Re: Why could China have developed a lot faster?

On Jun 15, 4:49 am, PaPaPeng <PaPaP...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:36:41 -0700 (PDT), "fyfp...@xxxxxxxxx"





<fyfp...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The economic progress made in China since the market reform has been
tremendous, but I am not sure if the other fronts have been able to
catch up with its economic front in order for the country to grow
faster and better as well.

I have been reading books on 'cultural or creative industry'.  These
books are written by the Chinese scholars in China.  Many messages are
being sent out of their writings.  In particular, they emphasize on
the importance human right, freedom of thought and speech.  According
to these scholars, these above-mentioned qualities enable a country's
citizens to think independently and to exchange intellectual concepts
with each others.  Once these opportunities to freely interact are
lost, the accumulation of this country's cultural capital will shrink,
which in turn leads to the dwarfing of its economic growth.

A government's policy can speed up or hinder the development of
cultural capital.  For the government-owned news medium agents in
China to screen out bad news is in my view inhibiting the exchange of
ideas and thus the development of cultural capital, which in turn
hindering the development of economic forces, an act that is in every
sense of the word 'anti-Marxist'.

China could have developed a lot faster and better with a bit more
freedom.

Don't get too carried away with your own or with "experts" opinions on
how China can progress.  Your posts suggests wishful thinking as in
"Why can't the Government make new rules where I can get rich without
really trying."

China is one vast country with 1.3 billion very talented and energetic
people.  Everyone is trying to grab an advantage to be rich whichever
way he or she can.  If there is a way someone will have already tried
it and all will keep trying again and again. More than  1.2 billion
will fail.  But enough of a few millions will succeed.  That is how
China is registering over 8 per cent (to 12 per cent) annual growth
consistently over the past two decades.  

The task in government regulation is controlling this growth and not
let it get out of hand.  China does NOT need faster growth.  8 percent
annual growth seems to be the Goldilocks figure. 10 per cent and there
are worries of inflation.  At 12 per cent the headlines scream about
the Government having lost control of the economy and every little
price movement will be interpreted as a failure of some sort. The West
and the other countries can only wish for such pleasant problems.

Fall below 8 per cent annual growth (has not happened yet in China?)
and the world headlines will scream that the Chinese juggernaut has
finally lost steam and a recession at hand.  The Government lost its
legitimacy, the CPC will fall, Chinese will have to tighten belts,etc.
This at a time when the developed countries register annual growth
rates of less than half of that (<4%) if they are lucky and consider
theirs a booming economy if their rate is 3% to 4%..

Can this already red hot growth rate be maintained?

Nothing lasts forever. Filling the store shelves of WalMarts will have
to stabilize sometime, perhaps that market will even decline.  There
will be competition from other developing countries who will certainly
be able to emulate the Chinese development model and still have lower
labor costs and perhaps some local advantage in resource materials.
The Developed countries are not going to stand still either.  They
will find new ways to compete or at least reduce their debts with
China by living a more frugal lifestyle.  

In the near term Chinese manufactures will still do very well on its
enormous home market.  Then there is the developing world that is
barely scratched. This change in market size and market areas will be
good for another 30 to 40 years growth. Perhaps a much less 10 to 20
years.

Can this high growth rate be maintained?

Probably not.  But China can still maintain impressive growth if she
does not stumble into wishy washy ideas as suggested in your original
post.  Yes people need to cross disciplines and exchange ideas.  But
anything too freely given away has no value. This>the importance human right, freedom of thought and speech

is from someone with no worthwhile original idea with which to build
on but want others to tell all so that can use the ideas free of
charge.> these above-mentioned qualities enable a country's
citizens to think independently and to exchange intellectual concepts
with each others.  Once these opportunities to freely interact are
lost, the accumulation of this country's cultural capital will shrink,
which in turn leads to the dwarfing of its economic growth.

which is utter nonsense.  A good idea is useless if no one else hears
about it and it never leaves the laboratory.  A good idea needs to be
acted on and sold to the world.  That requires interaction but a very
selective interaction, not freebies.  And only with people you can
absolutely trust. It requires real life evaluations, choices,
decisions and project execution, not wooly headed lofty
pronouncements.  Why do you think the US is so uptight about
Intellectual Property?  Why do you think there are such long lead
times before publication?  Their legal department must glean through
every project first to patent the patentable parts before clearing
publication.  Even then the key part of the discoveries and inventions
are often not mentioned, the publication being a subtle warning to
others in the field to stay away from the area the team is working on.
If you are working along the same lines do consider that the millions
you are spending will come to naught if I reach the finish line first.
Winner takes all.

We come back to your central question.  In addition to managing the
country's economics China's Government is also building the
infrastructures required for development to bring China into the
modern world.  This includes a vast expansion of university education,
the expansion of her research and laboratory facilities, the
sponsorship of China's best brains to upgrade qualifications, to train
and to work globally.  This but cannot help to raise the technical and
intellectual level of China's brainpower.  The glamor stuff, the
international recognition, the Nobel Prizes so valued by intellectuals
will come. Be patient.  Modern discoveries in Science, technologies
and the humanities need people who live in that elevated kind of
environment and who have the intellectual capacity to think of big
things.  They cannot originate from a barely educated peasant, not an
idea that can change our perception of our world anyway.  That time
will come.  Be patient.

But first we have to eat and that has to be earned by work people will
pay money for.  

Already there are millions of university graduates who cannot find
meaningful work in their area of university qualifications.  You Mr.
Poon are likely one of them.  The Government should not and will not
provide direct employment to these graduates except in selected fields
that no private person can hope to start from scratch, such as the oil
and gas industry, nuclear power, arms development, medical sciences.
You will have to create your own jobs if you want to get to the top.
There are millions like yourself and they are not about to give you a
free ride by sharing their knowledge and minor advantage any more than
you will them. I can sense you are at that stage of life where you
know you are not getting anywhere and the future looks unpromisingly
more of the same.  With all those hundreds of thousands of hungry new
graduates coming out each year you fear you may become outdated and
redundant.  That won't change either.  

China's current policies and the results of those policies are very
impressive.  Everyone else in the world wants to find out how China
does it and do something similar.  When something works this well be
very careful how you tamper with it.  Do not upset it just for the
sake of change for change's sake.  The chances of making significant
improvements are unlikely. So improve it in little steps and in
consideration of real problems not hypothetical ones.  The chance of
screwing up is easy.  It took George W Bush only seven years to
destroy much of what took the US 200 years to build.

So Mr. Poon, I have been reading your posts since you joined this
newsgroup.  I find your musings about China's future directions
unrealistic if not downright wrong.  But you live in China and have to
deal with the consequences.  I don't.  It is not my place to tell you
how to think.  But I do believe you are wasting your time musing how
the Government can change to suit your idea that adopting a more
Western form will solve your personal problems (career-wise.)  It
won't and not in your lifetime to matter. You should pick a more
practical activity you can do something about and show results for.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I don't think you understand what I actually meant to say.

I am not suggesting China would speed up an inflationary spiral in
terms of GNP growth rate should its cultural capital be allowed to
accumulate faster. By the way, when you substract inflation and
environmental costs from GNP growth, you get the real growth which may
not be as impressive as what it is now sounding! It is the real
growth and the quality of growth that I am talking about.
That said, given its current development, which is impressive by the
general standard, China could have done better with a freer atmosphere
for expression, as the latter is essential to the growth of cultural
and arts industry. UK in 1996 already witnessed its rock and roll
industry exceeding in production value its steel industry..
China has a rich cultural heritage which up to this moment is still
behind in relation to many other countries in terms of generating
economic values.

Go into this area or the area of cultural and arts industry, papa, and
you will learn to perceive reality from different angles. Don't just
jump on something when it appears to criticize a certain policy or
measure or phenomenon observed of the current government in Beijing.
The government in Beijing is not faultless, and it cannot be; no
government in the world can be faultless. Your attitude of
intolerance bears a certain level of similarity to that of the CCP
authority...No...as a matter of fact, the CCP authority's is even more
tolerant than yours, because I am telling you what I read from the
Chinese books sold in Chinese mainland.
.

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