
China Is Quietly Reshaping the World - ALee
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/china-belt-and-road/542667/?single_page=true
======
landryraccoon
I am curious about the prevailing fetish for adopting a hyper critical stance
towards China's growth rate. Is it just me, or does it seem that when articles
are posted portaying China in a positive light, the immediate tendency is to
adopt a critical or skeptical stance? Of course a certain amount of skepticism
is warranted, but I feel that these criticisms take on a bit more of a
personal tinge, as if there is something ominous or threatening about China's
growing economic influence.

If you feel threatened by the idea of a China that economically dominates, I
would honestly like to hear your explanation. Or if your skepticism is
ideological e.g., a general belief that undemocratic societies cannot prosper
economically, I'd be curious about that as well.

~~~
digitalzombie
> If you feel threatened by the idea of a China that is economically globally
> dominated, I would honestly like to hear your explanation.

Do you not see those articles where China build artificial islands and try to
enforce the China seas as if they own all of it? They bully everybody,
Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, etc..

They're doing this because of the oil in the area and to exert dominance. USA
on the other way just want everybody to be okay cause you know USA is all
about money and business. If you lock that area like China is doing USA can't
really profit.

I think in general I rather have USA ideology over China bullying.

~~~
user982
_> They're doing this because of the oil in the area and to exert dominance.
USA on the other way just want everybody to be okay cause you know USA is all
about money and business...I think in general I rather have USA ideology over
China bullying._

When the United States wants an island and its surrounding territory, it
doesn't build a new one. It takes over an existing island and depopulates it
by force.

    
    
      Diego Garcia was located far away from any potential threats, it was low in a 
      native population and it was an island that was not sought after by other 
      countries as it lacked economic interest...Diego Garcia and other acquired 
      islands would play a key role in maintaining US dominance.
    
      The Chagossians had to be removed from the island before the base could be 
      constructed. In 1968, the first tactics were implemented to decrease the 
      population of Diego Garcia. Those who left the island—either for vacation or 
      medical purposes—were not allowed to return, and those who stayed could 
      obtain only restricted food and medical supplies. This tactic was in hope 
      that those that stayed would leave "willingly". One of the tactics used was 
      that of the killings of Chagossian pets. Dogs were carried into sheds where 
      they were gassed in front of their owners.[1]
    

The island now houses a US military base (née "Camp Justice") used as a black
site torture facility and banned munitions depot. The former inhabitants live
in poverty and exile, the US and UK having recently declared the area a sham
marine reserve specifically with the secret intent of preventing their return.

But that's fine, because the USA just wants everybody to be okay.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia)

~~~
semperdark
If you want to talk about 1968, we can talk about the mass purges going on in
China too.

Criticizing the history of the United States is fine, but it's not even in the
same _universe_ regarding human rights abuses. China _continues_ to purge and
"disappear" people, so I can understand why you wouldn't want to talk about
2017.

~~~
yesenadam
Do you count killing someone as human rights abuse? Killing hundreds of
thousands, millions? I guess these U.S. killings have been mostly of people in
other countries, which don't count as human rights abuses? It's somehow worse
if a country kills its own people, than the people of other countries?

~~~
semperdark
I would love you to find me a source for millions of non enemy combatant
deaths directly caused by the US.

Notice that I never said that the US hasn't committed shameful human rights
abuses. I'd be happy to discuss them. Most are taught in schools, like Kent
State in which 4 students were killed. Do the Chinese teach about Tiananmen,
where hundreds were killed?

If you seriously want to compare the US to one of the bloodiest nations in the
history of the world, I'll take that comparison any day.

~~~
user982
_> I would love you to find me a source for millions of non enemy combatant
deaths directly caused by the US._

The US killed roughly 20% of the population of North Korea with direct
targeted bombings of civilian centers and infrastructure.[1] They destroyed so
much of the country that they ran out of targets. Civilian death estimates for
North Korea alone start around 1.5 million.

"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town
in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too." —
General Curtis LeMay

[1]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-
nor...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-north-korea-
wont-forget/2015/03/20/fb525694-ce80-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html)

~~~
semperdark
I would invite you to read a list of notable quotes by Gen. LeMay [0]. The man
had a specific interest, sustained over decades, in promoting and normalizing
the idea that the US should kill civilians to make wars easier.

Meanwhile, most estimates put North Korea's _total_ deaths at between 400 and
700 thousand. I'm sure you'll find many war crimes on both sides. The crimes
of North Korea do not justify those of the US, and those of the US do not
justify those of North Korea. If you insist on comparing them, again, I'll
take that comparison any day.

To put this another way, the fact that the US has done X, does not excuse
1000X done by repressive regimes around the world. Trying to cast the US as
the world's "bad guy" isn't brave or controversial, it just gives cover to the
truly evil nations committing ongoing genocide.

[0]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay)

~~~
travmatt
I’ve found it fascinating that people cannot coherently talk about a different
nations moral failings without equivocating and falling back onto moral
relativism and what-aboutism regarding how the US is just bad.

Funnily enough, the EU is the chief purveyor of this equivocation, regularly
chiding the US for it’s privacy laws while hypocritically issuing exemptions
to China for its repression of political dissidents and keeping conspicuously
quiet regarding its censorship.

~~~
grandalf
> I’ve found it fascinating that people cannot coherently talk about a
> different nations moral failings without equivocating and falling back onto
> moral relativism and what-aboutism regarding how the US is just bad.

Translation: "USA, USA, USA, USA".

If you think about it not as a citizen or partisan but in terms of systems of
human organization, the question to ask is: "Why is it that different nations
with different cultures still manage to have some of the same moral blind
spots?"

In this view, Hitler's concentration camps, Gitmo, and the Russian Gulag are
all serving the same function. The difference is in magnitude.

The idea that citing _equivalence_ is dishonest rests on the idea that
magnitude is all that matters in moral issues. If Jerry Sandusky had only
molested one child would he be a significantly better person than he is after
molesting dozens? Sorry I don't really feel the need to canonize someone who
unlike Sandusky only managed to victimize one person, nor would I feel the
need to give Sandusky any credit if a person were discovered who had
victimized thousands.

My point is that ugly things happen for a variety of reasons. All regimes (the
US, NK, Russia, China, etc.) benefit in some way from identifying a class of
people to imprison as political prisoners. The US is generally able to keep
the number imprisoned fairly small and keep them overseas where they are out
of sight and out of mind. Other nations are not able to manage this and must
imprison more people.

Similarly, any spouse may benefit from intimidating the other spouse in some
way. Some do it verbally, while others do it physically. Sure you can get on a
moral high horse and say that only the physical form of intimidation is bad,
that verbal threats are harmless. That's analogous to the idea that Gitmo is
harmless but NK or Russia's treatment of political prisoners is deeply
concerning.

Note that my argument is not that both are equally bad. They are not. My
argument is that they are both bad enough that we have s much stronger moral
duty to fix the problems at home before we focus our energy on politicizing
similar issues abroad.

------
itissid
This is just another way to keep GDP growth up by boosting spending. Basically
there are a few policies that the Chinese are pursing:

1\. Conquering the industries that they are lagging in(i.e auto and
semiconductor) by disguising govt subsides as state "support" and flouting WTO
rules[1].

2\. Spend money on belt and road thingy to prop up GDP because there is no
more to spend on existing overheated asset bubbles.

Remember all those years of propping up GDP in construction projects, where
the interest on debt(and the debt itself too) becomes too large a portion of
the GDP such that most of it goes to just servicing the debt. Ultimately you
want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does
not[2].

But ultimately with extra spending and little growth they will keep running
against fundamental issues like the Impossible Trinity[3] which is like the
CAP theorem of macro economics. Unless the economy balances spending and real
growth, and if it does not the only Q is when will it burst or become like
Japan's decades of stagnation.

[1][https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/2172944...](https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21729442-its-record-industrial-policy-successes-patchy-china-sets-
its-sights) [2]
[http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997](http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997)
[3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity)

~~~
mostlystatic
“Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock
step but it does not[2].”

This is often said, but even after reading the linked article it’s not clear
why that’s desirable.

Why not for example keep growing exports instead of domestic consumption?

~~~
zdkl
Too much exposition on "non-china" factors?

------
qiqing
Annoying quibble about the author's carelessness: there's an article from the
Economist that this sentence is linked to.

"Scholars who looked at Chinese investment in Africa from 1991 to 2010 found
that Chinese assistance does not appear to help economic growth..."

However, the article linked is actually about Chinese government assistance in
Pakistan (not Africa) and the impact on Pakistan's relationship with India --
not about Chinese private investment at all, nor about Africa.

>_>

~~~
elgenie
Chinese private investment in other countries is "private" in name only. It's
investment by largely state-owned enterprises in the service of government
foreign policy.

------
fspeech
"secure the natural resources it needs to grow"

This gets repeated a lot. Maybe Chinese propaganda make this point to justify
its outward investments to the Chinese people. Statements like this then take
on a sinister sheen when discussed in the West.

Commodities are fungible and China is rich in natural resources itself. Oil is
the one thing it is insecure about yet the insecurity is much more about a
potential blockade in time of conflict than insufficiency of suppliers. Yes it
has interests to see more supplies so it certainly would encourage investments
in natural resources but to control the resources? That doesn't even make
sense in the modern (WTO) context. It can't even control rare earth exports
when 90% of the supply is based inside China, how can it expect to control
supplies outside of China?

China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it
will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government
right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than
buying more US Treasury bills.

~~~
hiram112
>China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it
will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government
right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than
buying more US Treasury bills.

Why can't China now run a huge deficit like the US is expected / encouraged to
do, thus becoming consumers of products built in the US and Europe, instead of
the other way around?

You say there is _no other way around it_.

Actually there is, but China prefers to play unfairly (though I agree they
wouldn't get away with it if our own business and political leaders weren't so
corrupt and short-sighted).

~~~
fspeech
When I said "no other way around it" I meant trade surplus must be balanced by
outward investment, an arithmetic fact. I didn't mean they can't run a trade
deficit.

As for why they don't have a trade deficit: to run a trade deficit domestic
investment rate needs to exceed savings rate. They have a high savings rate.
They are already accused of doing too much domestic investment to prop up the
economy so an even higher investment rate is not a solution. They can try to
lower the savings rate by increasing welfare spending.

As for why it may not want a trade deficit: China can't borrow in its own
currency from foreigners like US, that is Chinese RMB is not a major reserve
currency. To fund trade deficits with USD denominated market borrowing would
expose its economy to mood swings of foreign investors.

------
ajiang
The amount of comments on this article that are emotion and fear-based, rather
than fact and experience-based is surprising for HN.

~~~
sdwa
I think part of the problem is that China has zero respect for human rights
for even its own citizens. Pretty common knowledge they farm their own
undesirables (human beings) for organs.

------
zhte415
Not mentioned in the article is China's desire to develop the western areas of
the country, which benefit from Belt and Road.

To manufacture a product in Hebei and ship it from Tianjin, or manufacture in
Jiangsu and ship from Shanghai/Ningbo, or manufacture in Guangdong and ship
from Shenzhen, is pretty cheap.

To do the same in western provinces is much harder. There's a big regional
disparency. While China's landmass goes far west, (western) Sichuan, Tibet,
Xinjiang, Qinghai, the western provinces I mean are the shanxis, gansu,
sichuan, yunan with large population bases.

Myanmar was also not mentioned in the article, but will also play an important
role as support to southwestern China's access to the ocean.

~~~
danmaz74
It is mentioned, even if not deeply: "...Gwadar is experiencing a storm of
construction: a brand-new container port, new hotels, and 1,800 miles of
superhighway and high-speed railway to connect it to China’s landlocked
western provinces"

------
thisisit
I might be wrong but didn't something similar happen with Japan too? After the
rise of their industrial power they started expanding outside,
buying/investing in stuff outside their country in accordance to the BoJ
guidance also known as "window guidance". But then the asset bubble burst
causing issues for their economy.

Chinese loans seem to be on the rise: [https://www.reuters.com/article/china-
economy-loans/rpt-upda...](https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-
loans/rpt-update-2-china-new-yuan-loans-rise-more-than-expected-in-september-
idUSL4N1MR15L)

So, will something similar happen here too?

------
fspeech
"most of its largesse comes as loans"

These investments are not really Chinese government's money to give unless it
wants to tax its people more. What Chinese government has is a very large sway
over where Chinese external investments go since it requires exporters to sell
their forex earnings and large outward investments require state approvals.
But these investments are not taken from depositors as a tax. The depositors
still have claims on the Chinese banks. What the Chinese government/banks do
is really to provide a guarantee to the domestic depositors as intermediaries.
If the investments go bad they will have to plug the financial hole somehow.

------
danmaz74
Really interesting article. A couple of comments. Investing in foreign
infrastructure and trade is good, as the article itself says, also because it
creates a disincentive for war. But we need to keep in mind that economic
interest isn't enough to prevent war; before WWI lots of people thought that a
new war in Europe was unthinkable, considering the interdependence of Europe
economies at the time and how much everybody had to lose with a war. It didn't
matter.

Another very important point IMHO is that the end result of this will depend a
lot on how productive will these investments turn out to be; will they create
good returns or not? If returns are good, they will create wealth and
everybody will probably be happy in the end. If returns will be poor, I'm
afraid they could end up creating very big tensions in the future between
China and the countries that are getting indebted now.

------
NicoJuicy
Too many loans, they'll probably fail big and it will be a bang...

But it is impressive though, I just can't believe they will actually achieve
it. Already done internal loaners are failing and they are holding back
European expansion ( Chinese firms) on command of the Chinese government.

But as usual, we will see

~~~
rdtsc
> Too many loans, they'll probably fail big and it will be a bang...

Just like IMF "loans" many of these are given with the understanding that the
receiving country will never be able to pay it back. The goal is to gain
control. So they might go and agree to "restructure" the loans if the country
agrees to number of conditions, like say opening the market for more Chinese
companies "hey my cousin such and such owns a recycling plant, how about your
country lets him dump some of the byproducts in your landfills, and we'll
forgive some of these loans" kind of stuff.

~~~
zipwitch
It's more than that. Look at the recent deal with Sri Lanka to resolve the
debt owed to China for building a port there:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-china-ports-
idU...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-china-ports-
idUSKBN1AE0CN)

~~~
rdtsc
"...included a plan for a 99-year lease..."

The loss of sovereignty is the most extreme example for of course. Leasing is
something in between. Though 99 years is a pretty long time.

"You can't pay, ok how about we'll just take control of this little part of
your country for 99 years".

~~~
elygre
99 years is long, though significantly less than the duration of the
Guantanamo lease.

------
throw6555
The internet will go crazy over China now, mostly of which will be:

1\. Abuse human rights.

2\. A dictatorship.

3\. South China sea.

But the internet will happily use "Made in China" shamelessly. Hypocrisy at
its best.

The internet being the western majority crowd who have never seen a world
outside of their state.

As seen on youtube

" Do you support Iraq war"

Yeah absolutely. They have WMD.

Show me where Iraq is on this map.

Points to Madagascar.

------
partycoder
"Supreme excellence consists on breaking the enemy's resistance without
fighting." \- Sun Tzu

~~~
adventured
What enemy? The world benefits immensely from China no longer being hyper
impoverished and no longer being a big negative drain on world aid. Now that
China can fully support itself - which is something that is actually
relatively recent, only occurring in the last 20 years - more global aid is
available to help the remaining very poor nations, and China can contribute to
that, accelerating the climb of the global median standard of living.

500 million of the world's poorest people still live in China. While they have
a long ways to go yet, every bit of progress helps the rest of the world
tremendously.

~~~
abraae
Thanks somewhat to US domestic politics, China seems to be gradually edging
from global enemy towards saviour status.

With regard to climate change, they are now more progressive than the US.
Perhaps the chinese emphasis on long term thinking and the importance of
future generations is counteracting the negative effects of their ruthless and
undemocratic regime.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
China starts from a huge deficit in environmental protection that can't really
be compared to the USA. They are being aggressive today because 500+ 2.5pm is
unlivable.

~~~
averagewall
Climate change is nothing to do with PM2.5. That's a very short term (falls
out of the air in days) local issue. They're emitting less CO2 per capita than
the US.

~~~
jack9
> They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US

The most disingenuous statement in this thread? In other news...

High School coach points out his QB completes more passes per game than NFL
team QB. Demands equivalent compensation for better performance.

Total physical amount of pollution is a quantitative problem. Trying to cut it
up per capita by a population grouping is not constructive. Hand waving with
this kind of reductionist calculation is political spin. It's "unfair" to
discount this measure, but thats because physical/practical problems lie
outside political interests.

~~~
abraae
Are you saying a country with 4M people that emits the same as a country with
100M people is doing OK?

Per capita is a useful measurement (but not the only one).

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Depends on density if we are talking about local livability, Mongolia would
have a lesser problem if everyone didn't live in its capital. CO2, on the
other hand, is a global problem, so per capita is more relevant, but has all
sorts of tragedy of the commons and prisoner dilemma implications.

------
beambot
Wow those numbers are staggering... Staggeringly small compared to US's budget
for the War(s) on Terror, that is.

------
NiklasMort
China is destroying the world. The amount of ecological damage they do OUTSIDE
their own country is staggering.

~~~
oblio
That's how industrialization looks, at this point. For now, you can either
choose to be "pure" or "rich". 99% of people choose "rich".

