China doesn't have flip-flopping like this with its attendant massive waste. Instead it has endemic corruption which siphons off funds all over the place, perhaps with the exception of the big projects that command the full attention of central leadership.
> perhaps with the exception of the big projects that command the full attention of central leadership.
This is notably an area where the US is massively crippled. States can manage many year projects easier, but the federal government must conceal all such projects behind defense spending. Even that is wildly mismanaged (see: all the canceled naval purchases over the last two decades, and we still have an outdated, if large, navy)
> Instead it has endemic corruption which siphons off funds all over the place, perhaps with the exception of the big projects that command the full attention of central leadership.
We also have endemic corruption siphoning off funds all over the place, ESPECIALLY in the big projects that have the attention of the current administration.
From the business perspective, endemic corruption is preferable. Generally speaking, on societies like that, you know exactly how much you need to pay to which people to get things moving, so it can be budgeted for predictably.
Yet somehow they've managed to eliminate extreme poverty and challenge the U.S. in GDP. Sounds like cope to me. They couldn't do that with extreme corruption like we tolerate in U.S. allies.
China is literally going through an "anticorruption" purge of the PLA right now. Zhang Youxia et al. The corruption in China has a very different shape than in the US.
(not sure what you mean by "corruption we tolerate in US allies"?)
Do you know who the U.S. allies with and funds? Every right wing dictator and criminal gang on the planet. We just don't like independent nations and left wing factions.
There is extreme corruption in the U.S. as well, but we've legalized it so it disappears in statistics.
They "eliminated" extreme poverty caused by communist control in the first place, by going to a capitalist system.
There were tons of economic low-hanging fruits by building out large infrastructure projects, which corruption happily siphoned off of.
The ROI of these infra projects have been gone for a while, yet they continued. Also it's been stealing intellectual property, trade dumping, exporting deflation. Soaking up the manufacturing oxygen of everyone else through subsidies, elite capture, then using the leverage gained and veiled threats against others to force them to yield resources, market access and political control.
China benefited greatly from the US-led globalism order that's been going on since WWII.
Another way of saying it is China took the most advantage. And it has gone way overboard in taking advantage. So the backlash is expected and necessary.
Part of fixing things involve doing things that seem like it's destroying the order that the US created itself.
By racking up debt of epic proportions, with no return on investment in sight.
All the while going into a demographic death spiral. Partly cause by the draconian 1-child policy, which attempted to fix the pronatalist policies of Mao.
"debt"? You mean the balancing item from money creation? Question: To which bank does the government owe the liabilities created when it creates the money? (clue: the government owns it).
Nothing is really stopping other countries from doing the same, to be honest. People are just scared to give legitimacy to what China has done for their citizens in a very short amount of time, because that would be against their own beliefs and morals.
I'm not saying China is the best and whatever, just saying they've proven every "China is about to fall" headline that has been circulating around for the past 15 years. Maybe we should learn some things from them.
Debt is not fundamentally bad. But the financing has to be justified by positive return, be it in the service itself that makes money back to pay off the debt, or as a public good, returns in the form societal benefit as a result of the service.
When you have massive buildups with no hope of returns, it's a a bad financial decision and the public carries the debt burden.
