In response to the trade war, the Asian giant is investing billions of dollars abroad in plants, especially in industries linked to the energy transition
The difference is that they’re not doing it at the expense of hollowing out their domestic industry. They’re supplementing their own industry by building additional industry around the world.
it occurs when it’s economically more efficient to move industry out of your country than to keep it in
unless you’re suggesting china will willingly run the bulk of its industry with decreasing efficiency over time for the sake of keeping lower paying jobs domestically
These developments look increasingly structural. The authorities’ stance since 2020, including regulatory tightening and zero-COVID lockdowns, appear to have inflicted long-lasting damage to China’s private economy, the dynamism of which was a defining feature of its economic miracle in the past four decades. Nearly 20 months into China’s COVID reopening, the private sector has yet to bounce back, despite many pro-private business utterances and gestures from China’s leadership.
i’m not sure private businesses failing over covid is a good thing for an economy
Again, you’re thinking from a perspective of a market economy which China is not.
i’m not sure private businesses failing over covid is a good thing for an economy
I’m sure that saving countless millions of lives and preventing people from becoming sick and turning into a strain on the healthcare system is actually very good for the economy.
I’m sure that saving countless millions of lives and preventing people from becoming sick and turning into a strain on the healthcare system is actually very good for the economy.
the meme of “countless millions of lives” aside, you making this argument means that you accept that china shifting more to state-capitalism than regular capitalism isn’t intentional, so i’m not sure what point you’re trying to make
no, i’m thinking from the perspective of resources being finite, which they are
Resources being finite has fuck all to do with where manufacturing happens.
also, i don’t think you know what a market economy is. china literally calls itself a market economy
China is a state planned economy where markets act as an allocator. The state makes the decisions where the resources should be allocated however. That’s the difference from actual market economies where allocation happens completely organically based on the whims of the investors.
the meme of “countless millions of lives” aside, you making this argument means that you accept that china shifting more to state-capitalism than regular capitalism isn’t intentional, so i’m not sure what point you’re trying to make
It’s always adorable when people use terms they have very shallow understanding of. There is a fundamental difference between regular capitalism and what you refer to as state capitalism. The purpose of labor under regular capitalism is to create capital for business owners. Capital accumulation is the driving mechanic of the system, hence the name. Meanwhile, the purpose of state owned enterprise is to provide social value such as building infrastructure, producing food and energy, providing healthcare, and so on.
The point I’m very obviously making is that the state has very different goals from private capital, and thus it allocates labor differently. If this is a point that you have trouble understanding then maybe you can spend a bit more time educating yourself on the subject instead of debating a subject you clearly have a very tenuous grasp of.
Resources being finite has fuck all to do with where manufacturing happens.
china invents capability to snap fingers and materialize manufacturing capability out of thin air
The state makes the decisions where the resources should be allocated however.
i’m not willing to have this debate with you over whether china is a market economy when i’ve literally provided you a source that quotes china calling itself a market economy
It’s always adorable when people use terms they have very shallow understanding of.
you mean like when you said china wasn’t a market economy, despite china saying they were a market economy? and then when you accused me of using terms i didn’t understand then providing a description of those terms that showed i’d used them accurately? what point do you think you’re making here?
The point I’m very obviously making is that the state has very different goals from private capital
you’re trying to make that point by pointing to a shift away from private capital, which is a completely meaningless statistic because the shift away from private capital wasn’t intentional so doesn’t imply anything about an economic plan going forward
i literally spelled that out for you last time and you still chose to deliberately miss it
it occurs when it’s economically more efficient to move industry out of your country than to keep it in
It is not, generally speaking, more economically efficient to deindustrialize your own country. The logic you are using is neoliberal with “efficiency” meaning, “maximize profit for the financial sector”. This is an arrangement planned due to US-based economic crises and should not be projected onto China like some iron law. The US, as the global seat of capital, is uniquely harmful.
i’m not sure private businesses failing over covid is a good thing for an economy
The thing they wanted you to see were the statistics, not the guesswork and editorialization from that article.
china is literally taking money that they could invest in domestic industry and investing it in industry overseas
This does not address what I said. Foreign direct investment is not the same as deindustrializing your own country. There are also more subtle, or at least often ignored, financial aspects regarding balance of payments and derisking from the dollar and eventual attempts at decoupling.
i guess now you get to explain why they’re doing that if some form of economic efficiency isn’t the answer
What do you think economic efficiency is?
“don’t look at that bit of the source i just chose to show you” would be an astounding bit of mental gymnastics
The expectation is that you engage critically so that you can match up the source with the part they are talking about. In this case, it is that the balance between public and private ownership has shifted towards public in recent years.
Instead of engaging with what parent was talking about, instead an editorializing quote was found and now we are talking about that and other poor attempts at wit.
Foreign direct investment is not the same as deindustrializing your own country
and as i said at the outset, “we’re just investing elsewhere” is how us outsourcing started
“they’re not doing it at the expense of hollowing out their domestic industry” is a completely baseless claim when following an equivalent timescale the same would have been true about the us
What do you think economic efficiency is?
ratio between resources expended to resources produced
The expectation is that you engage critically so that you can match up the source with the part they are talking about.
they were using the source to argue that china is intentionally moving away from private ownership. the source saying that the move is unintentional is absolutely materially relevant, and it’s laughable that you’d accuse me of failing to engage critically when you missed that.
I disagree with your last point. A lot of companies should have sunk in covid and been consumed by more prepared ones. The governments didn’t want it to happen and they proved we actually live in a social net capitalist economy. This way if rich people accidentally lose we can remember socialism exists for them alone.
“it’s just supplemental” would have initially worked to describe us industry shifting out
The difference being that China is not neoliberal. This does not coincide with deindustriakization, crushing unions, maximizing “free markets”, etc. It also does not correspond to anything like the regimes the US used to make offshoring in its own interests, namely to force imbalanced export economies on other countries premised on unequal exchange and a dollar-heavy (im)balance of payments. Worst case scenario of success is that other countries, particularly in Africa, develop industry, infrastructure, and good jobs while China gains trading partners and stays heavily industrialized, as they care for their real economy.
investment is finite, so if you have the choice between a and b, investing more money in a is by definition investing in a at the expense of b
At the level of entire countries this logic can break down. For example, third world countries have to figure out what to do with all these dollars they receive from their imbalanced export economies. You can’t just spend it on anything, yiur country needs to function and you can’t buy everything from everyone at fair prices this way.
i’d respond to this paragraph but you really haven’t made a coherent argument past “us bad china good”
Please try your best to engage in good faith and not make things up. There’s plenty for you to ask about or engage with if you have the interest.
no, because resources are always finite. the resource doesn’t have to be “money”.
The original topic was investment, which includes money and is relevant to the balanve of payments issue, particularly with African countries with th3 aforementioned imperialized economies. You cannot understand, for example, offshoring, without understanding unequal exchange, and this makes what might seem like a finite resource problem into one where you must think about coercion and graft and where production is directed.
if you want, you can try restating the argument you were trying to make before you slipped and typed out a ramble about how the us is bad
Slipped up? I directly responded to the comparison to US offshoring that you made to explain why this is different. I guess you have no answer.
Please do your best to act in good faith. It’s okay for you to say, “that’s a good point, I will think about it” or not reply at all. It is not okay for you to make things up.
money isn’t the only thing you invest when you set up a manufacturing base
If you took ten seconds to think about it, having any financial component makes my point correct and yours incorrect. Your zero sum game logic simply does not apply on multiple levels, as I have explained.
This might be clearer to you if you actually dealt with what I said instead of cherry picking.
Why do you assume the West? China often expands to other Asian countries. Or pretend to. E.g. after tariffs are applied to China you’ll often see a huge increase in intra Asia trade. Followed by different Asian countries heavily increasing their exports. Usually by hiding the true origin (tariffs are applied to the origin, not some transhipment place).
So they’re now outsourcing production to the West? We’ve really come full circle.
The difference is that they’re not doing it at the expense of hollowing out their domestic industry. They’re supplementing their own industry by building additional industry around the world.
“it’s just supplemental” would have initially worked to describe us industry shifting out
investment is finite, so if you have the choice between a and b, investing more money in a is by definition investing in a at the expense of b
This problem only occurs in capitalist economies where finance capital directs development. Meanwhile, all the critical economy in China is state owned. In fact, the share of private industry in China has been shrinking. https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/chinas-private-sector-has-lost-ground-state-sector-has-gained-share-among
it occurs when it’s economically more efficient to move industry out of your country than to keep it in
unless you’re suggesting china will willingly run the bulk of its industry with decreasing efficiency over time for the sake of keeping lower paying jobs domestically
i’m not sure private businesses failing over covid is a good thing for an economy
Again, you’re thinking from a perspective of a market economy which China is not.
I’m sure that saving countless millions of lives and preventing people from becoming sick and turning into a strain on the healthcare system is actually very good for the economy.
no, i’m thinking from the perspective of resources being finite, which they are
also, i don’t think you know what a market economy is. china literally calls itself a market economy
the meme of “countless millions of lives” aside, you making this argument means that you accept that china shifting more to state-capitalism than regular capitalism isn’t intentional, so i’m not sure what point you’re trying to make
Resources being finite has fuck all to do with where manufacturing happens.
China is a state planned economy where markets act as an allocator. The state makes the decisions where the resources should be allocated however. That’s the difference from actual market economies where allocation happens completely organically based on the whims of the investors.
In fact, what China actually calls itself is a birdcage economy where the market acts as a bird, free to fly within the confines of a cage representing the overall economic plan. https://informaconnect.com/a-birdcage-economy-understanding-china/
It’s always adorable when people use terms they have very shallow understanding of. There is a fundamental difference between regular capitalism and what you refer to as state capitalism. The purpose of labor under regular capitalism is to create capital for business owners. Capital accumulation is the driving mechanic of the system, hence the name. Meanwhile, the purpose of state owned enterprise is to provide social value such as building infrastructure, producing food and energy, providing healthcare, and so on.
The point I’m very obviously making is that the state has very different goals from private capital, and thus it allocates labor differently. If this is a point that you have trouble understanding then maybe you can spend a bit more time educating yourself on the subject instead of debating a subject you clearly have a very tenuous grasp of.
china invents capability to snap fingers and materialize manufacturing capability out of thin air
i’m not willing to have this debate with you over whether china is a market economy when i’ve literally provided you a source that quotes china calling itself a market economy
you mean like when you said china wasn’t a market economy, despite china saying they were a market economy? and then when you accused me of using terms i didn’t understand then providing a description of those terms that showed i’d used them accurately? what point do you think you’re making here?
you’re trying to make that point by pointing to a shift away from private capital, which is a completely meaningless statistic because the shift away from private capital wasn’t intentional so doesn’t imply anything about an economic plan going forward
i literally spelled that out for you last time and you still chose to deliberately miss it
It is not, generally speaking, more economically efficient to deindustrialize your own country. The logic you are using is neoliberal with “efficiency” meaning, “maximize profit for the financial sector”. This is an arrangement planned due to US-based economic crises and should not be projected onto China like some iron law. The US, as the global seat of capital, is uniquely harmful.
The thing they wanted you to see were the statistics, not the guesswork and editorialization from that article.
china is literally taking money that they could invest in domestic industry and investing it in industry overseas
i guess now you get to explain why they’re doing that if some form of economic efficiency isn’t the answer
“don’t look at that bit of the source i just chose to show you” would be an astounding bit of mental gymnastics
This does not address what I said. Foreign direct investment is not the same as deindustrializing your own country. There are also more subtle, or at least often ignored, financial aspects regarding balance of payments and derisking from the dollar and eventual attempts at decoupling.
What do you think economic efficiency is?
The expectation is that you engage critically so that you can match up the source with the part they are talking about. In this case, it is that the balance between public and private ownership has shifted towards public in recent years.
Instead of engaging with what parent was talking about, instead an editorializing quote was found and now we are talking about that and other poor attempts at wit.
and as i said at the outset, “we’re just investing elsewhere” is how us outsourcing started
“they’re not doing it at the expense of hollowing out their domestic industry” is a completely baseless claim when following an equivalent timescale the same would have been true about the us
ratio between resources expended to resources produced
they were using the source to argue that china is intentionally moving away from private ownership. the source saying that the move is unintentional is absolutely materially relevant, and it’s laughable that you’d accuse me of failing to engage critically when you missed that.
I disagree with your last point. A lot of companies should have sunk in covid and been consumed by more prepared ones. The governments didn’t want it to happen and they proved we actually live in a social net capitalist economy. This way if rich people accidentally lose we can remember socialism exists for them alone.
either way, mass company failure due to covid doesn’t imply anything about the split of china’s economy going forward
The difference being that China is not neoliberal. This does not coincide with deindustriakization, crushing unions, maximizing “free markets”, etc. It also does not correspond to anything like the regimes the US used to make offshoring in its own interests, namely to force imbalanced export economies on other countries premised on unequal exchange and a dollar-heavy (im)balance of payments. Worst case scenario of success is that other countries, particularly in Africa, develop industry, infrastructure, and good jobs while China gains trading partners and stays heavily industrialized, as they care for their real economy.
At the level of entire countries this logic can break down. For example, third world countries have to figure out what to do with all these dollars they receive from their imbalanced export economies. You can’t just spend it on anything, yiur country needs to function and you can’t buy everything from everyone at fair prices this way.
i’d respond to this paragraph but you really haven’t made a coherent argument past “us bad china good”
no, because resources are always finite. the resource doesn’t have to be “money”.
Please try your best to engage in good faith and not make things up. There’s plenty for you to ask about or engage with if you have the interest.
The original topic was investment, which includes money and is relevant to the balanve of payments issue, particularly with African countries with th3 aforementioned imperialized economies. You cannot understand, for example, offshoring, without understanding unequal exchange, and this makes what might seem like a finite resource problem into one where you must think about coercion and graft and where production is directed.
if you want, you can try restating the argument you were trying to make before you slipped and typed out a ramble about how the us is bad
money isn’t the only thing you invest when you set up a manufacturing base
Slipped up? I directly responded to the comparison to US offshoring that you made to explain why this is different. I guess you have no answer.
Please do your best to act in good faith. It’s okay for you to say, “that’s a good point, I will think about it” or not reply at all. It is not okay for you to make things up.
If you took ten seconds to think about it, having any financial component makes my point correct and yours incorrect. Your zero sum game logic simply does not apply on multiple levels, as I have explained.
This might be clearer to you if you actually dealt with what I said instead of cherry picking.
and your argument boiled down “us bad china good”
genuinely, what are you talking about?
and you’re coming at me to say that if money changes hands then that’s not the case?
Why do you assume the West? China often expands to other Asian countries. Or pretend to. E.g. after tariffs are applied to China you’ll often see a huge increase in intra Asia trade. Followed by different Asian countries heavily increasing their exports. Usually by hiding the true origin (tariffs are applied to the origin, not some transhipment place).
Also a lot of infrastructure in Africa is being funded in China, their position there is only going to grow stronger.
This is what happens with production revolutions. We did the same thing, as did England.