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Remember The ‘Chinese Century’? Sorry, Comrades, Xi Just Killed It
Issues & Insights ^ | 27 Oct, 2022 | I & I Editorial Board

Posted on 10/28/2022 5:59:15 AM PDT by MtnClimber

With Xi Jinping’s stunning shift back into Maoist totalitarianism, China is destined to become an economic mess once again. China’s opening to the world economy, particularly to the U.S. and Europe, now looks to be over. A new communist dark age will soon descend.

In China’s 20th party congress, which ended last weekend, we saw a very ugly glimpse of the future for the Middle Kingdom.

Not only did Xi cement his position as absolute ruler of the nation of 1.4 billion, but showed he’ll do anything to keep power. The image of an aging former President Hu Jintao apparently forcibly being led out of the congress by security is an ominous statement of what Xi has in store for the entire nation.

Faced with the sudden shock of what’s to come, China’s financial markets crashed on Monday, as investors realized that it’s no longer the promised land but now a prison-house economy in decline.

It was just 2014, a mere 8 years ago, that liberal Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz heralded the advent of the “Chinese Century.” He and other leftist intellectuals fell in love with the notion of what could be accomplished economically with an authoritarian regime such as Xi’s.

No more saying no! No more dragging your feet! The government can do what it wants, without having to worry about all those pesky free-market naysayers!

The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman summed up this thinking best when he mused on Meet The Press back in 2010:

“I have fantasized — don’t get me wrong — but that what if we could just be China for a day? I mean . . . where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions, and I do think there is a sense of that, on, on everything from the economy to environment.”

Elsewhere, he enthused over “one-party autocracy” ruled by “enlightened” people, such as China. This is a classic “progressive” vision.


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: communism
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1 posted on 10/28/2022 5:59:15 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Will China invade Taiwan before a new congress is seated?


2 posted on 10/28/2022 5:59:26 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

No . China has no intention of invading Taiwan . Must stop believing all the anti- China propaganda . Xi is leading a country with 1.4 billion people of 56 different ethnicities, bordering 14 countries. China is extremely complex. On top of this, many in the “ West “ have had their knives out for China for a while because it is viewed as a peer competitor .


3 posted on 10/28/2022 6:09:06 AM PDT by sushiman
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To: MtnClimber

government monopoly + government bureaucratic management+ central planning + government controls + force = chaos + destruction


4 posted on 10/28/2022 6:09:19 AM PDT by mjp (pro-freedom & pro-wealth $)
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To: MtnClimber
Biden's "China eat our lunch? C'mon, man" moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD9d3TUYHNo

5 posted on 10/28/2022 6:10:41 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: MtnClimber

TLDR, so I shouldn’t open my mouth, but I believe this article is decrying the fall of psuedo-capitalism in China and the return of MAOist communism, and everything is destined to fail. I would suggest that there are historical examples of economies being nationalized as a method or revival (not collapse) and the one that comes to my mind does not bode well for the our (the world’s) future. I apologize for this Reducto Ad Hitlerum, but Nazi Germany socialized and nationalized their economy to create their war machine, and the world suffered because of it.


6 posted on 10/28/2022 6:15:22 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: MtnClimber
Fifty years from now...and maybe even twenty years from now...China will have left the US,Europe and Japan in the dust from an economic point of view,a military point of view and an "overall influence" point of view. In the 1990s the world's economic giants (US,Europe,Japan) had an opportunity to keep Red China in the stone age by blocking Chinese made goods from their ports.

But instead they decided they wanted to pay 2 cents for a paper clip instead of 2.2 cents.

7 posted on 10/28/2022 6:27:02 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (I Miss Jimmy Carter)
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To: MtnClimber

Taking a page from the Hongxi emperor and his successor, who shut down the treasure voyages, and most maritime trade, turning China inward just as the West began looking at the global picture.


8 posted on 10/28/2022 6:27:58 AM PDT by Buttons12 ( )
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To: MtnClimber
No more saying no! No more dragging your feet! The government can do what it wants, without having to worry about all those pesky free-market naysayers!

As usual when liberals are enjoying these mental wank-fests, they ignore two flies in that wonderful totalitarian soup.

1. Why would the best minds EVER end up in government?

2. One size really really does not fit all. Really! It takes that number of minds, and superior ones at that (sorry, government-lickers) to make the best and most robust economic decisions.

9 posted on 10/28/2022 6:29:08 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: sushiman

China is scum. It’s collapse cannot come swiftly enough.

You are an apologist for murder and tyranny.


10 posted on 10/28/2022 6:38:53 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: sushiman
You are mistaken. I speak, read and write the language, I’ve lived there. I know their history pretty well, perhaps better in fact than you. The CCP shares with every other governing communist party in history a fundamental belief in totalitarianism. They wield this instinct ruthlessly against anyone who threatens their power, be they Uighurs, overseas dissidents, the American government, that poor guy in Beijing who bravely hung that banner on the bridge recently, anyone.

Yeah, they have officially 55 (or so, I forget the exact number) minorities, but the overwhelming majority of the population is Han. The borders of the CCP empire — except for Mongolia, and parts of it still possessed by Russia — coincide with those of the Qing empire, because that’s the land “China” is supposed to rule. The 55 minorities are there in the world to obey, and to make money for, the CCP leadership.

All countries are “complex.” Their governments are not all as brutal, as repressive, their leaders as eager to cultivate hatred of the foreign as the CCP now is. The next few years are going to be a dangerous time, as the CCP copes with the fruits of its self-imposed isolation and decline even as it tries, with as much violence as necessary, to remake the international order. That order is imperfect, but a lot better than any in which the CCP would be calling a lot of the shots.

That, not bromides about “complexity,” is the reality.

11 posted on 10/28/2022 6:42:51 AM PDT by untenured
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To: Gay State Conservative

China doesn’t have any products or military technology that it didn’t steal or buy from us. They are not going to dominate any markets without a rule of law in their country, and I’m sure even Bill Clinton didn’t sell them our best weapons.


12 posted on 10/28/2022 6:55:07 AM PDT by MIDad23
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To: untenured

imho the biden admin by constantly baiting the chicoms has unmoored Xi and the communists there.

the sec of state blinken has started to say recently that the chinese have moved up their schedule for the invasion of taiwan.

ya think?

do you have a feel for how soon the invasion will come?


13 posted on 10/28/2022 6:59:56 AM PDT by ckilmer (q)
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To: sushiman

China is more complex than most outsider understand, and I might have bought the China-is-no-threat line before they developed a blue water navy, created fake island bases, claimed the entire South China Sea, began buying friends throughout the globe, created spy centers throughout the west, etc.

But the premise of the report is correct, Xi just killed the goose that laid the golden egg.


14 posted on 10/28/2022 7:00:57 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: MtnClimber

One would think that chip makers and other critical industries would have moved many of their facilities out of Taiwan years ago.


15 posted on 10/28/2022 7:02:05 AM PDT by grumpygresh (Civil disobedience by non-compliance; jury and state nullification. )
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To: MtnClimber

It pretty much doesn’t matter what Xi does as there is likely noway to reverse the financial blows from the real estate housing construction markets mostly due to his central planning ‘three red lines’ edict like his ‘zero tolerance’ covid edict.

30% of the Chinese economy or about US$60 trillion is tied up in the real estate market. Much of that is tied up in Ghost Cities all over China. They are just concrete shells, but now thanks to Xi cannot be refinanced. And because they are shells, they cannot be sold as actual places that people would want to live in (feng shui ).

So the entire edifice teeters on collapse.

Watch this 13 min video for more in-depth info - SerpentZA:

The Secret behind China’s Ghost Cities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8JBTIVUVw


16 posted on 10/28/2022 7:07:47 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Gay State Conservative

What we need is another Ronald Reagan to stand up to China, the way Reagan stood up to the Soviet Union. I believe we had that with Donald Trump, but will we ever have someone like him again?


17 posted on 10/28/2022 7:17:37 AM PDT by telescope115 (Proud member of the ANTIFAuci movement. )
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To: sushiman

Taiwan is a low level symbolism for the mainland.

Formosa isn’t key to China’s ethos as say Chang’an or Beijing.

It isn’t critical in terms of resources.

I think far more for China’s sense of middle kingdom is to get back Russian controlled manchuria and to get back Mongolia. And have dominance over central Asia


18 posted on 10/28/2022 7:20:53 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: Empire_of_Liberty

I agree.

Tibet, Uighurstan and Manchuria to be free.


19 posted on 10/28/2022 7:23:10 AM PDT by Cronos
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To: MIDad23
One pivotal fact you seem to forget is that every damn Chinese citizen visiting,studying in,or staying in,advances industrialized nations (US,Europe,Japan,etc) is a spy. Some are military spies (Boeing,etc).Some are "diplomatic" spies (State Department,etc). And some are economic spies (Sony,Apple,etc).

Some do it willingly: "I do it for Chairman Mao,The Great Helmsman" and some are unwilling "Comrade,we know where your family lives".

Don't forget Fang Fang. Don't forget Feinstein's driver.Don't forget the thousands that we never hear of.

20 posted on 10/28/2022 7:33:58 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (I Miss Jimmy Carter)
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