Comment by Roark66 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Roark66 | Hacker News Reader

The article raises and goes fairly deep into explaining many important issues, but I find it's naive belief the numbers China presents quite surprising.

Take this for example: >China dominates the production of full electric vehicles

And put it in context with the recent revelations of hectares of abandoned new EVs rotting in many locations in China. Why? The financial policy gave incentives to making more EVs, some enterprising individuals managed to manufacture very low quality cars while funding it with "shared car startup model". Then when these car sharing schemes went bankrupt (because many cars wouldn't complete a single trip without malfunction) they had enormous profits regardless. How? The cost of manufacturing was funded by investors in these startups(a third party, or a client from the manufacturer's point of view). After they went bankrupt there would be no warranty claims etc. While the per car gov subsidy was pure profit.

I cannot understand why anyone in the West would believe any economic statistic or number coming out of China. The country is known for fudging numbers at all levels. The corruption is endemic to the point one actually pays for government positions with cash (as a bribe to higher ups) and considers it an investment to recoup in own bribes in future.

It's Soviet Union all over again. Back then The West to the last moment had many prominent authors praising Soviet advancements in many fields until the very end and the collapse that was a complete surprise to many.

> Back then The West to the last moment had many prominent authors praising Soviet advancements in many fields until the very end and the collapse that was a complete surprise to many.

I hear you. But I am not worried about whatever economic modellers say, or what prominent authors write. What I am worried is when huge companies, predominantly preceived as western ones, spread their arms and swear there is no way they can make their gizmos in the USA.

Look at Apple for example, most valuable company on the whole world and 44-47% of their production sites is in china. Did we had anything like that in the Soviet block?

>I hear you. But I am not worried about whatever economic modellers say, or what prominent authors write. What I am worried is when huge companies, predominantly preceived as western ones, spread their arms and swear there is no way they can make their gizmos in the USA.

Yes, you make a very valid point.

>Look at Apple for example, most valuable company on the whole world and 44-47% of their production sites is in china. Did we had anything like that in the Soviet block?

No, definitely not, there is a difference in how Soviets couldn't overtly accept western investments without it looking like a failure of their central planning. Also the relationship between both blocks(USSR vs the West) was much more openly antagonistic. China is different in these ways. One could write a book about the differences and similarities of both countries.

As for large companies doing that I blame the lawmakers (and people voting for them). A share based company is supposed to act in the best interest of shareholders. How long or short the time horizon to prioritise is decided by the shareholders when they hire the board of directors. It is not a surprise a bunch of shareholders will want to prioritize short term gains. It is the lawmakers job to ensure its citizens don't fund enemy regimes. That leads to another point, for a life of me I do not understand how the Chinese Communist Party regime is not officially considered an enemy of the USA and all other deocratic countries. For some countries with very corrupt political scene (like Germany, Austria etc) it is obvious why, but the US? Perhaps the political elite in US has awoken to the fact current China is their biggest enemy, they just don't see any benefit in communicating it clearly at this stage.

The CPC under Deng, unlike the CPSU, paid attention to the materialism part of Marxism, recognized that the business of America is business, and realized that the Western ruling classes stood to earn trillions from cooperation. In the west, still fresh from remembering WW2, bankers felt that trade linkages could prevent WW3. In hindsight, it was an obvious and brilliant strategy.

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