested.
That being said, my question was pretty tangential to the post, so no rush responding.
Well I know we track those at Bloomberg! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-25/china-s-recovery-stabilizes-as-exports-markets-continue-to-boom
Unemployment figures are contested everywhere. People like John Williams, to whose expensive newsletter(http://www.shadowstats.com), most large corporations subscribe, and former Treasury Undersecretary and professor Paul Craig Roberts put our real unemployment at 20%.
Certainly, China's labor force participation has been much higher than ours, which suggests that their unemployment stats are closer to the truth.
Thanks for the link!
By far the best source is the Chinese government. It's stats are as good as Canada's, for example. See The quality of China's GDP statistics☆ by Carsten A. HOLZ ⁎
Stanford Center for International Development, Stanford University. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1043951X14000753?via%3Dihub
Quality of China's Official Statistics: A Brief Review of Academic Perspectives
Dmitriy Plekhanov. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v35i1.5400
Godfree Roberts is a propagandist for the Chinese regime; his answers on Quora are hallucinogenic. Even Wumaos think he's way over the top.
His manipulation of statistics is worthy of the world's most dedicated tankies.
His claim that China's stats are as good (as reliable?) as Canada's is spurious. Not one analyst, even inside China, believes this. They all use incredibly jury-rigged proxies to get at real data.
"Cherry picked" would be charitable to describe these sorts of claims.
You hide behind a false name and, without evidence, insult people who don't.
Why not refute my claims with contrary evidence? Generally, people use ad hominem attacks like yours for one of four reasons:
1. You believe that an argument is a simple competition in which winning or dominating is the goal.
2. You believe that the absolutely correct position is already known to you but do not wish to reveal it.
3. You believe that argument is entirely about social positioning: that the only meaningful outcome concerns which person looks best in the eyes of third parties.
4. You mistakenly assess your cognitive ability as greater than it is and, by inference, greater than the person you are attacking (the Dunning–Kruger effect).
Which fits you best?
I'm familiar with your work in several forums. I also speak with Chinese people who are aware of you. You appear in various media making the most absurd possible claims about China, specifically about the CCP, and then you engage in exactly this sort of thing.
I'm a scholar of China and Asia, generally; I've lived in China; I know senior members of the CCP personally; I've dealt with people like you on many occasions.
I have no illusions about being able to have useful discussions with you. The same has been said by many, many people.
You appear in comment threads in disparate media making the same claims. You use specious statistics and cherry-picking.
Some people are tankies; you're not. You write as a denialist.
I don't mean to actually argue with you - your version of reality is so hallucinatory, it's pointless. I've seen you argue the most incredible things. IF ever you're in a position to be exposed, you cut off discussion and disappear, or shut it down. It's not even that you're a propagandist, it's more like you're a troll - you only "debate" in the cheap, highschool sense.
I once spoke with a CCP official in Shanghai about characters like you. I dropped your name as one among many. He said, to summarize, such people are useful idiots in the leninist sense, but in the case of three individuals (you included), the level of deceit and deception was beyond the pale. Not even the United Front Department would openly work with people like you.
Specifically, he said that a minority of those who had once worked within China in various propaganda agencies. As China changed, they found their jobs more or less surplus. Having employed them for so long, there wasn't much to do with them. However, their boosterism and commitment to the cause of aggrandizement was too much to simply discard. However embarrassing, they couldn't just be dumped, so so a gentle discard was usually arranged.
A few of them were considered so over the top, they were more or less marginalized, but they keep popping up all over. He had no idea if this was true of you, but you fit the bill - a propagandist so extreme, so hyper-real, that not even the United Front Department would countenance it.
I actually had this conversation. But don't fret - you weren't that big a deal. As I recall him saying, his words were to the effect of, "Sad examples like this are left scattered around. They're not very effective, but this has never been China's strength. What we learned about leveraging easily co-opted foreigners we learned from the Russians, but we weren't very good students."
As an example, I called up two of your posts, one on Quora, another on some other site. It engendered intense laughter from this official.
Needless to say, he had a lot to say about the hiring of people like you, and the sad fate of such Westerners once their usefulness had passed. He wondered what Western people thought of them.
I have no illusions that actually debating anything with you will be useful - gerrymandering and intellectual whitewashing is your stock in trade, lies and carefully calibrated deceit a method of daily life - but it's useful for others who read your comments to be made aware.
That's all.
Have a good day.
You seem unable to move beyond ad hominem. You do not contest a single claim I have made about China. Why not?
Again - you use invented stats and charts, and as one prominent Chinese scholar said in a discussion about whether the CCP practiced "true democracy where the people had real political power", what you say is so unrelated to reality that it's not even a case of you being wrong. You're not even wrong - it's like having heated debates about what kind of cheese the moon is made of.
As I said, even CCP officials think people like you (and when shown what you write, you specifically) are laughable and dishonest to a level so extreme that it's not even possible to have real discussions.
I would spend all of my time battling assertions contrary to even the most basic reality; I would need to establish some kind of baseline reality first. And this is where it's impossible - to discuss a subject when the other person insists on making things up.
I've also seen what you do in discussions. I could spend hours and hours putting together facts to show you how the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, but this is wasted time. In the end, you'd just claim that hokey made up stats are real, and deny the facts as presented in the real world.
This is why, in the words of at least one CCP official I spoke with about people like you, you make a poor propagandist: your hallucinations represent nothing like reality.
You never debate these things with Chinese critics. This is something else I've noticed. You're extremely careful about this.
I knew a professor at a European university who made endless claims about life in the Soviet Union. When pressed why he never discussed this with ex-Soviets, he deflected and eventually demurred. His entire gambit was misrepresenting reality to make specious points about positions he maintained as a kind of alternative worldview or reality. When ex-Soviets actually confronted him, he'd say they were CIA plants or not representative, or whatever.
No amount of time spent arguing with such people is useful. It's foolish and a waste of time to try.
You know this. Stop pretending to want to engage.
It's enough to make sure others are aware.
Have a good day, as I said.