I
do share the views expressed. We saw when both stood up for Venezuela,
and possibly Iran. Heavy weight China/ Russia partnership does move the
geopolitical needle and change the balance equation. Never expect war,
but Putin did flex some biceps.
There are many predictions about China's economic collapse. Why isn't that happening?
Take Evergrande!!!!
Why did so many Economists predict that Evergrande collapse would be huge etc etc????
Because they are stupid??? No
Because they are biased??? Maybe…but they are still reputed Academics who wont just tout propaganda
So Why????
BECAUSE THEY LOOK AT EVERYTHING FROM THE US ANGLE (And the European Angle and the Japanese Angle and the Indian Angle) or the US LENS
In the United States - The Shareholder is GOD
So any Collapse of a Company , leads to a blow in the Markets which causes massive massive massive losses and creates all the financial crises since 1929.
In China - The Investor is GOD
China believes that the Speculator is a Gambler. They restrict major funds from investing too much into the Stock market and ensure that the Common Citizens who invest in the stock market know that they can lose their shirt or win a pile of gold.
Instead their Focus is on the Investor - the ones who paid for the Houses, the ones who bought Bonds etc. They are to the Chinese - the backbone of Economics.
IN the United States - Rule of Law is Cumbersome but Absolute
This means - THE LAW Comes First. So whenever any Company Collapses - you have Chapter 11s filed , Protection of the Company Directors and Shareholders , Allowing the Company to file counter suits etc.
This means the Assets of the Company get wound up for an average of 46 months and by this time shares plummet to Zero.
Thus a Companys failure means failure for all its investors.
In China - The Public is Absolute or the Common Man
China puts everything including Freedom or Human Rights above the Common Man.
So in China when a Collapses - the System will first Force a company to pay back its investors.
The Law never interferes
The Company has to pay back its investors by selling Assets, swapping Assets etc.
This means Assets of a Company can be disposed off in weeks rather than months or years.
And thus Investors almost always get between 55% - 100% of what they invested
IN the US - Value is all about Perception
US doesnt like the word ‘Assets’ or ‘Profits’
They like ‘ Potential’ or ‘Expansion’
This means many Companies in US are almost always heavily bloated with very little Real Assets
So in a sense US is mostly like India. They do nothing until a company folds and then its Chapter 11 and in some cases - FBI investigations or SEC investigations
So when a Company crashes - its Perception or Potential crashes and its Value crashes.
In China - Value is all about ASSETS
China doesnt like words like ‘Potential’ or ‘Closing a Deal’ etc.
They like Hard Core Assets - Land, Contracts, Trade Deals, Gold, Jade, Coal , Gas Pipelines are what they love.
So when a Company crashes - It always has Assets to back it up and these Assets manage to salvage a big chunk of Value
So thats what is helping China ignore Evergrande or even a Real Estate Crisis while if this was happening in US or even India - people would be scrambling for cover.
Yet while Economists are good - they simply dont think like a Chinese or know the Chinese System
My Associate Lawyer in Singapore told me how Westerners focussed on Huge Office Space whereas a CHinese office was a small 15X10 enclosure and yet you had 10 times larger deals floating through the same.
Likewise Most Western Personal Debts are based on paperwork etc. Most Chinese Personal Debts are given based on just the mans face and his Chop (Chop is a personalized Stamp like thing with Unique Chinese characters)
So those who make Predictions on China - Just dont understand how China works
Its why Singapore never makes Predictions on China. They simply report the US Predictions and Laugh because They are Chinese too.
Likewise South Korea understands the Chinese Way as does Taiwan and even HK
Thats why South East Asia really didnt care too much about Evergrande. They just reported what the West said but ignored it.
Thats why South East Asia scrambled in Panic when Lehman Brothers folded. They also know how US works and knew how big a crisis it was.
Just change your glasses and wear a Chinese one - and you will see just how different Chinese Business is compared to the Western models
How Generation MZ in S. Korea view jobs and the workplace
The luxe life: Shoppers with tents and portable chairs lining up outside a Chanel store in Seoul in December. With homes beyond the reach of millennials and Gen Z-ers, many are spending their money on luxuries, helping to make South Korea the seventh largest market for luxury brand items globally. — Bloomberg
LATELY, the foreign press has featured some intriguing articles on South Korea’s “Generation MZ,” a term that encompasses millennials and Generation Z, or roughly those born from the 1980s into the 2010s.
For example, Bloomberg reported on young people in South Korea in their 20s and 30s standing in a long line at 5am to buy famous brands at a department store. The New York Times, too, in an article called “The new political cry in South Korea: ‘Out with men haters’”, covers another side of the MZ generation: the rise of anti-feminist sentiment among many Korean young men. `
In the eyes of the foreign press, these behaviours of South Korea’s younger generations must look weird. However, despite some obvious problems, there is a grain of reason in some of their unusual behaviours. Many Korean men born between the early 1980s and early 2000s cannot find a decent job today, and this harsh reality has left them deeply disillusioned and frustrated. They are angry at their society for not providing them with a happy, stable life. `
In that sense, they are the Angry Generation. They are angry because their unemployment status has also forced them to give up vital things in life, such as getting married, having children, owning a home and a myriad of other things. That is why MSN called them “South Korea’s Give-Up Generation”. Korea’s Generation MZ also calls itself the Lost Generation. `
Since they cannot afford a home in their lifetimes due to skyrocketing real estate prices, Generation MZ finds pleasure elsewhere; they buy luxury cars or merchandise from a famous brand instead. It is no wonder, therefore, that they are willing to stand in a long line early in the morning to purchase luxury items or drive a Mercedes or BMW. Ostensibly, their attitude looks like snobbery, and yet deep down, there is sadness and anger in their desperate, extravagant spending of money. `
As for young Korean men’s anti-feminist attitudes, there are reasons behind that, too. They believe that feminism belongs to the older generation, who discriminated against women in a male chauvinist society. Assuming there is no longer real discrimination against women in South Korean society, these young men in their 20s think that it is unfair and absurd to give advantages to young women in the name of feminism. `
Moreover, they are angry because they think women take away all available jobs while men still have to fulfil mandatory military duty for about one-and-a-half years. That is why Korean young men think that it is only fair that Korean women, too, have compulsory military duty, just like men. `
Of course, young Korean women do not agree with them. Women argue that there is still discrimination against women at workplaces in salaries and wages. Besides, if a woman becomes pregnant, she feels the invisible pressure to resign, unless she works at a government institution. `
Korean women are also disappointed in Korean men because they think it is unmanly for them to demand that women serve in the army under the guise of gender equality. `
Yet despite these profound gender differences, both men and women of Generation MZ can agree that their government has failed to provide them with happy, secure lives. `
Young Koreans detest the older politicians’ self-righteousness and the illusion that they represent justice. Young people in Korea are perfectly aware that what the officials call “justice” is arbitrary and thus even dictators can claim that they represent justice, just as Michel Foucault perceived it many years ago. `
Young Koreans also hate the hypocrisy of the older generation that preaches “fairness,” while they themselves are relishing the sweetness of privileges and unfair advantages. `
Korea’s Generation MZ also does not approve of the older generation’s servile attitude towards bully nations. `
Young people in Korea think that Korean politicians should say “No!” to their neighbouring countries when they are overbearing and rude. `
Young Koreans are confident and proud because they live in an advanced, affluent country. `
To a certain extent, Korea’s Generation MZ resembles America’s Soft Generation in the 1960s. `
American parents who had gone through the Great Depression in the 1930s raised their children as sheltered kids who were consequently vulnerable to violence and adversity. `
The parents of South Korea’s Generation MZ, who had gone through the IMF (International Monetary Fund) financial crisis, also raised their children as sheltered kids with over-protection and excessive care. `
South Korea’s Generation MZ may look selfish, but they value individual freedom, fairness and transparency. They detest group-oriented, communal impositions and dogmatic political ideologies. `
Moreover, they are computer- savvy kids who live with social media every day. Recently, a Reuters story contained the headline, “South Korea‘s Gen MZ leads rush into the ‘metaverse’”. `
They are the future of South Korea. In the upcoming presidential election, Generation MZ should choose wisely so they can have a bright future.
– The Korea Herald/Asia News Network
By Kim Seong-kon, a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College, the United States.
Andrew Sheng: My view is that the real crisis with the liberal democratic order is not whether autocracy is on the rise, but whether the liberal order is fit for purpose in a world threatened with existential climate change. After more than 40 years of liberal order, the world has had the highest social inequality, accelerating climate change, rising seas and natural disasters and failing governance everywhere.
`
WRITING in Foreign Affairs magazine, Professors Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon argue that the core crisis lies in illiberalism on the rise. Namely, the contest of the century is not simply US-China, but liberal democracy versus autocracy. `
This week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned the recent Quad meeting in Australia that “China wants to dominate the world.” `
On the other side, the Russians claim that it is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that is expanding eastwards, whilst China accuses the United States of Cold War mentality in trying to contain China and stir up trouble over Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan. `
The American foreign policy community has always lamented that despite opening up economically, the Chinese did not convert politically to the liberal democratic model, thus justifying American sanctions against China. `
By not converting to American ideals, the next step is to contain these “revisionist” powers. `
This “convert or contain” approach smacks of fundamentalist Christian beliefs to either evangelise or defeat the non-believers. `
Modern capitalism has deep religious roots. `
German sociologist Max Weber was first to pronounce that the Spirit of Capitalism came from the Protestant Ethic. `
Even though capitalism existed in ancient China, India and other cultures, its modern ethos was based on Protestant Christianity that revolted against the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and 16th century Catholic monarchs. `
The Puritan streak in American capitalism favoured hard work and acquisition of assets, not because it was greed, but because it was done for the glory of God. `
Capitalism greed is, therefore, not only rational and modern, but founded on religious ethics. `
To be rich is to be glorious (for God). Forget about the fact that wealth may have been founded on exploitation of other human beings and mother nature. `
International relations theorist Alexander Wendt argued that modern social science (including international relations) is founded on the key assumptions of materialism (reality is physical); reductionism (complexity can be reduced to simplicity); things behave in law-like ways (determinism); there is cause and effect (mechanism); and there exists objective truth (perfect objectivity). `
These assumptions are all embedded in American foreign policy of rational liberal democracy ideals, rule-based order; beliefs in individual human rights and in God that are enshrined in the US Constitution and coins – In God we Trust. `
In contrast, Chinese statecraft is founded on the 10th century BC I Ching (Book of Changes) and the 4th century BC Dao Dejing (the Book of the Way (Dao) and Virtue or De). Unlike the Bible, the most translated book in the world, which begins with “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”, the Dao (the second most translated book) begins with “The Dao that can be expressed is not the eternal Dao”. `
In other words, the Dao challenges almost all the assumptions that lie in modern social science: that no rule is forever, rights are balanced with obligations, good is embedded with evil, and nothing can be taken for granted. `
For Christians, God is perfect and man’s job is to seek perfection. According to the Dao, there is no perfection except constant change. `
Life evolves through the interaction of complexity and its parts. The individual (a rational man in economics with rights) is part of a collective and therefore has obligations to society and nature. `
There is no absolute good or perfect information, since Daoists believe that good and evil exist together in all beings and everything is relative, changing in cycles of time. `
China’s dual circulation policy can easily be understood as coming from Daoist philosophy. `
One example of the contradiction between liberal democrats and autocracy is the issue of legitimacy, often without self-reflection on their own record. `
The latest Edelman Trust Barometer 2022 showed that based on samples taken across 27 countries, China has the highest trust amongst the general population (index of 83), compared with the United States (43) and the UK (44), with the US Trust Index declining 10 points since 2017. `
Thus, the crisis in global order is not one of ideology, but very fundamental worldviews as to whether the world is unipolar and mono-culture, or poly-centric and where diverse systems and beliefs can co-exist and co-create with each other. `
My view is that the real crisis with the liberal democratic order is not whether autocracy is on the rise, but whether the liberal order is fit for purpose in a world threatened with existential climate change. `
After more than 40 years of liberal order, the world has had the highest social inequality, accelerating climate change, rising seas and natural disasters and failing governance everywhere. `
The environmentalist say that we have less than three decades (to 2050) to get to net-zero on carbon emissions. `
The demands on society to change are huge. `
Democratic governments facing elections that cost more and more to campaign in order to win find it harder and harder to take tough structural adjustments that are necessary to achieve both carbon neutrality and social equality. `
As Cooley and Nexon themselves admit, “in their current form, liberal institutions cannot stem the rising illiberal tide... Any attempt to grapple with this crisis will require policy decisions that are clearly illiberal or necessitate a new version of liberal order.” `
The recognition that you may have to do bad things to get good results is at the heart of the difference between the Bible and the Dao. The simple, naive version is that good things can only be achieved by righteous good politicians. The Dao recognises realistically that there is no gain without pain and no perfect leaders. `
For liberal democrats, the idealist search for the moral best has ended up with electoral promises remaining promises, no delivery of better jobs, human well-being and fairer social and ecological justice. `
Whither global order? `
For Christians, let us pray. Daoists will dialectically wait for more changes to come. `
by Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
By Tan SriAndrew Sheng (born 1946) is Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese banker, academic and commentator. He started his career as an accountant and is now a distinguished fellow of Fung Global Institute, a global think tank based in Hong Kong.[1] He served as chairman of the Hong KongSec
Trustworthy friends; good brothers; sincere
partners. These phrases are frequently found in Chinese President Xi
Jinping's phone con..
By 
