Bash or Bow to China ?
I have been wondering why my negative attitude towards mainland China has been festering like a pus wound these days. It is particularly troublesome for me, who is working hard with my life coach to emancipate myself of the rancorous aspect of my personality that has been a roadblock to happiness so far.
Well, the press just can’t get enough of China.
Imagine my disgust this morning to read about the 500 cats for slaughter at certain restaurants across China.
I can’t find enough headlines to save China’s reputation these days.
Let’s see how many dirty headlines I can summon for the past weeks.
| Fox News : Plague of office buying fuels disgust at China’s Communist Party |
| Daily Telegraph : China to phase out organ harvesting from prisoners |
| NY Times : Professionals Leave China in Record Numbers |
| NY Times : Family of Wen Jiabao holds a hidden fortune in China |
| AlJazeera : Are Chinese leaders too entrenched in their vested interests to push for reforms? |
| Zerohedge : China Bank Non Performing Loan Ratio below 0.97% : China Regulator. Number of people who believe this number : -102.96% |
| South China Morning Post : Chinese increasingly worried about graft and inequality |
| Reuters | Local govt debt fuels China forced evictions rise : Amnesty |
| Forbes | How Dirty Are China’s Skies? A Daily Photo Archive Shows The Truth |
| Zerohedge | China’s Great Wall of Suds : Chemical Spill Results In 50 foot Foam Tsunami |
| Business Insider | The Chinese Frauds Uncovered So Far Are Just The Tip Of The Iceberg |
Neverending would be the description. Daily tirades that would not stop.
Yet the reality is that the world does revolve around China now despite everyone in the developed world waking up each day and thanking the heavens that they are not born there.
The market saying for the past 5 years has been “Beijing sneezes and the world catches a cold.”
Almost all asset classes react to PBOC’s RRR cuts. Australians can thank China for their relative prosperity while selling vast tracts of their unpolluted farmland and valuable real estate to the Chinese in exchange for a promise to sell more of their natural resources. Sounds like a prosperity dependent on a loss of prosperity and perhaps, an eventual compromise on their sovereignty which may sound unfair.
Australia is not the only one. Most of the BRICs and even the Eurozone are hostage to China. South America, Africa North Korea and even little Myanmar is now beholden to Big Brother China.
What do we know about China is in fact, what we do not want to know about China. Denying the knowledge that the country is the biggest plutonomy imaginable, made up of inconsistencies behind an iron curtain that holds the promise of a lottery ticket.
The 70 richest members of the Communist Party Congress are worth just about US 90 billion and this does not include the 600 billion which has left the country in the past 10 years.
We know their accounting rules are shoddy at best.
Fitch Sees Risk in China Accounting Standards
Do we really want to know that ? Not after Sinoforest singeing scandal.
| GLOBEANDMAIL | Judge urged to lift freeze on Sino-Forest litigation |
Almost every fabricated product has an ingredient from China these days. Be it the additives in your toothpaste to your pet food.
It is not good or bad. It is just the way it became, entrenched in our lives and vital in the future of the world.
China Bashing Leading to A Crisis of Confidence ?
Not a new subject. Forbes just blogged about it. link.
We cannot hide behind our walls and pray that everything will be alright. Bashing China daily will not make the world a better place although it makes people aware and awareness does sometimes lead to self realization which then spurs a need to act or defend oneself.
Quite regrettably, in the case of China, I feel that awareness brings us down the path of helplessness. A feeling I sensed in the extreme in the few ethnic Tibetan faces I encountered in Lhasa earlier this year. That down beaten look that says they will live to die only because they were born. A non extreme scenario would be to assume that China is too big to fail.
For everyone of me who can resist buying 2823 HK that my banker keeps harping on about, and act to sell the Hang Seng Index in defense, there are many people out there whose investments in China are out of their control. Pension funds, mutual funds, superannuation funds and even insurance policies.
I feel that my actions to insulate myself from the effects of China are getting overdone and has resulted in a cabbage free life (almost every cabbage is from China and those that are not, have become too expensive). Chinese themselves share my skepticism on their products, leaving cabbages out of it.
| FT | beyondbrics: Chinese buyers still wary of Chinese cars |
CHINA CRISIS – WISHFUL THINKING ?
I wrote this some months back urging ourselves to stop being hypocritical about China with a heavy heart and a strong hunch that the political transition ahead will not be a smooth one. Not because of the flying chair that hit Xi Jin Ping rumour, but just a tiny feeling that it will bring forth the skeletons in the closet, that all our fears are founded and the bright light at the end of the tunnel is nothing but a bad dream.