OFC Meeting 9

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11 Sep 2018:

CHINA: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"

Moderator: Keith Barnes

Because China is such a huge and diverse country (and topic), I have decided to focus our discussion on the following broad areas. If there are other areas the group would like to focus on, please raise them -- either during the discussion or afterwards.

The economy:

Infrastructure:

Space exploration:

Militarization:

Freedom of choice and other social issues:

(from Jess): Art, literature and aesthetics: I recently read "The Three Body Problem", a best-selling (in China) science fiction novel published in 2006 that won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015. It confused me bigly.

(From the fertile mind of ROLAND): I just want to give a "heads up" about the Chinese economy.

This is an economy that has expanded at a rate never seen before in modern economic history -- hence we are truly in unexplored territory.

Being the pessimist that I am -- I believe that the Chinese economy may be riddled with massive amounts of malinvestment.

Malinvestment is mostly the result of very cheap, readily available credit and poor regulation and oversight of lending institutions.

Much of the economic disaster of 2008 can be traced back to malinvestment.

An example of malinvestment would be the well known Chinese "Ghost Cities" and buildings that were demolished before they were even occupied.

The Chinese version of communism has managed to keep a lid on things through the use of coercive measures such as jailing investors who dared to short the Chinese stock market during a major downturn.

The Chinese form of government makes it more difficult for westerners to accurately assess the possible risks of the Chinese economy. They are not always forthcoming with bad news -- even if it is true.

This brings me to the opinion that the possibility of the Chinese economy imploding -- possibly due to a trade war with the USA.

Hope this was useful -- Can't wait to see you all at the OFC boardroom on September 11. -- Roland

Hi all, Unfortunately I won't be able to attend this time, since I'm out of town. Have a great meeting! -- Henk

Here's an interesting summary: "This is what China's economy looks like in 2018 - in 6 charts" -- Jess