Well, correlation does not imply causation (those countries being "white" isn't necessarily the reason they're rich). But they're not wrong either. At this moment only Europe + European off-shoots and Japan/Hong Kong/Macau/Singapore/South Korea are developed.
The rest of the world is still lagging.
Of course, their racist argument kind of falls flat considering there's also poor "white" countries :)
One huge irony that strikes me is the idea of these ‘middle class bloggers’ raging against Western oppression whilst living lives that are basically upper-middle class EU/US: high income, property owners, international holidays, white collar jobs, $1000 smartphones from which they blog about progressive political issues.
China’s success and rise since the 1980s has been as much about wholesale adoption of Western business/science/cultural norms as anything else. And yet bloggers still see China’s situation in us & them terms?
According to SWIFT, when looking at domestic and cross-border payments the RMB share as an international payments currency is 1.61% percent. The activity share is lower, (0.98%) if looking at cross-border payments only. The Yen is used almost four times more.
file:///Users/tonyaustin/Downloads/swift_rmb_tracker_special_edition_january2018.pdf
But can the limited resources of the planet accomodate 1,400 million more people consuming that way?
more than their apparent racism, I am worried about their seeming lack of environmentalism
Instead consider the positive-sum "We need more people to solve bigger problems" that follows from Esther Boserup's theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester_Boserup#Work
SN believes that China can somehow end up like South Korea or Taiwan in terms of prosperity. But there are many factors why it cannot. 1.) authoritarian government skimming most of the profits and giving them to inefficient state owned operations. 2.) population is too large and most are uneducated. 3.) China will be old before it becomes rich. 4.) the culture of stealing and copying prevent it from developing a healthy middle class 5.) China have incurred debts too massive, and choose to invest in poor investment. 6.) it had angered its investors, namely japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US, Europe, with many of its belligerent actions 7.) it has angered many other developing countries. In short, most countries in the world do not want China to succeed
And so we have the reality today: China is way too indebted and a wave of defaults has commenced. Factories and firms have moved out of China. Luxury sales have crashed 50%. Home sales in 2019 have crashed 60%. account deficit will be negative for the year. Import and export are all down. And the hike in tariff is yet to come. This is all happening in the background of declining fertility, population contraction in 2030, and middle income trap, where most Chinese earn less than $1000/month.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. I suppose most * developed * countries do not want China to succeed.
But what about African countries? or Latin American countries?
Being enthusiastically patriotic/positive is probably a Good Idea for a common citizen with such a high profile in China who likely also says negative things quite often.
From reading this I was quite impressed at this kind of intelligent and engaged public dialogue taking place in China, I imagine you could find the same thing in the West, but the difference here is I doubt it has widespread popular interest.
> And so we have the reality today: China is way too indebted and a wave of defaults has commenced. Factories and firms have moved out of China. Luxury sales have crashed 50%. Home sales in 2019 have crashed 60%. account deficit will be negative for the year. Import and export are all down. And the hike in tariff is yet to come.
Anyone have suggestions on a single, relatively unbiased source where one could keep up to date on such things inside China?
