How China Could Yet Fail Like Japan

choi

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Martin Wolf, How China Could Yet Fail Like Japan. Financial Times, June 15, 2011
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6247d8e2-96b8-11e0-baca-00144feab49a.html
("If this pattern of growth [transferring household income to business, especially state-owned, thereby from consumption to investment] is to reverse, as the government wishes, the growth of investment must fall well below that of GDP. This is what happened in Japan in the 1990s, with dire results. * * * Much of the investment now undertaken would be unprofitable without the artificial support provided, he [Prof Michael Pettis of Oeking Univ] argues.")

My comment:
(a) Come on, China is no Japan. Never was. Think technology.
(b) The article says in paragraph 2: "Japan’s gross domestic product per head (at purchasing power parity) jumped from a fifth of US levels in 1950 to 90 per cent in 1990."


Wholesale destruction of Japan in World War II accounted for little in the fact GDP per capita (PPP) of Japan in 1950 was "a fifth" of that of US.

See
Fukao K, Ma D and Yuan TJ, Real GDP in Pre-War East Asia:A 1934-36 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity Comparison with the U.S. (2005).
http://hi-stat.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/information/schedule/schedulelog/S050/KF-DM-TY.pdf
("our estimates suggest that in the mid-1930s the benchmark PPP adjusted per capita income of Japan was 24.7% of the U.S. level, that of China was 8.6%, that of Taiwan 18.4%, and that of Korea 10.2%")

(c) The followintg beautifully explained and quantified "middle-income trap."

Alan Wheatley, Avoiding the Middle-Income Trap, New York Times, Oct 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/business/global/26inside.html

Quote:

(i) "And that same history lesson could have Beijing praying that it can follow in the footsteps of vibrant South Korea, not stagnant Japan.

(ii) "According to data compiled by Angus Maddison, an economic historian, and cited by Morgan Stanley, about 40 economies have attained a per capita gross domestic product level of $7,000 over the past century or so.

"Remarkably, the average economic growth rate of 31 of those 40 economies was 2.8 percentage points less in the decade after the $7,000 inflection point was reached than in the preceding decade.

"Japan and South Korea reached the $7,000 mark around 1969 and 1988, respectively, whereupon their annual average economic growth rates decelerated in the following decade by 4.1 and 2.4 percentage points, respectively, Morgan Stanley calculates.

"China’s per capita gross domestic product is less than $4,000 at market exchange rates, but Morgan Stanley said China had reached Mr. Maddison’s magic number, which is based on purchasing power, in 2008.

(c) The article says, "Unhappily, China shares with these economies a model of investment-led growth that is both a strength and a weakness."

Taipei has had little say about economy. I am unfamiliar with other three dragons--except to point out that Hong Kong and Singapore are no longer manufacture centers (preoccupied with service instead), if they ever were--but Taiwan was never investment-driven. Dominated by small- and medium-businesses, Taiwan are filled by people who watch their purses and mind their own business.

(e) The author is no PhD; BS only.
(f) Here is a summary:
英媒：未来十年中国经济波涛汹涌. BBC Chinese, June 15, 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_analysis/2011/06/110615_press_china_economy.shtml


--------------------------Separately
标准普尔下调中国房地产前景评级. BBC CHinese, June 15, 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/business/2011/06/110615_sp_property_market.shtml

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