What I often observed in China was a strong sense of togetherness. I knew this "solidarity", or rather a code, already from the time when I reported during the civil war in Yugoslavia. There was always a dregs of concilience ...
"The Chinese real estate bubble is slowly being deflated by a party-state that, thanks to Xi's efforts, has extremely high levels of competence and has greatly reduced corruption."
And that's where the middle class, at least the portion that has amassed large private fortunes in the upper income brackets for the last 20 years, can become a problem. Many claim to be Christians. Many have invested in such "yield objects", e.g. Schengen visas in Portugal, Malta etc for a minimum deposit of 500,000 €, whose children then study in US and/or EU universities. We all know that this is for years a kind of recruitment of a 5th column then such umbrella and color riots organize.... But maybe the West will be broke before it can let them off the leash in China.
Individuals with that amount of money are not middle class in a nation with a GDP per capita of US$12,500 at market exchange rate prices. These are individuals in the very upper middle and upper classes, in many cases the bourgeoisie. The Party-state has to manage these individuals nominal wealth while raising up the rest of society, and maintaining the pre-eminence of the Party-state over the bourgeoisie. As shown in HK, the Party-state is adept at handling foreign and traitor supported disturbances and has massive popular support. Jack Ma found out what happens to rich people who forgot their place in Chinese society, he was lucky to keep his life given the shenanigans he was involved in.
It's true, in this particular situation it was a "partner" of one of this international "consulting" companies. But I met a lot of then young Chinese of lower management who learned English during the time I did a basic mandarin course in Beijing university. These guys of course are now, 20 years later almost at the end of their professional carriers have been spending most of their saving the enable their children to study in US, UK or Germany and still have huge savings, - which of course is also very much Chinese tradition...In general this what is going on is a bit similar to social market economy as we know it from France or Germany (there only till 1980's). The conservative economist Ludwig Erhard applied his "social market system" to the problems of economic renewal with phenomenal results, achieving what has often been called the German "economic miracle." Based on free-market capitalism, his system included special provisions for housing, farming, and social programs. This was then assassinated for all the known reasons during the Thatcher-Reagan reign...
"When United States was far and away the predominant world economic power it could afford to maintain Chinese-style tributaries. Thus these very states, alone amongst US military protectorates, were allowed to catapult themselves out of poverty and into first world status.
"After 1971, as US economic strength relative to the rest of the world began to decline, they were gradually transformed back into more old-fashioned sort of tributary. Yet China's getting in on the game introduced an entirely new element.
"There is every reason to believe that, from China's point of view, this the first stage of a very long process of reducing the United States to something like a traditional Chinese client state and, of course, Chinese rulers are not–any more than the rulers of any other empire–motivated primarily by benevolence, there's always a political cost and what that headline marked was the first glimmering stuff what that cost might ultimately be. – David Graeber. Debt, The First Five Thousand Years.
What I often observed in China was a strong sense of togetherness. I knew this "solidarity", or rather a code, already from the time when I reported during the civil war in Yugoslavia. There was always a dregs of concilience ...
"The Chinese real estate bubble is slowly being deflated by a party-state that, thanks to Xi's efforts, has extremely high levels of competence and has greatly reduced corruption."
And that's where the middle class, at least the portion that has amassed large private fortunes in the upper income brackets for the last 20 years, can become a problem. Many claim to be Christians. Many have invested in such "yield objects", e.g. Schengen visas in Portugal, Malta etc for a minimum deposit of 500,000 €, whose children then study in US and/or EU universities. We all know that this is for years a kind of recruitment of a 5th column then such umbrella and color riots organize.... But maybe the West will be broke before it can let them off the leash in China.
Individuals with that amount of money are not middle class in a nation with a GDP per capita of US$12,500 at market exchange rate prices. These are individuals in the very upper middle and upper classes, in many cases the bourgeoisie. The Party-state has to manage these individuals nominal wealth while raising up the rest of society, and maintaining the pre-eminence of the Party-state over the bourgeoisie. As shown in HK, the Party-state is adept at handling foreign and traitor supported disturbances and has massive popular support. Jack Ma found out what happens to rich people who forgot their place in Chinese society, he was lucky to keep his life given the shenanigans he was involved in.
It's true, in this particular situation it was a "partner" of one of this international "consulting" companies. But I met a lot of then young Chinese of lower management who learned English during the time I did a basic mandarin course in Beijing university. These guys of course are now, 20 years later almost at the end of their professional carriers have been spending most of their saving the enable their children to study in US, UK or Germany and still have huge savings, - which of course is also very much Chinese tradition...In general this what is going on is a bit similar to social market economy as we know it from France or Germany (there only till 1980's). The conservative economist Ludwig Erhard applied his "social market system" to the problems of economic renewal with phenomenal results, achieving what has often been called the German "economic miracle." Based on free-market capitalism, his system included special provisions for housing, farming, and social programs. This was then assassinated for all the known reasons during the Thatcher-Reagan reign...
"When United States was far and away the predominant world economic power it could afford to maintain Chinese-style tributaries. Thus these very states, alone amongst US military protectorates, were allowed to catapult themselves out of poverty and into first world status.
"After 1971, as US economic strength relative to the rest of the world began to decline, they were gradually transformed back into more old-fashioned sort of tributary. Yet China's getting in on the game introduced an entirely new element.
"There is every reason to believe that, from China's point of view, this the first stage of a very long process of reducing the United States to something like a traditional Chinese client state and, of course, Chinese rulers are not–any more than the rulers of any other empire–motivated primarily by benevolence, there's always a political cost and what that headline marked was the first glimmering stuff what that cost might ultimately be. – David Graeber. Debt, The First Five Thousand Years.
Lots to think about.