Posted on 12/30/2007 11:56:06 AM PST by Parmenio
No, I can't write Chinese so I have no use for a Chinese search engine?
I wasn't aware it was a commerce site?
Good for you.
It appears to me that Craigslist is only in English? In China, my expectation would be that most advertising is done in Chinese, not English. If Craigslist is only doing English advertising, that would seem to limit the utility of local advertising.
Certainly my experience is that in Japan very little advertising is done in English compared to the vast amount of advertising done in Japanese. Looking at the Craigslist pages for Tokyo, it is categorically not representative of the local advertising in that great city.
That was sort of my point.
Craigslist isn’t.
At least I don’t think so. Never used it myself.
Well, it’s probably a better habit to get your news in English than Chinese, for that matter.
I've never been to China so I'm asking, Does this Economist article (below) have the facts? Unrest should definitely have an impact on business and the future; to wit, The Great Fall of China.
In some ways it seems to me that today's China resembles pre-revolution Nationalist China. I've seen other articles describing the internal Party conflict between the Dengists and the Maoists. Another revolution? I wonder.
Poverty, inequality, corruption, rising healthcare costs and illegal land requisition; add in a "floating population" estimated to be 100 million-plus; discharged military men as China upgrades its military -- lots of problems. The Party is desperate to create 25 million jobs each year and IMO to achieve that goal anything goes.
Lots of other reports about intellectual property theft, counterfeit goods, knock-offs -- whatever it takes for private enterprise to meet Party goals.
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You really need to try it.
After you read the article.;)
They’re both wrong.
Actually, my primary concern is we are utterly ignoring what is going to be one of the most important issues of this century:
Our relationship, or conflict, with China.
It can be either. If we ignore it, though, and continue to pretent everything is just fine, IMHO we will have a conflict.
On the other hand, if we stand up, and insist the relationship be mutual (in every way, yes that means balanced trade), then we could form a very strong relationship.
The more we avoid dealing with the (growing) issues however, the more we will lose control of the eventual outcome.
We need to stand up, and insist now.
Or we will have to fight, later.
I think both sides are right here, to some extent.
China is a dangerous threat. They support our enemies around the world, including North Korea and Iran among others. They have inflicted a monstrous balance of payments deficit on us, which is one of the major factors weakening our economy and our country. I would say that China and militant Islam are the two most dangerous threats for the 21st century, although Putin seems determined to provide a third.
Also, they are a major economic power, building up their industrial base at an amazing rate.
But much of this Chinese economic growth is built on sand. There are huge basically defaulted loans from the central bank, probably on the order of a trillion dollars, the result of a centralized command economy run berserk. Pollution and environmental degradation are horrific, and they are at risk of losing their foreign markets as they gain a reputation for poisoning their customers. Then there are impending demographic problems from massive forced abortion, mostly of female children.
And presumably, as was the case with the old Soviet Union, their official statistics aren’t worth the ink they are printed with.
Our own government lies about the numbers on inflation and jobs, increasingly so since clinton came to power. The Chinese government lies a lot worse, because Communists lie reflexively and there are no checks and balances and no transparency.
Will their economy implode like Japan’s did? Most likely it will be much worse. But who knows when? It’s very hard to know what is really going on. I imagine the World Bank is doing the best it can to dig up numbers behind the official statistics, but it’s not easy.
We had a much better idea dealing with the U.S.S.R. We did not help build their economy!
There were many a "free trader" who lusted after that "emerging" middle class and chided everyone else that if we don't help the moderates we'll be playing into the hands of the Soviet hardliners, there will be war, and it will be our fault.
They were wrong.
This time we're doing it the "free traders'" way. We'll see what happens now. Will it be relationship or conflict?
There may be a definition problem, such as, if my village has a line to the town hall, that's access, even if half the people don't have electricity into their houses.
I'll look further, but thanks for the source.
I don’t think it’s as bad as the Economist makes it out to be... A lot of times a “riot” in China consists of 50 people screaming at some government local, and then going away. Rarely does it flare to anything worse than that (not because they’ll get shot, but that’s just the way the Chinese culture is).
China has a lot of problems to be sure, and they know their only way out is economically. Meaning they have to hook on to the EU or the US, and they’ve chosen the US. It also means they have to start letting a middle class develop (which is tiny, but growing), and they have to pay attention to what that middle class wants. Thus you get improvements in basic utilities, you get better roads, you get more economic - and political - freedom for the wealthier, richer provinces.
Corruption is actually decreasing, as are quality/manufacturing issues. It’s just that they’re much more visible because of more freedom of the press and foreign correspondents. Outside of China, we’re more aware of problems inside, but the number of problems is actually dropping pretty dramatically.
China’s going to follow the US economically for the next few generations, at least, and provide the “fingers and hands” for the US. We dominate - and will continue to do so - in research, high tech design, services. China will become more and more the manufacturing and low-tech design center, and they’re happy to do so.
I'd like to see them concentrate on building a middle class and lifting the lower classes also.
All the atrocities of the Chi-Coms were contemporaneous news items for me from the very beginning of Mao's "agrarian" reforms.
It'd be nice if the Chi-Coms would never ask us again vis-a-vis a threat of war, "How many people can you afford to lose? We can afford to lose [insert current population of the U.S.]."
Thanks again!
I thought this was a pretty significant story too when I posted the initial announcement. FR disagreed with me, there were 11 replies.
China’s economy smaller in new measure, still number two: study
AFP ^ | Dec. 17, 2007 | staff
Posted on 12/17/2007 7:52:12 AM PST by tlb
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1940653/posts
The result: he ended up promoting population explosion of China.
Then came the drastic measure of curbing population growth: one child policy.
One child policy also has severe side-effects as you said. Anyhow, I see China suffering demographic collapse in one way or another. Either continue population explosion followed by environmental devastation and/or domestic power struggle coupled with domestic or foreign war. Or one child can bring about all kinds of social problem, which can cause political instability.
Either way, Mao unleashed catastrophe as he usually did.
On the other hand, demographic collapse is a regular event in Chinese history. Usually China lost 2/3 of population during inter-dynasty era. The demographic collapse during inter-dynasty era is usually followed by demographic explosion once new dynasty is established. Then having too much population make China vulnerable to the mismanagement brought upon inefficiency and corruption of imperial government. Because it does not take much to destabilize the system stretched to full capacity. Then the stage is set for another demographic collapse.
I think we are getting close to this phase.
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