China’s planned rail spending tops $100-billion for 2013 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14150819
China will sharply increase planned railway investment in 2013 to more than $100-billion as part of plans to boost the economy.

The Ministry of Railways will spend 650-billion yuan ($104-billion U.S.) this year, the Xinhua news agency said, quoting railways minister Sheng Guangzu at an annual national work conference Thursday.
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That marks a 30-per-cent increase from the planned investment of 500-billion yuan for 2012.

Actual rail investment in China usually turns out higher than the planned budget as Beijing has a tradition of increasing spending on infrastructure to bolster economic growth.

Economists, however, say they expect big ticket public works to become less of a factor in coming years as Beijing seeks to re-balance the economy toward more consumer-driven growth.

In the first 11 months of last year, actual investment in the rail sector hit 507-billion yuan, according to official data, already exceeding the 2012 target.

A rail investment boom started in 2003 when ex-railway minister Liu Zhijun, who was sacked in 2011 and is awaiting trial over alleged corruption charges, took office.

The government scaled back its investment plan last year after Mr. Liu’s ouster, a train collision in July 2011 that killed at least 40 people and difficulties in raising funds.

The collision was China’s worst rail accident since 2008 and sparked a torrent of public criticism that authorities compromised safety in their rush to expand the network.

The ministry held 2.66-trillion yuan in debts by the third quarter last year, or 61.8 per cent of its total assets, previous Chinese media reports said.

But investment rose month by month in the second half of 2012, with more than 100-billion yuan added to the budget, the reports said, China’s growth hit a more than three-year low of 7.4 per cent in the three months to the end of September. That was partly due to weak foreign demand for Chinese goods and marked a seventh-consecutive quarter of slowing.

By the end of 2012, China had 98,000 kilometres of railways in operation, the second-longest network in the globe, and 9,356 kilometres of high-speed lines, the world’s longest, Mr. Sheng said, according to Xinhua.

A total of 5,200 kilometres of new lines will be put into operation this year, he said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... le7478404/

I wish we had public transport (that didn't suck). :*(
#14151535
Very good! I hope this means they'll finally connect Shanghai to the rest of the south. I hadn't realized what a posh life I had when I lived in the north until I moved to Shanghai and found it was largely disconnected from other major hubs in the south. It still takes 19-25 hrs by train to reach Shenzhen/Guangzhou from Shanghai.
#14152176
Igor Antunov wrote:I wish we had public transport (that didn't suck). :*(


Are you sure? Are you talking about inter-city rail as context would suggest? Do you have any idea how much that would cost in a country as sparsely populated as Canada? There are pockets of decent urban transportation and I think that is probably the best we can hope for.


As for China, although these lines are mostly big money losers right now one can only hope they will become more self-sustaining in the future.


Also, more good news is that it looks like they are making strides towards online ticket sales. Funny how they are quite modern in some senses but then quite far behind in others. It is quite difficult to talk about China as a whole and, in many ways, only really makes sense to talk about it in terms of its constituent parts.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/ ... ashes-site


Terrik wrote:Very good! I hope this means they'll finally connect Shanghai to the rest of the south. I hadn't realized what a posh life I had when I lived in the north until I moved to Shanghai and found it was largely disconnected from other major hubs in the south. It still takes 19-25 hrs by train to reach Shenzhen/Guangzhou from Shanghai.


Well, I believe the main point is that all these new lines make it more efficient to bring those big bags of cash to officials in Beijing. It is common knowledge that there just isn't enough space on those planes. Also, if you route them through Shanghai first you never know how much might get siphoned off before they ever arrive. Hence, Guangzhou-Beijing high speed rail before Guangzhou-Shanghai! Thanks for making me smile, China.
#14152183
Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the Chinese officials are doing the world a service by working toward connecting every last corner of globe into the transportation network. After 2025, there will be nowhere left for commerce to expand to and nowhere left for politicians to offset the contradictions that the present system generates, because capital will have set up shop with logistics in every territory that has resources on the earth.

And so different societies will all have no choice but to finally turn inward and examine the structural inequalities that persist everywhere.

Their plan:
China Fact Tours, 'Chinese HSR Will Connect 17 Countries by 2025', 10 Mar 2010 wrote:"China's High Speed Rail will extend to Europe, Central Asia and East Asia," the professor and the member of China Engineering Academy from Beijing Jiaotong University, Mengshu Wang, told the South China Morning Post Tuesday. "17 countries in these areas will be included into our projects and the Chinese government has submitted 3 programs about the high speed railway network to these countries." Wang once participated directly in all the High Speed Rail (HSR) projects in China. He is an authority in the field of Chinese HSR.

Mr. Wang said "China has drawn up a plan on the grid rail including the Central Asia HSR, the Southeast Asia HSR and the Russian Continent HSR," "We are holding a talk with some relevant countries so as we can complete this project within 2025.” "So far we have reached an agreement with Russia and some of the countries in regard to the plan." He also said.

According to this grand blueprint, the Central Asia HSR will make its starting point at Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regions, the high-speed trains will trip through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey etc. and end their travel at German; the Southeast Asia HSR will be bound for Singapore from Kunming (capital city of Yunnan) via Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand(or from Kunming via Myanmar to Thailand),Malaysia; The Russian Continent HSR will start from Heilongjiang province traverse northern Russia and finally reach Western Europe.

"In the negotiations," Mr. Wang said "We promise to provide technology of HSR, equipment, and the high-speed trains reach a maximum of 350km/h." "We will pay the bills on their railway construction if the countries who build HSR and transport their natural gas or lithium to China.”

China already has the world’s longest high-speed rail. Notable examples of Chinese high-speed train service now in operation include the Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway (1068 km), the Zhengzhou - Christian High-Speed Railway (505km) and the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway (120 km).
#14152184
Rei Murasame wrote:Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the Chinese officials are doing the world a service by working toward connecting every last corner of globe into the transportation network.


They are already connected, how else do you think all those goods with the tag ''Made in China'' made it to the western world? I am also sure that plenty of Chinese people have priorities much more important than some fucking incredibly expensive railroad, like for example new machines for washing clothes instead of washing them in a local river or a bucket of water, a problem that I have heard is relatively widespread in rural China.

But nono, better that these politicians spend money on relatively useless prestige projects like huge railroads that cost enormous amounts of money to operate and build or skyscrapers with only 10% occupancy rates.
Last edited by Kman on 20 Jan 2013 07:05, edited 1 time in total.
#14152185
Kman wrote:Idiot Keynesians, no wonder that average chinese people are still dirt poor despite of all their hard work, they have raving lunatic keynesians running their dictatorship.


Well, they have done pretty well for a little more than 30 years now, haven't they? It's hard to blame those in power since the 1980s for current poverty levels, isn't it? You probably can't think of a country that has ever done a better job over a 30 year span, can you?
#14152189
VoiceOfReason wrote:Well, they have done pretty well for a little more than 30 years now, haven't they? It's hard to blame those in power since the 1980s for current poverty levels, isn't it? You probably can't think of a country that has ever done a better job over a 30 year span, can you?


I do not care, the communists ruined the country completely, they were fucking mental patients ala the loons in North Korea and the fact that these fucking mental patients did worse than the Keynesian idiots is not really a cause of celebration for me. It is like bragging that one performed better than the mentally retarded kid in one's class on the math test.
Last edited by Siberian Fox on 20 Jan 2013 19:14, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Mild rule two - unclarity which could also be mistaken for rule two violation by non-native English speakers.
#14152194
Rei Murasame wrote:Whether knowingly or unknowingly, the Chinese officials are doing the world a service by working toward connecting every last corner of globe into the transportation network. After 2025, there will be nowhere left for commerce to expand to and nowhere left for politicians to offset the contradictions that the present system generates, because capital will have set up shop with logistics in every territory that has resources on the earth.

And so different societies will all have no choice but to finally turn inward and examine the structural inequalities that persist everywhere.



Interesting post, Ms. Marx. But as struggles for resources become more acute I could equally imagine a future in which a tide of growing nationalist sentiment washes away all of the superstructures ostensibly in place to maintain global peace. Would most societies really be in the mood for collective introspection and mass self-criticism? Does the whole world really look inward and start blaming themselves at some point? Are we talking in the next 200 years?
#14152195
Kman wrote:They are already connected, how else do you think all those goods with the tag ''Made in China'' made it to the western world? I am also sure that plenty of Chinese people have priorities much more important than some fucking incredibly expensive railroad, like for example new machines for washing clothes instead of washing them in a local river or a bucket of water, a problem that I have heard is relatively widespread in rural China.

But nono, better that these idiot politicians spend money on relatively useless prestige projects like huge ghost citires or skyscrapers with only 10% occupancy rates.

Image
Click the image.
I agree that they are basically wasting money most of the time, it's something that I am always critical of China on. However, I know that finance capital is just like that, they are not going to listen to calls for developing their own peoples anyway because they don't believe in peoples. If they were going to do that, they'd not be participating in the capitalist system to begin with.

So I take the long view, which is to just "let them run along" - as my mother always put it - and spend all the money they like on infrastructure until they run out of places to connect, bridges to construct, tunnels to tunnel, canals to dig, and trains to commission. It all has a diminishing rate of return anyway.

Eventually, after 2025, population groups will only be left with two options:

  • 1. Literally build monuments and literally put paper money into cannisters, bury the cannisters and then dig them back up for the financier masters,

    OR

  • 2. Carry out a social revolution against the financier elites so that the structural inequality can finally be addressed.

Since option #1 is completely and transparently absurd, option #2 is what is going to have to happen. The time will come, Kman. I agree with you that the situation sucks, just my strategy does not involve trying to reason with the system.

You libertarians are always imagining that if you send Peter Schiff to talk to the government, they will somehow have an epiphany and start caring about issues and be 'nice capitalists'. No, they will not be nice, it is not in their interest to be nice.

This is why the best thing is to be make sure that we are prepared long beforehand with an anti-capitalist movement coming from outside the establishment for when a conjuncture appears. And when that chance appears, we strike at them, and strike hard.

And then the landslide begins and the government changes and the world is turned upside down.
Last edited by Rei Murasame on 20 Jan 2013 07:31, edited 3 times in total.
#14152197
Kman wrote:
I dont give a fuck, the communists ruined the country completely, they were fucking mental patients ala the loons in North Korea and the fact that these fucking mental patients did worse than the Keynesian idiots is not really a cause of celebration for me. It is like bragging that you beat the mentally retarded kid in your class on the math test.


You could be right, but if you are getting A's and A+'s it isn't really your fault if the other students are retarded. After all, you are still doing better than anyone imagined was even possible. That's hardly grounds for criticism. Now as they are graduating to middle income status soon they may no longer continue to pass with flying colours. If not, then you may have grounds for real criticism.
#14152220
Rei Murasame wrote:
Eventually, after 2025, population groups will only be left with two options:

  • 1. Literally build monuments and literally put paper money into cannisters, bury the cannisters and then dig them back up for the financier masters,

    OR

  • 2. Carry out a social revolution against the financier elites so that the structural inequality can finally be addressed.


Or option #3. We continue as we always have with people striving to do better than those around them. If we need to take people like you and channel your energy into a social revolution somewhere then that's fine. We will just go through the same cycle of the capitalist society being more efficient and eventually bringing about the downfall of the society where the 'means of production' are not thusly managed.

We will always have agitators who want to bite the hand that feeds. I actually think we always need a big socialist experiment on the go otherwise people may start to forget what a disaster it really is. This was one good thing about the USSR.

It's too bad some people need hoards of starving babies to remember what a disaster socialism is, but I guess there is nothing we can do about that.
#14152242
Rei Murasame wrote:As if any of you really care about 'starving babies'. I can't help but laugh at that. Also, did I say that the social revolution was going to be Marxian socialism?

I didn't.


I assure you that if I have the choice of letting babies starve and offering them nourishment, I will choose the latter. I just recognize that capitalism is the system most likely to produce the resources they need.

I guess you didn't say it was Marxian, I just got that from your language. If you want the North Korean, Chinese, Soviet, or Cuban alternatives its not that much better.

I actually used to be a fervent socialist/communist in ideology. I really was. I have the utmost respect people who feel that way and fully understand the thought process. Most, like me, just need time to come around. I am, in contrast, disgusted by lazy minded 'capitalists' who cannot articulate the arguments in favour of socialism (the point being to be convincing you need to understand the other side). They do not realize what a detriment they are to themselves and their societies when they cannot clearly present a coherent defense of their values. Clearly democracy is not so good if you are not informed.

Your firebrand passion reminds me of myself when I was in my early twenties. I really like it and, if you ever change your views, believe you will be a great asset to the capitalist cause.
Last edited by VoiceOfReason on 20 Jan 2013 09:25, edited 1 time in total.
#14152251
I'm a fascist (national syndicalism, also known as 'right-socialism'), by the way. I'm not sure why you would imagine that I was promoting Marxian socialism, or whether I should take it as a compliment. There certainly are some similarities.

I'm not going to change my views, I'm 27 now and I've know completely what I'm supporting for years and years now.

Spoiler: show
Basically getting things done is a process, and the process requires that certain social conditions be met. No one is ever just handed the sceptre of power and asked to just implement a blueprint.

There had to be a methodology or social action programme for actually creating a situation where people will be inclined to do what we want them to do.

We often hear people of all stripes saying things like, "Oh I support the death penalty", "I oppose the death penalty", "I support licorice allsorts being handed out for free to kids in preschool", "I oppose the bill called CMD6758", "I support national self-determination", "I support your mother". No, no one can be said to actually support anything if no one can see how anyone plans to get there.

So what I do is start with a very simple list. KISS can be a kiss, but it also means 'keep it simple surely':

  • 1. A clear narrative about the current crisis based on some socio-economic class analysis.

  • 2. Fundamental principles on which actions are based.

  • 3. A path for community organisation which leads to a framework in which a programme may develop to address the contradictions at the root of the crisis.

The three 'answers' to those three 'questions' form the bedrock of anything else I say. So I'll immediately show those.

1. First the summary of the narrative:
    Rei Murasame, Sat 14 Jan 2012, 0433BST wrote:I would say that the upper-middle class has been locketing away an astonishingly high proportion of the growing wealth. They are even now using the liberal-capitalist state which they created, as an implement to further facilitate that.

    The working class have been facing an offensive from the upper-middle class, which has really been intensifying over the last few years. It is an offensive against public services, incomes, living standards and unions in order to short-sightedly boost the returns for multinational companies led by international finance. Not contented with the banks receiving the biggest bailout in the history of capitalism - a bailout that they themselves engineered - international finance apparently wants to continue to make the national community skirt closer to destruction to serve the narrow interests of financial institutions.

    We in the middle-middle class have been asked to co-operate with this disastrous development, but we should not co-operate with it, since it poses an existential threat to the national community. It's about time to seriously get a desire to take our countries back. If the present system is incapable of adequately allocating wealth to fulfil our policy preferences and foster social harmony - and now there is no doubt that it is incapable - then it ought to be sublated or abolished.


2. Then a summary of the principles, the aim being to foster full employment, growth, social inclusion, sustainability, health, and defence of a specific ancestral breeding group and its dominance of a civic space:
    Rei Murasame, Sun 20 Nov 2011, 0745BST wrote:We can seize the chance to build a new social order, in a new historic bloc. We can find meaning and reward in serving some cause higher than ourselves, a glimmering purpose, the warm glow of a thousand points of light, illuminating every child in the nation. Aren't we all gazing up at the same stars, are our feet not planted firmly on the same Land?

    We have to remember what that higher purpose is, the defence and maintenance of our population group. The nation is a project under renovation and construction, it should accept new parts and incorporate them appropriately, nurturing and developing them in accordance with our climate and what the new environment requires, while at the same time also continuing to conserve what has been passed down to us, if it is good, vetted and purified from among our people since the most ancient times.

    We have to act in the interests of those who came before us, those who are presently alive, and those who will come after us. This is so that we can safeguard our existence as a distinct people indefinitely/forever, and along the way possibly discover the Reason/Truth that lies behind our existence and explore the unexplained laws of nature and the special powers latent in humans*.

    * Hey, isn't that the line at the bottom of my signature? That's on purpose!

3. Then thirdly a summary of the path, which is what I want to especially highlight in this post, since the bolded portion here is basically the answer to your question in full context:
    Rei Murasame, Wed 25 Apr 2012, 1007BST (emphasis added) wrote:Primary phenomenon will always take revenge against any attempt to narrowly alter their derivative phenomenon.

    Mass migration is a derivative phenomenon, meaning that the ethnic contradictions are secondary to the primary contradiction which is the contradiction between:

    • The middle class whose interest is to be nationally hegemonic by arranging a unity of purpose between territorially-coincident capital and labour so that it can carry out its social goals,

      VS


    • Finance capital, whose interest is to most rapidly engage in wealth-accumulation and knock down any inconvenient barriers to that accumulation.

    What this means for us is that in order to credibly address any of the social goals, such as halting the mass immigration process, we must criticise liberal-capitalism and highlight the actual centrality of capitalist logic in the re-production of a scenario where this mass immigration (and whatever else we don't like) is occurring. That must happen openly and it must accompany a complete divorce from any centre-right organisations - that line must be drawn firmly in the sand.

    Another pitfall that we must avoid is the misuse of the word 'greed'. Greed is not the problem. It is not greed which perpetuates capitalism, it is capitalism which perpetuates capitalism; it is capitalism which penetrates and shapes society in such a way that the use of capitalist logic becomes the path of least resistance [to surviving] in that society.

    What is needed is for nationalists to kick against that logic and call for an ethnic solidarity in which we become comfortable with co-operating with and working alongside people of differing social statuses in our business-lives, so that capitalism can [be strongly attacked] and the experience of real community would be a practice and not just a word.

    This solidarited 'real community' effect must be actualised through 'the path of national-labour', a struggle in which the middle class would reach out to the working class and establish a rival base of economic power using a labour movement to facilitate the dispersal of economic power into national guilds and co-determinate corporations, and co-operatives. That is the only way to challenge finance. That material condition must be satisfied in order to attain the power to act; that is the only way that a Far Right party would ever be able to reach power while maintaining its integrity.

    And it is only then, that the potential would exist for the state to be actually commandeered by our new political class, a new political class which is interested in social justice and spiritual advancement of the indigenous people of Europe; that commitment being bolstered and encouraged by the aforementioned solid material incentives, in a civil society in which our community-oriented ideology would have already displaced liberalism and would be triumphant and total.

    The desires of our new political class could then be fashioned into a coherent corporatist institutional arrangement which - through consensus-building - would develop those desires into a workable methodology and therefore totalitarian action.

The reason that it has to be done this way is because simply promulgating a blueprint will not actually cause anyone to obey it, nor will it get you into power. So it must be built, that rival base of power must be built.

Now, why corporatism? Well let's take two views:
'National Guilds and the State', S. G. Hobson, 1920 (emphasis added) wrote:[...] economic power precedes and dominates political action [...] It is permanently true in that statesmanship must possess the material means to encompass its ends, precisely as one must have the fare and sustenance before proceeding on a journey. [...] Economic power is not finally found in wealth but in the control of its abundance or scarcity.

If I possessed the control of the water supply, my economic power would be stupendous; but with equal access to water by the whole body of citizens, that economic power is dispersed and the community may erect swimming-baths or fountains or artificial lakes without my permission. Not only so; but the abundance of water, which economically considered is of boundless value, grows less serious as a practical issue the more abundant it becomes.

The dominance of economic power depends, therefore, upon two main considerations artificially, by the private control of wealth; fundamentally, by a natural scarcity.


And:
Ludwig von Mises wrote:There is no doubt that any attempt to realize the corporativist utopia would in a very short time lead to violent conflicts, if the government did not interfere when the vital industries abused their privileged position. What the doctrinaires envisage only as an exceptional measure—the interference of the government—will become the rule. Guild socialism and corporativism will turn into full government control of all production activities. They will develop into that system of Prussian Zwangswirtschaft [compulsory economy - permanent state of exception and other scary things] which they were designed to avoid.

The Hobson quote is what we do and the Mises quote is the criticism of it, the Mises quote to which I respond by saying that it is something that we acknowledge is real, since the power to strangle resources is what gives fascist guilds their power, and is what allows them to take the government away from liberals in the first place. Yes.

But this is a feature, not a flaw, the potential for conflict is part of the balance of powers, so we also are open to the possibility that fascist guilds might need to actually turn and shut down the very same fascist government they helped inaugurate by using that power, and we are also open to the possibility that a fascist government may need to mediate to prevent a breakdown caused by inter-guild squabbling.

So in other words, there is a deliberate kill-switch built into this which can be triggered not by by some wishful thinking or law on a piece of paper, but by actual class motives coupled with a concrete ability to control resources. Guilds are after all comprised of people who have particular interests which are not the same as the state bureaucracy or the employers groups.

At any rate, once you finally have the country, then you can get into what institutional corporatism roughly looks like. I'll borrow (and adjust!) some cute theory from the South Koreans illustrate it, since they have really simplified their explanation of it, to the point where I will not have to bring out a 100 page PDF on labour-industry relations:

    Image


    Super short summary:

    Submission of Agenda
    • All members of committees may propose and submit an agenda.

    Deliberation of Agenda
    • Committees by agenda and industry deliberate agenda.
    • The Standing Committee deliberates and reviews agenda.

    Decision of Agenda
    • The Plenary Committee decides agenda after review and co-ordination of the Standing Committee.
    • The decision shall require consent of two-thirds or more members who are present.
    • The consent has condition that the presence of half or more representatives of labour, management and the government.

    Notification of Discussion Result
    • In the event that the resolution is not possible due to the absence of either all labour or management members, the Plenary Committee can start the deliberation with the attendance of the majority of the registered members and decide to notify the government of the discussion results up to the time, with the approval of the majority of the attending members.

    Okay.

    Why are we doing this? Because:

    • A. A mature guild movement coupled with transparent and rational management mediated by an ascendant State can cooperate for:
      • quality improvement and
      • raising productivity in an industrial economy.

    • B. Full employment policies create:
      • employment opportunities and
      • foster social integration.

    • C. Welfare of the employees is promoted, which:
      • protects their health and safety,
      • addresses the problem of plateauing wages by allowing wage-negotiation and
      • enhances national competitiveness.

    If this sounds like I've just gone and described "the chamber of fasces and corporations" from the fascist theory, it's because it is, of course. But notice that this only comes into existence at the end. Most of the economic structure's ground-work is actually laid during the revolutionary process.

RECAP:

So to recap what I just did, basically I showed how guild socialism is procedural, a path, and not just something to be implemented after we get in. As a path, it means it is something that must be done on the way to power and as a precondition for attaining power.

That's why "the path of national-labour" is distinctly different from something like just "the principles of national-labour".

So what I've done:
  • 1. A clear narrative about the current crisis based on some class analysis. CHECK.

  • 2. Fundamental principles on which actions are based. CHECK.

  • 3. A path which leads to a framework in which a programme may develop (notice that we don't presume to know every detail of what that programme will be in all scenarios!) to address the contradictions at the root of the crisis. CHECK.

Even if people disagree with how I've checked all three of those, at least I have checked them. If you want to find out if a revolutionary group is using joined-up thinking, take their economic programme and subject it to that checklist. If any of those come back as "NOT PRESENT" instead of "CHECK", then you know that their train has either gone off the rails or never been in contact with the rails of material reality.

That's the situation, and so there.
#14152271
Well, I have been around hanging around this planet about three years longer than you and still hope that no one, a priori, decides to stulitify their mental growth because they think they have learned all that there is (and ever will be) to consider on a matter as complex as this. I still realize I could always change my mind.

As for 'right socialism,' I see how it could be attractive to some people if you are trying to make the best of a bad situation. In my view not the right path for many countries, though.

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