The China Thread

[Valmy]

Really? I would think Japan's rise from Iron Age backwater to Great World Power in one generation is a bigger thing then going from massive world power with lots of poverty to massive world power with much less poverty

I mean we all knew China, with its vast resources and population, could do this. It was why everybody was eager to invest there in the first place. So I am just a little baffled why this expected outcome is supposed to be mind blowing or some stupendous achievement.

[Valmy]

I mean would India being a huge economic super power be shocking? No, of course not. Everybody expects that to happen eventually.

[Admiral Yi]

If Indian per capita income grew ten times it would be a big fucking deal.

[Tonitrus]

Where is the gratitude to the American/Western consumers that helped drive China's economic growth. 

[Eddie Teach]

1860 Japan may have been a backwater but was well past the iron age.

[grumbler]

Japan's per-capita GDP doubled between the opening to the west around 1870 and the start of WW1.  That's impressive, but doesn't hold a candle to China 1990-2020.

Having said that, Japan's 2008 per capita GDP was more than ten times the size of its 1950 GDP, so what China has done since 1990 isn't unique.  It's just that we look at the wrong period of Japanese history.

[DGuller]

The formula for rapid growth of per capita GDP is actually fairly straightforward.  First, you have to have a culture that lends itself to being governable, so that when good government comes by, you don't have to spend centuries establishing strong central government tradition.  Second, you have to make sure to fuck things up comprehensively first, so that you can start from a very low level.

[dps]

Having said that, Japan's 2008 per capita GDP was more than ten times the size of its 1950 GDP, so what China has done since 1990 isn't unique.  It's just that we look at the wrong period of Japanese history.

How does their 1950 per capita GDP compare to their 1929 per capita GDP?

[Valmy]

If Indian per capita income grew ten times it would be a big fucking deal.

Sure but it would be almost three times what China's is now if they did that. But them dramatically growing to be a huge world economy would not be shocking, as they have that potential.

[Sheilbh]

And it'd be reverting to the norm after the unpleasantness with the Brits  

[Valmy]

And it'd be reverting to the norm after the unpleasantness with the Brits  

I guess but it is also very unlikely that country even exists without the unpleasantness with the Brits. Your being assholes brought them together...well that and the university system which was probably the most unintentionally anti-Imperialist thing an empire did.

"Here people who hate each other from different languages, religions, and cultures throughout our tyrannical empire: we are going to give you a common language and insitutional infratstructure to bring you all together..."

But without a view into that alternative universe where Britain just stayed home I guess we will never know.

[grumbler]

Having said that, Japan's 2008 per capita GDP was more than ten times the size of its 1950 GDP, so what China has done since 1990 isn't unique.  It's just that we look at the wrong period of Japanese history.

How does their 1950 per capita GDP compare to their 1929 per capita GDP?

About 20% higher.  That was probably all late 1930s growth, since the economy actually shrank during WW2.

[MadImmortalMan]

The formula for rapid growth of per capita GDP is actually fairly straightforward.  First, you have to have a culture that lends itself to being governable, so that when good government comes by, you don't have to spend centuries establishing strong central government tradition.  Second, you have to make sure to fuck things up comprehensively first, so that you can start from a very low level.

I don't want to bump stuff that's too old, but Gully's point here is excellent.

Also, I don't think Xi's new direction is historically aberrant. He wouldn't be the first emperor who bragged about how many books he burned.

There is a sense in which I think Westerners and Chinese people have a disconnect in..I want to say worldview, but I think it's deeper than that. More like habit of thought. When the first Opium War kicked off, it was initially called a rebellion in China. The implication being that the mandarin leadership considered THE BRITISH EMPIRE a subject. China had been pretty much the center of the world forever in their own disconnected way, and culturally it still thinks it is. When I talk to the people I know from the mainland its all about "our Chinese people" and "our Chinese products" and "our Chinese girls shouldn't be marrying western white men". Never individuals. Only "our Chinese" whatever.

This is a mentality than can be very easily used by totalitarians to create conformity.

Mono is a downright individualist compared to some of the people I've met. The Confucian Societies especially seem to try to enforce conformity on US campuses among the Chinese students. I think they might be propaganda orgs now that I think about it.

[dps]

Having said that, Japan's 2008 per capita GDP was more than ten times the size of its 1950 GDP, so what China has done since 1990 isn't unique.  It's just that we look at the wrong period of Japanese history.

How does their 1950 per capita GDP compare to their 1929 per capita GDP?

About 20% higher.  That was probably all late 1930s growth, since the economy actually shrank during WW2.

Yes, I knew that.  I would have thought it had shrunken even more, and the 1950 GDP would have been lower than that of 1929.

[Monoriu]

The formula for rapid growth of per capita GDP is actually fairly straightforward.  First, you have to have a culture that lends itself to being governable, so that when good government comes by, you don't have to spend centuries establishing strong central government tradition.  Second, you have to make sure to fuck things up comprehensively first, so that you can start from a very low level.

I don't want to bump stuff that's too old, but Gully's point here is excellent.

Also, I don't think Xi's new direction is historically aberrant. He wouldn't be the first emperor who bragged about how many books he burned.

There is a sense in which I think Westerners and Chinese people have a disconnect in..I want to say worldview, but I think it's deeper than that. More like habit of thought. When the first Opium War kicked off, it was initially called a rebellion in China. The implication being that the mandarin leadership considered THE BRITISH EMPIRE a subject. China had been pretty much the center of the world forever in their own disconnected way, and culturally it still thinks it is. When I talk to the people I know from the mainland its all about "our Chinese people" and "our Chinese products" and "our Chinese girls shouldn't be marrying western white men". Never individuals. Only "our Chinese" whatever.

This is a mentality than can be very easily used by totalitarians to create conformity.

Mono is a downright individualist compared to some of the people I've met. The Confucian Societies especially seem to try to enforce conformity on US campuses among the Chinese students. I think they might be propaganda orgs now that I think about it.

"A subject" doesn't entirely capture it.  Historically, China considered itself the only civilised nation under heaven.  Everybody else are barbarians.  If reality is a civ game, there is only one civ in play.  The relationship between China and other countries isn't a lord/vassal one.  It is more like an educated civ helping a cannibalistic, stone age tribe.