Forums > Living in Kunming > China's potential future I thought it would be good to start a thread about China wide problems, what we believe will happen to China in the future, to share ideas around the problems facing China in the next 5-10 years time. As Yunnan is part of China, I think its pretty relevant here. I aren't sure I are breaking any rules having such a conversation, but I don't believe so.
———
Personally, I am most worried about the Chinese property bubble. If it explodes, it will be massive for China. Unemployment will sky rocket as big construction companies and all associated services collapse. The government will be under severe pressure as the economy dramatically slows and people lose all the equity they believed they had locked up in their houses. Cars will be repossessed, credit cards will be withdrawn forcing a reduction in consumer spending. Wages will tighten and the government will probably put taxes up. At the same time basic goods will become more expensive. China's GDP growth will be slashed, crime will rise and social discontent will grow.
It will be just like America now and the past few years... but I believe it will be worse as the size of the bubble is so much larger.
Normally I am an optimist about such things, but it appears China has managed to combine the worst of capitalism with the worst of communism and created a beast the likes of which the world has never seen. And there are signs that the beast is teetering.
And the worst of it? China can no longer feed its own people and is now a food importer. If it was to close its doors there is a very real threat its people will starve (again).
What could be the trigger? America defaulting on its debt to China? (the result being a severe credit downgrade to America and hence all the credit China's construction etc being based on failing). Government intervention? (there is potential for the current capital gains tax to have the reverse effect and inflate property prices as people simply add the CGT amount onto house sale prices). Social discontent? America/WTO forcing China to actually float its currency properly?
————
But there is hope. China is a centrally run, by the government, which controls the economy and country. If the government can gently deflate the property bubble slowly, they SHOULD be able to escape the worst of it. At the same time they will need to make massive changes though. This includes things like:
Utilising its labour force better - increasing productivity wages and labour force utilisation. There is a potential that this will happen through opening its government owned businesses to much more competition (banks/telco's/construction etc).
Reducing wastage in businesses.
Getting serious about IP theft. This is more about theft of industry secrets from the west, which does dramatically more harm than good for China (as companies pull out of China/become less interested in doing business). At the same time they need to reform their education system to make young people CREATIVE, not just good at reading/writing and rote learning.
Getting businesses to adopt/learn more western practices so they can actually compete and win overseas. Its fine to do things the Chinese way in China, but elsewhere it just won't fly.
Graft/corruption/nepotism - needs to be dealt with SEVERELY. It is the main cause of pain for China both internally and externally for doing business.
Be peaceful to its neighbours, particularly Japan and the SE Asian ones, lest they get the most dangerous militarys in the world knocking on their doors. This means actually negotiating with neighbours around things like the cows tongue and diaoyu islands (which personally I think they should both compromise on and each take the half of the island facing each others mainlands!).
Weaning their economy off constant construction to one of consumption/spending. And hoping they can control it better than the west has managed.
And probably the hardest - fixing the pollution problems. With 90% of its waterways polluted in an increasingly hot and drought ridden world, that's not an enviable position to be in. They also need to stop using their coal plants and start using that massive desert in the west to generate electricity to cap global warming for their own long term interests.
Make farming cool again and increase their food production, while still controlling inputs (a very difficult but not impossible task).
If China can juggle all of these balls successfully, China will become a massively powerful juggernaut. If not, China won't be a nice place to be in. I think its a big crunch time in China's history, right now and over the next few years. We will either be lucky to be in it or lucky to be out of it if we escape. The newly elected leaders have one hell of a lot of work to do to take China to the next level. Not impossible, but certainly not easy.
What does everyone else think?
Nestlé investing 100 million yuan in Pu'er coffee
Posted byNestle - commonly voted as one of the worst companies in the world as it supports child slavery on the Ivory Coast and has, for years, pushed infant milk formula in poor countries as being "better than breast". Be very careful about giving them any kudos for their perceived support of local farmers, most likely they are simply looking for a cheaper way to get their product and don't care if getting their product means breaking labour laws or damaging the environment. They have consistently shown they are a company which does anything at all to improve their bottom line whether completely illegal or morally grey.
Apple concludes massive Chinese marketing scheme
Posted byA haaa haaa haa haaa, not fooled for a second, but good try :-)
Water treatment plants to be installed along Dianchi
Posted byActually, that link I provided stated that the biggest plant processes 1 billion litres a DAY not a YEAR as I stated. Which means they can process 1.38 billion m3 of water a year! That's an astronomical amount... especially considering its only for 5 million consumers... most likely its industry as well.
So the one they are proposing is still entirely possible, it would be under half the size of the worlds biggest.
Water treatment plants to be installed along Dianchi
Posted byCheck out this:
www.algor.com/news_pub/cust_app/jardine/jardine.asp
The worlds largest water treatment plant processes 1 billion gallons a year. 1 m3 = 264 gallons. Therefore the worlds largest plant processes around 3.8 million m3 a year. But that is for drinking water, maybe these plants will filter to a lesser degree?
Dianchi has a surface area of 298 km2 and a mean depth of (a measly) 4.4m which gives a volume of 1.3 billion m3 (my maths right?). Which means with a couple of plants they could filter the whole of Dianchi in a year! Something tells me that's not quite right...
Besides, this will process the water flowing from a river right? I suppose 19m3 a second is about right for a river flow though, but a pretty big river, like the size of this one:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applegate_River
I haven't seen one that big around Dianchi though... I think someone's screwed the numbers somewhere.
Remember that these plants may not operate 24/7/365 as well which makes it look even more unlikely.
Water treatment plants to be installed along Dianchi
Posted byOh yeah, and is that figure right?
"clean an estimated 600 million cubic meters of water annually"
That works out to be around 1100 cubic metres of water every minute (or 19 cubic metres every second)! And that's if its going 365 days a year 24 hours a day... I would be highly surprised if this was accurate, but it could be, not sure how they clean the water...