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Political issues in the People's Republic of China.

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#15181728
Crantag wrote:
The real estate 'bubble' (quotes because in conventional usage, often suggestion of a bubble implies that it will pop, and if it doesn't, it is not really a 'bubble') seems to be a result of supply and demand factors, largely.




It's a marriage of convenience.

The government didn't want a open market for the people. They also had massive infrastructure needs when this started. So it seemed like a marriage made in heaven.

But now they need to transition into being a mature economy, and they are having trouble doing that, partly because of the real estate bubble. They set it up as a safe way for people to invest. So if they let the bubble burst, the investments of hundreds of millions will take a massive hit. They really don't want that. So they pump endless billions into propping up the illusion that there is real investments to be made in real estate.

As the American West is about to find out, without enough water, you are screwed. China doesn't have enough water. They could easily buy time by charging people more for water. But that would also be politically unsettling. Even worse, they seem to be having trouble facing the crisis (just as we are). They need to be building on a massive scale, but what they actually need to do is an order of magnitude more than what they are doing.

One of the reasons the USSR fell was information overload. Things were changing fast, and their system could simply not keep up.

Guess what.
#15181752
B0ycey wrote:Mate, the West have been in more wars than China since WW2. So much for peace!

Also I don't really know what you are saying here @JohnRawls. There is nothing exceptional with the West and naturally given the butterfly effect we shouldn't expect the same outcome between nations anyway. But what I find ironic is that the West think they are somewhat superior to the rest of the world. I support Democracy, but others don't. Are they wrong? Well you have to ask them. And ultimately that is all that matters. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them given they live in such a society. And that is how it should be. And even so, you can also critical of Democracy anyway given it has presented both Trump and Brexit recently as pointed out by another user. Also, even if China was Democratic, given the support of the CCP, they would be in power anyway. So what is the big deal?
Ultimately as I said before there is a lot the West should be doing to emulate China especially in regards to homelessness, economics, production and believe it or not... corruption. So in that sense there is a lot of good in China. It isn't the wicked beast people think it is at all. Even the contentious issues there can be a case to be made from China's prospective. I won't go into them given they are contentious but there is an argument for them. So ultimately it is the West who should be implementing China policies with Western characteristics. We should be making more of our own stuff and doing so with our ideals given greed has basically divided us today. So rather than playing pissing games saying who has the better history or better society we should just accept that we have opposing opinions to the East and deal with each other as partners. We shouldn't be blaming China because the Bourgeois took all our production East and made Asia wealthy and now we are looking on trying to find blame for our own failures and making stuff up that they need us more than we need them.



It is obvious that people like him are not worried about China because of their love for the Chinese, but because of the attempt to justify their idea of American exceptionalism and hegemony.
#15181789
Fasces wrote:There is an assumption that many make here that I don't understand - that a liberal, democratic China wouldn't be a threat to a Western-led world order. I don't think this is true at all: the same nationalist undercurrent that exists in the UK and USA that promote Trumpism, freedom fries, and Brexit would exist in a democratic China. There is no reason to believe that a democratic Chinese body politic wouldn't challenge US hegemony in Asia, and given my own experiences and the general atmosphere on Weibo and television media, when it comes to issues like Taiwan or Hong Kong - the CCP is actually a restrained influence on a Chinese population that would happily go to war to restore the national honor.


A liberal, democratic China would promote liberal democratic values, or at least have a strong tendency towards it, hence I couldn't care less if it would threaten the "Western-led world order". Brexit doesn't bother me, Trumpism only because it is authoritarian in nature.

As for the CCP being a "restraining influence", you know as well as I do that the CCP feeds the nationalism with its reporting on Taiwan and Hong Kong.

All that said, a democratic China could certainly be a threat. Namely when it follows the path of other countries with no previous experience with democracy which ultimately ended up with aggressive dictatorships. I have little doubt that CCP rule will at some point be challenged in the future, but if that happens it should happen orderly and peacefully. That's why it is important that China gradually opens up politically. If the CCP digs in its heels, which it seems to be doing currently, the consequences might be disastrous.
#15181802
late wrote:It's a marriage of convenience.

The government didn't want a open market for the people. They also had massive infrastructure needs when this started. So it seemed like a marriage made in heaven.

But now they need to transition into being a mature economy, and they are having trouble doing that, partly because of the real estate bubble. They set it up as a safe way for people to invest. So if they let the bubble burst, the investments of hundreds of millions will take a massive hit. They really don't want that. So they pump endless billions into propping up the illusion that there is real investments to be made in real estate.

As the American West is about to find out, without enough water, you are screwed. China doesn't have enough water. They could easily buy time by charging people more for water. But that would also be politically unsettling. Even worse, they seem to be having trouble facing the crisis (just as we are). They need to be building on a massive scale, but what they actually need to do is an order of magnitude more than what they are doing.

One of the reasons the USSR fell was information overload. Things were changing fast, and their system could simply not keep up.

Guess what.


The West have a far bigger property bubble Late. In fact, if people are investing in property in Beijing clearly they think China is worth investing in. But given Xi says homes are for living in I doubt he will care too much about the wealthy losing their speculation gamble anyway if things are a problem. They will just keep building. They also have a number of ghost cities that they should be trying to bring online as well. So what I find ironic is that Chinas bubble is due to location and not supply and demand like most countries who should be building but not. Although I am sure Switzerland has loads of free homes and rent is really low especially in Zurich.
#15181819
late wrote:Beginners.

Because the Chinese people are limited in where they can invest, popping their bubble would be devastating.


To who? The person who invested in the property not the state. And people in China don't have much debt burden. There aren't many Chinese banks that offer mortgages and as such it would be no different than any other speculation bubble that isn't based on debt. Besides China have already had their own property bubble before and survived FYI.
#15181824
B0ycey wrote:
To who? The person who invested in the property not the state. And people in China don't have much debt burden. There aren't many Chinese banks that offer mortgages and as such it would be no different than any other speculation bubble that isn't based on debt. Besides China have already had their own property bubble before and survived FYI.



"One of the main reasons that China’s real estate market has ultimately maintained stability in the face of regular bouts of seemingly over-inflated prices is that the central and local levels of governments are firmly at the helm. They have control over the supply of new land for construction, financing for development, mortgage policies, tax rates, as well as housing purchasing restrictions that they use like a thermostat to heat up or cool off the market at their discretion.

There is a very good reason for this heavy hand. In China, real estate is responsible for 15% of GDP, 15% of fixed asset investment, 15% of urban employment, and 20% of all bank loans, according to the IMF. This isn’t something the government is going to leave to the whims of the free market.

“People know the government has to support the real estate market. If the real estate bubble bursts the entire economy goes bankrupt, and that’s the last thing the government wants to see,” said Cody Chao, a medical student in Suzhou whose family has invested heavily in housing."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/05/why-chinas-housing-market-refuses-to-crash/?sh=3321d9db4f83
#15181829
Well if China are controlling the market @late, they have the means to control the price. And in that sense as long as their is a buyer, the investment is completely safe surely.

Nonetheless that isn't really something to be concerned about anyway - not from the POV of the state. Housing should be occupied and not something to speculate on and people who bet also have to be prepared to lose. Also, I am against free market housing as it HAS MADE the situation worse in the UK since we sold all the social housing off and didn't build more. Whatever you think of China, they don't have the same issues we have with low supply high demand, expensive rent etc as the homes you are suggesting are in the explosive bubble are in the most desirable areas of China anyway.
#15181851
B0ycey wrote:
Well if China are controlling the market @late, they have the means to control the price. And in that sense as long as their is a buyer, the investment is completely safe surely.

Nonetheless that isn't really something to be concerned about anyway - not from the POV of the state. Housing should be occupied and not something to speculate on and people who bet also have to be prepared to lose. Also, I am against free market housing as it HAS MADE the situation worse in the UK since we sold all the social housing off and didn't build more. Whatever you think of China, they don't have the same issues we have with low supply high demand, expensive rent etc as the homes you are suggesting are in the explosive bubble are in the most desirable areas of China anyway.



Gonna sting, when it pops..
#15181854
late wrote:Gonna sting, when it pops..


Unless there is no demand, how can it pop? It even basically says that in your source as a reason why it hasn't popped is because the government is controlling the market despite it been speculated to do so for the last ten years. Although they could just use all their American Dollars to bailout the the investors like QE did with the banks. :hmm:
#15181859
B0ycey wrote:
Unless there is no demand, how can it pop? It even basically says that in your source as a reason why it hasn't popped is because the government is controlling the market despite it been speculated to do so for the last ten years. Although they could just use all their American Dollars to bailout the the investors like QE did with the banks. :hmm:



The more people deny it can crash, the closer to the crash one is. That's just my opinion, and I can be a bit pessimistic, but poop happens.

Even in China.

Btw, they are already using their reserves (like dollars) to bail out their banks.
#15181874
In China the government owns all of the land, anyway.

The assets are apartments themselves.

People in China do often complain about the high prices for buying an apartment (it's a cultural perogative for men to own a car and apartment for marriage), but I'd like to invite you to compare the price of buying an apartment in Shanghai to that in New York or San Francisco, or Tokyo, or Hong Kong.

Moreover, again there is no free market for land in China. One cannot own land in China.

I don't think there is a real bubble.
#15181882
late wrote:The more people deny it can crash, the closer to the crash one is. That's just my opinion, and I can be a bit pessimistic, but poop happens.

Even in China.


Sure. But another opinion is the West is closer to another economic crash before China. Sometimes I genuinely believe these articles are made on wishful thinking hoping the China miracle is coming to an end rather than actual data. The mere fact the government is manipulating price means they are controlling the bubble preventing it popping.
#15181887
B0ycey wrote:
Sure. But another opinion is the West is closer to another economic crash before China. Sometimes I genuinely believe these articles are made on wishful thinking hoping the China miracle is coming to an end rather than actual data. The mere fact the government is manipulating price means they are controlling the bubble preventing it popping.



Getting a dictator is an admission of weakness, not strength. That will be as true for us, if that insanity happens here, as it is for them.

They already had severe water issues before the latest round of climate change changes...

40 years ago we were all worried Japan was going to dominate the world, economically. Everybody runs into trouble. How you deal with it going forward is the measure of how successful you really are.

Which doesn't bode well for hardly anyone.
#15181896
Rugoz wrote:Of course CCP rule under Mao was mostly a disaster, with tens of millions starving during the great leap forward, to give one example. Deng gave up on socialism by any real definition of the word. China today is a highly unequal society, more unequal than basically every other industrialized country. Whether that will correct itself remains to be seen.



Mao caused the biggest famine in China, but the last famine.
#15181905
Sandzak wrote:Mao caused the biggest famine in China, but the last famine.


He died in 1976. Deng came to power and started the reforms in around 80-81 and so on. It has a lot more to do with that. Famine can still happen in capitalist society but it is very very unlikely and most capitalist famines are man made in a sense. It is not a problem of production but a problem of distribution. In communist societies it is the other way around.
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