Bad article IMO. “Only the west has the right to position itself as world industrial leader, China doing it afterwards is bad”, “renewable energy sucks”, “neoliberals are dumb but I buy into crying about sovereign debt”, “China’s economy is about to burst trust me bro, now it’s the high competitivity between companies and the resulting deflation”, “no more consumers can be created because only China and the west can consume, not the entirety of the global south”, “China will go to war because of youth unemployment in an equal capacity and blame as the US despite not entering a war in half a century”…
I understand the overall point being that infinite growth isn’t possible, but idk why it assumes that China’s growth is done when it’s growing GDP at 5% yearly. China growing faster than the west is a fundamental good for anti-imperialism, renewables and nuclear are cool and pioneered by China.
I didn’t read that as the author thinking that its bad China has overtaken the west as the industrial leader, just that China should expect the same trend of early growth, reaching a threshold or economic carrying capacity, and then decline. Like, it’s just built into being an economic organism. The US/EU has papered over their decline with heavy financialization. China will face a similar problem, and how they respond to it is going to be very consequential for the rest of the 21st century and beyond. The author has highlighted militarism as a dangerously easy response, and I think they’re right to point it out.
I… don’t think China will take the militaristic rout? It’s definitely the path our (or my, depending where you are) leaders here would like them to take, and that alone should be enough of a signal that they wont. Green energy isn’t where it needs to be yet, but perhaps the growth we’re seeing there will continue to develop…
just that China should expect the same trend of early growth, reaching a threshold or economic carrying capacity, and then decline
The article explicitly talks of China’s phenomenal growth as “a lucky instance”, as if it weren’t the conscious policy of a highly organized party forcing the vast majority of western industrial capital to move to China and simultaneously controlling it not to become a colony, while taking a billion people out of poverty and creating its own heavily state-controlled firms with its own highly trained professionals and tech transfer in the strongest industrialization event in human history.
The US/EU has papered over their decline with heavy financialization. China will face a similar problem
How do you know? Why is the communist party of China going to let the country fall for that? China and the west are fundamentally different systems and can have fundamentally different outcomes in similar starting conditions. Do we see China de-industrializing in favour of cheaper labour elsewhere? Do we see the Chinese stock market run wild? I just think the article assumes China is just another country like the western ones when in my opinion it clearly isn’t.
China’s growth is done when it’s growing GDP at 5% yearly
Actually the more concerning part about this is that China is growing at 5% but unemployment has barely gone down and there is widespread consumption slump.
China’s not going to collapse like some Western propaganda is saying, but there are fundamental and structural issues because if the economy is growing and the people aren’t experiencing a better life and an increase in purchasing power (in fact, the opposite is happening), and this lack of optimistic outlook from the average people feeds into a vicious cycle where even less people are willing to spend their money to stimulate the economy. A deflationary spiral. All of this is making China more dependent and vulnerable to external conditions, as the failure to kick start the internal circulation means the failure to develop a domestically resilient economy.
There is no point downplaying or denying this though even if you’re pro-China, because eventually you will (and many pro-BRICS commentators on twitter already have) get slapped in the face by the Chinese state media eventually acknowledges these problems.
I’ve been seeing rumbles about China looking to “internationalize” the RMB, which if true, makes me wonder if they are learning any lessons from the west and its history with internationalizing the dollar. Have you seen anything similar? I don’t recall where I was reading that idea.
I think your taking that the wrong way. China isnt trying to force other countries to trade in their currency with eachother. Just if they trade with China then China would prefer they use RMB. Thats a key difference. Being the Global Reserve Currency is not just being used for international transactions. Its normal to use a nations currency when trading with that nation. What the US did was making other nations buy USD to trade with the Saudis for oil.
From what ive seen BRICS is looking to do a gold backed global currency to replace USD. So you wouldnt see the same value propping up, and money printing in that case. Which is what the US did. Using international demand for dollars to allow them to print more of them for their own use without inflation pressure.
Ok, that was my underlying assumption. It feels like what BRICS is attempting to do is implement a version of Keynes’ International Clearing Union (something America rejected in the 40s) and reserect a gold-backed monitary system for international trade. In some ways they’re trying to roll back the clock and attempt what could have been if the world decided to collectively reject America’s notions at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference and side with Keynes.
Bad article IMO. “Only the west has the right to position itself as world industrial leader, China doing it afterwards is bad”, “renewable energy sucks”, “neoliberals are dumb but I buy into crying about sovereign debt”, “China’s economy is about to burst trust me bro, now it’s the high competitivity between companies and the resulting deflation”, “no more consumers can be created because only China and the west can consume, not the entirety of the global south”, “China will go to war because of youth unemployment in an equal capacity and blame as the US despite not entering a war in half a century”…
I understand the overall point being that infinite growth isn’t possible, but idk why it assumes that China’s growth is done when it’s growing GDP at 5% yearly. China growing faster than the west is a fundamental good for anti-imperialism, renewables and nuclear are cool and pioneered by China.
I didn’t read that as the author thinking that its bad China has overtaken the west as the industrial leader, just that China should expect the same trend of early growth, reaching a threshold or economic carrying capacity, and then decline. Like, it’s just built into being an economic organism. The US/EU has papered over their decline with heavy financialization. China will face a similar problem, and how they respond to it is going to be very consequential for the rest of the 21st century and beyond. The author has highlighted militarism as a dangerously easy response, and I think they’re right to point it out.
I… don’t think China will take the militaristic rout? It’s definitely the path our (or my, depending where you are) leaders here would like them to take, and that alone should be enough of a signal that they wont. Green energy isn’t where it needs to be yet, but perhaps the growth we’re seeing there will continue to develop…
The article explicitly talks of China’s phenomenal growth as “a lucky instance”, as if it weren’t the conscious policy of a highly organized party forcing the vast majority of western industrial capital to move to China and simultaneously controlling it not to become a colony, while taking a billion people out of poverty and creating its own heavily state-controlled firms with its own highly trained professionals and tech transfer in the strongest industrialization event in human history.
How do you know? Why is the communist party of China going to let the country fall for that? China and the west are fundamentally different systems and can have fundamentally different outcomes in similar starting conditions. Do we see China de-industrializing in favour of cheaper labour elsewhere? Do we see the Chinese stock market run wild? I just think the article assumes China is just another country like the western ones when in my opinion it clearly isn’t.
Actually the more concerning part about this is that China is growing at 5% but unemployment has barely gone down and there is widespread consumption slump.
China’s not going to collapse like some Western propaganda is saying, but there are fundamental and structural issues because if the economy is growing and the people aren’t experiencing a better life and an increase in purchasing power (in fact, the opposite is happening), and this lack of optimistic outlook from the average people feeds into a vicious cycle where even less people are willing to spend their money to stimulate the economy. A deflationary spiral. All of this is making China more dependent and vulnerable to external conditions, as the failure to kick start the internal circulation means the failure to develop a domestically resilient economy.
There is no point downplaying or denying this though even if you’re pro-China, because eventually you will (and many pro-BRICS commentators on twitter already have) get slapped in the face by the Chinese state media eventually acknowledges these problems.
I’ve been seeing rumbles about China looking to “internationalize” the RMB, which if true, makes me wonder if they are learning any lessons from the west and its history with internationalizing the dollar. Have you seen anything similar? I don’t recall where I was reading that idea.
I think your taking that the wrong way. China isnt trying to force other countries to trade in their currency with eachother. Just if they trade with China then China would prefer they use RMB. Thats a key difference. Being the Global Reserve Currency is not just being used for international transactions. Its normal to use a nations currency when trading with that nation. What the US did was making other nations buy USD to trade with the Saudis for oil.
From what ive seen BRICS is looking to do a gold backed global currency to replace USD. So you wouldnt see the same value propping up, and money printing in that case. Which is what the US did. Using international demand for dollars to allow them to print more of them for their own use without inflation pressure.
Ok, that was my underlying assumption. It feels like what BRICS is attempting to do is implement a version of Keynes’ International Clearing Union (something America rejected in the 40s) and reserect a gold-backed monitary system for international trade. In some ways they’re trying to roll back the clock and attempt what could have been if the world decided to collectively reject America’s notions at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference and side with Keynes.
I know they’ve been giving out loans in USD and getting payment back in RMB. Specifically Saudi Arabia was one of them