Posts by Simon Grigg
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The GDP figure I gave is PPP adjusted. I looked up the 2006 figure and it's $7,800 PPP ($2,034 nominal). Growth is 11.4%, so I think they are still a bit shy of NZ. No doubt Guangdong is doing much better and has far surpassed NZ, but I was considering China as a unitary state.
But you simply can't apply apply those figures as a unitary state...and if you'd been there that would be glaringly obvious. Guangdong and the other eastern provinces are vastly different places and the economic revolution has benefited those places far more than the hinterland to date although clearly it's moving inward and the massive infrastructure projects are a part of that. In the east the massive and growing middle class is little diffrent to that you'd find in NZ except it has, as does the general population, access to things like roading, public transport, new hospital and the like that its NZ equivalent does not. The populace have massive shopping malls (not just one or two but dozens) which feature shops that don't even bother to open in Australasia, they drive newer cars than one sees in NZ on average, they have travel the world. Now, I'm not putting a value on all that but clearly they have access to some cash. That all this has happened in a decade and a half in phenomenal..I wonder what the NZ / China balance will be in 10 years?
I just think that Chinese people have the same rights to democracy, free expression and national self-determination as New Zealanders. I don't see that as xenophobic. I'm interested in why and whether it seems that a lot of Chinese people (like those who marched in Wellington) appear not to want such things?
Well there is no doubting that the current government is widely popular both inside and outside China with Chinese citizens despite western reservations. As that link Bob provided illustrated, the ruling party encompasses a wider range of opinions and beliefs than one would believe looking from the outside, and that, at a provincial level officials, including non-CCP members, are elected but I'm also a great believer that if one educates sooner or later people stand up and say no. However I'd also suggest that those who come from the nation may have more of a grasp on what the day to day reality is there than any interested observer and whilst it may not be xenophobic it's certainly paternalistic to suggest that we know better.
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The Indonesians are gracious people, and Australia's support for Indonesia's independence might nullify any antipathy to ANZAC Day somewhat.
Agreed, George. I might add that there is a sense of rapproachment with Australia here, after some not so good years.
I also agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment expressed by both yourself and Deborah. There is the odd righteous war but most of it seems so pointless. Can anyone explain to me why WW1 had to be fought?
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- Chinese overseas students were 130,000 in 2002 and went down slightly after that. I make that 0.01% of the population, so 0.1% of the cohort would seem at least in the ballpark.
Your assumption that these are are .01% elite is the part that gets me. Sorry, but I find that slightly, I guess the word is, xenophobic. You make the assumption that NZ can offer a better alternative to a country that as I pointed out, has more students doing doctorates right now than students in the US tertiary system, that builds, without a lot of external help, the sort of infrastructure projects that NZ can't even conceive. God, NZ can't even pull together a half decent railway system...China can.
- Chinese per capita GDP is $4,580 (2004) - NZ is $23,200
Firstly that is four years ago..almost a lifetime in China. Secondly I'd argue that $4500 would buy one a hell of a lot more in real terms in China than $23,000 would in NZ. Thirdly, applying a figure like that to a country the size of China is silly. My comments applied to Guangdong Province as I said.
There is no question that the nation is undergoing an economic revolution and I guess the question is whether it's pulling the population along with it. The evidence seems to suggest it is, albeit unevenly.
I'm not trying to be rude, although I guess it comes across that way, but I'd rather be bedazzled than happily sitting in comfy, naive, self righteousness which I'm applying to lot of folks, not necessarily you.
But that said I'm also aware that the reality of China, or at least the part of it I saw, and others, including those who live there and have posted here, and the many folk I know who do business there, is perhaps somewhat at variance to the country I've seen portrayed by some.
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there is also a not so subtle difference in being asked to represent your nation at a generous event of remembrance and other forms of nationalistic posturing.
Oh trust me, there was a bit of nationalistic posturing that morning too, especially when the subject of serving Australian troops came up (East Timor was, however, side stepped) but I really was more intrigued by the pure oddness of the whole thing. It really was.
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Don, we're hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2011 and you think we shouldn't have expressions of nationalism?
I found myself at an ANZAC dawn parade here on the 25th (my daughter was asked to raise the NZ flag) which was a fairly embarrassing, and perhaps inappropriate, display of NZ nationalism in this country where Commonwealth forces fought for the Dutch in 1945.
Seeing an Indonesian choir performing God Defend NZ in perfect Maori was quite surreal.
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Bob, I'd also thoroughly recommend Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones which I'm finishing at the moment.
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(China has just replaced Australia as Indonesia's second third largest tourist market)
it's third..after Japan and ROK just to clarify my typo
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Imagine that NZ was a lot poorer, and run as a dictatorship by ACT. Imagine that maybe 0.1% of New Zealanders could afford to go off to overseas education in a richer country.
I dunno about the provinces further west but certainly in Guangdong, you'd have a problem calling NZ a richer country.
And I scratch my head and wonder who exactly all those travel agents pushing holidays overseas in Gunagzhou are aiming at if only .1% can afford them, and then couple that with the enormous growth in Chinese tourism that we in Asia are seeing right now. Those busloads in the jalans here (China has just replaced Australia as Indonesia's second third largest tourist market) must be coming from somewhere
China has become one of the world's most-watched and hottest outbound tourist markets. The world is on the cusp of a sustained Chinese outbound tourism boom. According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), China is projected to supply 100 million travelers by 2020, making it the number one supplier of outbound tourists. In terms of total outbound travel spend, China is currently ranked seventh and is expected to be the second-fastest growing in the world from 2006 to 2015, jumping into the number two slot for total travel spend by 2015.
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Given that most Chinese can't watch CNN and BBC World,
From recent experience, and per the web links I posted elsewhere, this simply isn't true anymore. The data both in the hotels, and in the publicly available information is nowhere as censored as we in the west are led to believe.
It's easy to make simplistic generalisations but they become rather silly on closer analysis.
As above, the disinformation out there is astounding and much of it I've seen repeated here sadly.
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It's funny to watch a 'developed' nation like NZ argue about this as funny old third world Indonesia lays down some 58,000kms of fibre optic cable without much of a murmur.