Quote from Rocko1:
2003, I spent 2 weeks in Beijing. 9 out of 10 public bathrooms didn't contain a toilet, just a hole in the ground, makes you feel sorry for the women.
If you ask for napkins at any restaurant, expect a dusty roll of toilet paper instead.
As for people who don't want to leave, every millionaire I've met in Shanghai had sent their kids over seas and have applied for non-Chinese citizenships themselves in fear of their wealth confiscated by the Chinese Communist government. The only ones I've met who said they'd like to stay in China are those who clearly aren't able to leave. More than majority of the population live in dire poverty in Shanghai, making an average of $200 USD per month, those on the country side make roughly $100-$150 USD per year.
Car sales can't further much because the cities simply don't have enough roads to accommodate anymore congestion. It's so bad already, back in 2005 it sometimes took an hour and half LITERALLY to get from one end of Shanghai to the other (not including Pu Dong, the area across the river).
What's really hurting Chinese exports, is the fact that Vietnam is now in the game as well. Vietnamese exports of low-tech products are much cheaper and their quality aren't much worse. That was how I lost half my clients while exporting from Shanghai.
Therefore, China will have to fix these domestic issues to become a serious economic threat to the west.
I didn't stay in Shanghai very long, 1 day, compared to Beijing. In Beijing, many people said they once did want to come to the US... but not anymore. The sheer HOPE for the future was something I didn't expect.
As for educating their children in the US, we do still have the best schools. But americans have sent their kids to the UK for education at Oxford and sometimes boarding schools too. Does that mean the UK is better than the US?
Given the strength of Sino US trade relations, it makes sense some would want their kids educated here. Protective citizenship? I know a lot of them do that... in Vancouver and BC Canada. No one I spoke to want to have a spare citizenship in the US anymore... their perception of our 'superiority' has changed quite a bit.
What I saw is that they perceive our crime rate and prison populations as appalling. This is so ironic, since we love complaining about their human rights, that they get to point at Abu Giran, and the endless, trial-less incarcerations that last for years in Guatanamo by the US. We're a lawless nation, pointing fingers at their mistreatment of criminals, with our naked human prisoner pyramid photos posted all over the internet.
The dusty napkin thing... yah... still do that, even in some really nice restaurants. Very nasty, bring your own wipes. But even there I saw improvement. SOME restaurants had cloth napkins. Hey, that's a big deal.
Car sales... I was told it cost $5000 to buy a license plate in Shanghai now, and there's a waiting list. Too many people want and can afford cars. It is bumper to bumper everywhere you go. This is amazing, considering that cars are expensive as hell relative to their money. Their money vs ours, it would be like overnight every car in the US cost $400,000 and up, instead of the cheapest $10,000 cars. But so many can afford them, they have traffic out the wazoo.
As for roads, I didn't see any roads inferior to the US, including superhighways. This even in tiny towns like WeiFang and the outskirts of Xian. There are endless road constructions underway, including at Shanghai, with massive overhead highway projects under current construction right outside the airport, with the most modern design and building technology. I took photos of equipment, construction technique, and progress, and US engineers have been impressed. In Shanghai in particular, super highways are going up as we speak.
Good point about Vietnam. It will be interesting to see how China positions itself for the future. I think the low cost labor market is a phase, the same as Japan and Taiwan went thru. As they evolved, they moved away from the cheap labor and moved to more precise higher value technological areas, such as semiconductors (TSM), electronics and cars (Sony, Toshiba, Toyota, Honda).
I'm wondering if China will move towards heavy industrial and materials. They already have the corner on granite and marble, beating out Italy and other traditional US trade partners in those areas. Caterpillar has a plant in China. China is one of the largest importers of steel and infrastructure materials, and scrap metal, and very rich in raw materials, that they clearly don't mind strip mining. With the number of cars today, they will have plenty of their own scrapmetal, and it's accompanying refineries, would become a better idea.
A combination of the above would be to move towards building airplanes and heavy machinery... all facilities which could be used to advance in space exploration and defense.
When you have trillions of dollars owed to you by worldwide debtor nations, you can build or buy whatever you want and need, whenever you want or need it. Perhaps they won't even need to export anymore at some point.
China has traditionally been the most isolationist civilization on earth. It's possible they're working towards total self-sufficiency... something we, as a nation, should also be at least thinking about.
