Today's PRC is capitalist, despite a certain level of state interventionism. It is a key player in global economics, and a driver of the current hyper-production model. What would the global economy be like if say, Hua Guofeng did not get ousted by Deng Xiaoping? China remains a bland Communist country that does not majorly change its approach from command economy.
Global economic effects of a non-Dengist China
- Thread starter Changundramon
- Start date
Does this mean that China doesn't switch sides in the cold war? Or at least switches back in fairly short order.
Hard to imagine the American investment and development assistance which made Dengism appealing happen without market reforms. Indeed China would still be a target for western interference if they kept the 'command economy' (horrible, ideologically motivated perjorative).
So do they align with the USSR (enemy of my enemy, ideological disagreements to a large extent put to one side, agree to disagree) so that China can have help combatting the western interference to get them to do market reforms? Because if the PRC and the USSR make up and work together again that completely changes the whole dynamic of international relations.
They can probably keep each other afloat until the present time at the very least
Hard to imagine the American investment and development assistance which made Dengism appealing happen without market reforms. Indeed China would still be a target for western interference if they kept the 'command economy' (horrible, ideologically motivated perjorative).
So do they align with the USSR (enemy of my enemy, ideological disagreements to a large extent put to one side, agree to disagree) so that China can have help combatting the western interference to get them to do market reforms? Because if the PRC and the USSR make up and work together again that completely changes the whole dynamic of international relations.
They can probably keep each other afloat until the present time at the very least
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China would remain similar to North Korea but on a larger scale.
No, the Sino-Soviet split happened during the 60's because Maoism was indirectly criticized by Kruschev when he criticized Stalinism and because China wanted to lead the communist world instead of the Soviets, because of this the U.S. started to support China instead of Taiwan because it hoped that this would weaken the Soviets. However if China had remained what it was under Maoism, or a slightly less totalitarian version of it, once the Soviets collapse (which still happens) the U.S. would see no interest in supporting China and would probably recognize Taiwan as the legitimate China.
This would mean that the industries that moved to China IOTL would either remain in the West or move to other countries which are more West friendly: Mexico, Eastern Europe...
They would prefer to have countries near their consumers' base as Mexico has close ties with the U.S. and Eastern Europe is in the EU
Fair enough, though, in addition to India, Suharto's Indonesia could be another benefactor of quite a few jobs which went to China in the 80s or 90s IOTL going to Indonesia due to how Suharto was very much an "authoritarian developmentalist" in his politics and the large pool of cheap labor in the country.
Yes but I believe that not as many would go in other countries as China had the best market to attract foreign investors
Also which country takes China's place in opposition to the U.S.? Russia would still be considered an enemy but doesn't have the economical might of China to exert global influence
Misery builds character and that world is building the best characters. A DPRK sized PRC would be an order of magnitude poorer than the PRC of OTL, but it would be militarized out of the wazoo and ironically more "respected"/feared on the international stage (alt-PRC wouldn't even blink about spending 2 million lives annually for continued failed invasions of Taiwan). Globalization, offshoring, and automation would still happen to the Euro-Atlantic democracies, but there's less of a single target for their work classes' woes as well as happening slower than OTL.
The world would be materialistically worse off but happier (for all the wrong reasons).
The world would be materialistically worse off but happier (for all the wrong reasons).
....yeah, I don't think the only two options the PRC could have gone down are "Deng style Capitalism" and "upscaled North Korea". Try to be more creative people!
And by "creative" that doesn't mean the PRC inexplicably Pol Pot-ing itself either before anyone brings that up.
And by "creative" that doesn't mean the PRC inexplicably Pol Pot-ing itself either before anyone brings that up.
India doesn’t have the state repressive power to force proletarianisation to industry like China has. Or to enforce post fordist labour discipline outside of offshored services.
Similar problems.
1989 ending differently ideologically would have been the party sections uniting with the nth Shanghai soviet in favour of high Fordism. So less North Korea, more rust belt with more small holding farmers.
This incidentally makes the long recession worse for the US and Eu capital blocs working class as cheap consumer shit doesn’t move outside of clothing textiles and footwear effectively. The buy off from deindustrialisatiom remains narrower. Probably an even greater flow of excess capital to consumer housing leading to nastier bank collapses. Not happier: less capital flowing through consumer goods means a capital flow blockage and over investment in capital goods crisis.
That's not what I meant, what I meant is that the CCP if it doesn't do the reforms of OTL would certainly be very repressive (it is repressive even today) but wouldn't have an economic boom that would allow it to project itself as a global superpower. While the PRC would not look like North Korea it would remain in a similar state to the USSR during Brezhnev as the CCP is very unlikely to fall and if the "conservative" branch was in power they wouldn't try to liberalize like IOTL later on.
Consumer durables and steel require fordist discipline, mass, shipping and transport networks, massive capital investment long term, state stability. As the Japan, ROK, ROC, PRC China bootstraps show they’re integrated systems leading from gymcrack to automotive and ship building.
They also were massively over-capitalised from 1960 so it takes a state like PRC to invest in a planned way as a loss leader. Chinas proletarianisation also produced a new captive market as a result of rational state choice to massively increase living standards / produce consumer goods capital investment.
They also were massively over-capitalised from 1960 so it takes a state like PRC to invest in a planned way as a loss leader. Chinas proletarianisation also produced a new captive market as a result of rational state choice to massively increase living standards / produce consumer goods capital investment.
Especially as Hua Guofang and co wanted a return to a ”vanilla” Soviet-style model.
But why? Why would they want that? North Korea is what it is because it is a puppet of Beijing and they wanted a belicose, hyper-militarised buffer state between them and the yanks.
Yes, I know all this.
However, when Mao is dead, the people in charge have less hubris than him and everyone sees their plans for 'leadership of world communism' fail for lack of the technologically advanced industry which USSR has. They are never arming any allies they may win to remotely Warsaw Pact standards, so why do communist revolutionaries pick them over the guys who can give then real weapons? They don't.
Following this because China isn't getting western investment like OTL, they would be strongly incentivized to make up with the USSR - some sort of compromise where everyone saves face - to attract Soviet Investment and development assistance.
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So in short - manufacturing staying in the West would make the West poorer - not richer?