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The Forum > Article Comments > The Rudd strategy Part II: just how good is China's economy? > Comments

The Rudd strategy Part II: just how good is China's economy? : Comments

By Arthur Thomas, published 6/11/2008

Could China's robust economy be a fragile house of cards built on shaky policies and phantom numbers?

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This is an eye opener. The prevailing assumption in Canberra is that Chinese demand for resources will keep the good times going in Australia for the foreseeable future. Up til now it has been unthinkable that our resource industries could lay off workers. If China falters Australia's terms of trade will worsen and there may need to be a halt to immigration. The kneejerk reaction will be to keep the party going. For example I fear that Rudd will offer China some cheap coal to go with some cheap iron ore, Kyoto be damned. Short term thinking will overrule long term, which is that we may all have to live with less.
Posted by Taswegian, Thursday, 6 November 2008 8:20:12 AM
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Some good food for thought and discussion points. However,more analysis is needed to put it into proportion. In particular, what is China's capacity to crank up internal infrastructucture development- as all countries are aiming to do? As a command economy, China can do this more readily than most countries. As much of infrastructure requires steel and cement- ie coal and iron ore- this means better news for Australia than other countries. But how much and when are the critical questions. Although the global credit crisis has been due mainly to overconsumption of unproductive consumer goods, the world is not faced with dysfunctional productive systems- as it was after WWII. Notwithstanding the critical pollution/global warming issues, economic recovery should not be a technical problem- it will just take time.
Posted by Jedimaster, Thursday, 6 November 2008 10:20:59 AM
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"Could China's robust economy be a fragile house of cards built on shaky policies and phantom numbers?"

Of course it could - just look at the 'free market' superpower competitor that the so-called 'Chinese communist' leaders employ as a model for their internal and inter-national economic relations.

China's 'reckless growth at all costs' is simply following neo-liberal economic theory/ideology, with the 'externalities' of environmental degradation, rapidly rising mass unemployment and social dislocation to be bourne by the Chinese working class - including several million additional university graduates each year - whilst the surplus value/profits from such rapid 'progress' to date are spirited away in numbered bank accounts by their 'communist' leaders, foreign investors, entrepreneurs and corporate banksters!
Posted by Sowat, Thursday, 6 November 2008 1:14:36 PM
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While we can expect China's demand for Australian raw materials to reduce for a while as the Chinese digest the implications of the recession, we can also expect demand to return to high levels reasonably quickly. China has two advantages: it can redirect investment to domestic infrastructure pretty quickly - and solve a few home grown demand issues in the process; and it has huge capital reserves, mostly in US dollars, so that funding infrastructure will not be a problem.

India, on the other hand, depends on foreign capital to fund its growth. Borrowing is not going to be easy for the next few years so an Indian slow down is likely to be more severe and more prolonged than any short term Chinese reduction.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Thursday, 6 November 2008 1:54:07 PM
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Senior Victorian

That rosy outlook suggests that you either naively rely on Chinese media and official releases for your confidence, or you should sack your research staff.

Your expectations for "demand to return to high levels reasonably quickly" overlooks the dynamics of China's economy, its reliance on the global economy and especially that of the US.

Your reference to ".. China has two advantages" also reflects naivety.

Your reference to China's ".. huge capital reserves, mostly in US dollars, so that funding infrastructure will not be a problem" lacks basic research and understanding of the input, maintenance and even reliability of the numbers in that reserve. Don't forget that China's massive energy import bill is paid in US dollars.

Your reference "it can redirect investment to domestic infrastructure pretty quickly - and solve a few home grown demand issues in the process" is over simplistic and again lacks a true understanding of the challenge that that reference represents.

May I suggest that you start out with some personal detailed research into China's Sovereign risk?

Follow that up with simple things such as China's national debt and items excluded. Check out the items under "special mention" in China's four major bank reports.

Arthur's article provides you with many leads. You may also like to check which construction and developer companies are state owned (or have close links with the State) and what banks provide them with credit. Do some number crunching on the projects as well. You can follow that up with checking which ones have inventories of unsold floor space and properties under construction with minimal buyer interest and increasing defaults.

As a senior you may just have the time.

Your reference to India is also naive and over simplistic. Both India and China rely on foreign exchange and FDI to carry their economies. You also overlook the advantages that India has over China.

Good luck with the research. I am sure that you will find it enlightening.

Expat China Journo
Posted by expat China Journo, Friday, 7 November 2008 2:24:37 PM
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Taswegian

China already has more hi-quality coal steaming and coking coal that it can now currently use from newly developed mechanised open cut mines and rail links.

China also has over 80 million tonnes of iron ore in stockpiles at steel mills, sea ports and ships off shore. It also is committed to long term contracts. Steel mill shut downs across China are effectively cutting demand for any ore imports now and in the near future. The problem is not just related to iron and steel.

Your assumption on migration is correct when relating current employment to the resource sector industries,shortages of workers in the lower paid non resources industries and need for guest workers.

A hit on the resource industry could in fact see a return of workers to the non resource sector and a cut in earnings, providing that the consumer economy is rolling along and that is not looking too good when considering revised credit laws and new credit standards by providers.

It just may be time to review the socio-economic effect of globalization and consider the possibility of bringing industries back to their original bases and matching that with an economy that reverts to where house prices and asset purchases are related to earnings and positive equity in financing.

Nothing stays the same forever.

The Rudd Government somberely proclaimed that there are hard times ahead. It hasn't realised yet, just how much.

Arthur Thomas
Posted by Arthur T, Friday, 7 November 2008 5:33:58 PM
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Senior Victorian
I shouldn't worry too much about your "naive" outlook - nor about embarking upon an intensive course of study in order to enable you to comment on China.

Expat Journo is part of a claque who only ever comment on OLO when one of Arthur's articles appear. The name appears somewhat of a misnomer also, as on previous posts he has said he flies into China often - which he would not need to do if he were actually a journalist in this country. His researching skills are also a little suspect as his Arthus Thomas Cheering Squad once "unmasked" me as male, Chinese, and a Communist spy - when a simple click on my profile button would have shown the absurdity of this.

My constant objection to Thomas's articles is that they are not objective. Not one of his pieces has ever acknowledged the progress made, the lasting changes, the growing involvement within China, nor the fact that even the CCP descibes its direction these days as more socialist than communist but (a now famous catch-phrase here) "with Chinese characteristics".

I just skimmed over a couple of articles he wrote while I was away in England and see that, in one of them, he predicted that the the moves to combat pollution in Beijing would not last once the Olympics were over. Time has proved he was wrong on that, so perhaps others of his doomsday prognostications should, as you have so rightly done, be weighed in a more balanced manner.
Posted by Romany, Saturday, 8 November 2008 11:30:13 AM
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I personally wouldn't deal with the Human Rights abusing
"Butchers of Beijing" period and really do think that if any Australian administration treated our mob like they treat theirs that we wld rise up and put them to the sword.

Still, I do respect their astuteness in business and their magnificent trading ex-pat community, mayhaps the largest and most sophisticated in the world.

It is not a complicated equation. They produce with high tech machines and human beings held in nigh on slave conditions and sell at int $ price whilst paying out in peanuts.

They buy our raw materials and say in the case of garments, cut it with the recylcled gutter waste of the 3rd world, fabricate and sell back to 1st world economies at a profit ration of at least 5 to 1.

They have a verifiable sky scraper, full of n.american treasury bonds, a situation about which I doubt will be tolerated indefinately.

As for growth, I doubt very much that it is a question of growth at any cost, but rather they will produce dwelling/fabrication zones of production relative to potential market sales.

Thus, how much the abusers continue to buy of our raw materials is intimately connected with how much of their 2nd rate produce that "we" in the 1st world continue to buy.

Q.And who wants 2nd rate "slave" shop produce anyway?
A. The majority poor/working class people of the 1st world who can't afford anything else.

But, courtesy of howard et al, everything has been over inflated and services have been slashed to boost surplus to pay for their illegal wars and other fossil fuel procurement programs and now the poor and wking class have no money to shop.

Green tech must b introduced to unburden us from the fossil fuel bill that we may have savings and surplus to shop. The challenge of course is that this is a bastardised $ demucracy and the polluters won't go without an expensive fight.
Posted by DreamOn, Saturday, 8 November 2008 7:30:03 PM
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We used to go thru a 15kg gas bottle at a cost of $AU10 per fortnight here in Indo pretty much on just heating water.

Now, our >$AU500 SOLAR system CRANKS and givs us piping hot water 24hr non stop and it costs zip. Coz of the humidity, I bathe on avg 3 times a day too and we luv to play in the water in a very wasteful manner.
[CONSUME LESS, CONSUME LESS and puts a brick in the dunny ;-)]

Note, the Indos have got so much water that they throw it on the street at the end of the day just to settle the dust. Still, the rain is coming later and more violently when it does. Req water engineers pls.

A whole housing boom in Oz. A wicked solar institute and those <snip> howard et al trashed and p!ssed on it, likely to eliminate competition and elicit fat donations from the fossil fuel industry.

We must go beyond the design of the eco house at the Perth zoo and relearn the knowledge of the ancients and build dwellings that harness the natural forces of gravity, wind, sun and rain and our household organic waste must go bak to producing food and CO2 consuming GreenerY.

*!GGGGRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN!*

So much time and energy wasted. .. The housing industry must be re-directed and regulated in the national interest.

...Adam...
Posted by DreamOn, Saturday, 8 November 2008 8:02:45 PM
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Romany

Dear oh dear, you do manage to get your unmentionables into a tensioned entanglement that appears to restrict the blood circulation to the reasoning and objectivity departments. You may also need a shoulder brace to support all those chips.

You write as an idealist with an emotional bias countering criticism of China, without presenting hard evidence to back up your argument, after admitting to a lack of in depth knowledge of the subject.

You do not test the evidence, nor do you attempt to write a definitive article on China for peer review.

Arthur and others, myself included, present China in a global perspective and its potential to negatively impact on environmental and socio-economic issues in Australia and other countries.

Why follow Beijing's line and blame others for China's problems?

Everyone else is wrong and you are right?

Are all the media wrong?

Are the studies produced by World Bank, IMF, Asian Development Bank, OECD, UN, Ernst and Young, Deloites to name only a few, also biased?

How about the information in the industrial reviews, individual company returns, import and export data etc.?

I directed Senior Victorian to a number of information sources to provide a greater understanding of the subject. Your advice to disregard a suggestion to expand one's knowledge appears to border on irresponsibility or even arrogance.

Your reference to Arthur's earlier input on Beijing pollution appears more information regurgitation than research. China's steel and metals industries were in decline pre 2008 Olympics. Closures and production cuts seriously reduced emissions from these industries and reduction in downline power demand is reducing emissions further, especially around Beijing. Beijingers may have to thank an economic crisis for improved air quality.

You also failed to mention serious cutbacks to Beijing's atmospheric monitoring following the Olympics.

Identify inaccuracies in author's articles and others comments, but don't be juvenile and respond to such material as negative because you are ill informed.

Get real. Look at the whole picture and don't be selective in "facts" that only suit your views. Goodness, I see you have been to England too.

Expat China Journo
Posted by expat China Journo, Sunday, 9 November 2008 5:39:33 PM
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Expat Journo

I consider that you, yourself, are being somewhat jejune in your latest response. “Everyone else is wrong and you are right?” Piffle! When have I ever suggested this? “ Right” in what context? In saying that Arthurs’s articles are consistently one-sided? A couple of other posters have conceded that his viewpoint might not be representative of the whole picture - so no, I am not alone in feeling this. "Right" in what I say about China? All I’ve ever said is that a completely negative viewpoint is not a well-rounded one.

And who is the “everyone” to whom you allude? There are as many shiny, happy pictures of the Chinese situation as there are popularist, fear incitements. I advocate, as I have always done, a receptive mind which can negotiate a channel between the two.

“Are all the media wrong”? Silly person! Some of the media are, some of them aren’t. Some are honest and insightful, some are lazy and pander to the line set down by their particular publication. I am surprised that, as a professed media person, you were unaware of this? Are you, perhaps, a trifle ingenuous?

“Your advice to disregard a suggestion to expand one's knowledge appears to border on irresponsibility or even arrogance”. Suggestions concerning the expansion of knowledge are, in fact, my stock in trade. I would be most grateful if you could point to any occasion where I have, as you suggested, advocated deliberate ignorance? It is, rather, the fostering of ignorance which I abhor and, in defiance of which, I usually advise people not to accept one-sided points of view.

“Identify inaccuracies” etc? I’ve done this before. I was disregarded.

In any case, my bone of contention is not inaccuracies of fact as much as inaccuracies of representation. I was sure I had made this perfectly clear? If not, please don’t hesitate to show me exactly where the confusion as to my motives has crept in as I am appalled I should have given the impression which prompted your response
Posted by Romany, Monday, 10 November 2008 1:39:17 AM
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