CHINA'S SLOWING ECONOMY?

Exports Vs. Imports

Someday the Chinese economy will slow.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in 2030. Since our "experts" in the mainstream media have predicted this a thousand times over the past 30 years, we must conclude that nobody knows. (For a professional analysis of China's growth prospects, read Much Ado About Nothing).

The premise underlying these predictions is that, like most Western nations, China is a congerie of capitalist fiefdoms whose overlords bribe the government in order to squeeze out one more quarter of profits and bonuses. That might describe the USA or Europe.  Not China.

China is nothing like that and has never has been. China is a unitary state and Chinese consider themselves to be part of what Richard Nisbett calls 'collective agency'. They don't think like us and they don't act like us. They think and act collectivly.  Though Chinese individually may be poor, all of the country's resources are at the call of its leaders all the time: banks, army, insurance companies, industries, and the 86% of its citizens who trust and admire their government.

China's leaders, 8 remarkably honest engineers, meet every day to cooperatively and unanimously reallocate resources. Supported by hundreds of statisticians (a Chinese government strength for 1,000 years) they make adjustments to keep the country on track today, five years hence, and fifty years into the future.  They may spend 20 years testing and refining a policy before implementing it nationally--if that's how long it takes to gain consensus. They spent 50 years planning the Three Gorges then allocated 54% of the dam's budget on creating new homes for those affected--because that's what was required to maintain collective harmony.

Right now, they're working with two provinces (100 million people each) which will cap CO2 emissions at current levels (one-fifth of ours) to see if their economies can continue to grow. Everyone in those provinces will participate, while the remaining 1.1 billion Chinese will observe. As lessons are learned they will be rolled out to the rest of the country.

It’s not rocket science. Any country could do it. But rationality is anathema to our capitalists (though not to Chinese capitalists, interestingly), who continue plundering our economies. And such cooperation and submission to the collective will is anathema to individualistic Westerners. So our economies have slowed and we seem unable to make the necessary, rational decisions.  Meanwhile, theirs continues to steam ahead...