(Part 2) Top products from r/China

> There are absolutely no indicators that US hegemony is in decline. In fact, every indicator is that the US is more powerful today than ever. Only whiny types like Chomsky seriously suggest American power is fading in favor of China.

You're joking right? Like, that's sarcasm?

• This dude wrote a book about the decline of the US imperial power in the face of Iraq
  
• Fareed Zakaria wrote a book in detail describing the modern decline of US hegemony
  
• Jeffrey Garten wrote an article about the decline of US hegemony:
  Is American Decline Inevitable?
  World Policy Journal
  Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter, 1987/1988) (pp. 151-174)
  
• Michael Cox wrote an article about "the failing american empire":
  Is the United States in Decline -- Again? An Essay
  International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-)
  Vol. 83, No. 4 (Jul., 2007) (pp. 643-653)
  
• Paul MacDonald and Joseph Parent wrote an article about possible retrenchment strategies to delay the inevitable american decline of hegemony:
  Graceful Decline? The Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment
  International Security
  Vol. 35, No. 4 (SPRING 2011) (pp. 7-44)
  
• Timothy McKeown wrote an article about the likely future decline of US policy in the wake of the Cold War - academics predicted an end to the American Empire even before it had begun:
  The Foreign Policy of a Declining Power
  International Organization
  Vol. 45, No. 2 (Spring, 1991) (pp. 257-279)
  
  Here are some more articles on the subject:
  
  
  
• This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana
  Christopher Layne
  International Studies Quarterly (2012)
  Vol. 56, 203–213
  
• Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order: What Space for Would-Be Great Powers?
  Andrew Hurrell
  International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs), Vol. 82, No. 1,
  Perspectives on Emerging Would-Be Great Powers (Jan., 2006), pp. 1-19
  
• After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a StableMultipolarity
  Charles A. Kupchan
  International Security, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 40-79
  
• Hegemonic overreach vs. imperial overstretch
  Dennis Florig
  Review of International Studies (2010), 36, 1103–1119
  
  Some html friendly articles:
  
  
  
• A review of Mortal Splendor: The American Empire in Transition
  
• The Decline of US Helmed Global Hegemony: the Emergence of a More Equitable Pattern of International Relations?
  
• The Decline of U.S. Hegemony: Regaining International Consent
  
• Visions: America after Hegemony
  And here's a really good forum thread on the very subject of US hegemonic decline
  
  
  I just wrote my thesis on this subject, so I have some sources..
  The theme of all these articles varies, some are about the future, some are explanatory, but the overarching theme is that the US is definitely in decline. Academia is mostly over the hump debating whether or not the US is actually in decline, and is now focused on what we can do about it to make transitions smoother.
  China has been growing tremendously faster than any other state on the globe the past few decades. At this rate, China will overtake the US in terms of gross product by (most estimates) about halfway through the mid-21st century. The reality is that in many ways, there are more economic opportunities in China than the United States - that's why many expats like the ones in this subreddit are there. As /u/hittintheairplane pointed out, it's not so much that the US is declining from it's 1990 level of economic, political, and military power as much as all the other nations are catching up. Relatively the United States is losing power, and that's all power is, relativity to others. You take any international relations course and invariably the topics include the structure of the 21st century, most professors would describe it as a shift from unipolarity to bipolarity in that while China is growing the fastest, there is no real contender to overtake the US and replace our hegemony. Rather, we're more likely to see a state structure of power like this than the bipolar political forces of the Cold War or the unipolar political power the US has today.

Gimme that Zheng He and Ching Shih period of naval exploration and commerce. If you want a fun "what if" book, Gavin Menzies' 1451: The Year China Discovered America, lays out the author's theory that Zheng He's fleet navigated the entire world and reached most of the Americas and even Norway. It's certainly entertaining to read, and a few points are interesting, though overall I don't buy it and most legitimate historians don't, either. Still, if you can suspend disbelief for a while, as I did and I even majored in History, it's pretty entertaining.

Atrophy and Adaptation is good, but very academic.

This is pretty much the best book. Informative and readable.

http://www.amazon.com/Party-Secret-Chinas-Communist-Rulers/dp/0061708771/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300422937&sr=8-1

Kind of tough to pick just one, as China is vast and there are so many differect aspects of the society worthy of being explored.

I really enjoyed Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside, which was a pretty solid caricature of just about every type of foreigner you meet in China, and a well written story as well, a bit like a more modern, more dynamic River Town.

I think the two most common answers to this question are River Town, by Peter Hessler, and Factory Girls by his wife Leslie Chang. Both are excellent but tackle very different parts of contemporary Chiense culture.

A touch of sin was already mentioned, and it's a very, very good movie. So I'm mentioning it again. If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

Couple of recommendations:

First, here is a great book about an expat who started jamming with some Chinese musicians and eventually they became a pretty big band in China. He had a Gibson ES-335 shipped over and the neck was snapped when it arrived. As a guitar player, you probably just cringed at the thought of that.

Soooo.... you might want to think twice about bringing instruments over. You didn't mention where you are heading, but it sounds like you are looking for knock-offs and as you know, just about all knock offs are made in China. Epiphone's main plant is in Qingdao and iirc they have a big outlet there. You won't have trouble finding quality guitars to buy in the major cities and you'll find the prices similar.

If you're still thinking about shipping your stuff over after reading the advice in this thread... check out this video of some professional Chinese baggage handling.

I just read John Gittings The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market for a course and thought it was a pretty good read. It sounds like it covers the time frame you're looking for.

If you can't trust the Chinese people to figure out to get "reasonably rich," why can you trust the (fairly large) set of Chinese people that make up the bureaucracy? Especially when economics scholarship has shown that the strongest growth in China's multi-decade surge took place when the government exercised the least control, not the most?

Just calling you out on your pseudo-science crap!

We're talking r/K traits, not fertility rates, you spastic.
Reproduction rates aren't fertility rates.
Totally separate thing.
Granted you may need a basic knowledge of biology, which I assumed you had, so I'll spell it out for you in simple terms.
If r/K traits applied, reproduction rates would be faster.
Have you heard of anyone that gives birth quicker than one child every nine months?

Seeing as you want to talk fertility, I can spell that out for you pretty simply as well -
Wealth makes people need fewer children.
Africa is still incredibly poor and primarily rural/agrarian.
Mortality rates are also high, for children and adults.
As a result, women tend to have more children, knowing some of them may not survive to adulthood.

If you look at the second picture on the link you sent you can see how fertility rates change over time due to development.
This picture also shows how countries develop.
I thought you might need a picture as reading comprehension doesn't seem to be one of your strengths.

> arguments/evidence to support your claim

Here's links to some books, Evolution of Life Histories and The Evolution of Life Histories that pretty heavily debunk r/K.
Give them a read, if you're capable of reading a whole book at a time, you might just learn something.
Or you could just browse this part of the wiki.

Fuck me you really are a racist cunt.
Retarded anecdotal evidence aside, here's actual statistics:
In 2013 the total fertility rate of Australian born women was 1.91, and for overseas women 1.79.
Taken from here as I can't be fucked scrolling through the ABS website right now, i'll do it tomorrow for you if you want.

Redpill's a good place to quarantine likeminded mongs like yourself, where facts don't actually matter and outdated pseudoscience is king.

> Piss off, you fucking drug addict

Nah i'm going to keep calling you out, it's easy and fun

Edit: So you delete your comments when proven wrong? Interesting tactic there.

Wow you really are full of yourself. Honestly, you're not coming off as very knowledgeable of anything, quite frankly.

Read:

https://www.amazon.com/Destined-War-America-Escape-Thucydidess/dp/0544935276

https://www.amazon.com/Can-Asians-Think-Kishore-Mahbubani/dp/9814276014

https://www.amazon.com/When-China-Rules-World-Western/dp/0143118005

https://www.amazon.com/World-Disarray-American-Foreign-Policy/dp/0399562362

https://www.amazon.com/Lee-Kuan-Yew-Insights-International/dp/0262019124

The story that the article introduces is in the book Country Driving by Peter Hessler. It's a really good book. It made me want to live in China along with other books like Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman and Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux.

Late as usual but I really enjoyed Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang.

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Scarf-Girl-Cultural-Revolution/dp/0064462080

Read China Underground by Zachary Mexico. Awesome book; one of my faves about modern China. It explains all this kind of gnarly Chinese counter-culture stuff, including the cigarette burns.

Although probably a bit dated now, Mr. China by Tim Clissold is a good read

Deep state doesn’t exist? An unelected, unaccountable, secret society government making decisions behind the scenes with a rotating roster of cronies doesn’t exist?
Please read. https://www.amazon.com/Deep-State-Constitution-Shadow-Government/dp/0143109936/

Chinese history is a vast field of study, and if you want a real understanding of it, not just a rushed and superficial summary of thousands of years of events, you should study a few well chosen historical periods in depth. If you want to understand modern China, you should start at the beginning of the Qing dynasty, and read up on the historical forces that set China on its course through the republican era, like the coastal threats of Zheng Chengong et. al., international trade since the Portuguese entered Macao, the Opium Wars, the MacCartney Mission and Napier fizzle, the Nian rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, France's entry in Vietnam, Russia's abuse of political clout, the unequal treaties, the war in Korea and Japan's budding nationalism including the extremely politically relevant Treaty of Shimonoseki, ...

The best book I've found that covers the history from early Qing through the Republican era until today is The Rise of Modern China by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu. It is a big tome of 1200+ pages, but does a great job in taking you through essential historical events, connecting the dots and making a coherent historical analysis without being too ideological or political.

Here is a controversial one:
When China Rules the World by Martin Jacques.
Not that I agree 100% with author, but there are plenty of thought provoking arguments that the author makes about the rise of China that are new and refreshing. I highly recommend it for any Sinophiles (although a vast majority of them have probably already read the book).
For a much less serious and more historical book, please check out Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler. I read this book for my East Asian History class for school, and it focuses more on culture and language than economics and politics.

No need in particular order. It depends on your taste. If you like short stories, you can start reading https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Stones-Dispatches-East-West/dp/0062206230

I've been holding my breath since 2001 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812977564/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_jmyfzbMN9BYTH

China Underground:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593762232/

If you haven't already read them I'd suggest reading the books by Peter Hessler.

River Town, two years on the Yangtze

Country Driving: A Chinese road trip

Oracle Bones



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hessler

One way of understanding it is:

There is a lack of adequately paying jobs in the countryside, coupled with high birth rates and the move to more modern farming methods meaning less labor is required for the land (which is reduced in size due to urbanization).

Additionally, much of the non-agricultural work which existed in more rural areas before the start of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), what were called Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs), has moved towards the east coast (concentrating many jobs in those areas), been unable to continue (for numerous reasons, this book by Huang Yasheng discusses it), or been closed down (from rural industry, to dance troupes, to loads of random crap). In the pre-Reform period there was more of a spread of industry, and in the 1980s there was a vibrant Town and Village Enterprise movement, things changed with the move towards concentrating modern jobs on the east coast in SEZs.

This leads to a surplus (too much) of labour (people who can do work) in rural China.

Now, others could probably do farming if they wished, but in many small villages I have visited, the number of those farming there is just low enough that people can use farming to live and make some money. If many people choose to continue to do rural labour (farming) in the areas they are from income would be so low that people would need to leave (as they have).

But, there are many other reasons (cultural, sociological, gender) why people leave rural areas outside of the 'labour surplus' idea and what are called neoclassical economic theories of migration

I just now only learned about this - I've been reading "The New Art of War - China's Deep Strategy Inside the United States" by WIlliam J. Holstein and the degree to which he lays out what China has been doing to supplant the US as the global power is terrifying.


Bought the book on Amazon Kindle a few days ago for a ten bucks - definitely worth the buy.

No, I'm talking about the systematic wiping out of the rest of the population who didn't die from disease, stealing their land, killing those who resisted, and herding the rest into the reservations on the worst land in the country with no way of sustenance. None of that had anything to do with lack of knowledge of communicable diseases.

No, not even the Japanese did that to the Chinese.

Also, 90% of North American Native Americans didn't die from disease. You're confusing with the natives in Mexico and the Caribbean Islands. It spread to some places in the south of the United States but not the rest of the country (which was not integrated or connected by kingdoms, etc.) Yes, a very large percentage of Natives in the Northeast (perhaps as many as 90%) died of disease because that's where the Europeans first landed. By the time the Europeans started taking over the Midwest and West, it wasn't as big of an issue.

For more fun reading: http://www.amazon.com/American-Holocaust-The-Conquest-World/dp/0195085574

everything you cited is literally change, many of them negative.

not even getting into veracity of the statements, when you pay your bills, does your bank balance stay the same? lmk what bank you use.

edit, as to veracity: 5G, EVs, and HSR, but you already knew that. not an issue of 'catching up', i.e. adopting past technologies

social engineering examples of govt initiative: social credit system, facial tracking, 2 child policy

doom and gloom gordan chang, yea china would be really effed if it played by market rules. how does inflation work when the govt sets the prices? Cabbage shortage 2015-16, farmers got their prices capped. stock market was and can be suspended at drop of more than 3%. Bank accounts can be frozen if ppl try to withdrawal.

belt and road is power play for geo-politic and not economic values. and china has been hemorrhaging cash from SOEs for decades, wheres the collapse.

https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-China-Gordon-Chang/dp/0812977564/