This article really struck a note with me. The atmosphere here in Beijing really has changed a lot over the past few years. The relative wealth of the 2 countries is directly evident in the different attitudes of Western expats and native Chinese towards money. The expats here are becoming noticeably poorer. I see it because I am a retailer of luxury goods.<p>There was a time when being on an expat package in Beijing meant living the good life - you could splurge however you wanted because the cost of living was so cheap. Today, my products are really pushing the affordability of the expats here but are considered a great value by the new middle class here. Several times a week I get complaints from expats that our prices are too high. I've never heard that from a Chinese. Indeed, the opposite is true, several times a week Chinese people tell me what a good deal I'm offering.<p>It's actually getting a bit problematic for me. Inflation's pushing my costs up and my competitors are raising their prices as well. I've been raising prices alongside everyone else, but I'm really about to price myself out of the expat market. Expats who receive their paychecks in dollars are seeing their purchasing power diminish and I think it's having a big psychological effect on them. They're really important to me, but I would be crazy to not be trying to reduce the percentage of sales that they constitute.<p>This is directly impacting my spending decisions. A few years ago, it would have made sense for me to drop money to advertise in expat magazines. These days, that extra money's all going to marketing towards the Chinese.
My frustration is many in the West don't recognize the genius and moral standing of the Chinese core leadership. Westerners focus on the censorship, the lack of democracy, the human rights violations, the communism, or the capitalism. The image continues to be one of a crazy communist dictatorship with no direction and no morals that just happened to get lucky with some twisted capitalism.<p>But capitalism is only a part of their success. Everyone knows you should do some free trade and open up the economy. The really hard part of running a country is managing the powerful internal special interest groups and getting all the systemic incentives aligned correctly so that people work together to produce better government and a better economy. Russia and many others have tried capitalism and failed because their political systems sucked.<p>The triumph of the Chinese leadership is how they have adapted the Singapore model, managed their powerful internal special interest groups and an insanely diverse geography and ethnic populations that don't speak the same language, keeping the country together, while getting a growing number of people to work on improving government and the economy and moving towards creating a fair, unified, and stable environment for business and wealth and improving peoples lives.<p>edit: I suppose I really know nothing about the moral standing of the Chinese core leadership. I don't know what they are thinking. But I see how many they have lifted out of poverty and their dedication to improving government and the lives of those people.
> <i>This optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on property rights and the representation of property owners in elected legislatures.</i><p>I'm not sure this is a fair statement. To me, referring to a system as optimal implies a sense of finality, as though we have a rigorous, tested proof that this socioeconomic system we've developed in the West is optimal and complete. Again, to me, this is an absurd notion.
Crazy, I just wrote about this recently. With all the economic debate that's going on right now, I guess it's the topic du jour. The guy's summary is amazing, wish I could write as well as him.<p><a href="http://www.pakg1.net/2010/10/changing-chinese-mindset-towards.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pakg1.net/2010/10/changing-chinese-mindset-toward...</a>
Anyone know what the as yet untranslated paper is? I found this:<p><a href="http://www.ccer.edu.cn/download/8359-1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.ccer.edu.cn/download/8359-1.pdf</a><p>But it's from 2007, wondered if there's anything more recent.
There's one thing I can't wrap my head around. I post here hoping that one of the bright minds will offer some explanation. What will happen when the rest of the world gets fed up with the one way relationship China has set up with the them?<p>It's all fine and dandy now - china makes cheap goods and exports them to the rest of the world. In addition, they are slowly taking on more sophisticated tasks as evidenced by their latest super computer, I'm sure soon we will see contributions in technology to the world economy.<p>But what will happen when the rest of the world gives them the proverbial finger? When they finally say - screw you, either open your market to us, compete with the rest of the world's rules - or fuck off we won't buy your goods.<p>Is this possible? Would the world even be able to afford such a stance? Or will this happen and what will china do? How much would the projected GDP of the US be if it included china's 1bn population and the potential market it within it?