China Becoming a Democracy

[angus]

I seriously doubt it.  you need to stretch your mind around this just a bit more, lest we become like the hapless spaniards.  We'll no doubt lose our hegemonic grip on the world one day, and it will will no doubt be china that becomes the number one economic force in the world.  but you will be long dead by then.  so, too, will this childish notion of "democracy"

or, like spain in its heyday, you can continue to pour money into converting the world to your own way of thinking, thus hastening that moment when we are knocked off our economic perch.

[angus]

but I thought you supported the war in Iraq?

surely you jest.  at least I'll assume that's the case until I decide that whatever venereal disease has taken your senses has also taken your sense of humor.

In response to the more serious post, from tcash101:  I think not.  Well, I think you're right about the rejection of Mao.   China is making the right noises to keep its own newspapers, and those of the West, and Middle West (or as we round eyes say, the Middle East) opining in the direction of the "failing dollar" and I agree that the real "dissent" will not occur, not for the reasons you state, but from a deeper stoicism beyond your immediate grasp.  and mine.  but I think I think, as americans are wont to do, you are confusing Freedom and Democracy.  Democracy will not, in our lifetimes (remember this when you are a very old man) rule china, but freedom will.

[angus]

on a more serious note, the wsj and others are pushing buying chinese currency.  anyone into that?  my wife actually has a big enough chunk of chinese cash, probably more liquid than I do us, even in real dollars, but I'm thinking of branching out into the chinese autos.  they're opening in Germany, of all places, in '06, and maybe in the US sometime around then too.  anyone think about investing in the chinese auto manufacturing firms?

[angus]

yeah, that's right.  I'm drunkish and I'm giving you a hard time.  anyway, what do you think of the chinese car-making industry in the near-term?

oh, yeah.  and not, it's should not be assumed that you don't believe, with all your chemical and metaphysical mind, that spreading "democracy" is the "right thing to do" anymore than pizarro believed whatever the hell he was doing was the right thing to do.  I'm just saying you'll call it, no it's democracy we're talking about, not the Greater Glory of God, or whatever the hell they were doing with those people, but anyway, no we're America.  We're into democracy.  Kneejerk with religious fervor.  Why israel?  It's the only democracy in that region, man, don't you get that?!  Yeah, I know, boss, I'm an american too.  We got Democracy.  But what we got is really big guns.  I got no problem with that.  Hell, technically I'm a registered republican.  But let's just have a reality check.  Now, on with the things we can do something about.  Comment on the chinese market.  forget that idealistic crap.

[angus]

your post, and your signature, are serious indeed.

yeah, I'm wondering what the hell to say about it.  but you're definitely onto something.  sh**t, I forgot to look see if you're a democrat or a republican, well nevermind, it doesn't matter.  I'll give you my standard nonpartisan rant.  oh, yeah.  I just looked down there.  math.  okay, mmmmmmm.  why are you doing the log?  seems like it should be an e-x^2 decay instead.  anyway, the case would still, more or less, hold.  yeah, you're doing that,considering  "freedom" or whatever the economists are calling that nowadays, Utility I think, and relating it to PPP.  yeah, you could say something like that, but there are far too many historical counterexamples, such as the Inca Empire, which was both socialistic and imperialistic, at the same time, but absorbing religions rather than supplanting them as the Westerners do.  And it points out, rather well, what I was saying about how We put upon the rest what we want.  I'm okay with all that, as I think it'll play out after I'm dead anyway, but now with the little boy and all, I start to think about the Demise of the Empire.  you know, progenesis and the consideration of motality and such.  so, on assumes all want to delay its demise.  debt reduction and withdrawal are a reasonable start.  with respect to china.  suck on them, don't let them suck on you. 

[angus]

jaruzelski and brezhnev on the wrong side of his holiness.  another leftist-authoritarina bites the dust.  Terra Pax.  Go JP2.

[angus]

yeah, I actually thought about you when I posted that question.  of course that's where to invest, and you can get A stocks.  My wife agrees on the yuan question, but she's loaded, by chinese standards, and, near the end of our lives when the Empire begins to show cracks, probably by US standards as well.  But I had to laugh out loud in distraction at both the question of china becoming a democracy, and the nationwide failure to recognize "democracy" and "capitalism" as our national religion that we feel we have the right, no the duty, to spread around the globe.  Shades of some 15th century conquistador, but with Dollars instead of Crufixes.  Anyway, the A stocks are out there for all to buy, and I'm just wondering whether anyone, besides a few well-placed Germans, have thought to look into that.  I test drove about 7 volvos last week at the local volvo dealership (birmingham) and it got me thinking about cars more.  Don't think I'll rush off to buy a chery or a zhonguo brand car, as I'm partial to German and Scandanavian cars, but I do think I'm ready to take a foreigners plunge into an emerging market.  My US stocks generally are doing well.  My foreign stocks not so well (they're all in OECD countries, though).  What about China?  you said it.  but the question still remains, what sector in china?

[angus]

well, it's nice to know that you've never actually read my 4200-plus rants.  I'd only thought you hypocritical and bigoted.  Now I see you're lazy as well.

[angus]

the_factor,
yeah, that's right, they'll spread.  for example, the chinese automakers are evidence of just that.  And clothing fashions, and food.  KFC, for example, is a very upscale place to eat in Shanghai and Nanjing.  (yeah, I know that seems weird to you and me.)  No doubt western ideas influence the East, just as surely as Eastern ideas influence us, and to a lesser extent, the English and Germans, but especially the americans, due to proximity and trade.  My point is that Richard Gere is a buddhist because he wants to be, I eat pork often, as always with sticks, because I'm sloppy and have trouble eating with a knife and fork.  None of these ideas are forced on us.  When you go in with the attitude, as every great European Empire, including our own, has done, that we have the duty to spread to the savages what we know to be right and true.  Whether it's Catholocism, the French Language, the English Culture, or Democratic Capitalism, the underlying imperium/imperative is the same:  they really need us.  And that's ultimately what crushes great empires.  Not that citizens of post-imperial powers have it all that bad.  Opebo and a handful of others do better during imperial periods, but the vast majority of us will be better off once we take our place among the mature nations of the world.  Still, I'm fairly nationalistic and hate to see us hasten the loss of economic, cultural, and military hegemony.  Having the biggest dick on the planet is a pretty good feeling, while it lasts.