[Frogfish]

To late (early) for me to address your responses tonight (this morning) however I would like to point out I am British born and bred ... not Chinese as you like to call me " .. your fellow Chinese ".

It's just I seem to have a far more balanced view than someone sitting on one side of the fence and throwing stones because they have taken the party(ies) rhetoric hook, line and sinker .... that China is responsible for all the USA's ills. Election time nearing is it ?

[skyredoubt]

Maybe I am just naive and give them too much credit but I don't see it that way. I think its just a symptom of our media and attention span. The part where they go into depth on the issue in public addresses either gets snipped by speech writers or ends up in the cutting room floor of the nightly news to make room for an extra cialus commercial or an extended human interest segment on the lost dog that returned home after 4 years.

Sorry, what on earth are you talking about? This is not about being naive or attention span. It is about politicians lying to you. It is about justifying cuts in essential (and pretty minimal) social programs. Just watch the upcoming State of the Union. Obama with a serious and concerned face will lie about the need to cut SS benefits. And we'll swallow it hook and sinker. Pathetic.

[Frogfish]

OK MikeMike. I didn't want to just walk away and leave this hanging so here it is. I come on this site because I love to talk photography however when clicking on 'The Latest posts', this one came up. Now I know I shouldn't have ventured into a political forum because if the subject of China arises it is obvious that most people in the West have very limited knowledge and experience of anything Chinese / to do with China - as you aptly proved (and which I hasten to add is in most cases not at all their fault), but what can I do when there was a thread such as this hanging right before my eyes ?

You are obviously set in your opinion, you sound and read like an American politician so your views on China read as if from a party prepared script. You didn't bother to answer those questions / answers that I posed in my reply to your diatribe against China, it would obviously prove too difficult, so you played the politician again and neatly side-stepped / ignored them.

Debating with you is pretty pointless & frustrating - for you as well I assume - it certainly is for me. It's obvious that I could never persuade you of the value of my point of view, and at my age and having lived in 4 continents and 9 countries you are never going to persuade me that the archetypal American politician's view you hold is the right one.

Good luck in your political debates.

[mikemike]

Now I know I shouldn't have ventured into a political forum because if the subject of China arises it is obvious that most people in the West have very limited knowledge and experience of anything Chinese / to do with China - as you aptly proved (and which I hasten to add is in most cases not at all their fault), but what can I do when there was a thread such as this hanging right before my eyes ?

You are obviously set in your opinion, you sound and read like an American politician so your views on China read as if from a party prepared script.

I try my best to keep an open mind and have discussed china with several people over here. Here you tend to run into two types of Chinese expats, political refugees that totally hate communists or communist party loyalists who are able to afford to come to america and study in our colleges on student visas. I think the problem is that the implementation of the communist party's ideal of a "harmonious society" is so radically at odds with western ideals of individualism, civil rights, and protection of minorities.

Policies and practices like 1-child, migration issues with sending Han chinese to Tibet and Xianjiang then giving them a political and economic leg up on the locals, and deportation of N. Korean refugees escaping and trying to seek asylum back to N. Korea where they face living the rest of their shortened life in labor camps do not sit right with me from a basic ethical stand point. When combined with corruption and protection of the corrupt like collapsed school buildings (full of only children) or cover ups involving melamine in baby formula (again only babies) corruption and cover ups are endemic to any government but some of the examples out of China are just incredible to me and those are only the ones that are too big to cover up and reach the world news. When it comes to government involvement in business it just feels like it is not a level playing field in so many ways that it is too numerous to get into. With foreign policy again it is issues to do with their support for pariah states and the ability to fly off the handle on issues like Taiwan that confounds me. Then there is the desire to demonstrate China's greatness and how far they have come but then play the "Developing Nation Card" whenever someone else acknowledges their accomplishments and says, "okay good job now act superpower."

[Frogfish]

Policies and practices like 1-child, migration issues with sending Han chinese to Tibet and Xianjiang then giving them a political and economic leg up on the locals, and deportation of N. Korean refugees escaping and trying to seek asylum back to N. Korea where they face living the rest of their shortened life in labor camps do not sit right with me from a basic ethical stand point. When combined with corruption and protection of the corrupt like collapsed school buildings (full of only children) or cover ups involving melamine in baby formula (again only babies) corruption and cover ups are endemic to any government but some of the examples out of China are just incredible to me and those are only the ones that are too big to cover up and reach the world news. When it comes to government involvement in business it just feels like it is not a level playing field in so many ways that it is too numerous to get into. With foreign policy again it is issues to do with their support for pariah states and the ability to fly off the handle on issues like Taiwan that confounds me. Then there is the desire to demonstrate China's greatness and how far they have come but then play the "Developing Nation Card" whenever someone else acknowledges their accomplishments and says, "okay good job now act superpower."

You see yet again this is what I see over & over, Westerners compare their own country's mature political / commercial / legal / health / educational systems & moral compasses to that of a 'fledgeling' 3rd third world nation (in modern economical & political terms at the very least) of 1.5 billion+ (forget the official figures, 1 child policies only apply in actuality to major cities that can enforce it, once outside them most families have lots of children - though official census won't show them) and forget it's taken their own countries hundreds of years of 'democracy' (in whatever form) to reach the stage they are preaching. China has made phenomenal strides over the past 20 years especially, given encouragement - as any child would be given - they can soon progress to the standards Westerners want them to practice now. But that can't and won't happen over-night without breaking the country. Anyone not so set on protecting / enhancing their own country's situation (which is what all politicians are hell-bent on anyway - so don't be taken in by their rhetoric) can see that.

With regard to the scandals mentioned above - what do you expect from a 3rd world country home to 1/4 of the world's population ? I would expect 1/4 of the world's major scandals / exposes ! Shall we list those recent ones from the USA ? Starting with finance, cover-ups and looking the other way in high office ?

Having lived in Africa I have seen the worst corruption possible and not much progress has been made there in the last 50 years but where is the weekly outcry from Western politicians / media ? It hardly exists because African countries are not seen as any sort of threat to Western economic / military supremacy.
In China corruption is endemic in many areas of government and business - but that is because it is almost impossible for central government to control local government with the weak systems in place. They are improving but it will take decades for China to get close to Western standards and it is mind-blowingly that political do-gooders could expect this to happen overnight. Similarly the other spheres I mentioned above.

With regard to acknowledging accomplishments - what is wrong with that ? Everybody loves to be patted on the head and told they have done a good job, and the Chinese people crave to be recognised as an integral part of the modern world, something that, not even a decade ago, they weren't.

China are only a super-power by virtue of the size of the country and because economically their development came at the precise time the rest of the world (bar India & maybe Brazil) was in crisis, militarily I watched a general on TV just yesterday state that China could not reach the level of US military strength in the next 100 years, they are not trying to and their military spending per person is so far behind the USA's it is incredible.

Stop looking at China as a 1st World country, stop seeing them as a major threat to your way of life and start looking at them as having a massive population undergoing unheard of expansion and social progress on a scale never before witnessed in World history.

Damn - you sucked me in again.

[jeffkrol]

Frogfish thanks... How does one know another side if that side goes unspoken?
The worst way to "debate" (and it happens everywhere) is when one side tells you your wrong but will not tell you why.. That said, again, thanks..

[mikemike]

Stop looking at China as a 1st World country, stop seeing them as a major threat to your way of life and start looking at them as having a massive population undergoing unheard of expansion and social progress on a scale never before witnessed in World history.

On this we agree. Globalization has been a great thing and it has resulted in at least 25% of the population of the world being lifted out of abject poverty and hard scrabble survival into the middle class. I always try to point that out to anyone who frets about the fact that 15 million americans are unemployed and only receive $300/month in unemployment assistance plus food stamps to live in their homes with running water and electricity. The transfer of opportunity to india and china has resulted in a US population equivalent in each country achieving basic services that we take for granted.

[jeffkrol]

Interesting read........
Kindergarten Guide to Modern Monetary Theory - Day 2 (Frank Ashe) - Academia.edu
Here too........
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=13078#more-13078
http://www.correntewire.com/modern_money_theory_social_sustainability_and_nick

L. Randall Wray, Professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City kindly called my attention to Nick's youtube in an e-mail, and had this to say in answer to his question.

”. . . . Yes, every sovereign currency country in the world can use its monetary system to achieve full employment of all resources domestically, most importantly labor. Yes, if it tries to go beyond full employment it will drive up domestic resource prices; hence the Job Guarantee is the best way to get to full employment because it cannot go beyond.”

That is, as I interpret it, the Federal Job Guarantee (FJG) proposal of MMT thinkers contains a built-in normative constraint on government spending at the full employment level. In addition, since the movement to full employment will increase aggregate demand in the non-Government sector, jobs created there will move people out of FJG jobs and into those jobs, since they will need to offer better compensation than FJG jobs. As non-government sector employment increases and FJG jobs decrease in number, Government spending will also decline, making room for increased non-government sector spending without causing inflation. Randy Wray continues about Nick and his views:

[Frogfish]

Frogfish thanks... How does one know another side if that side goes unspoken?
The worst way to "debate" (and it happens everywhere) is when one side tells you your wrong but will not tell you why.. That said, again, thanks..

Thanks Jeff.

I hope my opinions were of some insight. I have lived in China for the last 16 years (HK 3 & Shanghai 13) having been bred, born and raised in the UK. After spending the last 30+ years working in numerous countries around the world I believe I no longer carry a Western centric, or indeed Eastern centric, view and I hope I am able to view the world and it's gyrations from a more neutral standpoint than for example people accustomed to hearing / seeing only one side of the story as presented by their politicians and media.

Please note though that these are only my opinions and those of other Western expats may differ.

[mikemike]

Having lived in Africa I have seen the worst corruption possible and not much progress has been made there in the last 50 years but where is the weekly outcry from Western politicians / media ? It hardly exists because African countries are not seen as any sort of threat to Western economic / military supremacy.

Short of military intervention, the only major levers available to dealing with corruption like that is economic sanctions. As I mentioned the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has makes it illegal and very rare for American companies (major ones at least) to indulge corruption. I would also point out the boycotts of South Africa during apartheid and Kimberly Process for dealing with diamonds. We do not go into countries like Sudan where the leaders are wanted by the ICC for genocide to drill for oil as China does.

China are only a super-power by virtue of the size of the country and because economically their development came at the precise time the rest of the world (bar India & maybe Brazil) was in crisis, militarily I watched a general on TV just yesterday state that China could not reach the level of US military strength in the next 100 years, they are not trying to and their military spending per person is so far behind the USA's it is incredible.

Militarily
China has a stockpile of nuclear weapons comparable to that of the UK and France as well as full compliment of ICBMs.
Total military spending is second only to the US and the size of their military is first in the world I don't see what nominal military spending per capita has to do with anything when you have such a huge difference in PPP and population between the US and China.

Regardless of whether they want to be or how they got to be that way, China is a superpower and it is time for them to behave that way.

With regard to the scandals mentioned above - what do you expect from a 3rd world country home to 1/4 of the world's population ? I would expect 1/4 of the world's major scandals / exposes ! Shall we list those recent ones from the USA ? Starting with finance, cover-ups and looking the other way in high office ?

Yes, it is reasonable to expect China to have its fair share of scandals but the types of scandals they have and their response is just galling. An american scandal might be related to stealing money by overcharging for work that is still performed up to spec whereas a chinese scandal is stealing money by charging the right amount of money for a piece of work that is done way below spec. The result is school buildings in an earthquake zone that were seemed to be built out of plaster of paris instead of concrete, baby formula cut with industrial chemicals, and radioactive drywall.

Westerners compare their own country's mature political / commercial / legal / health / educational systems & moral compasses to that of a 'fledgeling' 3rd third world nation

If the fledgling third world country wants to participate in our mature economic system they must abide by our mature commercial and legal systems while not have a detrimental effects on our health system. If they want their students to access our higher educational systems then they must prepare them to that level. As for the moral compass I think that WWII, Rwanda, and the Balkans have taught the western world that the prevention of atrocities requires us to hold all peoples to the highest moral standards and be mindful of expansionists that suppress and abuse minorities like China does.

[Wheatfield]

An american scandal might be related to stealing money by overcharging for work that is still performed up to spec

This explains such things as exploding tires on Ford Explorers, Dodge Caravans with ejection seats, pretty much anything made by General Motors.....

[jeffkrol]

baby formula cut with industrial chemicals, .

They did execute some of these people you know......

Criminal prosecutions led to two people being executed, another given a suspended death penalty, three others receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms—and 13 others receiving varying sentences.[6]

* Zhang Yujun, for producing and selling 776 tons of melamine-laced "protein powder", death.[185]
* Geng Jinping, for adding melamine-laced powder to fresh milk and selling to Sanlu and other companies, death.[186]
* Gao Junjie, making and supplying melamine-laced "protein powder", suspended death sentence.[6]
* Tian Wenhua, former chairwoman of Sanlu Group, life imprisonment.[187]
* Zhang Yanzhang, a middleman, life.[6]
* Xue Jianzhong, owner of an industrial chemical shop, life.[6]
* Wang Yuliang, former executive of Sanlu, 15 years.[6]
* Xiao Yu, helping her husband Gao Junjie, five years.

2008 Chinese milk scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm going to be nice and NOT tell you what I think would happen to american execs/companies here in the US faced w/ the same situation........