[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]OCR: Why no mention of the Japanese Keiretsu or MITI? I would hazard a guess, but I’m curious as to why neither is mentioned along with SoKorea and Taiwan.[/quote]
Japan was not mentioned because the national starting point was different. Japan’s post-war rise was basically in parallel with post-war Europe. Japan and Europe were essentially developed economies that were destroyed by the war. Rebuilding of economies like that was different than economies that were pre-industrial.
S.Korea and Taiwan are more comparable with China because all three were in essence agrarian societies after WWII/Chinese Civil War/Korean War. The path to development started from the ground up, not a rebuilding situation that Japan was.
[quote]As far as comparing SoKorea and Taiwan to China, you’d want to start with comparing the competency of the actual governments themselves. China, like the Soviet Union before, is incompetent and at all levels of government. No other way to put it. While SoKorea and Taiwan did indeed emplace something approximating centrally planned autarky, it doesn’t come close to China’s Communist Party in terms of “policies and procedures”.[/quote]
Taiwan’s and S.Korea’s authoritarian one party governments were just as incompetent and corrupt at all levels of government. The competency and transparency came after the economies developed and the middle class became the majority. Basically, as the population became more developed, they demanded more from the respective governments and the governments complied.
[quote]Beyond that, I’d offer that China’s educational system is nowhere the task necessary to bring a country of that size, populated with largely subsistence farmers, forward to a point where the average person is earning $20K – $25K per year. Where does China rank in terms of Top 100 International Universities?[/quote]
China’s got a very competitive education system. education is prized in the entire East Asia as a whole, China is no exception. in fact, you may even say it is too competitive and cut throat. are Chinese universities competitive to America in term of innovations? absolutely not. But remember, China is at a different stage of development. Development is what it does best, innovation comes after development.
[quote]You mention dealing with each of the 40 Chinese provinces as a separate city-state or country. I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment, but, unfortunately, the Chinese government does NOT treat each province separately. Its a centrally planned government and when those government mandates and edicts filter down to the local level, you’re now encountering the very people Brian mentioned above: Corrupt petty officials, who also lack any sort of technical or policy-driven training.[/quote]
all of the negatives you see in China are mostly true. They do have a lot of corrupt and uneducated officials. But as a Taiwanese, I’ve seen Taiwan’s rapid rise from bottom of 3rd world to 1st world status within 40 years. And China’s rise is eerily similar. All of the negative comments about the CCP now are in essence carbon copy criticisms toward Taiwan’s KMT back in the days.
China is obviously much bigger and will end up facing more social unrest issues. It will also be much harsher in its approach regarding social unrest. But China’s population will back the government in its harsh crackdowns because the population is willing to tolerate that lack of freedom in exchange for speedier economic development.
