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The Unfolding Tragedy Of Xi Jinping’s China
China could've ruled the world.
All the government in Beijing had to do was pretend to play ball. Put on a show of conformance and feign deference to the system while passively undermining the US-led world order with quietly underhanded trade practices and unobtrusive militarization. "Self-important? Cavalier? Us? No, we're the last people. We're just happy to be here!"
On the home front, self-interested economic liberalization and democratization, which is to say free market reforms and expan
China fell victim to its own kind of, puff your chest out, “China First,” populism. Now we hear “Germany First,” and “England First,” etc., etc.. That approach always leads to ruin. The generation that survived WWII is mostly gone and their spoiled kids don’t seem to know why Nazi’s are so bad.
Yeah, and here it’s MAGA. If we aren’t careful we will be joining the four other silly guys soon.
Seeing the future is always easier in retrospect. However you are great a illustrating common sense in impactful ways.
As an incurable optimist I am thinking about the inevitability of one man rule to fail when attempting to run an entire country. I am optimistic that the only sustainable system is where many voices vie for their 15 minutes of fame, like that seen in modern republics. What is it about the human psyche that it tries to expand to a level of control which causes failure, the ultimate weakness? What is it about the followers who think the weakest man is strong?
I ask questions that likely have no answer but in asking the question posits a philosophy. The philosophy that human control is a sad illusion.
That’s the “Peter Principle”… in a hierarchy, people rise through competence to a level of incompetence.
Hopefully Xi doesn’t decide that war will “stimulate” the economy and kill deflation. I feel like that risk is being ignored by most market participants.
I wonder why Xi is so resistant to large-scale consumer spending stimulus. Is it old-school hair-shirt ideology? Funding constraints? Pressure from corporates, govts, and others whose oxen stand to be gored? Misinformation and overconfidence? If we knew “why”, we could better guess “what next”.
I think it’s simpler than that: I think the place is just too goddamn big to make a top-down strategy viable. I don’t think they know what to do. I mean, this is an $18 trillion economy that’s still pretty backwards in places. I don’t think they really have the financial and administrative infrastructure in place to institute sweeping fiscal stimulus measures. I don’t want to speculate because I’m just not familiar enough with day-to-day life in China’s third-tier cities and out in the countryside, but to anyone who is, I’d ask this question: How easy would it be to get stimulus money (checks, deposits, whatever) into the hands of that population? And then this: What share of that would actually get spent on consumer goods and services? In the US, this is really simple: Treasury deposits a “tax rebate” for $1,000 (or whatever those “stimmy” payments were) and people go buy an Apple Watch or they go out to eat or whatever, and they do it pretty much immediately. How do you get 6,000 yuan into the hands of a Chinese farmer? And what does he do with it once he has it? Probably not buy a phone. That’s kind of how I look at this. It’s an $18 trillion emerging market. I think that complicates things immeasurably.
Here is my unrequested advice to comrade Xi, turn an extreme metaphor into reality and start using PLA helicopters to drop yuan notes from the sky, call Xi’s prosperity gift inspired by Xi Jinping’s thought.
Could you elaborate on what “playing ball” would mean for Iran, China, etc.? Buying US weapons, and hosting military bases like the Saudi’s? Or continuing to pay people as little as possible and producing cheap stuff for export to the US?
A few thoughts come to mind (some legitimate, some cynical): allow access to your markets so American billionaires and corporations can make a lot of money; stop trying to build a regional empire, respect the sovereignty of your neighbors, and don’t attempt to exert too much influence in your region (“that’s the USA’s job”). It would also be great if they could stop with the human rights abuse, but obviously, this is negotiable.
“It would also be great if they could stop with the human rights abuse, but obviously, this is negotiable.”
Damn dude, way to bring the cynical!
Didn’t Burry just go “all in” long on China?