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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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There's a lot of deliberate deception built into China's marketing of the brand China.
One deception is that they have embraced a free-market. Not quite, they haven't. There are a lot of tax havens being extended in the cities, but the outlying areas still need to be opened and developed. OTOH, I'm not trying to rush China. Its been doing a good job accomodating the influx of farmers into the cities (as good as can be hoped for).
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| When previous leader Jiang Zemin opened the Communist Party to such people, many commentators saw capitalists taking over the party. The reverse has happened, with the party extending its controls into the thriving private sector, where growing numbers of party branches are being established. |
The reverse has happened? Well, it seems to me as if the CCP is transitioning from Communist to Capitalist while making sure their children have the reigns over all the businesses. Where have we seen this before? Chaebol in Korea? Zaibatsu in Japan? This is, frankly, not far off the Asian development model.
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| Phone calls, text messages, and emails are likely to be screened, and many Internet sites�such as Wikipedia and BBC News�are blocked or filtered by the 30,000 �net police.� Bloggers must give their real names and identity card numbers to their Internet service providers, which must in turn make them available to the authorities when asked. Tim Hancock, Amnesty International�s campaign director in the UK, says, �The Chinese model of an Internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers.� |
This is true. But it is more pathetic than repressive IMHO. The CCP can't control the internet. I was able to get around the internet controls which include blocking Wikipedia, even if it was a hassle. And be sure, I cursed the CCP everytime I had to do so.
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| They have grown accustomed to, but not accepting of, widespread corruption. |
The article makes it sound like widespread corruption is new. Its not. Nobody's grown accustomed to it, they've grown up with it. Fact is, only now are the emerging middle-class beginning to grow fed up with it.
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| Where China fails to match up, however, is in creativity and innovation, without which it may have to resign itself to remaining a net importer of new technologies, and a manufacturer under license. It has failed to produce a single global brand to compare with its neighbors. Japan has its Sony, Toyota, Panasonic, Honda, and the rest. South Korea has its Samsung and Hyundai. Taiwan has its Acer, BenQ, and Giant bicycles. China�s Haier white goods and Lenovo personal computers remain, for now, wannabes. The controls that China deploys on use of the Internet, the battles it wages with its artists in every field, the focus in its education system on rote learning, the continuing failure to implement its own intellectual property rules, and now the embracing of a new Confucianism�all of these inhibit lateral thinking and invention. |
YES. This is one thing I've commented on before. Particularly the phenomenon of no native Chaebol or Zaibatsu dominated firms rising. I have been more tentative to conclude that China is to blame for this, however.
Firstly, remember that Sony, Toyota, Samsung, Hyundai, etc, were nurtured under protectionist regimes reinforced by a benevolent US Cold War encouragement. These Chaebol or Zaibatsu dominated firms were bolstered by a growing US consumer market.
China is opening investment to a number of foreign countries, not just the US. These countries include Korea and Japan! Its much more difficult for China to build a competitive brand when it doesn't have a monopoly on its own consumers. Korea and Japan did, and in some ways still do. But the China market is open, and its that openness that is promising to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
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| The World Bank says China contains 16 of the world�s 20 most polluted cities in their air quality, and anxieties about both water and air have triggered a large proportion of China�s �mass events��demonstrations and protests�which even official figures estimated at 87,000 in 2005. |
I've heard that China has to spend nearly 6% of its GDP on cleaning up the environment. And, I am relatively sure that China is not spending nearly enough. Even more alarming to me than the pollution in the cities is the rapid desertification of the Gobi Desert.
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| This China offers a seductive model that is being eagerly taken up by the leaders of countries that have not yet settled into democratic structures: Vietnam; Burma; Laos; the Central Asian dictatorships that were part of the Soviet Union; a growing portion of the Middle East, starting with the United Arab Emirates, including its glossy new centers like Dubai; Cuba; most of Africa, including South Africa; and even to a degree the hereditary cult that is North Korea. Beijing sometimes gives more than it receives to cement its developing world leadership, according most-favored-nation status to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia even before they join the World Trade Organization. In an unsettling way, the China Model is attractive to the leaders of some countries that had already become democratic, such as Venezuela. The model is even inspiring democratic India to compete with its own adaptive version. |
This is the strongest argument for the China Model. It is also the strongest argument against the China Model.
Although I think the author overstates the case, Dubai's development is not modeled on China's, he does make a persuasive point. China is the model developing country. China has had massive success from feeding the American and European markets, and it benefitted from the allure of its ancient culture.
Truth be told, America has always strived to open up the China market. There was a reason that Americans spoke of 'Losing China,' after Mao rose to power. Americans had invested a lot into China all through the beginning of the 20th Century and even the late 19th Century.
Now, the China market is finally opening. But has America, and China, over-hyped this market?
It seems like it has. There'll be a correction soon. Nevertheless, Chinese economic power in the long-run is here to stay. And because of it, many countries will follow suit.
What'll be interesting to see is whether China can manage its own democratic reforms. That will surely be a world-historical event. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 2:27 am Post subject: |
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Kuros corrected:
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| The article makes it sound like widespread corruption is new. Its not. Nobody's grown accustomed to it, they've grown up with it. Fact is, only now are the emerging middle-class beginning to grow fed up with it. |
B-I-N-G-O, bruddah.
The CCP has been rotten to the core since Mao manipulated the Hundred Flowers Movement in the late 1950s. Three generations of Chinese have grown up with this almost innate knowledge. And, yes, it is the emerging middle class which will ultimately signal the death-knell of the Party as we know it.
The big question on the minds of the boys at Zhongnanhai is whether the market reforms can expand evenly into the vast countryside and the income gap can narrow before inflation, discontent borne of a rising tide of expectations, and displacement of the floating population explodes into social chaos or revolution.
To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, market capitalism is like holding the wolf by the ears these days in China.
The telling sign in my view is whether Hu's anti-corruption campaign will continue after the Olympic showcase is taken down and whether it will be motivated less by cronyism and Party insider maneuvering than a genuine effort at governmental reform. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| There's a lot of deliberate deception built into China's marketing of the brand China. |
CHINA is key to the NEW WORLD ODOR  |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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...depends how hot she is.
buh-dump-bump-ksssh!
(sorry)  |
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