China’s Looming Debt Disaster

[Gumby]

Yikes...

China’s Looming Debt Disaster

[MediumTex]

Wait a second, Gumby, are you saying that a group of communists presiding over a centrally planned economy with almost no transparency in its economic data might lead to some kind of problems?

I'm sure those communist bureaucrats know exactly what they are doing.  Those guys know all about how capitalist economies are supposed to be managed, right?

The closest analog in modern history to China today is probably the Soviet Union around 1980, and that all worked out okay, didn't it?

[Lone Wolf]

Interesting article.  (This makes my suicide portfolio seem even more stupid and ill-advised than I had hoped!)

China's got an enormous population of smart, hard-working savers.  Under a sane political system, I think they'd be enormously rich and powerful.  The story's highly nuanced but most of what I see indicates that the government has chosen to centrally plan all these natural advantages away.  That's a real shame.

On a more visceral level, I do not in any way trust a government that puts that murderous dirtbag Mao on its currency.

[moda0306]

LW,

Can you give me a cliffnotes history on what Mao actually did during his tenure, both politically and genocide-wise?

[MediumTex]

LW,

Can you give me a cliffnotes history on what Mao actually did during his tenure, both politically and genocide-wise?

Here is a little from the wiki entry:

Mao remains a controversial figure to this day, with a contentious legacy that is subject to continuing revision and fierce debate. Nationwide political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are often considered catastrophic failures. While China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership (from around 550 to over 900 million), his rule from 1949 to 1976 is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people.  Severe starvation during the Great Chinese Famine, mass suicide as a result of the Three-anti/five-anti campaigns, and political persecution during both the Anti-Rightist Movement and struggle sessions all resulted from these programs. His campaigns and their varying disastrous consequences are further blamed for damaging the culture and society of China, as historical relics were destroyed and religious sites were ransacked.

While Mao's stated goals of combating bureaucracy, encouraging popular participation, and stressing China’s self-reliance are generally seen as laudable—and the rapid industrialization that began during Mao’s reign is credited for laying a foundation for China’s development in the late 20th century—the harsh methods he used to pursue them, including torture and executions, have been widely rebuked as being ruthless and self-defeating.  Mao is still regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history, and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time magazine.

Just a garden variety brutal dictator with an ideological veneer, except it happened to occur on an enormous scale.

Throughout history, humanity has periodically produced these charismatic narcissists/psychopaths who find their way into power and humanity suffers accordingly.

[Lone Wolf]

Can you give me a cliffnotes history on what Mao actually did during his tenure, both politically and genocide-wise?

Mao started off by putting the population of China to the whip in service of his "five-year plan" to industrialize China.  His goal was to modernize China and make it industrially and agriculturally independent.  He realized that he had not much capital but lots and lots of people, so it was people he would use to realize his dream.

Mao wanted lots of steel.  To this end, he had people build back-yard metallurgy operations where they melted down anything they could find (plows, personal possessions, whatever) to try to mass-produce steel.  He clear-cut vast swaths of land to fuel the hungry smelters.

He also wanted agricultural independence.  He abolished private farmland and placed the citizenry into farming communes where all work was collectivized.  Workers labored for "work points" rather than food or money.  Work conditions were intolerable with long hours of forced labor, beatings, and the end to traditions like weddings, funerals, etc. that might distract from the Party's work.

I imagine you can guess where this led.  Human toll aside, the economic result of all this centrally-planned slavery was a massive misallocation of resources.  Food was shuffled away from the rural areas into the cities.  (This problem was made worse by lying officials that claimed higher outputs than actually existed.)  This left the rural areas to starve.

As famine took hold, relatively minor crimes like theft (as well as "crimes" like perceived loafing or criticism of the Party) were dealt with harshly.  Every form of barbarism and torture you can imagine was used to "make an example" of those who refused or were too weak to cooperate.  People were buried alive, drowned, boiled alive, made to eat human feces, had body parts lopped off... you name it.

In the end, it all failed.  But not before more than 40 million people had died.  (We'll never quite know how many.)  It was a staggering tragedy and the ultimate manifestation of the state that believes "the ends justify the means".

[Liz L.]

From random Googling, it looks like Mao was responsible for more genocide than anyone else in the 20th century:

Mao Ze-Dong (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) 49-78,000,000
Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) 23,000,000 (the purges plus Ukraine's famine)
Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians WWII)
Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000
Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians in WWII)
Ismail Enver (Turkey, 1915-20) 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20)
Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000
Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) 1.6 million (purges and concentration camps)
Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000
Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000

[MediumTex]

From random Googling, it looks like Mao was responsible for more genocide than anyone else in the 20th century.

That sums it up pretty well.

[Lone Wolf]

From random Googling, it looks like Mao was responsible for more genocide than anyone else in the 20th century:

Exactly right.  And the Party still puts this guy on their currency and talks even today of "five-year plans"!

Can you imagine what we would think of the German government if they printed up Deutschmarks with Adolf Hitler's ugly mug on them and started talking about Lebensraum?

I certainly wouldn't trust that such a Bizarro Germany would be transparent and truthful with me if it wasn't even being honest with itself about its own history.

[doodle]

More Chinese Debt issues...this time from the great entertainment they gave us a few years ago http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-2 ... redit.html

China is a very complicated place. It has so many positives yet at the same time so many negatives.

[MediumTex]

This guy apparently did a beer bong of Chinese kool-aid and wrote an article about how China will eclipse the U.S. faster than anyone is currently thinking:

http://www.piie.com/publications/papers ... 201108.pdf

The idea of a bunch of communists running the world's largest capitalist economy and the inevitable demands for political rights that will emerge from a rising middle class don't seem to register with him much.

It's going to be fun to see how it all turns out.

[Storm]

From random Googling, it looks like Mao was responsible for more genocide than anyone else in the 20th century:

Exactly right.  And the Party still puts this guy on their currency and talks even today of "five-year plans"!

Can you imagine what we would think of the German government if they printed up Deutschmarks with Adolf Hitler's ugly mug on them and started talking about Lebensraum?

I certainly wouldn't trust that such a Bizarro Germany would be transparent and truthful with me if it wasn't even being honest with itself about its own history.

It was frankly disgusting when we toured China to hear the tour guides talk about the great accomplishments of Mao...  He apparently built a bridge across the Yangh'tze river and refused the help of Russian engineers because China was a proud nation - hundreds of workers died trying to sink the pylons, but at least he built the bridge and he is a hero because of it... 

Then, almost every historical or religious site you visit, when you ask them, is actually a replica rebuilt in the 1980s or 1990s because Mao destroyed centuries of beautiful history.

China is a once powerful nation that destroyed most of centuries of culture and beauty during the last century, and decided to reconstruct a plastic shell over the outside, meanwhile assuring the rest of the world that the plastic shell has stone underneath.  Look too closely at the shell and it easily collapses under scrutiny.

[dualstow]

I recently found out that the housing unit where my parents-in-law live has a pro-Mao slogan that is still legible.  :)  From the sixties.

Then, almost every historical or religious site you visit, when you ask them, is actually a replica rebuilt in the 1980s or 1990s because Mao destroyed centuries of beautiful history.

Yup, all the good stuff is in Taipei's Gu Gong (museum).

[goldfinger]

Gordon G. Chang is a joke.