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There are certainly plenty of CCP members, former Red Guards, etc who have become rich, but through usually becoming CEO's of large corporations that they founded during the opening up process, and thus providing a contribution to the economy.
One of the China Rising documentaries, I think it was on the Discovery channel, the majority of the uber rich are generally the ones who seized oppurtunity to create lucrative businesses.
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You mean stepped on anyone in their way and willingly sold their countrymen into slavery to have a piece of the capitalist pie as soon as communism cracked the door open for a little peek?
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Blayne Bradley
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Are you insane or just ignorant?
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They're not mutually exclusive possibilities. But in any case, just chill and ask for a source, if you're interested.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Blayne: Sopwith2 was being perhaps a bit ungenerous, but you shouldn't believe these communist leaders who have gotten rich did so in a fair market environment. Now folks like Zhang Jin Dong are a bonefide rags to riches story. Starting out he couldn't possibly have had connections, but who can say how he got from his first $10 million, to his four billion? I seriously doubt the government just got out of his way, and politely collected taxes. At that level you have to get involved with the government and broker deals.
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Which is legitimate, by definition the government's job is to broker deals between different interest groups, whether they be individuals, enterprises, trade unions, etc.
But "sold their countymen into slavery" is clearly ignorance, no one was sold into slavary, working in incorporated factories making crap even if it started out as "sweat shops" was and IS objectively an massive improvement over subsidence or collective agriculture, China's massive GDP growth wasn't selective in its growth, a rising tide raises all boats, true, some faster then others but in absolute terms every Chinese person is richer now then he was 20-30 years ago.
And as for the relevant point, during China's 1980's force modernizations not only was China's officer corps significantly reduced to enhance itself in terms of real strength, but also many of the PLA joint ventures, co-ops, and other PLA owned enterprises, farms, etc, were privatized or transfered ownership away from the PLA's traditional "be one of the people" self sufficiency to that of a modern military with a modern procurement program, by splitting the PLA from its original business assets further incentive for complacency and unprofessionalism are squashed.
What I am challenging is how the PLA in Bear and the Dragon could in anyway resemble its real life counterpart is wishfufillment and would take turning back the clock 30-40 years to get a result in anyway similar. Everything about the PLA is different, in real life not only does the PLA actually know of UAV's and AWAACS but also have their own (the book was written in 1999 all of this was public "open secret" information), the PLA doctrine is completely different, there's nothing in the book that is in anyway accurate and requires the PLA at every level of command from the lowest grunt to the highest general holding the idiot ball for the plot to move the way it did.
This is shoddy writting, Tom Clancy and/or his ghost writter are terrible, overhyped writters past their prime and this was the moment the Ryanverse jumped the Shark if Executive Order's wasn't already that moment.
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quote: What I am challenging is how the PLA in Bear and the Dragon could in anyway resemble its real life counterpart is wishfufillment and would take turning back the clock 30-40 years to get a result in anyway similar.
This is interesting, Blayne, because there was a time you would have denied agreement that the PRC was as bad as it is portrayed in Bear and Dragon even 30-40 years ago;)
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quote:Which is legitimate, by definition the government's job is to broker deals between different interest groups, whether they be individuals, enterprises, trade unions, etc.
I don't know what constitution you are reading. Governments don't have any business trying to consolidate power by taking advantage of my business. Nor do I have any business trying to use the governments resources so as to hedge up by business.
quote:China's massive GDP growth wasn't selective in its growth, a rising tide raises all boats, true, some faster then others but in absolute terms every Chinese person is richer now then he was 20-30 years ago.
No no no. It's nice you've injected a bit of reality into Reagan's phrase, but a huge percentage of China's population is still working in the fields. There's a glut of farmers trying to find work in cities, and many of those working in the farm villages live in abject poverty.
Heck even my government censored text books admit as much.
I'm not trying to defend Tom Clancy, but just be careful in attacking his book you don't find yourself in a China that does not actually exist. Otherwise you and him are both making the same mistake, but he's making money.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Hey, feel free to go all fanboy on China. Some people believe in Superman, too. It's a fairytale world that you are looking at and the number of exposed slavery cases in China is heart-wrenching.
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But fairly irrelevant since we're talking about the very rich as opposed to the very poor. Economically, slavery is a poor way of generating cash compared to the white collar crime that BlackBlade is focusing on.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote: What I am challenging is how the PLA in Bear and the Dragon could in anyway resemble its real life counterpart is wishfufillment and would take turning back the clock 30-40 years to get a result in anyway similar.
This is interesting, Blayne, because there was a time you would have denied agreement that the PRC was as bad as it is portrayed in Bear and Dragon even 30-40 years ago;)
30-40 Years ago the PLA was still modeled on Soviet lines (Shock Armies etc), this isn't the case today is what I am saying, at best there is a slight similarity between then and the book but not now and the book.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:No no no. It's nice you've injected a bit of reality into Reagan's phrase, but a huge percentage of China's population is still working in the fields. There's a glut of farmers trying to find work in cities, and many of those working in the farm villages live in abject poverty.
In terms of ratio China's poverty problem of only roughly 100 million living under the poverty line doesn't look that bad relatively speaking, thats 5-10% of the population?
We're talking about somewhere between 300 and 600 million people that were actually raised above the poverty line in China between the 1960's and the 1990's.
There are poor farmers, there are poor regions, and poor villages, but there situation is significantly better now then it was 40 years ago.
Its not even that bad, you can go to the most remote out of nowhere mountain village that you have to hike 4 hours up a mountain trail from the nearest train and you know what, everyone at that village will have cellphones!
quote:I don't know what constitution you are reading. Governments don't have any business trying to consolidate power by taking advantage of my business. Nor do I have any business trying to use the governments resources so as to hedge up by business.
Isn't that last sentence the definition of the TARP and other bailout bills?
By definition in political sciences the state's job is to be the arbitrating force to negotiation influence between the different interest groups, this isn't something specified in any constitution it's just the definition of state/government.
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Blayne: That's nice that according to the government's (unverified) figure only 10% live under the poverty line. It's probably a few percentage points higher. The poverty line is $1.25 USD per *day*. That's about 8 rmb. You can't buy a bowl of curry at a fast food restaurant for that much here. Farmers absolutely do not pack cell phones in their villages. I'm sure there a farmers with cell phones, but there weren't any at the villages I visited, and they were straddling places like the Mu Tian Yu Great Wall, where there is tons of tourism.
Of course China's economy is expanding at a very high rate, but it's not on track to create a professional middle class. The government knows this and hopefully it will shift some gears, but the idea that even 80% of the Chinese people are seeing a piece of the action isn't correct. The new generation of billionaires are gobbling up all the big money while everybody else is starting to see some resistance. My teachers are teaching at what could be called the MIT of China, and they make less money than I did working full time at my previous job.
They scrimp and save, because they have parents to take care of. They are content exactly because as you said, things are way better for most people. But what happens when the economy stops growing at the current untenable rate? What happens when the poor remain poor, but the rich keep getting more rich? What happens when the Chinese stop manufacturing and shift into services? They can't offer us cheap products if their wages go up, and there are plenty of other countries that would be willing to pick up the slack.
I'm supremely confident China has the ability to negotiate all these problems, many countries have done it. But there is still so much uncertainty, and the people have a lot more information churning around than they did back in 1930.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: ... Farmers absolutely do not pack cell phones in their villages. I'm sure there a farmers with cell phones, but there weren't any at the villages I visited, and they were straddling places like the Mu Tian Yu Great Wall, where there is tons of tourism.
Well, we can put this in context.
quote:For the market leader, with 74% of all mobile customers, rural towns and villages have become a valuable source of connections. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, around half of China Mobile's net additions were from rural customers (around 105 million over the three years). We expect that in 2009 rural net additions will continue to make up around half of its new mobile customers.
That is roughly one in seven rural customers (given a rural population of 700 million) getting cell phones in three years with just the leading provider. For reasons that are not too relevant right now, cell phones are actually a lot easier than landlines, so a lot of people just skipped that totally.
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