The Have or Have Nots at the G-20 in South Korea

October 28, 2010

The world appears to be divided between nations that have spent too much and those that save.

In China, people that hold onto money are called “Iron Roosters”. In the US, we call people who save stingy or skin flints or other insulting terms. The average saving rate among Chinese is about 40%, while the average family in the US carries several thousand dollars in credit card debt.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is among the ‘Have Nots’. In G-20 Deal to Curb China is Weakened, Evan Ramstad and Bob Davis said that “China, Japan and Germany all have surpluses; the U.S. has a deficit.”

However, the US is not alone. “Australia, Canada, Britain and France, all of which have current-account deficits, lined up with the US” to pressure China to let the value of the yuan rise.

The US and other Western nations that have overspent need to export more products to other countries and import less.  For this to happen, the US dollar must be worth less than the Chinese yuan to pressure U.S. consumers to stop buying products made in China when prices for those products become higher than what is manufactured in America.

This means that countries with money in the bank want to rely less on exports for growth and more on homegrown demand instead of buying more products from the debt-ridden nations.

Germany’s current account surplus is about 6%, Japan’s 3% and China is at 4.7%. The U.S. is running a 3.2% deficit, which should be no surprise.

It appears that China won this round and will not loosen controls on the value of the yuan yet.  The US went into the G-20 summit in South Korea wanting to punish China for US consumer appetites to buy cheap foreign made goods.

Instead, little was accomplished.

It’s all about the national interest of each nation, and China and America have opposing interests.

If America wins, China loses.

In fact, whoever, wins this global currency war will be the stronger for it. The question is, Will the Iron Rooster win or the Buy Now Pay Later nation?

See Democracy’s Economic Roller Coaster

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, China, cultural differences, economy | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Silicone “Juice” in China

October 27, 2010

In You Can’t Build a New Silicon Valley Just Anywhere by Margaret O’Mara, writing for Foreign Policy magazine, she says, “for many of the would-be silicon cities being constructed by the Russias and Chinas of the world; with their long histories of centralized control, they are still convinced they can order up success.”

O’Mara’s theme is that the success we have seen in California’s Silicon Valley is due to the freedom America’s republic—now a democracy—offers along with loads of money from the government and venture capitalists with no strings attached.

If that were true, explain how China (ruled by Emperors under an autocratic imperialistic monarchy) was more technologically advanced than any country on earth for almost two thousand years.


If you don’t speak Chinese, the English subtitles say it all.

After all, the Chinese invented the stirrup for saddles which revolutionized warfare on horseback, gunpowder, the multistage rocket, the compass, paper, the printing press and pasta along with a long list of other innovations, which changed the world.

Without the Chinese, where would the world be today? See Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions

China may not offer the same individual freedoms the West does, but “face”, which is important in Chinese culture, is a strong motivator to improvise and invent so one gains “face” and becomes powerful and wealthy.

Before Deng Xiaoping and the “Getting Rich is Glorious” generation that he gave birth to, I would have agreed with Margaret O’Mara but not now.

In my next series, The Machines of Ancient China, we will discover more about China’s contributions to the world we live in.

To discover the Chinese advantage, learn about Guanxi in China

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, environment, science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Sun Yat-sen’s Last Days – Part 2/3

October 26, 2010

After arriving in Beijing, Sun Yat-sen saw a French doctor who gave him injections to help with his illness.

With his health growing worse, a nurse that worked at a German hospital was sent to his Beijing hotel to care for him.

His condition was so bad that at times he could not talk.

Since the Western medicine wasn’t improving his health, he was convinced by advisors to talk to an herbalist doctor, Ge Lianfu.

Sun Yat-sen told Ge Lianfu that he would give the Chinese medicine to the Western doctors to see if they could copy it. 

Ge said he wasn’t sure if Chinese and Western medicine were interchangeable.

Since Sun was a trained Western doctor, he did not believe that Ge’s treatment was going to work. Ge Lianfu concluded that Sun had liver disease but Sun did not trust the diagnosis.

While staying in the Beijing hotel, Sun was treated by doctors from the US, Germany, Russia and the Peking Union Medical College Hospital.  However, the treatments did not help and his condition worsened.

The western doctors concluded that he needed exploratory surgery. After they cut him open, they discovered liver disease as Ge Lianfu had diagnosed without surgery.  

In fact, Sun was in the final stages of liver cancer. At that time, Western medicine had no treatment to deal with a disease that he must have had for years.

In 1916, Sun had often suffered from abdominal pain and the Western doctors treated him as if he had stomach trouble.

Learn more about Chinese Herbalism (Eastern Medicine)

Return to Sun Yat-sen’s Last Days – Part 1 or continue to Part 3

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Subscribe to “iLook China”
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page.

About iLook China

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, cultural differences, health care | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 7/7

October 25, 2010

Another reason China is moving toward a more open republic is China’s growing, highly educated middle class. Even most of China’s peasants have seen lifestyle improvements — not as fast as urban areas but there has been growth.

“Growth in (China’s) peasant income, which had reached a rate of 15.2% a year from 1978 to 1984, dropped to 2.8% a year from 1986 to 1991. Some recovery occurred in the early 1990s, but stagnation of rural incomes marked the latter part of the decade.” Source: Asia Times

Between 1978 to 1984, rural income improved almost 100% within six years.  That growth slowed to 14% between 1986 to 1991. 

Yet, Western critics that blast China for this slow growth seldom mention that rural India has stood still for the last twenty years. There must be an unwritten rule about criticizing other democracies, which is censorship.

China’s Western critics act as if they expect an infant to walk the day he or she is born, and run a marathon, become a rocket scientist and a Nobel laureate all within twenty-four hours.

The China Law Blog said I wasn’t being fair to India when I wrote Comparing India and China’s Economic Engines.

In fact, the West’s Sinophobic critics are the ones guilty of being unfair.

China will open the door to more freedom when China is ready and that door is open wider now than it was in 1976.

I never said “when” China would be finished building a more open, modern republic, and it may never happen until a majority of the people demand it and there may even be bloodshed.

However, the signs are there for anyone who takes the time to look.

When China arrives at that destination is in the hands of the planners, engineers, scientists and architects who lead and rule China—not the Western politicians, the media or Sinophobic critics.

In fact, in 2012, the seventy million members of the Party will have an election and the leadership of China will change again.

However, the West will still refer to the elected president of China’s republic as a dictator without mentioning that in a republic not everyone has the right to vote as it was in America in 1776.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese middle class, Communism, cultural differences, economy, government | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6/7

October 24, 2010

In parts 1 through 5, I provided evidence showing that China is building a republic that may last for centuries.

What is happening on the Internet offers more evidence that China is moving toward a more open society. In China, there are more Blogs than any nation and a free exchange of ideas via e-mails.

In fact, in China there are more people logging onto the Internet than America’s entire population.

China could have limited all Internet use as North Korea has, but China hooked up to the World Wide Web instead.

What are the real reasons China struggles to censor parts of the international internet like pornography, WordPress, Facebook and Blogger? 

Is it possible that China is doing this because they do not have the confidence that most of their people are sophisticated enough to deal with all the crazy ideas floating around in international cyberspace.

Instead, China is opening to the world like a slow blooming flower allowing the people to adapt instead of being overwhelmed, which might lead to a meltdown and a return to chaos and anarchy.

However, anyone who wants to sneak past China’s Net Nanny may do so.

I’ve known people in China who have slipped past the Net Nanny, which is more like a leaky dam getting ready to burst, and it isn’t that hard. It just takes some time. See Tech Crunch for more information about Internet use in China.

Deng Xiaoping was right. If China had the political gridlock and partisieanship that exists in America today, would the Chinese have achieved the goals to modernize that they have? 

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 5

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Communism, cultural differences, education, government, legal system, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »