The World If: Economist

choi

The Aug 1, 2015 issue of Economist has a special one-off session titled The World If (ie, what if)

(1) If the Yuan Competes with the Dollar; The yuan’s rise will challenge America, but not before China changes.
worldif.economist.com/article/6/what-if-the-yuan-competes-with-the-dollar-clash-of-the-currencies

My comment:
(a) View the graphic only.

(b) The first panel of the graphic says, "1820-1913[:] America’s economy surge[;] US economy takes off, yet the pound remains the world's dominant currency"
(i) Please take notice the horizontal or x-axis is NOT linear.  If it were, America’s real GDP growth rate (nominal, calculated by dollar) would not be so steep. Economics textbook show the average rate for decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century was about 2$ annually.
(ii)
(A) The GDP data of course comes from the late Angus Maddison. See Angus Maddison statistics of the ten largest economies by GDP (PPP)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An ... t_economies_by_GDP_(PPP)
(GDP (PPP) in millions of 1990 International Dollars [which is US dollar]: 1870  China 189,470, UK 100,180, US 98,374, Russian Empire 83,646)
(B)
* population in 1870: US 38,555,983 (census)
* Digest of the English Census of 1871. Census Office, Great Britain (1873), at page 7
https://books.google.com/books?i ... nepage&q=Census in the United Kingdom 1871 total population&f=false
("United Kingdom 31.628.338")

That explains why UK hesitated to declare war on US during the American Civil War.

choi

(2) If the Panama Canal Gets a Rival: Trench Warfare in Nicaragua; Why a Chinese firm might dig a giant waterway through America’s backyard.
worldif.economist.com/article/8/what-if-the-panama-canal-gets-a-rival-trench-warfare-in-nicaragua


My comment:
(a) "Bill Wild, the chief project adviser [of Nicaragua canal], appears raring to go."

raring (adj): "full of enthusiasm or eagerness <ready and raring to go>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/raring
(b) "But can any pharaonic enterprise, let alone a Chinese one, be trusted not to cut corners?"

pharaonic (adj): "enormous in size or magnitude <pharaonic construction projects>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pharaonic

(c) "Some believe that if the Chinese government is a backer of the project, the transit of military as well as commercial vessels may be a hidden part of the agenda. * * * So far, America has been phlegmatic about the enterprise. Perhaps, like Jorge Quijano, administrator of the Panama 0NOT Nicaragua] Canal, it believes that financially the project is a bottomless pit and has no future. Mr Quijano reckons that for the Nicaraguan canal to earn a competitive return on investment, it would have to charge double the tolls levied in Panama, which would put off most customers."
(i) I doubt China has an ulterior motive for military.  The supply line is too long.
(ii)
(A) phlegmatic (adj): "having or showing a slow and stolid temperament"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phlegmatic
(B) phlegm (n): "The 'cold, moist' humor of the body, in medieval physiology, it was believed to cause apathy"
Online Etymology Dictionary
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=phlegm

(d) There is no need to read the rest of the text.

choi

(3) Post-War China Alternatively: Chiang's China; What if Mao Zedong’s Communist Party had lost the Chinese civil war to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party?
http://worldif.economist.com/art ... s-nationalist-party

My comment:
(a) "As Soviet forces withdrew from Manchuria in the north-east [after World War II], which they had taken from the Japanese, Chiang’s forces surged forward to regain the territory. Chinese Communists in the area, who had hitherto been backed by the Russians, were shattered by the onslaught.  But in 1946 the Americans, anxious to prevent an all-out civil war between Chiang and the Communists’ leader, Mao Zedong, persuaded Chiang to stop fighting.  It was a moment that may have changed history: the few weeks’ hiatus enabled Mao to replenish his forces with Soviet aid. When the truce broke down, Chiang lost Manchuria and eventually the civil war")

Along with people in Taiwan, I did not know the Generalissimo ever won battles against CCP.
(b) "Had China’s economy grown at the same pace as Taiwan’s since 1950, its GDP would have been 42% bigger by 2010 than it actually was."

Just 42 bigger? I thought it would be much larger.
(c) "Chiang would not have had a Taiwan problem: Mao’s rebels never had a foothold there."

"Mao’s rebels never had a foothold there."  Economist says it as a fact.
(d) "Animosities between China and Japan, which Mao did not appear eager to play up, might have bedevilled east Asian security long before they did emerge in the 1990s as a source of regional tension."

I doubt it. Both in mainland China and Taiwan, Chiang was deemed pro-Japan (perhaps due to his studying there as a young man).