Whither China

Well, China's unusually high household savings rate tells us Chinese are already on their toes.  Lack of a disposable income (and other things) makes generosity hard to come by even if one is concerned about the fate of others.  That said, higher incomes and the proliferation of charitable organizations and advocacy groups would allow Chinese to donate some of that disposable income.   

You're right, K25. And it depends on "us".  Sort of like "we" should do this or that. But Great Gaia, look at all the intervening factors facing the individual that has to make the choice(s).  As an old soc. prof. used to sum it..."all other factors being equal."   I'm not sure Homo sapiens is up to it, unless facing a firing squad.  Mao tried it all...including the firing squad.

And we live in hope, Jiajie.  But I'm glad I came on the Earth scene when and where I did. 

The Globe informed us yesterday that "In the year 2000, there wasn't literally an ounce of gold that moved around China without passing through the People's Bank of China (but, now) there is open selling of gold to the public, new designs, new jewellery, government support for people investing in gold...".     And this is good for the Canadian market. Gold constitutes 12 per cent of the TSX.  And great for Goldcorp and Barrick, the two biggest.  Not so great for those countries where their mining operations impinge on soil and water purity. 

I'm "braced" for "it" Ryan, but I wonder if it is too late for China to go over to the Cuban model?  

They'll have open up NAFTA at some point to ensure that us serfs freezing in the dark by then have no other recourse but to rely on the market for buying scrap pieces of wood and whatever else burns from US-based scrap wood and whatever else burns companies. What's afta NAFTA?

It was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

By that definition, your prescription for Canada is insanity, Ryan1812.

As is your expectation that you can continue in your 'libertarian' selfishness without being responsible for destroying our children's future.

Ryan1812 wrote:

I think the fault of many leftists, if I may, is the kneejerk nationalism that tends to accompany their leftist zeal. I however, feel different. I feel that a more united North America will result in the merging of our political systems, which the US is, in this writters opinion, far superior. Bringing in Mexico will in effect work to write the wrongs in a country that is mired in corruption and drugs. Canada will finally be able to move away from a resourced based economy wherein we can finally embrace the entreprenurialism and electronic, scientific innovation that has so often come from the US.

Not all socialists are nationalists, I think is a fairly accurate way of describing it. I think fair trade is an excellent idea. And there are North American hawks who purport to be advocates of free and fair global trade. But as other socialists and leftist babblers will say to you, those rightwing hawks are mostly hypocritical. They have used trade as a weapon since WW II and even before that. Free trade certainly sounds good, but NAFTA has been anything but fair according to even former advocates of NAFTA who are now opposed to the expansion of Mulroney's Canada-US FTA, NAFTA in effect since 1994.

I think actor Martin Sheen said it well to a Vancouver audience in the 1980s. He said to Canadians that Washington is s madhouse really. Sheen told Canadians that Uncle Sam doesn't want to trade freely with Canada - he said that Uncle Sam and corporate America want to [i]dominate[/i] Canada. And that's what's happened since 1989 and increasingly so since NAFTA.

China's rise is unique in recent world history in that it is not perceived to stand in opposition to the dominant system, capitalism. China is rising within the capitalist system and even integrating with the 500 year-old Atlantic power nations. And yet China is competing with the west for resources and continuing to expand economically at an average rate of 9 percent for the last quarter century, which is truly breath-taking considering how western economies are now in fiscal austerity mode with plans to shrink the one part of our leftover mixed market economies that was so vital to the survival of capitalism in North America post-1929. And as they attack labour and rollback ever more of our hard fought-for social democracy, our economies will fall further into decline. China and Asian econonmies continue expansion and are now the world's largest generators of capital wealth and will become the largest economies in the world in so many years as they once were in ancient times. It's their destiny.

Meanwhile, I think there will be no real recovery of capitalist economies here in the far west until our governments decide to scrap debt-driven monetarism altogether. It's bankrupt.. Their pro-creditor, pro-money economy does not work. In fact, the "new" liberal capitalism of roughly 1980 to 2008 is as much a colossal failure as what laissez-faire capitalism was by 1929 after 30 years in the test lab under optimal conditions, and as it was in Chile after just 16 years of near-perfect laboratory conditions. It's finished. Kaput. And while China and Asia continue rising, our leaders will continue downgrading democracy here and imposing austerity and low growth while their old cold war era rivals surge ahead. What will China do if the integrated economy goes for a big shit, some commentators have asked? The CPC will regroup and re-work the problem until central planners find alternatives. Meanwhile, our leaders will try to do-over what RB Bennett and Herbert Hoover were interrupted in pursuing, which was leave it to the market, laissez-faire nothingness for ten years. The rightwing think tanks and Bay Street bond salesment will lobby their hirelings in Ottawa and Washington to continue shovelling money to the banks and rich people while the North American economy goes down the tubes.

And the more our NAFTA partners spend on all things military the deeper they fall into recession and general turmoil at home. This is what our genius leaders Mulroney and Chretien-Martin tied Canada's economic wagon of fortunes to, and I think we need to trade freely with the rest of the world as a cure for what ails this country. NAFTA has looked a lot like old world colonialism with corporate America extracting raw materials and energy from Canada while essentially making mockery of Mulroney's promise to Canadians for "jobs, jobs, jobs." As Mel Hurtig described it, it's been more like the hollowing out of Canada. Canada is being Puerto Ricanized. Canadians will always come out on the short end of the stick as long as Uncle Sam and corporate America dictate their agendas to our weak and ineffective and corrupt politicians in Ottawa. NAFTA wasn't about trade so much as it was about securing corporate rights over labour and the environment. The Liberals finished what Mulroney started with FTA. They lied to Canadians in the 1988 and 1993 elections and then expanded FTA with NAFTA in 1994. They sold Canada's environment to Exxon-Imperial and the fossil fuel industry with NAFTA. And now Canada's national energy policy is dictated to us from corporate board rooms in America. What's afta NAFTA?

Ryan1812 wrote:

Broaden your gaze for a second and forget about what currently is and imagine what could be; a united North America would be an economic powerhouse that could effect global change in a monumental way.

Canada is America's gas tank. Canada is a semi-frozen Puerto Rico with a dwindling polar bear population and a lot fewer manufacturing jobs. Name one colonial outpost of corporate America's that is an economic powerhouse today. The G8s are all in economic turmoil, and the thirdworld capitalist economies are still thirdworld human rights hell holes.

Quote:

Stop being so conservative in your loyalty to the manufacturing sector and think ahead to the future.

Which future are you referring to?

The one in which all of our natural resources have been pillaged without any return to this nation? The one where environmental degradation reigns? The one where we can't feed ourselves, or quench our thirst from our poisoned streams and groundwater?

You see a future where technology has all the answers. I see a technological world totally dependent upon cheap energy, and becoming more and more unstable. Unstable politically, unstable economically, and unstable technologically as more and more complex technologies are more easily and quickly transferred around the globe, chopped up and repackaged without thought or any responsibility.

Ryan1812 wrote:

Stop being so conservative in your loyalty to the manufacturing sector and think ahead to the future. By continuing to look back, all that will result is Canadians being left further behind.

Yes we've lost lots of manufacturing jobs. And so has America and other OECD nations. I think what was keeping us from losing a lot of manufacturing jobs before was the lower Canadian dollar in comparison to the US buck. Now that's changed, and with so much foreign ownership and control in Canada's manufacturing sector, they couldn't wait to offshore. No other rich country has allowed a third as much foreign ownership in manufacturing as what Canada has. However, manufacturing is still an important sector of the economy for most rich countries and will continue to be in the future. 

And from what I've read of the future of manufacturing, it's going to be much more automated and increasingly more efficient as time goes on. After reading a little on nanotechnology, I really do believe that the future of manufacturing will be in IT and nanomanufacturing. We will see more areas of discpline cooperating and even combining human and other resources to make things. And I think that eventually the world really will become much smaller. Things won't be made in Asia and shipped all the way to North America by cargo ships in future. Instead they might ship us the designs for something over the internet, and our local all-purpose nanotech manufacturing plant will spit out exact duplicates on an automated assembly line.  And I think it will be more possible than ever before for the proletariat to own the means of production. Of course, this is if we don't blow up the world in the meantime.

And I think that the CERN lab in Switzerland is going to discover a new force or even forces of nature that will be as significant as tNewton's discovery of gravity leading to an industrial revolution. Europe should become a new centre of the world for wealth creation within the next one or two decades. We can't imagine the implications for society at this point, but I believe it will be very significant. China understands this and is why the CPC has offered to connect western Europe with city centres in China by high speedy rail and FOC to the currently cash-strapped Euro countries. The Chinese, I think, realize that the next 10 to 30 years are going to represent a new age of enlightenment for the world. And the China will likely be part of it. It's going to be big. Real big.

Ryan1812 wrote:

This is anti-thetical to corporate bottom line philosophy and their best interest. I would like to know how nanotech and the increasing automization of enterprize and reduction of manual labour in manufacturing jobs will result in a greater means of production ownership by the proletariat? Or have I miss understood what you are saying? I admit, this is also possible.

Oh I don't doubt that corporations will try to own the future economy and means of production as usual. I think the value of things produced will be in the designs more so than in where or how its made. The manufacturing end of things will shift to all purpose machines that will be reprogrammable and refitted for whatever purpose in , say, rigth there in Cornerbrook or Edmonton or wherever they need a bunch of widgets made today for stocking on shelves locally no farther than the other end of the same town where it's made. And open source software and open source this and that from other areas of science will merge in future and making it harder and harder to monopolize much of anything. Unless we move toward more totalitarian societies ruled by corporations, information will become cheaper and more accessible. I think that the things worth buying in the future will not be widgets so much as services. Widgets will be made really cheaply in the future, whereas things like future health care services will be sought after. How much will a guy with a bad ticker pay for a new heart to be grown from his own stem cells in a lab? How much will the young woman pay for a genetically engineered hair wave and permanent new hair color? Will their insurance cover these things, or will it be medicare? Need a house? Poof! This big-giant automated house building machien comes rolling on to to a piece of property and builds some high-rise social housing with central heating in a few weeks or so working by itself around the clock. Pkay, maybe some roofers will be needed, and maybe not.

The government calls it "sealed management." China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control.

Migrant workers who aren't officially resident where they live are a sort of second-class citizen and it's getting worse.

Well, after all, if the Democrats ever block the movement of Tar Patch sludge into the U.S., China  stands ready to move it to the B.C.coast through a pipe that Enbridge Leaks has already engineered. 

Or does that prospect of a double whammy not suggest some sort of security either, Fidel ?    

Remember the days when babblers rose up in the West to protest and pooh-pooh our environmental concerns?  They've gone underground, I guess.

quote: "Meanwhile we have to eliminate China from competing for minerals and raw materials for reasons of "national security."

I would eliminate them both. Would you not?

The longer the US and Canada deny China and Chinese corporations right of way to buying large minority ownership in key American and Canadian economic sectors, the less pressure there is on Beijing to allow global speculation to control the value of the Yuan/renminbi. And the less pressure there is on China to recycle US dollars with buying US debt. And the more the US encircles China and Asia militarily, the less pressure there is on Beijing to play fair in general.

Ryan1812 -- The worry about Potash Corp. is that the potential Chinese buyers are state-owned, which means they're susceptible to the whims of China's domestic politics, a few autocrats in China, and international relations that wouldn't normally affect Potash Corp.  Given that China isn't an ally of Canada and that it doesn't operate under the rule of law, national security is a legitimate concern.  But if China had acquired the company, I suppose that Saskatchewan could simply break the law of re-take its potash reserves in a time of crisis.

Fidel....try to focus on "what should Canada do" in this case.  Saskatchewan has the say.  J L has laid it out for you. Please ease up on the "U.S. corporate America " theme for one goddam thread.

Most people here still see China through a very Western lens and see the level of control the government has in the economy as some kind of total figure that should rise or go down.

In fact I think what is happening there -- not so much through political force but a result of practical considerations -- is an experimentation over what the government should control and what it should not. So you will see in some areas the government has more control than certain countries in the rest of the world but there are also places where the government has less.

In time I hope as the Chinese government gives up more power in some areas, it will re-assert its power where ti has opted to go for the market solutions.

Another important point is that the Chinese economic and political culture is in fact so different that if you arrive at a system through practical experiment, there is no reason to presume that the Chinese system will look that much like what we have here. And we need to recognize that we will have to avoid trying to rank one as better or worse-- even if we could determine which was better for our people or theirs, we might never be able to determine which could be better overall since the contexts for the systems are so different.

I don't think that Canadian's should shut up and not criticize China but I also don't think the government needs to lead that chorus. With a somewhat free press here, we can let people say what they like and have the government be diplomatic where it needs to be. And there is value to saying things behind closed doors at times as well.

We can also look to economic arrangements that can lead to mutual benefit. The more Chinese workers are able to get paid more the better this gets and it is something the Chinese government won't oppose so policies that encourage the use of better paid Chinese labour and discourage lower paid Chinese labour when it comes to what we are trading and how are beneficial.

George Victor wrote:

Liang Jiajie wrote:

Ryan1812 -- The worry about Potash Corp. is that the potential Chinese buyers are state-owned, which means they're susceptible to the whims of China's domestic politics, a few autocrats in China, and international relations that wouldn't normally affect Potash Corp.  Given that China isn't an ally of Canada and that it doesn't operate under the rule of law, national security is a legitimate concern.  But if China had acquired the company, I suppose that Saskatchewan could simply break the law of re-take its potash reserves in a time of crisis.

 

Sean: "We can also look to economic arrangements that can lead to mutual benefit. The more Chinese workers are able to get paid more the better this gets and it is something the Chinese government won't oppose so policies that encourage the use of better paid Chinese labour and discourage lower paid Chinese labour when it comes to what we are trading and how are beneficial."

 

 

Seems to me that Liang Jiajie of China understands the need to protect Canadian sovereignty whereas Canadians hereabouts do not, but refer in vague terms to the indivisibility of the two nation's interests. Omnia vincet amor.

Firstly do we know LJ is of China or perhaps he is a Chinese Canadian.

In any event there is no single Canadian knowing the best for Canada -- it is not reasonable to suppose one person with a Chinese name is the only source for the best for China. I respect him but do not consider it off limits to debate or disagree.

Never mind the fact that you are putting words in to my mouth that I did not say. I never said that Canada's and China's interests are indivisible or identical. I did say common ground can be found. That is a different point.

Sovereignty, Ryan, means being able to effect laws that maintain standards of environmental protection (now in complete disarray in the Tar Patch and in B.C.'s mining camps); that maintain standards of health care (now under pressure to give way to a private/public system based on privilege; able to effect opportunity for education, and at the other end of life's spectrum, a chance at a decent old age. Capitalism has given free rein to the forces of privatization through something called "globalization," but which is really only a blank cheque for finance capital and speculation.

You would have to show me how a declining export market for Ontario's industries, for instance (which are tanking) is better as a result of "TRADE WITH OTHER COUNTRIES," as you put it. How does the WTO requirement about openess to investment help when "sovereign funds" (look up sovereign in this case - your conception is rather dated) from China are being wielded to buy resource industries here, even while that country refuses to allow its currency to rise in value? 

Speak to L J 's points, Ryan. HE LIVES IN THE SAME COUNTRY THAT YOU DO AT THE MOMENT...was born there, I expect. And please...do not fall back on "it's just reality."  Death is just reality, but I don't promote it.

thanks