Hacker News Reader

Comment by cyjyar | Hacker News Reader

This Chinese belt&road thing is a bit weird, as a project: it's unpopular at home, it's controversial in the target countries, it's had no real benefit so far, and also it's tremendously expensive while the Chinese economy is slowing down. It's like the Chinese gov thinks building new roads will expand the economy, but these things take time to get a ROI -- if they succeed at all.

It really feels like a soviet 5 year plan. Bureaucratic delusion.

View on HN

It has a lot of benefits for China.

But as often China is capable of drawing a plan over 50 years and to execute it over that time frame.

What they are doing is developing and reshaping global trade routes around China.

That's a strategic, long term plan.

And yes, building roads and railways will expand the economy. Let's remember how the US developed the West.

The US developed organically, here it looks a bit more like a forced march. Not saying it cant work, but it looks more like a bet than a plan.

Also, the only "50 year plan" I can think of is Den Xiaopin opening the economy, and it went through because he was still powerful and alive until a few years ago. And it was more like a 30 year plan. Do you know many great long-term successes from them? Because they're more famous for things like the great leap forward.

After Workd War 2 the US was in the unique situation of not being completely decimated by the war. They used this leverage to craft trade policies to benefit the US economy by relying on their weight. To say that the US growth was purely organic is not quite hitting the mark. By all intents, it was forced to a large degree and perhaps with even more bloodshed than we’d like to admit. With that being said, the US growth model is not the only model that exists, it just so happens it was the most recent and most successful to date. But I would say that the rate of growth in a China is unparalleled, especially in the last 30 years. Going from one of the poorest countries in the world to what they are today is mind boggling. The growth itself is unsustainable unless they take forced measures of building the infrastructure out to allow the growth to spread out. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out and even more so with the current political climate in the west. I imagine the US isn’t just going to roll over and let it’s dominant position be taken from it so easily but we have to remember, there hasn’t been a single empire in history that has stood the test of time. The way China is approaching things might not be the best way to do it but we won’t know the true cost of today for another 30 years down the line.

Ha, I missed the mark here. The comment I was replying to mentioned 'railways' and 'the west' so I was thinking of the American West. Older use-case, and for national/internal development. You are right that the Marshall Plan is a good equivalent example. But I think its thinking was more obvious: it's either us or the soviet, and also rebuilt economies had only one major economy to trade with. These gave the USA major leverage. I don't see it here, leverage is a lot lower.

Yes, I meant the American West, which was opened by the railways.

Do you think that "belt and road" is a short term plan?

Of course not. Building trade routes and railways to span Eurasia is thinking 50 years down the road.

No, it's long term, but as mentioned above, to me it's more of a bet (I said "5 year plan" as a reference to rigid soviet top-down polocies).

You said "But as often China is capable of drawing a plan over 50 years and to execute it over that time frame". Can you give (multiple since you said "often") major 50 year plans, that China announced and then delivered on? I don't know all that much on that topic, and as I said before their most famous efforts at planning/reforming didn't turn out too good.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com