Quote:
Originally Posted by frostfire
IMHOO, prosperity i.e. increased standard of living is our best weapon against them. The more the average Chinese turns into our average 'Murican, the harder the Chinese government can pull anything akin to the cultural revolution.....in other words, create more leeching "democrats" in China
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I've read that China needs to turn "X" number of sustenance farmers into factory workers every month just to avoid a social disaster/Tiananmen 2.0.
I've read that "X" is a really, really big number.
The advent of robotics to replace repetitive physical movements(even including high end expensive repetitive like say Laser eye surgery) is gong to disrupt a lot of jobs.
I reckon China could suffer badly with hundreds of millions stuck in the transition.
And places like Africa and North Korea, expecting to be the "next China" global sweatshop, may be beaten out by tech singularity.
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Anywho, the mainland Chinese(some quite senior folks in private sector) I got to know the last few months all individually and consistently viewed their own country as a corrupt Wild West, lacking any national cohesion that didn't involve dollar or yuan signs.
The other point of consistency for them is wanting to buy property in US, NZ, and Australia(Canada to a lesser extent).
It went way, way beyond the prestige of buying a home overseas(like many in 90's dot com days talking of an apartment in London/Paris).
It felt distinctly like buying lifeboat seats on the Titanic before it hits the iceberg.
So while I'm not all doom and gloom about China and saying don't worry about it, it's kinda troubling to consistently hear from folks living the Chinese version of the American Dream that they are so keen to buy a bolt hole.
Not exactly a sign of confidence from those who have benefitted the most.