PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

[VikramS]

I have noticed that whenever there is an article on India, one of the first few people to post have a very predictable cut and paste type comments. And regardless of the time of the day (usually after midnight), it does not take long for the comments to appear. From the tone of the comments, it starts becoming obvious that they are not the typical ignorant American rant. My guess that the CPC has drones employed just to add negative comments on India/China related stories.

I am not sure what interest wong has on BRF but he spends an inordinate amount of time here.

Also notice that in spite of Youtube being banned for the general public in China, the Agni-V videos had a huge amount of hits coming from China, probably from the drones, who sit outside the Great Chinese Firewall.

There is trouble brewing in China. The CPC has printed, and then looted, on an unprecedented scale. And as the average Chinese becomes richer they start moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, they will start questioning the world around them. I do hope that they can deliver peaceful, gradual change without heroics.

[svinayak]

I am not sure what interest wong has on BRF but he spends an inordinate amount of time here.

Also notice that in spite of Youtube being banned for the general public in China, the Agni-V videos had a huge amount of hits coming from China, probably from the drones, who sit outside the Great Chinese Firewall.

This person uses the freedom and free information of the west and India to post false and fi*th information about India in BRF and whereelse.
He does not care about the freedom inside China but uses the freedom outside China to go against India when PRC is supporting a terrorist state

[Singha]

the chinese re-education and confession extracting system is apparently called Shuanggui....people who run afoul of the CCP are run through this mill

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/world ... .html?_r=1

[Raja Bose]

the chinese re-education and confession extracting system is apparently called Shuanggui....people who run afoul of the CCP are run through this mill

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/world ... .html?_r=1

Getting whipped with a TV antenna eh? I wonder what punishments our drones suffer when they report their failure to get these argumentative SDREs to go gaga over glorious achievements of China.

[Suraj]

Thread cleaned up. Trolls warned. Please stick to topic.

[KLP Dubey]

More on the self-perpetuating "bailout culture" of the chinese "financial system" (if you can call it that), from somebody at Tsinghua U.

http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2011/06/0 ... em-solved/

This stuff is pretty scary. Makes Ponzi artists like Madoff et al look like roadside panhandlers.

Jai Mata Di,

KL

[krishnan]

More on the self-perpetuating "bailout culture" of the chinese "financial system" (if you can call it that), from somebody at Tsinghua U.

http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2011/06/0 ... em-solved/

This stuff is pretty scary. Makes Ponzi artists like Madoff et al look like roadside panhandlers.

Jai Mata Di,

KL

comments section

In fact, after living in China for years, I have realised something incredibly important. Not every liability can be easily measured. Some are intangible. Look at the water crisis developing. The Hydro-electric dam in Chongqing can now be added to some of that infrastructure that could well prove to be a dud investment.

Anthony Selby – thanks for your post. I am also in ZH and also believe that the entire thing of a pack of cards, built on the one thing that cannot complain: mother nature. all of this infrastructure and real estate is not possible without basic minerals and resources. they have been plundered without mercy and now China is embarking on the plundering of everywhere else it can do. Whe the day of reckoning comes it is going to be really nasty. China is not the only country doing it, but it is the one doing it the most shockingly and grotesquely. Because they know it is all going to blow up, but they are OK – as usaul it’s the poor who will get hit.

[Theo_Fidel]

http://thediplomat.com/whats-next-china ... 99s-china/

But the real problem is that government officials have far too dominant a role in picking winners and losers in almost every walk of life. Lack of accountability, combined with a natural tendency to favour family and friends, gives rise to a vicious cycle where influence begets money and money buys influence. According to a recent survey by YouGov and London’s Legatum Institute, 93 percent of Chinese entrepreneurs cite guanxi—connections with government officials—as a critical factor in business success.

[Theo_Fidel]

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/made-in ... 1zt73.html

Made in China: $962 million Austrian village clone

[Singha]

$962 mil seems quite expensive ... almost the expense of a new universal studio or disneyland. but then again they 'borrow' internally from the savings of the common man so its ok.

[hnair]

next they will make a replica of San Francisco's China Town.

[chaanakya]

China puts its first woman astronaut into space

China deserves congratulations for this achievement.

JIUQUAN (CHINA): China put its first woman into orbit on Saturday, one of three astronauts to attempt a critical space docking in the latest challenge for the country's ambitious space programme.

A Long March rocket blasted off in the early evening from the remote Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the northwestern Gobi Desert, carrying with it the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft and the three astronauts, including 33-year-old female fighter pilot Liu Yang.

This is China's fourth manned space mission since 2003 when astronaut Yang Liwei became the country's first person in orbit, and comes as the United States has curtailed manned launches over budget concerns and changing priorities.

The launch was carried live on state television, and until moments before blast-off, a camera showed the three astronauts in the cabin occasionally waving. A red placard with the Chinese symbol for good fortune hung behind them.

Within days, the astronauts will try to dock with the orbiting Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1 module launched last September, part of a 13-day mission crucial to China's ambition to put a space station in orbit around 2020.

"I believe that we can achieve this goal, because we already have the basic technological capability," Zhou Jianping, the chief designer of China's manned space engineering project, told reporters before the launch.

A successful manned docking mission for China would be the latest show of the country's growing capabilities in space, to match its expanding military and diplomatic clout.

Still, Beijing is playing catch up with the United States and Russia, which, along with other countries, jointly operate the International Space Station some 240 miles (390 km) above Earth.

Rendezvous and docking techniques such as those which China is only testing now were mastered by the United States and the former Soviet Union decades ago, and the 10.5 metre-long Tiangong 1 is a trial module, not a full-fledged space station.

Linking with the unmanned module will be an important hurdle in China's efforts to acquire the technological and logistical skills needed to run a full space lab that can house astronauts for long stretches.

Fears of a space arms race with the United States and other powers mounted after China blew up one of its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile in January 2007, though China has insisted its programme is peaceful.

"China's manned space programme has never been for military purposes. It is mainly to research how mankind can go into space, use space peacefully," He Yu, the general commander of China's manned spacecraft project, said before the launch.

The United States will not test a new rocket to take people into space until 2017, and Russia has said manned missions are no longer a priority.

But NASA has begun investing in US firms to provide commercial spaceflight services and is spending about $3 billion a year on a new rocket and capsule to send astronauts to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars.

Chinese scientists have talked of the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020, the final step in a three-stage moon plan, which includes the deployment of a moon rover in 2013 and the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017.

China's space programme has come a long way since late leader Mao Zedong, founder of communist China in 1949, lamented that the country could not even launch a potato into space.

[Christopher Sidor]

Guys,

You are talking to the CPC. Just to remind people, BRF is banned in Panda land. Has been for a looong time.

Actual Chinese people are some of the most simple and self effacing types one can meet, both in China & Abroad. They detest the CPC with a venom Indians can never match. I would hate for Indians to get the wrong impression of China & the Chinese based on the twisted paid for drones who post here. We have no issue with China & the Chinese, our problems are with Panda wonderland and the dark overlords.

+1
I agree. Most of us have nothing against the Chinese or China per see. What some of us have is a deep loathing for is CPC, its armed thugs, i.e. PLA/PLAN/PLAAF and offcourse the policy that CPC has adopted.

[Theo_Fidel]

Lets just make sure they send the actual woman astronaut for the presentations. And not someone, you know, Ahem, more 'photogenic'. Or has that down selection already taken place....

[VikramS]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/13/china ... illions/2/

And an example of the drone action. See the comment by Charles Hang, almost a dissertion.
Note the Lahori Logic when he disses the precedent set by the 1987 payment to the Brits. He dismisses the 1987 precedent because it was of the Qing dynasty which preceded the Nationalists and the CCP. How come the debt of the Qing was payable but the debt of the Nationalists not payable even though they came afte the Qing?

Further notice how he found equivalence between the Chinese government which ruled for many decades and was the recognized authority, and the the US Southern states which never formed a recognized authority. By his Lahori logic every time the government changes, they can right off the older debt...

[chola]

Guys,

You are talking to the CPC. Just to remind people, BRF is banned in Panda land. Has been for a looong time.

Actual Chinese people are some of the most simple and self effacing types one can meet, both in China & Abroad. They detest the CPC with a venom Indians can never match. I would hate for Indians to get the wrong impression of China & the Chinese based on the twisted paid for drones who post here. We have no issue with China & the Chinese, our problems are with Panda wonderland and the dark overlords.

+1
I agree. Most of us have nothing against the Chinese or China per see. What some of us have is a deep loathing for is CPC, its armed thugs, i.e. PLA/PLAN/PLAAF and offcourse the policy that CPC has adopted.

The problem with that statement is that the chinis and the East Asian races in general have a deep loathing for communism that is matched by their racism of the "darker" races of Asia. The mainland chinese in Hong Kong, Japan or Taiwan are treated with disdain for being backward and communist. But at the same time the Indian wife of Martin Jacques, one of the premier Chinese experts in the UK, was left to die in a Hong Kong hospital simply because of her skin color.

I wish that CPC remain in power in China for as long as possible. Because it is the largest drag on their development. Why in hell do we want a democratic China that ends up like a larger Singapore, Hong Kong or Taiwan?

The race is between our civilization and theirs not between ideologies. Most chinamen, except for the drones, know they would be better off in a free system. But that is not what we should we wish for them. It is better they stay communist and inefficient.

[vina]

Yawn.. Back to regular programming folks.
In shift China Stifles Debate on Economic Change

BEIJING — As China heads toward a once-a-decade change of its top leadership, its vaunted embrace a generation ago of markets and economic openness — which catapulted the country from isolated poverty to its place as a global export powerhouse — is also at a turning point.

After nearly a decade of President Hu Jintao’s focus on strengthening the state, a broad consensus of Chinese economists says the country is overdue for another big push to encourage private enterprise and to foster a shift toward a more consumer-driven economy. The challenge, they say, is turning back China’s domineering state sector.

But that seems increasingly unlikely. Publicly controlled enterprises have become increasingly lucrative, generating wealth and privileges for hundreds of thousands of Communist Party members and their families. And in a clear sign of its position, the government has moved to limit public debate on economic policy, shutting out voices for change. While political reform has always been a taboo topic in China, in economics, from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, almost anything went, with powerful voices backing strong measures that challenged the status quo. But now, despite the rise of social media, fewer prominent voices within China are able to make the case for a systemic overhaul that would prepare the nation for long-term prosperity on sturdier foundations.

“It’s not a good time to speak out for reforms, but it’s a good time to speak out against them,” said Li Shuguang, a professor at the China University of Politics and Law. “The government doesn’t encourage debate.”

Few people illustrate this conundrum better than Zhang Weiying, a 53-year-old Peking University professor who is probably the closest China has to an economic dissident.

A cause célèbre in Chinese economics circles, Mr. Zhang was fired a year and a half ago from his post as dean of the university’s Guanghua School of Management. Since then, he has been on an extended sabbatical, traveling widely and giving speeches on the country’s brewing economic troubles, among them slowing domestic growth and a collapse of financing for private enterprise.

The hitch is that much of his work is deliberately hard to access or is consigned to secondary publications.

Last year, he gave an hourlong video interview to the Web site Sina. Although the site belongs to a publicly traded company listed on Nasdaq, Sina works closely with the Chinese government. After a week on the site, the interview was deleted. A Sina spokesman, who refused to give his name, said the video was removed as part of regular site maintenance. Similar interviews from more mainstream experts, however, are still available.

Mr. Zhang’s address this year to the Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum seemed to have encountered a similar fate. The speech, which criticized the lack of market-oriented changes, cannot be found on most major Chinese newspaper sites, a sign of government disapproval of his views. Video of the speech is available only on overseas Web sites that are blocked in China .

“He can’t appear in the big newspapers because he says things that you can’t say,” a senior editor at a major party-run newspaper said. “You can’t challenge the system like that.”

A slightly round, bespectacled man with a shock of white hair, Mr. Zhang does not look like a radical. But his pronouncements are acerbic, reflecting his support for neoclassical economics in the mold of Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning free-market advocate who taught at the University of Chicago for decades.

“Before 2003, the idea of reform was dominant,” Mr. Zhang said in an interview last month. “Now it’s much harder to make that case.”

Challenging the system, Mr. Zhang contends, has been the key to China’s economic success. Today, he says, that would mean reducing the party’s control over important sectors of the economy. Over the past decade, state companies have maintained and expanded control over industries like automobiles, aviation, chemicals, energy, information technology, machinery, metals, steel and telecommunications.

Mainstream criticism of this trend, however, is limited. A Propaganda Ministry directive this year explicitly banned the term “monopoly” to describe state-owned enterprises. Journalists say they regularly have articles kept from publication if they discuss the deadening effect of state control over so many industries.

This contrasts with the first two decades of China’s economic opening, when the overall trend was toward relaxing state control, and pro-market economists were household names.

Mr. Zhang was a big part of this early effort to move away from communist-style state planning. Working for the influential State Commission for Reforming the Economic System, he was most famous — as a 24-year-old — for writing a paper that led to the replacement of state-designated prices with market prices, one of the landmarks of the 1980s reforms.

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the reform commission was downgraded, and market-oriented economists went on the defensive. Mr. Zhang went to Oxford to earn a Ph.D. with the Nobel Prize-winning economist James A. Mirrlees, but he returned to China just after Deng Xiaoping reignited economic reforms by taking on the Communist Party’s powerful left wing.

In 1994, Mr. Zhang co-founded the influential China Center for Economic Research at Peking University. In 1997, he moved to the university’s Guanghua management school and two years later was named dean.

His rise tracked a second era of economic liberalization. Mr. Deng brought in reformers like the now-retired President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to scale back state control, moves that eventually paid off with China joining the World Trade Organization in 2002.

But when they retired, replaced by Mr. Hu and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, the atmosphere changed. Economic modernization was seen as causing social unrest, which rose steadily during the 2000s. In response, the country put in place a “stability maintenance” apparatus to tamp down criticism.

“Hu Jintao is more a follower of Mao Zedong,” said Mao Yushi, 83, a pro-reform economist who has been vilified during the past decade. “He doesn’t encourage too much discussion.”

Neither did Mr. Zhang’s university. “They began to speak of the need for a harmonious society,” Mr. Zhang said, referring to the watchword of the era of Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen. “Gradually people said you shouldn’t reform so much because you’re just causing trouble.”

Stymied in pursuing a more meritocratic approach at the university, Mr. Zhang began criticizing the government even more forcefully. Even though the economy was still roaring ahead, he began calling the 2000s a “lost decade.”

In late 2010, Mr. Zhang was relieved of his position and put on a two-year sabbatical. University officials declined to comment on his removal, but Chinese news media said at the time that it was because of his “radical” views.

His fate, he says, paralleled a growing belief within China’s leadership that it has little more to learn from the West, especially after the global financial crisis of 2008 and China’s success in riding it out. “We’re suddenly so important,” he says, with more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Look at America. It has problems. We don’t have problems.”

Mr. Zhang acknowledges that he takes a purist’s approach to economic policy. Professor Li, at the China University of Politics and Law, agrees: “No politician could do as he says, but it’s important to have people speaking like that.”

Despite his setbacks, Mr. Zhang is convinced that his views will return to favor. The recent slowing of China’s economy shows that the country’s enormous stimulus package of 2008-9 was just a stopgap, he says. The expected incoming administration of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang may not have articulated a way forward, but he says he believes the pendulum will inevitably swing back.

“When we had reform, people thought we had problems,” he said. “But now that we don’t have it, they see we need it.”

The parallels between the Hu-Wen "Clique" and the UPA I and UPAII govts in India are uncanny. The UPA too didn't want any reforms when the going was great, reforms weren't "needed" , and look at the mess they have landed the country in. China too is headed exactly the same way, but with the size of the bubble they blew up, it is going to be painful.

[Yogi_G]

Guys,

You are talking to the CPC. Just to remind people, BRF is banned in Panda land. Has been for a looong time.

Actual Chinese people are some of the most simple and self effacing types one can meet, both in China & Abroad. They detest the CPC with a venom Indians can never match. I would hate for Indians to get the wrong impression of China & the Chinese based on the twisted paid for drones who post here. We have no issue with China & the Chinese, our problems are with Panda wonderland and the dark overlords.

+1
I agree. Most of us have nothing against the Chinese or China per see. What some of us have is a deep loathing for is CPC, its armed thugs, i.e. PLA/PLAN/PLAAF and offcourse the policy that CPC has adopted.

[Theo_Fidel]

Meanwhile update on Foxconn wages.....

The horror continues. At least on wages India & Panda Serf same same.. Some super power.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10182824

...the average employee earns about 2,000 yuan per month ($295:£200), but the company pays 100,000 yuan compensation to the family of anyone dying on site.

[sha]

Meanwhile update on Foxconn wages.....

The horror continues. At least on wages India & Panda Serf same same.. Some super power.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10182824

...the average employee earns about 2,000 yuan per month ($295:£200), but the company pays 100,000 yuan compensation to the family of anyone dying on site.

Mr. Theo_Fidel turned the clock back to 2010. So let't talk about something about Foxconn in 2010. First let's figure out how the pay was like then in India Foxconn. The sad truth was that the contract workers earned only Rs. 5,000 per month in Chennai Foxconn factory. BTW, Mr. Theo_Fidel ever pointed out out the Chennai workers were very productive.

Besides the underpay problem, many other horrible things were happening in Foxconn Chennai factory then. Guess who standed up for them? Ironically, not the Indian patriots like Mr. Theo_Fidel and other BRers. They turned a deaf ear to it and were busying crying for rights of the poor Chinese workers. It were the Hongkong people who said by chola were kind of racism against India lanched a large-scale protest when the India workers were arrested by India police.

Since Mr.Theo_Fidel is happy for Mummai Metro worker with salary of Rs.3000/month, Foxconn Chennai must be paradise in his India local standard.

It's a wonderful world, indeed.

[sha]

In China, almost no one claims China as super power. If you do, you will be laughed at.
The average attitude towards China's development is :
1. China have been developing fast.
2. We still have a long and hard way to go.
Mr.Theo_Fidel seems to enjoy the game of making up a "fact" and then counter it to show how wise he is. Have you fun.

China's political system is closed but the society and mind are much more open than you guys expected. It seems India is just on the contrary.

[Theo_Fidel]

Meanwhile in a sign of gratitude more employees jump to no where....

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/14/36 ... death.html

Foxconn employee jumps to death in southwest China

At least a dozen Foxconn employees have jumped to their deaths or tried to do so since 2010, casting spotlight on the world's largest contract maker of electronics. The Taiwan-based company has been besieged with reports of poor working and living conditions for its workers at factories and dorms. The company installed nets in 2010 to prevent such deaths after the spate of suicides.

[Hari Seldon]

Congrats Theo, that fact that dlones are targetting your posts by name means they've struck a chord with the handlers and then some....good going.

[anjan]

the chinese re-education and confession extracting system is apparently called Shuanggui....people who run afoul of the CCP are run through this mill

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/world ... [quote]One former propaganda bureau official from Zhejiang Province who was subjected to interrogation a decade ago said he spent nearly two months confined to a series of hotel rooms.
.
.
“In the end I was so exhausted, I agreed to all the accusations against me even though they were false,” said the man, 48, who asked for anonymity because he hopes one day to regain his government job.

[/quote] So just how many propaganda bureau officials from a single province must have been through the system for this to offer any anonymity?

[KLP Dubey]

Why the PRC economic bubble is essentially a Ponzi scheme.

http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles ... nzi-scheme

Given the magnitude of this fraud and the number of criminals involved, I am sure Madoff must have quite a few "Why Me?" moments in the slammer.

BRF bhaiyon aur behnon ko pitr-divas ki shubhkamnayein.

Namaskar,

KL

[Advait]

Wong, credit where credit is due. This was a good one.

The US doesn't even dare go kick Iran and North Korea's ass and has trouble fighting illiterate Afghans who only have an AK-47 and one goat (Afghan MRE).

[Theo_Fidel]

Guys I misspoke. Apparently it is usually far less than 2,000 yuan even after all the 'increases'. My mistake.

Some super power, 30+ year leading economy, etc....

http://www.cfoworld.com/operations/3209 ... ages-china

For workers in Shenzhen, a major manufacturing base for Foxconn, the increase raises monthly salaries to between 2200 yuan ($350) and 2500 yuan. Previously, monthly salaries for Foxconn's Shenzhen workers were at 1800 yuan.

Foxconn workers' salaries also vary by location, Chan said. In the city of Zhengzhou, new Foxconn workers make an average monthly salary of 1,350 yuan, she said. "After the wage increase, it will be 1650 yuan," she said. "I think Foxconn is playing with the numbers."

--------------------------------------------

HS, the credit should all go to Sha. He is the one who generously pointed out this little anomaly. His constant support and encouragement too has been crucial. May his kind live long and prosper.

[KLP Dubey]

^^^^

Damn, those kids sure look too young. The "Rove" is showing on their faces.

KL

[KLP Dubey]

On the Kleptocrats of Pandaland:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-2 ... upers.html

The net worth of the 70 richest delegates in China’s National People’s Congress, which opens its annual session on March 5, rose to 565.8 billion yuan ($89.8 billion) in 2011, a gain of $11.5 billion from 2010....In all levels of the system there seem to be local officials in cahoots with entrepreneurs, enriching themselves...

Now India's UPA/Congress leading lights may not exactly be "poor sons of the soil" either, but that is nothing compared to the above.

Good day,

KL

[hnair]

Looks like the local CPC leader washed those T-shirts along with his dye leaching lal-chaddi..... pink color et al.

[wrdos]

I have been on this forum 8 years, right from 2004. During all these years, so many debates have been finished between Indian contributors and the "panda drones". Of course, the Indian contributors won all the debates, without any exceptions.

Among them, 2 big battles remembered me the most.

1) In 2005, a big debate had been there, whether the Chinese economy was in fact as big as India in the past year of 2004.
Of course, Indian friends won. Because "the Shanghai statistics, xxxx, xxxx,", in fact Chinese economy was not larger than India despite the official data of twice GDP by then. China would soon collapse because of the over investment, empty expressways, ghost town of Pudong in the largest Chinese city of Shanghai, ......., thus India will catch up soon "within 1 or 2 years", the Indian contributors concluded.

2) In 2012, another big debate has been here, whether Chinese economy in 2004 was in fact as big as India in 2012.
Of course, Indian friends won once. Because "the Shanghai statistics, xxxx, xxxx,", in fact Chinese economy in 2004 was not larger than India in 2012, despite the fact of an inflating US dollar. And China would soon collapse because the over investment, empty high speed trains, ghost town of Ordos (albeit 99% of Chinese have no idea where the remote town is), ......., thus India will catch up soon "within 10 or 20 years", the Indian contributors concluded.

It is really interesting and it is the reason why i have been here for all the 8 years long.

[svinayak]

Indians have been in this forum for 60 years

[wong]

All US officials from Prez Obama keeps saying they 1) they don't like India 2) shower pakistan with daily dose of drone-missiles of love and hugs China by giving India those C17s, P8Is, carrier landing tech..... and the rest of the horrible stuff.

We desperately need PekingENIS thread to dissect these profundities

Please check the prices your country pays for things like the C17s. They are the highest in the world. Higher than rich countries like Saudi Arabia. Pakistan gets the "friend price" or free (military aid). India pays the rip-off price.

Taking that joke about RG being the architect of outsourcing further. So in drone-speak, who is the architect of manufacturing shift to China? Dalai Llama?

It surprises me that the Indian commoner is so quick to abandon Rajat, a man that has done so much for India. Hell, I wish there was a Chinese Rajat that has personally channeled billions of business and humanitarian dollars to China. At least your Indian elites and tycoons agrees with me and knows Rajat's immense contributions to India.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/be74ee2a ... z1y3ROcc7r

[Aditya_V]

Wong Without Overseas Chinese, Chinese miracle and FDI funneling into China would have never happenned.

[KLP Dubey]

Please check the prices your country pays for things like the C17s. They are the highest in the world. Higher than rich countries like Saudi Arabia. Pakistan gets the "friend price" or free (military aid). India pays the rip-off price.

Some serious heartburn about India being able to partner with the US "legally" to obtain military technology, rather than having to take the chinese route of "obtaining" such technology by fraud and cheating ?

The reason why the price is apparently "higher" is - apart from customized technology - the 30%+ offset clause. In other words, India gets a large amount of technology assistance and significant local production by Indian companies. The long-term benefits are well worth it.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 850290.cms

A key advantage of the offsets under this programme is assistance by Boeing to set up an approximately $500 million engine-testing wind tunnel for jet engines with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The air chief said that this project should go a long way in helping Indian scientists develop jet engines.

Arabs neither require - nor can handle - technology offsets, and hence buy off the shelf. And the PLAAF (currently operating a primitive transport fleet) neither can handle such an infusion of technology nor can ever get access to it. Bad luck!

It surprises me that the Indian commoner is so quick to abandon Rajat, a man that has done so much for India.

It surprises me that Panda drones have such a high "concern" for Gupta and the "Indian commoner". Since you did not read before, I will repeat for the benefit of your thick skull:

(A) Gupta is not an Indian anymore and needs to obey the legal system in his adopted country,
(B) India is much too big to be unduly affected/influenced by one businessman's philanthropy (or excesses), and
(C) By your Panda-brain logic, the Manhattan federal attorney prosecuting Gupta is also an "Indian commoner". Maybe all that is going on here is that ordinary citizens are respecting the rule of law, unlike whatever whacked-out "loyalty issues" you harbor after your commie-school training program.

Hell, I wish there was a Chinese Rajat that has personally channeled billions of business and humanitarian dollars to China.

Hell and back, as it turns there are literally *hundreds* of expat Chinese who have personally channeled billions to Pandaland:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/ ... nt&print=1

Similarly, Indians remit billions of dollars back to India every year. It is not only one Gupta or Agrawal. Gupta's contributions are well appreciated, but nobody is above the rule of law (unless he happens to be in China and well-connected to the CPC/PLA). Maybe after Gupta comes out of prison, India may play a role in his "rehabilitation".

Again, you are not helping your country's cause much by the quality of your posts here. You are helping promote a sorry caricature of the "Chinese commoner" that is not impressive at all. Before worrying about the "Indian commoner", do yourself and China a favor and try not to be such a dork.

Good day,

KL

[Advait]

Wong has a point about a possible NoKo regime change attracting away some FDI from India.

W.German firms invested heavily in the former East after the reunification. I remember some German businessman saying a few years ago that in the 90s German firms did not invest heavily in India cause they were setting up operations in the former East.

Also, NoKo is supposed to have one of the lowest skilled labor rates in the world (even lower than China's!). So the scenario is somewhat plausible. That being said, China's FDI could also be negatively affected.

[Suraj]

"China's FDI would be affected" ? The Politburo Standing Committee would brown its collective pants inside Zhongnanhai at the thought of the US at their borders again, 60 years after they sent human waves across the border to prevent just that eventuality. Not to mention the PSC would face significant internal turmoil from the pro-PLA faction (Jiang's old clique) demanding more influence, money and weapons for PLA, in contradiction to Hu's effort to have the 'Young Communists' clique gain more power within PSC.

The single most important reason NoKo will not develop into a fantasy economic giant as wong suggests is that China does not want it; they'll have no control over a NoKo growing under US+SoKo influence right beside their capital region. They're perfectly happy to have a pliable fat Kim-midget run the place and maintain an Orwellian buffer state between them and a vastly economically superior SoKo (in comparison to NoKo).

[sudarshan]

Wong has a point about a possible NoKo regime change attracting away some FDI from India.

W.German firms invested heavily in the former East after the reunification. I remember some German businessman saying a few years ago that in the 90s German firms did not invest heavily in India cause they were setting up operations in the former East.

Also, NoKo is supposed to have one of the lowest skilled labor rates in the world (even lower than China's!). So the scenario is somewhat plausible. That being said, China's FDI could also be negatively affected.

Chinese foreign policy would be shot to pieces. The "negative effect on FDI" would be nothing compared to that. What next? If Pakistan reforms, they might well pull US FDI away from India as well. It would be highly undesirable for India, but how desirable would that be for China? Wong-sir is shooting himself in the foot, gloating about how US FDI from India is going to go to N. Korea. China herself will fight tooth and nail against that eventuality.

[wong]

^^^^

China has no control over NoKo. It's not even very influential these days. The North Koreans do what they want. If the North Koreans get smart and reform, China couldn't stop it with mythical human waves or not.

[wong]

Wong Without Overseas Chinese, Chinese miracle and FDI funneling into China would have never happenned.

True, but the "overseas Chinese" (myself included) is an amalgam of millions and 30 different nationalities and socio-economic groups. Rajat Gupta was one man.

Just one example of how I wished there had been a Chinese Rajat. Louis Gerstner didn't choose India randomly. His fellow HBS/McKinsey alum, Rajat, played an advisory role in that decision. Today, IBM employs over 100,000 high paying, high quality Indian jobs in no small part because of Rajat. And that is but just one example off the top of my head.