Posted on 11/06/2001 5:10:12 PM PST by American_Patriot_For_Democracy
This essay is being written to all those China-lovers and sympathizers; to all those who declare that China will (and maybe even should) eclipse the United States as a world power and economic powerhouse. China is loaded with many serious problems. It's "destiny" is not exactly a sure thing, and it is not necessarily headed for the dominant economic power of Asia. Its arrogance is symptomatic of Communist contempt for all democratic nations such as Israel, India, the United States, Britain, Australia, and the other NATO powers. China is not out of the woods yet, by any means.
Let's review some of the serious issues facing China today:
(1) The Communist Chinese Legal system is one of the most primitive and juvenile systems known in the world; it is a complex amalgamation of Confucian and Taoist custom, interspersed with statute, largely criminal law and rudimentary civil code that has only been in effect since January 1, 1987. New legal codes have been in effect since January 1, 1980. Constant and major efforts are being made to improve the civil, administrative, criminal, and commercial law. The concept of "stare decisis," i.e., that the law should remain the same, except for an occasional re-evaluation of precedent, is totally foreign there. In other words, the judicial system in China does not make any cogent sense. If any business needed some type of legal resolution, that convoluted judicial system would choke them. Not to mention that in any arbitration situation betwen China and another country doing business with them, the People's Republic of China ("PRC") could intervene, at any time, and influence the business decision to the adverse consequences of the unlucky company which did business with them in the first place;
(2) The Falungong sect and the China Democratic Party are considered serious threats and potential rivals to the People's Republic of China, and could seriously harm the stability of the government there, or any of the foreign businesses which find themselves unlucky enough to invest money there;
(3) Although in late 1978 the Chinese leadership began moving the economy from a sluggish Soviet-style centrally planned economy to a more "market-oriented system." The authorities switched to a system of household responsibility in agriculture in place of the old collectivization, but instead of democratizing the government, Communist China instead increased the authority of local officials and plant managers in industry, permitted a wide variety of small-scale enterprise in services and light manufacturing, even while declaring that they had "opened the economy" to increased foreign trade and investment. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced, in its hybrid system, the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation). Thus only a handful of the political and moneyed "elite" control the entire infrastructure of the PRC, over one billion people. And they literally have the power of life and death over everybody there. Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, having to retighten central controls at numerous and unstable intervals. The government has had a hellish time (a) collecting revenues due from provinces, businesses, and individuals; (b) reducing corruption and other economic crimes; and (c) even keeping afloat the large state-owned enterprises, many of which have been shielded from competition by subsidies, and have been losing the ability to pay full wages and pensions. From 80 to 120 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many subsisting through part-time and low-paying jobs. Popular resistance, changes in central policy, and loss of authority by rural cadres have weakened China's population control program, which is essential to maintaining growth in living standards. Another long-term threat to continued rapid economic growth is the rapid and massive levels of deterioration in the environment, notably air pollution, soil erosion, and the steady fall of the water table, especially in the north. China continues to lose arable land because of erosion and economic development. Weakness in the global economy in 2001 could cripple growth in exports;
(4) Communist China has as many as 16% of its population below the poverty line (2000 esimate) - I thought Communism was supposed to take care of that completely? I mean, you ARE giving up all of your basic and fundamental human rights in exchange for economic security, aren't you?
(5) The Communist Chinese labor force is by far one of the least skilled forces in the entire world, and will be unable to compete with the modern technologically savvy Western world. - by occupation, the PRC forcibly divides its people into agriculture 50%, industry 24%, and services 26%. Where are your techies? Your geeks? Your innovators? Your artists? Answer: they are suppressed, jailed, murdered, or "re-educated;"
(6) The unemployment rate in the PRC is staggering for a Communist nation that supposedly can cure all of society's ills: urban unemployment is roughly 18%, and there is substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas;
(7) Although China's exports are $232 billion a year, it's imports clock in at about $197 billion. You may think that's just fabulous, but wait until you get a load of the fact that Communist China's external debt is a whopping $162 billion. Guess that eats into their profits a little bit, huh;
(8) The PRC's roadways are still primitive - highway total is 1.4 million km, but the paved ones are only 271,300 km, while unpaved dirt roads dominate the landscape at 1,128,700 km;
(9) The PRC seems to have a military beef with nearly everyone. They have more enemies than any country I have ever heard of, and each one of them wants a piece of China's hide. Some examples of these China-hating countries include (a) India - most of the boundary with India is in dispute, (b) Russia - there is a dispute over at least two small sections of the boundary with Russia that remains to be settled, despite a 1997 boundary agreement, (c) Tajikstan, where large portions of the boundary with Tajikistan are indefinite, (d) North Korea, where a 33-km section of boundary with North Korea in the Paektu-san (mountain) area is indefinite, (e) Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and possibly Brunei involved in a complex dispute over the Spratly Islands, (f) Vietnam (man you are going to love those guys) with disputes in maritime boundary agreements in the Gulf of Tonkin, awaiting ratification, (g) the Paracel Islands occupied by China, but claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, (h) claims by Japanese-administered Senkaku-shoto (Senkaku Islands/Diaoyu Tai), and finally, (i) Taiwan, which detests China;
(10) Another wonderful problem the PRC faces is the illicit drug market. The PRC is a major trans-shipment point for heroin produced in the Golden Triangle, producing massive criminal activity and murder, and Communist China has an unprecedented and growing domestic drug abuse problem. The PRC is also the world's leader in the supply of such illegal substances as chemical precursors and methamphetamine.
Conclusion: I do not think China will emerge as the major power of Asia by 2015, as is being predicted by many liberals, communists, socialists, opportunists, and other academic "schlup-schwanzes.". But it is important that we, as Americans, remain vigilant, and understand that it depends upon us, the consumer, to boycott Chinese products and services, and to force our democratically elected politicians, as well as our overfed and overpaid corporate CEOs, to do the same. If we need a consumer market, and if the powers that be respond with, "labor is cheaper in China," then counter with, "Why not India?" India is democratic, free, religiously, racially, and culturally diverse and tolerant, also has roughly 1 bilion people as in China, is closely allied to the United States, is a military powerhouse, shares borders with our greatest threats, Islamic Fundamentalism and Chinese Communism, has a clear common law based legal system, is predominantly English speaking, is technologically advanced, secular, and was once a British colony like Australia and the United States. There are Christians, Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims there, and they have lived relatively peacefully together for thousands of years. It has a deep and strong friendship with the State of Israel, and is struggling right now to make democracy work. It is the duty of every red-blooded and patriotic American to support them in their struggle, because their struggle is almost exactly the same as ours.
Freedom is not free, it requires constant upkeep and maintenance. If we no longer fight to maintain those freedoms, both physically and economically, we run the risk of no longer remaining free.
God bless the U.S.A.
As for foreign debt, even American economists don't view that as a problem for China, in part because China has about $300 billion in foreign exchange reserves and can easily pay its bills. All countries have foreign debt, and the biggest debtor nation in the world is America. China is actually the biggest holder of US bonds right now. This means China has excess money to even loan to America. It's America that has $6 trillion in national debt.
As for drugs and AIDs, it's funny to hear an American talk about any other country's drug or AIDS problems. America is the biggest consumer of narcotics in the world.
The whole theme of the essay focuses on the argument that China is far from "destined" to become the world's largest economy by 2015. You should learn to read more carefully. People like you love to hem and haw about China's inevitable eclipsing of the United States in its economy, and this essay is a response to the arrogance of people like you and your ilk. By the way, you quote the CIA, but so did I. In fact, all the facts and figures used in the essay were from the CIA Factbook. Your perceptions are routed by facts.
"This eventuality is just a matter of time (China's eventual economic takeover). There's really nothing anyone can do about it, so it's best just to get used to it."
No. Why should we accept or get used to something that is not even true, or even backed up by fact? Part of Chinese strategy is psychological intimidation, designed to make the "enemy" give up, even before they fight back. But Americans aren't stupid, and if Sun Tzu were here, we would kick his a$$.
The rest of your arguments about hi-tech workers, poverty, and construction are just postures. You basically agree with everything I said, but just tried to say "China is trying hard to overcome these weaknesses." Therefore I will ignore them, as it proves my point, that China's economic destiny is anything but certain.
Again, you are merely echoing my arguments, that China's legal system is a quagmire of contradictory statutes interspersed with Confucian and Taoist blather. News flash: This is a major weakness. Second, the reason India and other democratic nations, like the US, Britain, and Israel "shirk" reform in their legal systems, is precisely why THEY HAVE BETTER LEGAL SYSTEMS. Legal systems should not be subject to haphazard and continuous "reform," because that would render the law unstable and unpredictable, two things that would drive a foreign investor in China broke faster than crap through a goose. Ever heard of the concept of "stare decisis" in the law? It is considered a GOOD THING for the law not to change, but only minimally, over time, to overcome precedent, only by very good legal arguments and social changes necessary to continue the viabilty of a Constitutional Republic.
"As for foreign debt, even American economists don't view that as a problem for China, in part because China has about $300 billion in foreign exchange reserves and can easily pay its bills. All countries have foreign debt, and the biggest debtor nation in the world is America. China is actually the biggest holder of US bonds right now. This means China has excess money to even loan to America. It's America that has $6 trillion in national debt."
Now that is just an abject lie. Look at the article above. Read the part about China's debt again. Then come back and respond. Your lies are not going to make China any stronger. Maybe you should read more Adam Smith or Alexander Hamilton, instead of Sun Tzu.
"As for drugs and AIDs, it's funny to hear an American talk about any other country's drug or AIDS problems. America is the biggest consumer of narcotics in the world."
Maybe so, but even if that is true, don't you think that this is a problem facing China right now? You forget, that the thesis of the article above is that "China's economic destiny is anything but certain." China's massive drug problem militates strongly against your arguments about China's "manifest destiny" to control the economic world by 2015. I am not saying it is not possible, I am simply saying that it is also quite possible that it will not be, taking into serious consideration the myriad problems facing China in the modern world. And you can bet that China has many, many enemies, all willing to exploit, to the fullest, all of the problems it is facing, to ensure that Communism does not prevail.
We must crack down on the wholesale loss of our technology, drastically improve our science, math and history education and initiate a large scale technical project or two (Moon base would frost the communist Chinese). All would have the effect of renewing national pride and infrastructure.
China GDP
1980 216.2 US Billions
1990 363.0
1999 997.5
2000 1076.9
All the problems you point to as reasons to hinder growth have existed in China for at least the last 50 years, with the exception of the environmental issue. If they had, and are having, such a debtremental effect, we should not have seen growth at these levels since 1980. In other words, if it didn't stop them then, why now?
I will admit, it seems to me that China is a nation in turmoil caused by... rapid growth. It could go either way. I'm not dismissing what you have to say out of hand. There is a great likelyhood you may be correct. However, I choose to be extremely cautious and vigilant of the threat.
First of all, economic "extrapolation" is never a good indicator of growth, in fact, it is actually quite misleading. Second, the reason why China's myriad problems have not hindered its growth is because the Western powers have done everything possible to ensure that it does not. Why, I do not know. But it is certainly hastening our own demise as a free society.
With China's massive problems, it would be easy to bring it down, or to curb its growth substantially, provided that we took advantage of its many weaknesses. But for some reason, our policymakers are not doing this at all. You tell me the answer.
And don't give me any cr*p about "democratizing" China or "bringing them closer to our way of thinking." The fact remains that everytime we give the Chinese another billion dollars in trade, they are a billion dollars stronger. And also do not tell me that other nations are doing business with them, so we must as well. If we can get every nation in the world to join us in a war, then can't we get those same nations on our side against a nation like China, which kills thousands of its own people a month, commits the most vile and heinous human rights violations since Stalin, stifles art, religion, individuality, creativity, and freedom on a daily basis? Again, you tell me.
This thread has your name on it -huh Jade/rofl.
(Jade, I'm truly looking forward to reading more of your material about Communist China and filthbag Bill Clinton...let's see how you do ..... in this thread, good luck!
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