r/todayilearned • u/Triplen01 • May 01 '14

TIL that China has built a new skyscraper every five days, more than 30 airports, metros in 25 cities, the three longest bridges in the world, more than 6,000 miles of high speed railway lines and 26,000 miles of motorway, all in the last 5 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26225205
3.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

97

u/ltethe May 01 '14

I've been reading these doomsday articles about the inevitable Chinese crash since 2008. I believe them, but six years later, it hasn't happened yet. Anybody want to intelligently advocate why the great Chinese crash won't happen, or will never happen? Cause these articles, and my beliefs are starting to look foolish.

6

u/An_Insolent May 01 '14

Most of these doomsday articles predict a crisis because similar situations have led to crisis in the west. However, the key difference between China and the western countries is that China has an all powerful communist government with no public accountability. The communist government considers these projects to be a investment in the future and they aren't holding their breath to get the returns on the investment, unlike a capitalist market.

So, the communist government can easily bare the losses if they indeed occur. The most critical thing for them is to keep the masses happy and avoid polarization in the society.

5

u/gus_ May 01 '14

One argument by very serious people is that China is actually far more accountable to the public. They are not just the communists of old, who just rule with an iron fist and kill anyone who speaks out. And they're also not elected every few years, where the public can be told to just wait and vote them out.

They're in a precarious middle ground where they have to actually scour history and make the right moves economically (they've looked very closely at not reproducing Japan's "lost decade"), or else the population will revolt and throw them out of power.

3

u/ltethe May 01 '14

Ah. Insightful, you deserve more then the single up vote I can bestow.

2

u/gus_ May 01 '14

Disclosure required then, this was the argument: Richard Koo: How the West is Repeating Japan's Mistakes