Mish, thanks for the good article. It gives a balanced view on China.
>> Further, pretty much all of China's R&D is fairly basic and for more immediate needs. That is why the focus on the rice genome, as they need to develop better, more nutritious and stronger strains of rice. Much of the US R&D is devoted to "pure sciences" which will not produce benefits for many years, but becomes the foundation for major future advances.<<
It is true that China needs to increase their R&D budget as a percent of GDP, but it is also true that Chinese scientists cost much less comparing with those in the West<g>. Plus China has had a tradition to emphasize on “pure science” research ever since 1950s, thanks to PM Zhou EnLai and hundreds of Chinese patriotic scientists who studied in the West and returned to China from overseas in early 1950s. Because of this, China had successfully exploded their own A-bomb and hydrogen bomb not long after the ex-USSR withdrew their experts. China also invests big in high energy physics, which belongs to pure science category. Here are some examples:
Beijing Electron Positron Collider,
Beijing Spectrometer,
Beijing Proton Linac
Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Beijing Free Electron Laser
Test Beam
Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Observatory
ihep.ac.cn
China has started a large-scale national research project code named as “863” ever since 1986.
863.org.cn
>> Turning stem-cell experiments into therapies such as replacement organs will require expertise in genetics and clinical medicine that's relatively undeveloped in China, Yang Xiangzhong wrote in the Nature report. At best, China might emerge as 'one of the leading nations' in stem-cell research in five to ten years, concluded Yang, a native of China who directs the Center for Regenerative Biology at the University of Connecticut. <<
This guy should read this before he opened his big mouth<g>. And some Chinese doctor might already get ahead of the US doctors.
Message 20888003
>> Any problems the US or Europe has will be of their own making, stemming from their own inherent troubles like an aging demographic, stifling bureaucracies, bloated social security systems which cannot be sustained and so on. It might be easy to scapegoat China and India, but it will not be the true source.<<
Cannot agree more, although this kind scapegoat works perfect in the western democratic system, and most of the public buy it too.
>> The most astounding thing I know of about China is its ability to deal with the greatest migration of human beings in the history of the world. Each year 20,000,000 people come looking for jobs from the west to the east coasts. A reported 200,000,000 people have migrated to coastal China looking for jobs, and most have found them. They are low paying jobs by almost any standard, but it is more than they made on the farm. <<
He forgot to mention the new trend since last year, more and more farmers have chosen to stay at home farming instead going far away from their home town to work cheap and being discriminated. Many of them can make just as little by farming as they work in those sweatshop.
>> China has not somehow found a way to avoid the normal business cycle that has plagued mankind since the Medes were trading with the Persians. They will eventually have a hard landing.<<
This is true, although due to the size of China, and the big pending demand, and the possibility of adjusting the gov. policy, the hard landing may very well be delayed for another decade or two.
>> It would be miraculous if they did not, given the lack of tools that the central bank of China has in its arsenal, an economy that is being controlled by an administration, <<
Chinese are good at miracles<g>. Their resilience may very well be a surprise again to many others. A good control by the gov. is beneficial at the present stage in China. Otherwise, it could never engineer the soft landing back in 1997-99 during the Asian currency crisis, and will not possibly achieve the soft landing this time either. A laissez-faire market economy of the US style would only result in disaster in China. It would only result in the severe and cut-to-throat competition between each province within China. Big multinational companies, maybe some foreign consumers, will be the sole beneficiaries, not China and Chinese people. Even if now, there are plenty of repeated and wasteful projects within China. So what China needs is better control and coordination among all their provincial gov.
>>and thousands of state owned companies which will never be profitable in their current structures.<<
He should have realized most of these thousands of state owned companies have already bankrupt and those still operate are not in too bad shape if the Chinese gov. treat them fairly. How many state owned companies can exist or even just survive, not to mention making profit, when they have to pay twice as high tax as foreign owned companies?? Furthermore, there are all other unfair treatment for the state owned companies. It is not an overstatement to say that many state owned companies in China were forced into bankruptcy by the Chinese gov. themselves.
I agree his assessment on China’s banking sector, and whether RMB will appreciate if it were free-float now. Although I am expecting in the next 3 years (the last 3 years before China fully opens its banking sector to the foreigners), under Zhou Xiaochuan, the banking sector of China will have some big improvement. And yes, the West will be disappointed not to see RMB revaluation, but hey, people do not usually get what they want<g>
I personally could not care less whose economy is bigger. All I care is that whether an ordinary Chinese can live better. Although so many people are applauding for China’s economic miracle, the reality for many Chinese is quite the opposite. More and more ordinary Chinese seems worse off now. Official statistics is that the number of Chinese who live below the Chinese poverty line (with an annual income of <$80) increased to 30 million in 2003, an increase of 0.8 million y-o-y, and it was also the first increase since 1978.
I read that some urban residents in northern China, including Beijing, now simply could not afford the heating fee in winter (around 1500 Yuan for 3-4 three winter months), and this was never seen/heard of before.
Although since 2004, the gov. starts to do something about the rural poor, not still not enough for the urban poor. |
