I've been in and out of China (mostly in) since late 2001. There are great things about the nation and it's simply incredible to behold. Unfortunately, when you travel through 20 kilometres of empty skyscrapers, with many still under construction, you realize there's some serious problems with both government policy and the international media's mass urbanization notion. Chiefly, development is removing arable land, there's nothing for people who come to the city to do, and nobody can afford the new apartments anyway (mostly they are the second, third, tenth or twentieth speculative real estate acquisition of some corrupt official or real estate developer!). As someone who has watched things change over more than a decade, it is very clear to me that the whole economic miracle inside the country has been propped up by state-level creative accounting and is about to enter meltdown. There's no two ways about it, China's bubble is about to burst. At this point, anything short of broad scale civil unrest will be a good outcome. Best of luck to the Chinese people.
>There's no two ways about it, China's bubble is about to burst.
Honestly, I have been reading about this for the last 5-6 years. Trust me, I have read about the empty cities, malls, streets and office building. I have read about construction for the sake of construction, poor quality of construction. The civil unrest that is about to happen for the last 10 years.
While I am no economics guru, but my limited observation and understanding tells me that nothing is about to go nuclear in China. China is sitting on a huge pile of cash and its diversifying and expanding its business interest all over the place. Not only poor and third world countries, chinese companies are also investing on developed nations and buying up or merging with local companies (though they are facing some restriction on that). Companies are no longer moving their factories to China because of cheap production cost, they are moving their also because of rising local demand.
I think China has a lot of problem (just like any other country), but I feel that it often over inflated.
Personally I am in support of a powerful China (economically and militarily) to counteract the current monopoly. Ideally I would prefer 3-4 equally powerful nation competing for dominance, but I will take 2 for now.
Human rights and living condition will only improve with time. The present China is much better in these regards (but not enough) than how things were 10 years ago. I think things will get even better 10 years from now. Big changes takes time and China have come a long way in a very short period of time (relatively speaking).
Seeing is different to reading. Though I agree with you, there are too many factors I see to ignore. For example, I can't see jobs for university graduates (even professors!), urbanization has basically resulted in construction work as a means of mass employment (hint: makes problem worse), and the cost of basic sustenance inside of China (food, drink, etc.) is higher in real terms than in neighbouring countries and growing rapidly year-on-year. At the same time, real estate which was the engine of the economy is in meltdown (source: first hand discussions with developers, observation). The cost of an apartment in a third-tier Chinese city is far higher than that of neighbours. Realising this economic climate and how much further their government-backed cash goes overseas, we witness the acceleration of private wealth leaving China. The last time I flew through Beijing airport, UBS had proudly procured all the billboards. It's not rocket science, there's a virtual robbery going on... similar to other periods of economic or political change worldwide... similar actors, and few in the country would deny it. People are upset. It's not pretty.
I admit, my economics knowledge is limited. But if the repeated bubble/burst economy of US has taught us anything, having economics knowledge in the grand scale amounts for jack shit. Its really hard to predict, precisely whats going to happen with the economy when your country is as big as USA/China. You can only have good guestimate. Having said that, my problem is with this kind of sentences:
>China's bubble is about to burst.
What does "about to" means, when you have been reading about it for the last10 years? Is it tomorrow, next year, 10 years from now?
One things I understand about economy of developing country (and yes China is one despite being second largest economy) is that, there is always some scope for growth. Unlike matured economy like USA/European countries where almost every aspect of the country's economy is tied to each other. If something goes belly up, it usually affects other parts of the economy. This is not usually true for developing countries like China. They don't depend on a single source of market to survive, there is always some scope for growth and something else to pick you up from the slump.
Developed nations are like almost full glass of water, you have to be careful how fast you try to feel it up. Developing countries are like quarter/half-filled glass, if you try to fill it up too quick you might slosh a bit of water out of the glass, making it messy, but you can afford to fill it up quickly.
