China eases family planning policy

[mr friendly guy]

Abortion is justified as mother's choice. Government mandated abortions and criminal punishments for refusing them are not the mother's choice. They are just as much murder as if a stranger came along and punched a pregnant woman in the stomach.

So still avoiding the point about western media being wrong about their predictions I see. What a shock.

Since you object so much to force abortions you would know that not only is it illegal, that officials that have been caught have been punished. But lets not let these pesky things like facts get in the way of your narrative.

PRC had a "shit" standard of living (your words, not mine) because it was run by socialists, not because it had too many children. If PRC had been run by people with a less broken ideology ("freedom" is a good start) it would have been able to produce enough food without mass slaughter of unborn children. As in fact it is able to do now, after free market reforms.

So still avoiding the point about overpopulation I see chicken shit. In energiewende world resources are infinite and market reforms will allow us to have as many children and still give them the high standard of living. Of course I would like you to show numbers for that. Lets start with a world population of say, the predicted 12 billion in the middle of this century.Sometimes the stupidity writes itself.

Here's something for you. Even after Mao's shitty mistakes the standard of living was still higher than when he came into power. * I know things like cause and effect are inconvenient for a dumbfuck like you, but try and think this one through. If the standard of living was poorer before the PRC was formed, therefore it wasn't because it was run by socialists. It was poor in the first place (or had been for the last few decades prior to their formation). Remember what I said about facts. Yeah those things.

If this trend is played out PRC will probably never become the world's most powerful country; it will be overtaken by India before it overtakes the USA.

Your own graph shows the population peaking around the 2030 moron. Hardly a population decrease yet as you claimed. Oh, and before you say ah, well it would it it continues, that's shifting the goalposts.

China is demonstrably run by morons.

Ah clearly we have a brilliant man whose bright ideas can bring more people out of poverty in a short span of time than the current record holder (which is China by the way). Clearly your talents are wasted here. Why don't you show your brilliant ideas to some poor developing nation and do a better job than China's leaders. In fact, why aren't you offering your services to the US since China continues to catch up with them in GDP since that worries you so much. What's your bright idea? Maybe you will shit gold or make a perpetual wealth machine.

I tell you why you don't. You are full of shit its coming out of your mouth. Since you are clearly smarter than China's leaders demonstrate your great plan. Oh let me tell you how this is going to play out. You are going to run away like a coward and refuse to address this point.

If it hadn't been they would have ruled the whole world two centuries ago. The current lot are a bit less moronic than usual, so I expect a bit better from them.

China wasn't even run by Chinese two centuries ago you idiot. Good grief. Ignorance, arrogance and stupidity in one convenient package.

They're also looking more to the ultimate prize, rather than just desperately trying to hang on to power as in the past.

I am sure for you next trick you will explain what that has got to do with lifting people out of poverty by restricting population.

* source - Niall Ferguson

[mr friendly guy]

A fine that is bankrupting to the rural poor, but can be avoided via abortion.

The rural poor are exempted from the one child policy. Dear god, you are commenting on China without reading ANYTHING at all about the one-child policy. How ignorant are you?

Come on. This is the moron who didn't even know that China was ruled by a foreign dynasty 2 centuries ago. What can we expect? I wonder how many generations of inbreeding did it take to produce energiewende?

I think the problem here is that he's trying to start from a general theory of history*, and work backwards to interpret all the historical details through the lens of that theory. It's as fundamentally messed an approach as that of the Marxist historians, because when a datapoint doesn't fit the theory you have to retain willful ignorance of the data instead of rethinking the theory.

*(Modernity comes from capitalism and vaguely defined "freedom," failure to become fully modern must always have roots in failure to be capitalist and/or "free").

Or the problem could be he is an idiot.

[mr friendly guy]

I just saw this gem and I had to comment because its so funny

It took a peaceful acceptance of Anglo-American policy to produce serious development, and I strongly suspect this only happened because the PRC's leaders were worried about how weak they were militarily. They saw what happened to the Soviets and to the Iraqis, and realised they could be next. If we were still living in a time when military strength was proportional to arable land area for peasants to farm, rather than to per capita GDP, I doubt China would have ever changed.

Chinese economic reforms started in 1978. The Soviet Union fell in 1991 while Iraq was defeated in the first Gulf War in that same year.
For them to realise "they could be next" they would have to steal Dr Who's TARDIS and go back in time to tell themselves about what happened in the 1990s.

You like to wax poetry about being near the stupidest people on Earth (yet at the same time paradoxically you display fear about these same people becoming a super power even if they are near to be considered "stupidest people" on earth), but I think you are closer to the mark. Not because of your paradoxical fear, but because twice you have demonstrated you don't even understand that cause precedes effect.

BTW if we were still living in a time when military strength was proportional to arable land area, then it means the rest of the world hasn't changed either. Hardly a pressing endorsement for your Chinese leaders are dumber than most claim.

[Terralthra]

If this trend is played out PRC will probably never become the world's most powerful country; it will be overtaken by India before it overtakes the USA.

Your own graph shows the population peaking around the 2030 moron. Hardly a population decrease yet as you claimed. Oh, and before you say ah, well it would it it continues, that's shifting the goalposts.

That graph shows the population growth rate peaking in 2030. The population growth of all four countries remains positive for the entire graph, meaning none of those countries will experience net population loss for the entire 21st century (if it's accurate).

[mr friendly guy]

The y axis is measured in billions, which would make more sense for the graph to be showing population per year, while the slope would be the growth rate measured in billions / year.

[Terralthra]

Huh. If we're really projecting Nigeria growing to a population of 1bil in the next century, I'd be surprised.

Anyway, mea culpa. I saw growth and assumed it was depicting, you know, growth.

[Simon_Jester]

I suspect other limiting factors are going to kick in in Africa, because if Nigeria alone contains one billion people, the rest of Africa would have a population of... something like six billion, which is simply more than world food supplies are likely to support. I think that contraception is going to become more widespread at a faster rate than this graph's model suggests, simply because of negative feedback loops.

[madd0ct0r]

I think Nigeria's a special case - I'll start a new thread for "where's Africa headed?"

[Thanas]

NYT article

I'll just quote the things that are not mentioned here already

The party leaders also confirmed an announcement made earlier this year, and then abruptly retracted, that they intend to abolish re-education through labor, which since the 1950s has empowered police authorities to imprison people without any real judicial review. Experts and officials have debated whether to adjust or abolish the system of camps since the 1980s. Now abolition is closer.

“Abolish the system of re-education through labor,” said the decision, which proposed expanding community corrections to partly replace the system.

“This is a significant step forward,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher who specializes in China with Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization based in New York.

“It doesn’t mean that China is going to be kinder to dissent and to its critics,” Mr. Bequelin said. “But it’s an important step to do away with a system that not only profoundly violated human rights, but was also standing in the way of any further legal reform.”

Re-education through labor was introduced under Mao Zedong to lock away those considered political opponents, and it expanded into a system of incarceration holding more than 100,000 people, many of them working in prison factories and on farms. Sentences are determined by the police, and defendants have scant chance to appeal imprisonment that can last up to four years.

The document gives no date for bringing labor re-education to an end, or for introducing the changes to family planning policy. And there is the possibility that the government will delay or dilute the changes, or introduce similar restrictions under another name, Mr. Bequelin said. The decision also leaves in place labor camps that are part of the general penal system for those convicted in court.

In a country that carries out more executions than the rest of the world combined, the document pledged to gradually reduce the number of crimes that can result in the death penalty. But it gave no details about which crimes may be affected.

Under Mr. Xi, the government has pursued a broad crackdown on political dissent, critical opinion and rumors on the Internet, and perceived ideological threats. But the decision promised fairer and more predictable treatment from the police and the courts, hinting at support for long-discussed measures intended to make judges more independent of the local officials in their jurisdictions.

“Improve the transparency and public credibility of the judiciary,” Mr. Xi said in his statement. But he also promised more stringent controls on the Internet: “Ensuring order, national security and social stability in the dissemination of information on the Internet has become a real and pressing problem facing us.”

The bulk of the Central Committee decision dwelt on economic changes intended to rejuvenate growth by encouraging private investment, more efficient use of bank capital and the leasing of land by farmers into larger, more viable holdings.

“Reform of the economic system is the focal point of comprehensively deepening reform,” the decision said. “The core issue is properly handling the relationship between the government and the market.”

The most important changes propose to reduce risks and distortions in government finances, which give local administrations many tasks but relatively few sources of revenue, forcing them to rely on taking land from farmers for relatively little compensation. Other proposals include introducing more market-based pricing into areas such as energy and water.

But these changes could encounter resistance from government ministries, large state-owned companies, local governments and consumers potentially hurt by price rises. “They’ve gone a long way to meet market expectations, and everyone is going to look at implementation,” said Stephen Green, head of Greater China research for the banking and financial services company Standard Chartered.

It remains to be seen whether this will herald change in the grey area of reeducation camps that are not labour camps, like the "law schools" which house thousands of prisoners and where abuse is rampant.

[energiewende]

Why did China lose the Opium War? Why didn't France collapse due to the cost and destruction of the Napoleonic Wars? The problems China faced were systemic, not just random factors with entirely external cause.

China lost the Opium war because her technological and industrial base was widely inferior to the Europeans and has been so for CENTURIES.

idk what is your point - my precise argument is that China's problem was systemic. Foreign intervention was only possible because China was already weak, crippled by its bad institutions, and even then foreign caused minimal damage relative to what Europeans were doing to one another. With forcing the government to at least realise a problem existed, it was probably a net benefit.

And claiming France didn't collapse due to the cost and destruction of the Napoleonic wars is insane.... Just what was the Battle of Waterloo.

...a country that was just literally squashed by every power of note in the world, losing more than two million men, standing up a year later and saying, "Alright, who wants another?". Yet some people in this thread are arguing that losing Macao and HK is the cause of all China's problems.

Or are you trying to claim that since France survived to become a world power, this means the costs of the Napoleonic wars was 'managable', despite the fact that war exhaustion has set in by the 4th/5th Coalition, to the extent that Napolean was running out of conscriptable manpower?

The Guangxu Emperor seems to have tried to do this. He was immediately couped by his own generals and exiled to a small island. China was ruled in this time by the Empress Dowager who was just another racist ultra-conservative running the country into the ground.

Lol. How droll.......... And I guess Winston Churchill was simply just a racist for wanting to keep India British?

Not to mention you utterly ignore the removal of caste and other army reforms and etc...... The key factor remains that the Manchu saw themselves as an occupying government, as such, they could never enact reforms that might weaken the state control on public affairs.

So what? My precise argument is that China was badly governed and that this, rather than external factors, caused its problems..

Really? A movement whose founder's economic buzzphrases were "equalization of land rights" and "regulation of capital"?

Really, considering that the KMT GOVERNMENT economic policies were not set by Sun 3 Principles in the first place.........

And Sun Ming Sheng economic policies is literally nothing more than progressive taxation on the rich, wealth/opportunity distribution via government spending on healthcare, education and the state purchase of land and public control of communications and transportation.

The ONLY attempt at this by the KMT was via eminent domain confisication/purchase of land for state purposes....

To go by just the easily and univerally accessible information, how does one impute from this that the KMT was "capitalistic"? It's simply a right-nationalist movement, with about as much potential to produce a developed economy as Franco.

Look.... China TFR is 1.4. The EXACT same rate as say, Japan, higher than Singapore 1.29, and lower than the US at 2.0.

Now, think what that actually means if only 1.6% of the population are exempted.

The rural 1.5-child policy is controlling here. Perhaps 1.5 is categorically vastly different to 1.

BTW, this statistic is a total disaster strategically. Despite being still a third world country (or lower end of middle income, if you prefer), China already has an over-the-hill European demographic trend. A more typical figure would be 3-4.

Are.... you.....fucking.......... nuts?

The Beiyang fleet in terms of tonnage outnumbered the Japanese fleet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beiyang_Fleet
Look at the numbers and the tonnage here.

In terms of size and etc, it was actually large enough to be the largest in Asia, dwarfed only by European powers. Indeed, when one adds up the remainding 3 fleets, China actually had a navy that was comparable to the smaller naval European powers(in numbers)....... although given that the remainding Fujian, Nanyang and etc ships had inferior canons, were made up of wood and were warjunks means they were singularly useless against an European power.

Calling it poorly equipped is also nuts, considering that in terms of ships, they were actually equipped with the best Germany would sell. The REAL problem was the same in every third world country operating modern equipment.
Lack of funds for maintenance and training.
Hell, improper ammunition(along with accusations of corruption) meant that her ammunition was useless in the battle against Japan.

Again, I've got nothing really to disagree with here. China made serious attempts to develop modern military, and just failed due to lack of ability. This was an economic problem. That is my entire point!

God.... How wrong are you?

1. To claim that China enacted no fundamental reform..... Just what was the entire Tang, Ming and then Qing dynasty? The changing of taxation? Change from goods taxation to taxation in silver? One that the Qing adopted? Or the political reforms? Or............

2. Ah, but we see your REAL goal. Your claim is that China didn't adopt WESTERN practices. Just WHAT was western practices in the contemporary era? Let see, 1800, you have the East India Company, taking over an entire country and then monopolizing trade and etc. Hmm..... just what was the Chinese bureau of trade/colonization doing in Vietnam in 1530? Oh Right. The EXACT SAME THING. The only fucking difference is that it was state run instead of corporate run. And they didn't have a technological advantage over the Vietnamese.

Trade? Well, Spain had the royal monopoly over trade with the colonies. The whole treasure fleet and so forth. Hmm...... State trade, as exemplified by the tribute system.

Oh, but free trade was popping up! Britain! France! Portugal! Oh wait. Both Spain and Portugal engaged in state maritime entrepot trade with Ming China, to the extent that half of Peru silver ended up in China.


Look. You have an axe to grind. But do it somewhere where you won't embarrass yourself. Its weird when you claim that China didn't achieve what Germany did, when she actually DID do so. Well, not on the same scale and etc etc etc, but again, are you fucking nuts?

Your arguments are tendentious and you sidestep the point, perhaps deliberately. So what if China made reforms that did not improve its rate of economic or technological development? It's like McClellan was the most successful General the US ever produced, except at winning battles. And so what if European countries didn't all make the right decisions all the time? They made more right decisions more consistently - certainly Britain and France, not so much Spain and Portugal - and ultimately it didn't matter if they bungled when their opponents bungled more. I furthermore have absolutely no axe to grind against the Chinese locking themselves in perpetual poverty. I'm not Chinese, so that doesn't hurt me, and since China continues to be governed by authoritarian principles, it's a general social good it stays weak. China becoming a free and prosperous society would be the ideal social good of course, but it doesn't seem that's genuinely desired by many Chinese, even by those who didn't fancy subjecting themselves and their children to the results of the traditional governance.

[Ralin]

idk what is your point - my precise argument is that China's problem was systemic. Foreign intervention was only possible because China was already weak, crippled by its bad institutions, and even then foreign caused minimal damage relative to what Europeans were doing to one another. With forcing the government to at least realise a problem existed, it was probably a net benefit.

China handled European imperialism a whole lot better than most places, what with them never becoming a colony or losing political independence. As an Indian person how they feel about the subject someday.

[energiewende]

Abortion is justified as mother's choice. Government mandated abortions and criminal punishments for refusing them are not the mother's choice. They are just as much murder as if a stranger came along and punched a pregnant woman in the stomach.

So still avoiding the point about western media being wrong about their predictions I see. What a shock.

I'm not defending "the Western media" (whatever that means - you might have noticed there isn't just one here), I'm trying to bring home to you the fact you are crowing over a supposed victory in a war where you have sided with the bad guy.

Since you object so much to force abortions you would know that not only is it illegal, that officials that have been caught have been punished. But lets not let these pesky things like facts get in the way of your narrative.

Instead of being strapped to the bed by policemen which is of course totally illegal (at least, in the sense that the policemen could have arrested themselves) you are instead meant to be sufficiently afraid of the crippling fines and other formal sanctions, and abort yourself.

PRC had a "shit" standard of living (your words, not mine) because it was run by socialists, not because it had too many children. If PRC had been run by people with a less broken ideology ("freedom" is a good start) it would have been able to produce enough food without mass slaughter of unborn children. As in fact it is able to do now, after free market reforms.

So still avoiding the point about overpopulation I see chicken shit.

Answered directly there. "Overpopulation" is only relative to resources. The PRC economy was about 50x less labour efficient than that of the US. That is why it could not produce enough food. There was no birth restriction in Hong Kong, which had much higher population density, yet not only was there no starvation but consumption of all resources was vastly higher.

Here's something for you. Even after Mao's shitty mistakes the standard of living was still higher than when he came into power. * I know things like cause and effect are inconvenient for a dumbfuck like you, but try and think this one through. If the standard of living was poorer before the PRC was formed, therefore it wasn't because it was run by socialists. It was poor in the first place (or had been for the last few decades prior to their formation). Remember what I said about facts. Yeah those things.

In this time PRC per capita GDP grew 90%, while Japanese per capita GDP grew 1,450%.

If this trend is played out PRC will probably never become the world's most powerful country; it will be overtaken by India before it overtakes the USA.

Your own graph shows the population peaking around the 2030 moron. Hardly a population decrease yet as you claimed. Oh, and before you say ah, well it would it it continues, that's shifting the goalposts.

PRC won't match the US in military power for 20-30 years after it matches in total GDP, which it has not yet done. In that time India will overtake total population, with still strong growth trend. It's possible there will be some 5-10 year window in which PRC is the notionally most powerful country, with the most optimistic assumptions, but the long term trend is pretty clear: there isn't going to be a "Chinese Century" unless India implodes in a spectacular fashion. More like Chinese Decade.

China is demonstrably run by morons.

Ah clearly we have a brilliant man whose bright ideas can bring more people out of poverty in a short span of time than the current record holder (which is China by the way).

Data-mining; creating a huge population of desperately poor people then counting only the short period of time you adopt less absurdly terrible policies to calculate your rate of escape from poverty is dishonest. If China had been run by the same people who were running Japan it would have been developed already in the 1970s and most of those people would've never been in poverty. If by those running Britain or US, well, China would rule the whole world for some time now.

Clearly your talents are wasted here. Why don't you show your brilliant ideas to some poor developing nation and do a better job than China's leaders. In fact, why aren't you offering your services to the US since China continues to catch up with them in GDP since that worries you so much. What's your bright idea? Maybe you will shit gold or make a perpetual wealth machine.

I tell you why you don't. You are full of shit its coming out of your mouth. Since you are clearly smarter than China's leaders demonstrate your great plan. Oh let me tell you how this is going to play out. You are going to run away like a coward and refuse to address this point.

I have. US is at the technological pinnacle, so it can't make convergence gains (ie. copying ideas and processes from more developed economies), it instead has the harder task of creating new ideas and processes, which is what I do in my job. Although I don't work for the US, what I develop is shared with them.

If I had run China throughout the 20th century it would be much better off than it is. Not that I'm special, it's just not that hard to do better than the morons who ran China. There's no great secret, just look at what HK was doing, and do that.

If it hadn't been they would have ruled the whole world two centuries ago. The current lot are a bit less moronic than usual, so I expect a bit better from them.

China wasn't even run by Chinese two centuries ago you idiot. Good grief. Ignorance, arrogance and stupidity in one convenient package.

That's rather racist - aren't Manchu part of the Chinese nation?

They're also looking more to the ultimate prize, rather than just desperately trying to hang on to power as in the past.

I am sure for you next trick you will explain what that has got to do with lifting people out of poverty by restricting population.

In the past they just wanted to maintain order. They saw a swelling mass of humanity as dangerous. Today, they have more control, and want instead to harness their large population to play on the globe's stage.

[AniThyng]

The problems of running an entire nation are different from those of running a city state, genius. You cannot just apply HK policies and step back. And even if you do, well, hello coastal interior wealth imbalance like today.

[mr friendly guy]

I'm not defending "the Western media" (whatever that means - you might have noticed there isn't just one here), I'm trying to bring home to you the fact you are crowing over a supposed victory in a war where you have sided with the bad guy.

My crowing was that the Western media made a mistake. Do you dispute that? If not then I did win this "war" (your words not mine). Oh wait, instead you make an irrelevant point and then not so subtly start having a totally different conversation. Thanks for wasting my time.

Instead of being strapped to the bed by policemen which is of course totally illegal (at least, in the sense that the policemen could have arrested themselves) you are instead meant to be sufficiently afraid of the crippling fines and other formal sanctions, and abort yourself.

So you did let those facts that forced abortions are illegal and officials have been punished for them get in the way. Now perhaps you might explain why all fines are wrong, since this is the same principle the PRC is using. Economic means to affect certain behaviours.

Answered directly there. "Overpopulation" is only relative to resources. The PRC economy was about 50x less labour efficient than that of the US. That is why it could not produce enough food. There was no birth restriction in Hong Kong, which had much higher population density, yet not only was there no starvation but consumption of all resources was vastly higher.

HA HA HA HA HA. ROTFL. Hong Kong can only produce 20% of its food and relies on imports from the mainland moron. Are you trolling? Good god you are embarrassing yourself aren't you?
I bet you are going to shift the goalposts and say well I was referring to ability to buy food rather than ability to "produce enough food."

But lets revisit your earlier statement (I had to break up the quote so its easier to follow, but reproduce it below)

PRC had a "shit" standard of living (your words, not mine) because it was run by socialists, not because it had too many children. If PRC had been run by people with a less broken ideology ("freedom" is a good start) it would have been able to produce enough food without mass slaughter of unborn children. As in fact it is able to do now, after free market reforms.

Again ignoring the fact that standard of living was low before the CCP came to power, ergo blaming socialists for something occurring before they came to power is a bit much. Don't worry, as we see you believe in using time travel to solve solutions.

Again, where is the numbers to support this? Do you even care about the fact that China has less arable land than a similar size country like the US? Do you even care that more efficient crops eg modern day hybrid rice weren't available then? You are just a libertard who just assumes what works in one country will automatically work in another country with different environmental conditions.

You anti abortion rhetoric is still funny. I bet you are one of those fuckwits who say abortion is murder, right?

Here's something for you. Even after Mao's shitty mistakes the standard of living was still higher than when he came into power. * I know things like cause and effect are inconvenient for a dumbfuck like you, but try and think this one through. If the standard of living was poorer before the PRC was formed, therefore it wasn't because it was run by socialists. It was poor in the first place (or had been for the last few decades prior to their formation). Remember what I said about facts. Yeah those things.

In this time PRC per capita GDP grew 90%, while Japanese per capita GDP grew 1,450%.

Doesn't refute my point that the PRC was poor even before the socialists came to power (especially when you talk about bad governance before the CCP was even formed), so blaming them for being poor is a bit rich. Are you even trying to argue the point, or just sprouting talking points, ala Sarah Palin style.

PRC won't match the US in military power for 20-30 years after it matches in total GDP, which it has not yet done. In that time India will overtake total population, with still strong growth trend. It's possible there will be some 5-10 year window in which PRC is the notionally most powerful country, with the most optimistic assumptions, but the long term trend is pretty clear: there isn't going to be a "Chinese Century" unless India implodes in a spectacular fashion. More like Chinese Decade.

Now I know you are just sprouting talking points. This has nothing whatsoever to do with my claim that you're wrong when you say China's population has decreased, which your own graph refutes your claim. Do you know how stupid that makes you look?

You - China's population is decreasing.
Me - er, no its not
You - see this graph, it proves it
Me - it shows the population still increasing.
You - (changes topic to talk about Chinese century not occurring)

If you want to start a thread on whether there will be a Chinese century or not, no one is stopping you, but you are literally just sprouting talking points like a moron. Or how about you create a thread in SLAM where you explain why abortion is murder. That should be funny.

Data-mining; creating a huge population of desperately poor people then counting only the short period of time you adopt less absurdly terrible policies to calculate your rate of escape from poverty is dishonest. If China had been run by the same people who were running Japan it would have been developed already in the 1970s and most of those people would've never been in poverty. If by those running Britain or US, well, China would rule the whole world for some time now.

So still waiting for that great plan of yours. Oh wait, it involves time travel and going back in time and making market adjustments then. Good idea, as soon as I find a funny white guy with a sonic screwdriver, I will just hi jack his TARDIS and .. oh fuck it, you are a dishonest twat aren't you? Now why don't you start with the same limitations China's leaders had when they introduced their family planning policy in 1979 and see how you will manage without restricting population. Your answer is to change the question and say if I had even more time than Chinese leaders then I would have made a difference. In other words, you can't actually do the challenge without changing the conditions. Not only are you stupid, but dishonest as well.

Clearly your talents are wasted here. Why don't you show your brilliant ideas to some poor developing nation and do a better job than China's leaders. In fact, why aren't you offering your services to the US since China continues to catch up with them in GDP since that worries you so much. <snip>

I have. US is at the technological pinnacle, so it can't make convergence gains (ie. copying ideas and processes from more developed economies), it instead has the harder task of creating new ideas and processes, which is what I do in my job. Although I don't work for the US, what I develop is shared with them.

1. So what's stopping you offering your services to a developing nation, since its so great.
2. I love how when you refer to China, you talk about poor economic management, and then when I ask why aren't you giving you great advice to the US, you change to technological development. You do see the disconnect here don't you? You don't actually have an economic plan do you? Well other than the equivalent of a writer saying he will improve his stories by writing better, without explaining how he will write better.

If I had run China throughout the 20th century it would be much better off than it is. Not that I'm special, it's just not that hard to do better than the morons who ran China. There's no great secret, just look at what HK was doing, and do that.

You seriously think running a small territory is the same as a big one? God you are fucking stupid. Hey, why aren't you running some developing nation, and make them better than China? The more you do, the more you will have to offset China's rise. Isn't that beneficial to your POV?

That's rather racist - aren't Manchu part of the Chinese nation?

Yeah, in modern times. Two hundred years ago (as per your words) they were the rulers and saw themselves separately from their Han subjects. In those days the concept of identifying yourself by ethnicity was stronger than if you identified yourself by nationality.

They're also looking more to the ultimate prize, rather than just desperately trying to hang on to power as in the past.

I am sure for you next trick you will explain what that has got to do with lifting people out of poverty by restricting population.

In the past they just wanted to maintain order. They saw a swelling mass of humanity as dangerous. Today, they have more control, and want instead to harness their large population to play on the globe's stage.

Good grief, you are batshit insane. Here is one for you.

If freedom improves the economy (according to you), and their current leaders are more competent and have done some reforms (that is their people have more freedom), how is it they have greater control than ever when their people have more freedom?

[energiewende]

I'm not defending "the Western media" (whatever that means - you might have noticed there isn't just one here), I'm trying to bring home to you the fact you are crowing over a supposed victory in a war where you have sided with the bad guy.

My crowing was that the Western media made a mistake. Do you dispute that? If not then I did win this "war" (your words not mine). Oh wait, instead you make an irrelevant point and then not so subtly start having a totally different conversation. Thanks for wasting my time.

"The Western media" isn't a single entity. I doubt most of the Western media or people working in it ever had any strong opinion on whether PRC would weaken the One Child Policy or not. Your post did not just highlight this supposed mistake however, but also endorsed the PRC's reasoning for implementing the policy.

Instead of being strapped to the bed by policemen which is of course totally illegal (at least, in the sense that the policemen could have arrested themselves) you are instead meant to be sufficiently afraid of the crippling fines and other formal sanctions, and abort yourself.

So you did let those facts that forced abortions are illegal and officials have been punished for them get in the way. Now perhaps you might explain why all fines are wrong, since this is the same principle the PRC is using. Economic means to affect certain behaviours.

The point is that the "voluntary" abortions are also mandatory. Even if there had been absolutely no cases of people being physically restrained while abortions are performed on them (I did not bring up those examples although I suspect that their "criminality" has more to do with how awful it made the PRC look than their deep concern for morality), abortions that only take place at threat of criminal penalties and enforced destitution are not voluntary.

Answered directly there. "Overpopulation" is only relative to resources. The PRC economy was about 50x less labour efficient than that of the US. That is why it could not produce enough food. There was no birth restriction in Hong Kong, which had much higher population density, yet not only was there no starvation but consumption of all resources was vastly higher.

HA HA HA HA HA. ROTFL. Hong Kong can only produce 20% of its food and relies on imports from the mainland moron. Are you trolling? Good god you are embarrassing yourself aren't you?
I bet you are going to shift the goalposts and say well I was referring to ability to buy food rather than ability to "produce enough food."

Ability to buy food is precisely what matters, unless you are some racist who thinks it is wrong to import goods from abroad. No country is fully self-sufficient, even North Korea. The US for instance has a well known dependence on oil imports. That does not mean that there is no oil available in the US!

But lets revisit your earlier statement (I had to break up the quote so its easier to follow, but reproduce it below)

PRC had a "shit" standard of living (your words, not mine) because it was run by socialists, not because it had too many children. If PRC had been run by people with a less broken ideology ("freedom" is a good start) it would have been able to produce enough food without mass slaughter of unborn children. As in fact it is able to do now, after free market reforms.

Again ignoring the fact that standard of living was low before the CCP came to power, ergo blaming socialists for something occurring before they came to power is a bit much. Don't worry, as we see you believe in using time travel to solve solutions.

I blame them for having 15x less growth than Japan.

Again, where is the numbers to support this? Do you even care about the fact that China has less arable land than a similar size country like the US? Do you even care that more efficient crops eg modern day hybrid rice weren't available then? You are just a libertard who just assumes what works in one country will automatically work in another country with different environmental conditions.

Quite, I'm a "libertard" who assumes that just because every country with a free market economy stopped having famines and doesn't need a state policy mass infaniticide to regulate the food supply, it may be more sensible to try having a free market economy before moving on to the mass infanticide. It would be much more sensible to ignore all experience and instead assume that a grossly immoral policy that has neither been tried nor worked anywhere else is the most sensible solution. Actually that's not entirely true. One country in history did respond to a food shortage caused by self-imposed trade restrictions with mass starvation of presumed less useful parts of the population: Nazi Germany.

You anti abortion rhetoric is still funny. I bet you are one of those fuckwits who say abortion is murder, right?

Abortion is murder if done for any reason other than mother's choice. This is the case in every country where voluntary abortion is legal.

Here's something for you. Even after Mao's shitty mistakes the standard of living was still higher than when he came into power. * I know things like cause and effect are inconvenient for a dumbfuck like you, but try and think this one through. If the standard of living was poorer before the PRC was formed, therefore it wasn't because it was run by socialists. It was poor in the first place (or had been for the last few decades prior to their formation). Remember what I said about facts. Yeah those things.

In this time PRC per capita GDP grew 90%, while Japanese per capita GDP grew 1,450%.

Doesn't refute my point that the PRC was poor even before the socialists came to power (especially when you talk about bad governance before the CCP was even formed), so blaming them for being poor is a bit rich. Are you even trying to argue the point, or just sprouting talking points, ala Sarah Palin style.

It is unfair to blame the CPC for the country being poor in 1949 but not in 1976. My point was also not specifically directed at the CPC: China was badly governed before that too.

PRC won't match the US in military power for 20-30 years after it matches in total GDP, which it has not yet done. In that time India will overtake total population, with still strong growth trend. It's possible there will be some 5-10 year window in which PRC is the notionally most powerful country, with the most optimistic assumptions, but the long term trend is pretty clear: there isn't going to be a "Chinese Century" unless India implodes in a spectacular fashion. More like Chinese Decade.

Now I know you are just sprouting talking points. This has nothing whatsoever to do with my claim that you're wrong when you say China's population has decreased, which your own graph refutes your claim. Do you know how stupid that makes you look?

You - China's population is decreasing.
Me - er, no its not
You - see this graph, it proves it
Me - it shows the population still increasing.
You - (changes topic to talk about Chinese century not occurring)

If you want to start a thread on whether there will be a Chinese century or not, no one is stopping you, but you are literally just sprouting talking points like a moron. Or how about you create a thread in SLAM where you explain why abortion is murder. That should be funny.

I said the trend was downward, not that the population was already decreasing.

Data-mining; creating a huge population of desperately poor people then counting only the short period of time you adopt less absurdly terrible policies to calculate your rate of escape from poverty is dishonest. If China had been run by the same people who were running Japan it would have been developed already in the 1970s and most of those people would've never been in poverty. If by those running Britain or US, well, China would rule the whole world for some time now.

So still waiting for that great plan of yours. Oh wait, it involves time travel and going back in time and making market adjustments then. Good idea, as soon as I find a funny white guy with a sonic screwdriver, I will just hi jack his TARDIS and .. oh fuck it, you are a dishonest twat aren't you? Now why don't you start with the same limitations China's leaders had when they introduced their family planning policy in 1979 and see how you will manage without restricting population. Your answer is to change the question and say if I had even more time than Chinese leaders then I would have made a difference. In other words, you can't actually do the challenge without changing the conditions. Not only are you stupid, but dishonest as well.

If you stop and think before expressing your child-like rage, you may learn something. Think about what you are saying: China could have adopted better policies, avoiding mass poverty and death, but it's unreasonable for me to say this since I cannot retroactively implement those policies personally. Is that in any way a reasonable criticism? Are you not rather agreeing with my point, that China is badly governed and that the One Child Policy was unnecessary if better choices had been made instead?

I have. US is at the technological pinnacle, so it can't make convergence gains (ie. copying ideas and processes from more developed economies), it instead has the harder task of creating new ideas and processes, which is what I do in my job. Although I don't work for the US, what I develop is shared with them.

1. So what's stopping you offering your services to a developing nation, since its so great.

I would be willing to work for them for a modest increase in salary. Let me know if they're interested. But you asked if I provided my services to the US and I do.

2. I love how when you refer to China, you talk about poor economic management, and then when I ask why aren't you giving you great advice to the US, you change to technological development. You do see the disconnect here don't you? You don't actually have an economic plan do you? Well other than the equivalent of a writer saying he will improve his stories by writing better, without explaining how he will write better.

I can't parse your point. The US has good economic institutions, about the best in the world, and the reason it is growing slower than PRC is only that developing new technologies is harder than adopting them from others. The PRC's growth rate will reduce to the US level with a per capita GDP still susbtantially below that of the US (if you disagree, I'm willing to bet cash). The US cannot grow faster than the PRC; even if the US found some way of drastically increasing the rate of technological progress, the PRC's convergence growth would also be able to increase as it would then be able to adopt those technologies.

If I had run China throughout the 20th century it would be much better off than it is. Not that I'm special, it's just not that hard to do better than the morons who ran China. There's no great secret, just look at what HK was doing, and do that.

You seriously think running a small territory is the same as a big one? God you are fucking stupid. Hey, why aren't you running some developing nation, and make them better than China? The more you do, the more you will have to offset China's rise. Isn't that beneficial to your POV?

No, this problem seems to be scale independent. US, which is a huge continental empire and the 3rd most populous country in the world, developed with very similar policies.

That's rather racist - aren't Manchu part of the Chinese nation?

Yeah, in modern times. Two hundred years ago (as per your words) they were the rulers and saw themselves separately from their Han subjects. In those days the concept of identifying yourself by ethnicity was stronger than if you identified yourself by nationality.

I don't see why that would make them want the country they are ruling to be weak. Even if they didn't care at all about the Han, they should still want higher tax revenues to farm.

In the past they just wanted to maintain order. They saw a swelling mass of humanity as dangerous. Today, they have more control, and want instead to harness their large population to play on the globe's stage.

Good grief, you are batshit insane. Here is one for you.

If freedom improves the economy (according to you), and their current leaders are more competent and have done some reforms (that is their people have more freedom), how is it they have greater control than ever when their people have more freedom?

People with nothing to lose are more dangerous. PRC has given up some power over the economy but very little over the police and military.

[energiewende]

The problems of running an entire nation are different from those of running a city state, genius. You cannot just apply HK policies and step back.

As stated, US used the same type of policies. So did Australia, and a lot of Western Europe. There doesn't seem to be any strong scale dependence here, and you can't just assume there is.

And even if you do, well, hello coastal interior wealth imbalance like today.

This is actually an artificial problem, caused or at least exacerbated by internal movement controls. Again the reasoning behind this is partly a fault economic belief (the state is better at planning where people should live than the market) and partly an attempt to solidify CPC rule (fear of riots if poor immigrants were able to move freely into the cities, as they were to the US East Coast in the 19th century).

[K. A. Pital]

This is actually an artificial problem, caused or at least exacerbated by internal movement controls. Again the reasoning behind this is partly a fault economic belief (the state is better at planning where people should live than the market) and partly an attempt to solidify CPC rule (fear of riots if poor immigrants were able to move freely into the cities, as they were to the US East Coast in the 19th century).

The internal movement controls are a lot more relaxed now. The market could of course force the towns to become Sao Paulo or Mumbai-like hellholes within just several years as people rapidly emigrate and flood them, creating shantytowns and slums of enormous proportions, but why do this? Riots are not the problem (indeed, Sao Paulo's problem is crime first and foremost and slums are an endemic problem for India, Brazil and other nations which cannot stop a free flow of impoverished citizens to the overpopulated towns). You seem to be confusing reality with your imagination. US and the XIX century has absolutely nothing to do with current reality. We're living in a completely different world. Migration controls in China will be eased much like Japan and South Korea.

...abortions that only take place at threat of criminal penalties and enforced destitution are not voluntary.

Really? Why so? In this case abiding by the law is not voluntary. It is involuntary since it is only possible under threat of criminal penalties and enforced destitution if you break the law. Does this mean that all human behaviour since the creation of the law is involuntary self-coercion from the unfettered pack murderer towards a "law-abiding citizen"?

I blame them for having 15x less growth than Japan.

They were never allowed to steal half a trillion worth of newest technologies in the 1950-1980 age. Japan was. They were not given the ability to ignore self-defence (and thus cut down defence spending massively) and simply rely on America to defend them - Japan was. You can of course say that if you pit yourself against America, you deserve to be economically crushed. That is a position I have heard more than once on this forum and elsewhere - that anyone who chooses to oppose America should have extreme crushing consequences for economy, social welfare etc. inflicted on them. I have not really been able to seriously consider this a valid argument, but it has been put forward before.

Quite, I'm a "libertard" who assumes that just because every country with a free market economy stopped having famines and doesn't need a state policy mass infaniticide to regulate the food supply

You mean like India stopped having famines after Britain forced laissez-faire on it for a century?

Abortion is murder if done for any reason other than mother's choice. This is the case in every country where voluntary abortion is legal.

There are reasons like genetic diseases which, during the procedure of genetic screening, lead to the destruction of genetically damaged embryos. Is this murder? Why does a doctor have the right to make this call? Since he was empowered by the parents? Hardly sensible. Of course, voluntary abortion also means that the mother may choose to abort on a whim, or may even run post-pregnancy chemical abortions without consulting anybody. I think this is not murder. Could you expand a bit on this?

[Thanas]

...abortions that only take place at threat of criminal penalties and enforced destitution are not voluntary.

Really? Why so? In this case abiding by the law is not voluntary. It is involuntary since it is only possible under threat of criminal penalties and enforced destitution if you break the law. Does this mean that all human behaviour since the creation of the law is involuntary self-coercion from the unfettered pack murderer towards a "law-abiding citizen"?

Stas, are you seriously of the opinion that if the state forces people to have abortions that this is the same as criminal laws?

[K. A. Pital]

Stas, are you seriously of the opinion that if the state forces people to have abortions that this is the same as criminal laws?

If you are fined and put in jail for stealing - even if you literally steal because you have no money to buy the food - I kind of fail to see a grand pathos that makes "ordinary laws" more justified than a fine slapped on the second child which you give birth to. After all, there are people who dare to collect a sort of a "tax" on radio and TV from the blind and deaf, since they could "partially enjoy" public TV. Which I find simply ridiculous, especially considering the generally low income of such people.

[Thanas]

Stas, are you seriously of the opinion that if the state forces people to have abortions that this is the same as criminal laws?

If you are fined and put in jail for stealing - even if you literally steal because you have no money to buy the food - I kind of fail to see a grand pathos that makes "ordinary laws" more justified than a fine slapped on the second child which you give birth to.

I think forcing somebody to terminate a pregnancy / kill their unborn child is different than being fined. It carries a whole different field of connotations and effects with it.

After all, there are people who dare to collect a sort of a "tax" on radio and TV from the blind and deaf, since they could "partially enjoy" public TV. Which I find simply ridiculous, especially considering the generally low income of such people.

Yeah, that is bad. Also completely different from forcing people to kill their unborn children.

[Ralin]

I think forcing somebody to terminate a pregnancy / kill their unborn child is different than being fined. It carries a whole different field of connotations and effects with it.

How so? I'd say everyone else's right to not have resources siphoned off to feed and clothe someone else's excess crotch spawn far outweighs any harm done by forced abortions. Fetuses aren't people, after all.

[Thanas]

How so? I'd say everyone else's right to not have resources siphoned off to feed and clothe someone else's excess crotch spawn far outweighs any harm done by forced abortions.

Crotch spawn? Really? Are you a prickly teenager who wants to appear tough?

And yes, I am sure you having to pay a minimal amount of money (we're talking about thousands of a fraction of pennies here) is the same impact to you than that of a mother who is forced to kill her unborn child. Pull the other one.

Fetuses aren't people, after all.

Healthy pregnancies are generally considered to be of near equal worth to born babies though. That is why you fill find forced abortions are punished by most societies as the same or near equivalent to manslaughter.

[Ralin]

And yes, I am sure you having to pay a minimal amount of money (we're talking about thousands of a fraction of pennies here) is the same impact to you than that of a mother who is forced to kill her unborn child. Pull the other one.

And if everyone has multiple children? There's a reason why they came up with this policy in the first place, and I trust the Chinese government's take on the economics of the situation a lot more than your's.

Healthy pregnancies are generally considered to be of near equal worth to born babies though. That is why you fill find forced abortions are punished by most societies as the same or near equivalent to manslaughter.

In the minds of people who want to deny women control of their own bodies, sure. Such laws are backwards and need to be reformed.

[Thanas]

And yes, I am sure you having to pay a minimal amount of money (we're talking about thousands of a fraction of pennies here) is the same impact to you than that of a mother who is forced to kill her unborn child. Pull the other one.

And if everyone has multiple children? There's a reason why they came up with this policy in the first place, and I trust the Chinese government's take on the economics of the situation a lot more than your's.

Still does not make forced abortions the same as theft. If you want to be honest, call it what it is - an atrocity the Chinese government felt necessary. Don't try to put it on the same thing as theft.

Healthy pregnancies are generally considered to be of near equal worth to born babies though. That is why you fill find forced abortions are punished by most societies as the same or near equivalent to manslaughter.

In the minds of people who want to deny women control of their own bodies, sure. Such laws are backwards and need to be reformed.

Learn to read. Forced abortions = / = abortions.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

I think forcing somebody to terminate a pregnancy / kill their unborn child is different than being fined. It carries a whole different field of connotations and effects with it.

How so? I'd say everyone else's right to not have resources siphoned off to feed and clothe someone else's excess crotch spawn far outweighs any harm done by forced abortions. Fetuses aren't people, after all.

I would understand Ralin to be a libertarian based on this quote. How does it feel to be defending the Chinese government? My brain would hurt from all the cognitive dissonance.