China's economy is not in a Great Decline but a Great Transition(think.ing.com)
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China's economy is not in a Great Decline but a Great Transition
https://think.ing.com/downloads/pdf/article/china-economy-not-in-a-great-decline-but-in-a-great-transition
7 comments
I don't know if they are in a long term decline but they certainly seem to be in a recession given that: (a) they've had rapid expansion since the 1970s without obvious downturns in the business cycle, (b) they've suffered through a financial crisis similar to the 2008 financial crisis we had in the US.
The most glaring issue facing China today is the concentration of power in Xi. Not that the CCP has ever been known for its transparency or openness, but there was a time not too long ago where the party elevated technocrats and had ruling cabals with some (limited) diversity of opinion and thought. Xi upended that system by making himself central to China's governance, and has filled out the ranks of the CCP with yes men. NYT had a good write up on this months ago with organizational charts that showed how dramatic his consolidation of power has been.
China's newfound adversarial tone with its neighbors, and with the US and Europe, is more a product of Xi's whim and worldview than it is the product of a deliberative strategic process. Among the failures in China that can be attributed to Xi and his yes men has been the COVID containment strategy - rather than developing state of the art vaccines and embarking on a program of convincing the population to get vaccinated and take other precautions, China was handling COVID through draconian lockdowns months, and even years, after other countries found other ways to contain COVID spread and treat the illnesses it caused. By mid-2022, the Chinese populace was up in arms over the lockdowns, and the vaccine uptake (of a vaccine that wasn't even close to matching the efficacy of mRNA vaccines) was dismal. Xi finally relented, but that episode showed that nobody was willing to challenge Xi's vision, and so he ruled from a bubble.
Democracy is important, not only from a human rights perspective, but it keeps government accountable in important ways. China under Hu Jintao wasn't democratic, obviously, but it's easy to see that his government made more attempts to have its ear to the ground and not get too far beyond public sentiment.
Which is all to say, I'm not optimistic for China's future given Xi's continued poor judgment, and the lack of a functioning ruling committee that could pivot based on data, instead of being beholden to one man's whim.
China's newfound adversarial tone with its neighbors, and with the US and Europe, is more a product of Xi's whim and worldview than it is the product of a deliberative strategic process. Among the failures in China that can be attributed to Xi and his yes men has been the COVID containment strategy - rather than developing state of the art vaccines and embarking on a program of convincing the population to get vaccinated and take other precautions, China was handling COVID through draconian lockdowns months, and even years, after other countries found other ways to contain COVID spread and treat the illnesses it caused. By mid-2022, the Chinese populace was up in arms over the lockdowns, and the vaccine uptake (of a vaccine that wasn't even close to matching the efficacy of mRNA vaccines) was dismal. Xi finally relented, but that episode showed that nobody was willing to challenge Xi's vision, and so he ruled from a bubble.
Democracy is important, not only from a human rights perspective, but it keeps government accountable in important ways. China under Hu Jintao wasn't democratic, obviously, but it's easy to see that his government made more attempts to have its ear to the ground and not get too far beyond public sentiment.
Which is all to say, I'm not optimistic for China's future given Xi's continued poor judgment, and the lack of a functioning ruling committee that could pivot based on data, instead of being beholden to one man's whim.
I'd be less sure, because China has been moving towards a more centrally planned approach to managing winners and losers in the economy.
Central planning has a lousy track record.
Central planning has a lousy track record.
Not one word about the CCP's management. Not surprising but it is fascinating to see communists trying to be capitalists.
Several decades ago a colleague went there, and upon his return his elderly neighbour asked if the ChiComs were still communist.
His reply: "yes, but it's the kind of communism where everybody's trying to become a millionaire"
(in the world of 1984, all three blocs claim to have different ideologies, but function isomorphically underneath)
His reply: "yes, but it's the kind of communism where everybody's trying to become a millionaire"
(in the world of 1984, all three blocs claim to have different ideologies, but function isomorphically underneath)
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