
The World, Built by China - cromulent
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/world-built-by-china.html
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carlmr
>Beijing is heavily focused on its neighbors, lending them money for extensive
road-building projects. Pakistan is running out of money to repay the loans,
part of a broader pattern of what critics call China’s “debt trap” diplomacy.

If you've read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman", you know that the US has
been following this strategy for years now. China is just copying a very
workable model that the US pioneered. You have your banks giving loans to pay
your companies to build projects that another country can't pay for (and you
know it). Should they for some reason pay for it you made your bank some money
and a lot of money for your construction company. Should they not be able to
repay it your company has earned the same money and your bank is sitting on
some pretty low risk long term loans which will pay out multiple times in
interest. You make even more money.

~~~
badpun
> Should they not be able to repay it your company has earned the same money
> and your bank is sitting on some pretty low risk long term loans which will
> pay out multiple times in interest. You make even more money.

Or, the country defaults (like Poland in the eighties), and negotiates a
partial cancellation of the debt, in exchange for adopting some of the
recommended economic policies (in case of Poland, these were the Chicago-
school liberal policies).

~~~
carlmr
True, that's a third case, but rare, and still gives you some degree of
influence for your money.

~~~
screye
Or you ask the country to surrender land over to the lending company.

As seen with Srilanka handing over a port to China.

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pasta
Have they ever not been? I think through history China always have been a
superpower (with some short exceptions).

Edit: this might have been the longest time China was not a superpower:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation)

~~~
i_dont_know_
Really good point.

The industrial revolution pushed "the west" pretty far in terms of
power/economics but there were thousands of years of human history prior to
it. In that longer view of history, China has always been a major player, and
the last 150-ish years have been a fluke that's being corrected.

But western journalism really treats everything prior to the industrial
revolution as caveman times, meaning they'll be equally surprized seeing Iran
(Persia), India, Turkey and others 'rise' up in the coming decades as well.

~~~
ng12
You could also view it as China blowing a 2,000 year head start and now
working to catch up.

~~~
coldtea
Well, they didn't discover a whole new continent to exploit for gold and
riches and get rid of its inhabitants, or plundered 2/3rds of the world
(instead, they were themselves invaded by colonial powers).

So, while they lost their head start, at least they have that...

~~~
OldManAndTheCpp
I’m a believer in China dominance in the coming decades.

However, painting the West’s ability to heap “unequal treaties” on China
cannot reasonably be described as a function of finding and conquering the new
word. Firstly: the major conquest of the new world came through Spain, which
had little to no involvement in the humiliation of the Middle Kingdom. Second,
colonies in North America did not give the British gunboats capable of
demolishing the Chinese fleets.

The reasonable conclusion is that the Enlightenment and the scientific
advances eminating from that allowed the West to go from isolated, low
population minor powers into worldwide empires.

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baybal2
Exceptional piece of research.

I'm still dazzled why the realisation of what China's "grand plan" was, came
so late into mainstream political culture in the West.

Few month ago, I wrote a piece saying that China was long preparing (at least
since 1991,) an economic war chest in case the country will be hit by
sanctions like North Korea was, or even worse. A big portion of all national
level economic programs since 1991 were there to aid and act upon that
strategy. And they weren't even trying to conceal the original strategy paper,
and if one can get access to state archives, they will find a lot of evidence
that Chinese state did fully commit to it as early as 1992. The motto of the
program is "the primacy of expansionism."

They correctly identified that US domination in 20th century came from how
they moulded the world after WW2. Now, when the West wasted itself on two
decades of useless "wars on X," they felt that:

1\. "The world was messed up enough" to yield to China's own Marshal plan.

2\. This is the last opportunity to act before US takes action

So, all those impressive t-bill, cash, gold, and FX reserves that the West
gave China in the last 30 years, will now be used by China to buy its own Pax
Sinica

~~~
oblio
> Now, when the West wasted itself on two decades of useless "wars on X," they
> felt that "the world was messed up enough" to yield to China's own Marshal
> plan.

That's an awfully Western centric view of things. The West didn't "waste
itself" on things, they just plain didn't care about various regions, for
various reasons. They babysat Germany and Japan after WW2 but Iraq and
Afghanistan were comparatively thrown to the wolves.

China mostly went where the West wouldn't go.

I can't really blame them. Their moves are very rational as an actor on the
world stage and in many cases their involvement is also helping the locals
(many of which have miserable lives, as-is).

And I'm neither American, nor Western, nor Chinese, so I'd consider myself a
reasonably unbiased obverser.

~~~
baybal2
>I can't really blame them. Their moves are very rational as an actor on the
world stage and in many cases their involvement is also helping the locals
(many of which have miserable lives, as-is).

Indeed, as a strategy it is as straightforward and rational as it can be.

When it is a detestable communist party that continuously follows upon plain,
and rational strategies, and Western civil states can not despite their best
efforts, you begin to question the rationale for living in the West.

This in big part was the reason for my move to China. And the constantly
growing expat community in China is the proof that I am not alone having that
idea.

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hugh4life
"The dangerous clashes of the future are likely to arise from the interaction
of Western arrogance, Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness."

[https://harvardmagazine.com/1997/01/forum.html](https://harvardmagazine.com/1997/01/forum.html)

~~~
coldtea
"Assertiveness is a skill regularly referred to in social and communication
skills training. Being assertive means being able to stand up for your own or
other people's rights in a calm and positive way, without being either
aggressive, or passively accepting 'wrong'."

Sounds about right.

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yazr
Well - how did China finance all these investments ?!

(start rant)

The simple answer is "China consumed less, and invested more".

The US can tax fuel and SUV, and invest in green energy. The EU can tax
London's banks and offshore, it can slash its agriculture subsidies, and
invest in tech and innovation.

The Western world simply prefers bigger cars and exotic vacations.

(end rant. Goes online to order Sushi for lunch)

~~~
yuy910616
I think it's a little more than that. Let's not forget that democracy is a
system design to move slow. Whereas China can move fast because it has a
strong government that can disregard popular opinion to an extent. With this
you create a government that is hyper-rich and very investment heavy. The
incredible amount Chinese government spend on building infrastructure would
simply not be passed in any democracy

~~~
konschubert
Democracy is a system that's maybe slow, yes, but it also leads to stability,
peace and balance.

Most dictatorships eventually fall behind because exploitation, the fight for
power and the mistakes of an un-checked leader become a burden on the country.

~~~
tanilama
Cant say your first assessment about democracy really apllies to current US
politics though. The western democracy is at great danger being eaten by
populism. It is worthy reminding that Nazi Germany is also a result from, you
know, democracy

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ramblerman
China has every right to provide construction and loans to other countries.
Pulling third world countries into the modern world through expensive
infrastructure is not the worst thing even if it enriches the Chinese. In fact
this kind of economic colonialism has one big benefit, being economic in
nature it prefers peace.

The US could learn a thing or two about this flavor of nation building

~~~
OldManAndTheCpp
The US did acknowledge this: the Marshall Plan was clearly an effort by the US
to dually resore the homeland of many Americans and to bind the broken or
beaten powers closely to the US.

The term “Greatest Generation” is a bit passé, but the USA immediately after
WWII was legitimately great.

~~~
FabHK
Yes. Being German, I'm as critical of the current US policy and government as
anyone - but I am incredibly grateful to and mindful of the Marshall plan and
what it did for Germany and Europe.

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NicoJuicy
What worries me the most:

\- Lending for infrastructure ( sometimes not even used/required ones) and
they then build it themselves. It's just a method for having extra inflation.

With none of the employment/knowledge advantages for the country involved (
loans through "the bank of china"). It is a death trap.

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cnfteol
people should actually consider the sinosphere than just china alone and
include hk taiwan sg and the koreas already in it

the biggest player not in the sinosphere yet is japan and china is already
working on that

japan weakness is apparent and honhai takeover of sharp and attempt at toshiba
memory unit should be seen in this light

my guess is once the gdp tables flip within a decade japan too will see the
writing on the wall and it will not be a controversial choice for the japanese
either

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glasslion
NYTimes display the power output as a bubble chart on PC and bar chart on
mobile.

I was shocked how misleading the bubble chart could be, The biggest dam is 3x
larger than the smallest, but the it looks like only 1.5x larger on the bubble
chart.

~~~
athenot
Bubble charts show the value in the _area_ of the circle, not its diameter.
The chart is accurate but we're accustomed to seeing inaccurate charts using
diameters, usually to sensationalize an article.

~~~
danso
The difficulty for humans to interpret and compare circular areas is one of
the reasons IIRC why Tufte and others are so adamant against pie charts.

~~~
FabHK
Surprises me - pie charts are properly used only to display proportions, and
in a pie chart the area is proportional to the angle is proportional to the
length of the arc, so there should be much less scope for confusion? We should
all have good intuitions for our share of the pie or pizza, no...? :-)

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cromulent
Someone changed the title, it's actually "The World, Built by China".

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UnpopOpinion
Too often this discussion falls into the oft-repeated tropes about how a evil
west is “containing” China (he same claims historically were made by Germany,
Russia and Japan in 1913, 1917 and 1933 respectively). Or the claims that the
West just wants to keep China down, and it’s China’s duty to grow because
racism of west/ greed of Japan / lebensr .. cough... (I mean, one China
policy).

While most of the comments here are focused on the economic elements of
china’s rise - the political implications here are what are really scary to
me. China is basically a totalitarian state with a capitalist escape valve.
Moral and social decisions are made by a strong central state, and while
corporations toe the party line, they are free to do what they want, and the
government will pour money into them. The authors seem to think this is a new
phenomena, but historically that’s not too far off from how many totalitarian
states worked - most notably the NSDAP.

The NSDAP led a resurgence in German manfuacturing by backing their
corporations, and corporations embraced the kultur promoted by the party.
People prospered, and were free to act in their economic self-interest as long
as they toed the party line.

The Chinese have developed something that the previous states never had -
technology that supresses dissenting voices. The levers and restrictions that
they can deploy at will are so much greater now then various fascist and
communist governments enjoyed in the past. Let’s say that someone in the
government decides that the South China Sea is worth killing over. Any voice
of dissent in China will be shut down via the “Social Score” and it’s built in
ability to marginalize people who act in a way inconsistent with the state.

China will claim that this is preferable to the infighting that is rocking the
western world. Historically Liberal Democracies have proven that untrue, but
it feels like Liberalism itself is under threat.

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perseusprime11
China is a country with more than a billion hard-working people. This should
not be a surprise!

~~~
danso
India’s population rivals China’s and yet AFAIK is not considered to be the
kind of superpower that China and the U.S. are.

~~~
ForHackernews
I think long-term, I would still bet on India over China. Not only does China
have an impending demographic crunch, India is a democracy with an enormous
English-speaking population and friendlier ties to the West. Look at the
Indian space program for some really inspiring examples of doing fantastic
things on a (relative) shoestring budget.

Assuming they aren't completely done in by climate change, I wouldn't be
surprised if India became the dominant power in the second half of the 21st
century.

~~~
plinkplonk
"I wouldn't be surprised if India became the dominant power in the second half
of the 21st century"

I would (Fwiw, I am in Indian, lived for years in the USA, now live in India).
Aside from climate change, India has tremendous problems with respect to
literacy, religious intolerance, lack of engineering/manufacturing skills
(outside the space program) , emigration of its brightest young people etc
etc.

Any nation can progress only when it has competent leadership for a few
decades. In India, across political parties, we have utterly terrible leaders
with little education and less common sense. If anything I (personally)
predict India will decline as the century progresses. (imo ime, ymmv, etc,
saying this before the super patriots of India(n origin) accuse me of being
some kind of traitor to our glorious destiny)

~~~
oblio
> we have utterly terrible leaders with little education and less common sense

I don't want to rain on your parade (I'm not Indian), but from outside,
despite their impressive on paper CVs, your past leaders were even worse,
based on their results.

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Markoff
superpower where there are zero children playgrounds even in capital and you
can't let your child outside because of toxic air, okay...

glad i moved away from such superpower paradise and my child suffered there
only for one year

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onetimemanytime
The good news for us is that China is /will be checked by at least India.
Japan, S Korea, Vietnam etc also be watching.

Give India a couple of decades of good management and they'll be strong enough

~~~
ReptileMan
India had probably 5 decades head start on China and they started with big
pool of western educated statesmen with know how. Also India didn't suffer
much in WWII compared to china while china had civil war and Japanese
occupation.

The development of China is amazing. I am not sure India will be able to catch
up (or be allowed to) - China are probably not keen on having a new superpower
next door, so they will do their best to thwart it.

~~~
onetimemanytime
China supports Pakistan, a local rival to India. But then USA supports a lot
of countries that are scared of China's rise.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea)

USA can help India catch up at least when it comes to military and fill in any
gaps with allies /US firepower should a war happen meanwhile. China cannot
stop India, but India can stop India. If a war starts (not likely,) China will
be virtually alone, maybe just NK joins them. At least Taiwan, Japan, South
Korea have super-modern weapons and the rest of the countries can tie China's
hands.

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agumonkey
Interesting how money is defining the new world

