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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

The article states that the provinces have a material reason to inflate. The provincial governments are far stronger than people routinely seem to understand, we're obsessed by the strong statist arguments of 'scary China' and don't think about their internal structure and where strength and weakness lies.

I believe Chinese central planners don't like misleading numbers, it makes the five year plan much harder to design. The Chinese technocrats wouldn't like this situation any more than western investment does.

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I would decouple the economic and political realities of “the mountains are tall and the emperor far away” from national military might.

Vietnam, Russia, Tibet and other neighbors can attest that that one is not like the other.

Possibly, yes. The article I responded to focused on the economy. Do you see signs of Chinese territorial ambition, spratleys aside?

China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea are ridiculously broad. The nine dash line in particular is insane, extending into the EEZ of six other countries. China claims that entire area, not as its EEZ but as territorial waters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...

> The disputes involve both maritime boundaries and islands.[8] There are several disputes, each of which involves a different collection of countries:

> The nine-dash line area claimed by the Republic of China, later the People's Republic of China (PRC), which covers most of the South China Sea and overlaps the exclusive economic zone claims of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Maritime boundary along the Vietnamese coast between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Maritime boundary north of Borneo between the PRC, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, and Taiwan. Islands, reefs, banks and shoals in the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands, the Pratas Islands, Macclesfield Bank, Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and parts of the area also contested by Malaysia and the Philippines. Maritime boundary in the waters north of the Natuna Islands between the PRC, Indonesia and Taiwan[9] Maritime boundary off the coast of Palawan and Luzon between the PRC, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Maritime boundary, land territory, and the islands of Sabah, including Ambalat, between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Maritime boundary and islands in the Luzon Strait between the PRC, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

Taiwan should also obviously be added to the list of China's territorial ambitions. They're openly aggressively intent on annexing Taiwan by any means required, despite it being a separate, self-governed nation for the last half century. They're the 21st largest economy in the world. It would be by far the biggest conquering event in terms of a major nation being annexed since the WW2 era.

I can’t understand the downvotes on this post. The PRC has never controlled Taiwan and has made annexing it (with other words to hide intent) an explicit goal. Of course Taiwan is a territorial ambition of the PRC.

Apparently China's claim to the Spratly Islands only emerged in the 20th century, and was just a result of errors in translation and cartography.

http://cimsec.org/chinas-claim-spratly-islands-just-mistake/...

In college I remember a professor saying something similar caused problems during the Great Leap Forward. The local cadres were overestimating their production numbers so the central government exported rice to Albania or other allies thinking they had a surplus when in fact there was a shortage. I'm sure that wasn't the only reason there were problems at the time, but it didn't help.

If by "caused problems" you mean "killed millions by starvation", then yes.

They had a habit of killing local technocrats who didn't report strong numbers, though, so I can understand why someone would say their starving town had a grain surplus. And of course the guy doing the killing is under a similar threat, all the way to the top.

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