

China: Ascendant Superpower Or Just Another Nation with Structural Problems?   - amitak
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/china04-09.html

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potatolicious
The headline: "China Is Not Another Ascendant Superpower, It's Just Another
Nation with Structural Problems"

Why are the two concepts mutually exclusive? The US suffers from a lot of
structural problems as well, but there's no denying that it's a superpower.

IMHO China is going to hit a brick wall in terms of growth unless they get
corruption under control and impose proper rule of law. For a country of its
industrial stature it's a surprisingly lawless land - they need to get it
together if they want to see long-term success.

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DarkShikari
The modern history of China is phenomenally interesting. If you want a good
overview, read "China Since 1919: Revolution and Reform". It covers the last
century using almost entirely primary source texts--interesting primary source
texts--since there's surely no better way to learn what Mao was saying than to
read what Mao was saying. For a more analysis-based approach, there's also
Schoppa's "Revolution and its Past."

Today's China, regardless of its successes, is in part the result of many
years of mistakes, some avoidable, some not, which have led to all sorts of
problems. A somewhat telling example is the case of scientific research.

The Communists were always obsessed with science and technology, especially
Mao, as they realized its critical importance in terms of becoming a world
power, and it fit their worldview in terms of the importance of production.
But Mao was also deeply distrusting of intellectuals, which didn't fit well
with the concept of institutionalized science for obvious reasons. Mao also
strongly disagreed with the concept of "basic research"--that is, research
that advances the core knowledge of science--research necessary for future,
more-applied research.

Today, despite decades of attempts to increase the number of graduates in
technical fields and improve science, the current system is surprisingly
awful. They spend enormous sums of money on new facilities and then don't even
have the funds to staff them. Scientists quickly learn to focus on publishing
as many papers as possible for recognition, even if it means making each
individual one nearly useless. There are very very few first-class scientists
relative to the number of researchers as a whole--and much like the situation
60 years ago, many of these first-class researchers were trained abroad
anyways. Despite enormous expenditures, Chinese science is still, to some
extent, going nowhere.

One theory is that the Chinese government still doesn't fully understand how
science works--that you cannot merely throw money at big, expensive labs and
have discoveries just "happen." Often it seems like here in America the
politicians don't understand this either...

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philwelch
If this guy didn't waste a good deal of the essay on crackpot goldbug
economics, it would have been a more valuable read.

"Perhaps a private grain-backed currency will draw upon the grain exports of
North America as the only "real wealth" of nations. Would you buy a wheat-
backed "quatloo"? I personally would be interested in trading paper for wheat,
gold, oil or anything more valuable than paper."

Backing a currency with an agricultural product is a recipe for inflation, as
several American colonies discovered with tobacco in the colonial era. Gold
works better because it's really hard to inflate (unless there's a gold rush--
likewise, the silver rush proved bimetallism untenable) but a grain-backed
dollar would be a disaster waiting to happen.

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tumult
Thanks to the editor who changed the headline

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TweedHeads
A: Superpower

