(Tokyo Buildings)Determinants
A big change is realized by a unique determinant.
The 2008 Presidential Election had two unique determinants: the Lehman Shock and the African American candidate Mr. Barack Obama.
The 2009-30-8 general election in Japan had two unique determinants: the large-scale governmental omission of the pension fund management and the very wrong manners of then Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso.
National elections this year in Japan and America may have one or two determinants already existent.
Yet, we had better have politicians dance more like a nut, since truth of the world is so crazy.
SECTION I: CHINA RISK
At the start of this year, 2010, many economists in the world predicted that the Chinese economy would face a crisis by the end of 2010.
- Property prices in cities in China are now comparable to those in Japan, the E.U., and North America, but an average income of Chinese workers is one tenth of that of the advanced countries.
- During the past year, property prices in Beijing surged two to three times higher; one square feet cost now $400.
- The vacancy rate of buildings in cities has now reached 10%, while 85% of Chinese households have no financial resources to purchase their homes.
- It would be like the burst of the bubble in Japan 20 years ago, in Hong Kong 13 years ago, and in Dubai last year.
(http://www.ntdtv.jp/ntdtv_jap/zgjw/2010-02-19/831130679338.html)
However, the benchmark for judging the Chinese economy might be crude steal production rather than land prices:
Global Crude Steel Production Business Ranking 2009
===========+======================+=========
#1...Luxemburg......Arcelor Mittal...73.2 million tons
#2...China......Hebei Iron and Steel Group......40.2
#3...China......BAO STEEL GROUP......38.9
#4...Korea......POSCO......31.1
#5...China......WuKun Steel......30.3
#6...China......Anben Iron&Steel Group......29.2
#7...Japan......Nippon Steel......26.5
(Source: The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper)
As long as crude steel is needed in the Chinese market, the Chinese economy can function well with those large-scale suppliers employing so many citizens.
When the steel market in China is saturated or crushed with full of buildings all over the land, it would enter the Great Depression of the 21st century.
SECTION II: CHINA IN GREAT DEPRESSION
Even well educated Chinese today do not understand the following facts (due to biased education they have had in China):
- It is the Imperial Marines of Japan as well as some Western soldiers that protected and defended Shanghai from regular and irregular Chinese troops invading Shanghai.
- The Imperial Army of Japan did not send to Shanghai a full-scale division (which could have been prepared for "invasion of the inland of China") except during the large scale offence by Chinese irregular and then regular troops in 1932.
- The 1932 War in Shanghai was a defensive war for Japanese and Westerners supporting and enjoying prosperity in Shanghai, since there were no reasons for Japanese and Westerners to attack Shanghai, their residence.
- In most battles around Shanghai and subsequent wars, the Imperial troops of Japan always faced twice to ten times larger Chinese troops but defeated them all with incredible courage and prowess based on the samurai traditions, while Chinese soldiers were not so well trained, since there is the East China Sea between Japan and China.
With this notion, let's check a certain writing on Shanghai in 1930's and the era of the past Great Depression:
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Crisis, now and then
By Joy Lu (HK Edition)
Updated: 2009-03-14 07:35
It was the first half of 1930s. As the gloom of the Great Depression shrouded the West, Shanghai was basking in the exuberance of an apparent boom. Real estate prices were on fire. Bond and commodity exchanges were thronged with speculators...
The 1930s witnessed one of the most flood-filled periods of China's recent history. Deluges were recorded in 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1935 and 1939. Most devastating were the 1931 Central China Floods, ranked by some as the deadliest natural disaster in human history. Inundation from major rivers including Yellow River, Yangtze River and Huai River drowned some 400,000 people - even if some estimates ran as high as 4 million. Almost a quarter of China's population was affected and 28 percent of the country's farms were destroyed...
The traditional view of the Great Depression's impact on China centered on diminished exports. But China's crisis had more to do with Japan's invasion, the flooding and the hot money in Shanghai...
The price of silver had been on steady decline in the global market since late 19th Century because of the establishment of the Gold Standard. In China, however, silver fetched a higher price, attracting sellers from around the world.
The influx of silver caused a credit expansion that helped China complete its first wave of industrial development, argued Tomoko Shiroyama in China During the Great Depression: Market, State, and the World Economy, 1929-1937...
China has undergone a lot of changes since the 1930s. Yet, when comparing the impact of the economic crisis now and then, it's not difficult to find parallels.
In both cases, China's currency - the silver in the Gold Standard era and the not fully convertible Renminbi today - played a decoupling role. In both, foreign investment helped economic development before both crises hit...
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2009-03/14/content_7578485.htm
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To make sure, this author wrote: Strangely, the 1932 Shanghai War had no significant impact on Shanghai's vibrant business scene. The war disrupted the financial market but the buzz resumed almost immediately after the ceasefire.
This fact proves that the Imperial troops of Japan defended the prosperity of Shanghai with Western residents engaged in business in international Concessions of Shanghai, against reckless military invasion of Shanghai by Chinese troops.
Anyway, Shanghai's prosperity in 1930's was based on very unique condition as with today's Chinese economy, though in a far larger scale.
And, it is a Japan's security policy (with the pacifist Constitution) that provides a framework in which Chinese businesses can peacefully enjoy great investments domestically and from abroad, like in 1930's.
SECTION III: America or China?
Some Americans stupidly started to use the term G2 before the Lehman Shock, though nowadays they look like feeling ashamed about stressing the term G2.
Anyway smart guys in the world started to regard America as being on the same level of China but not China as being on the same level of America.
One of them must be Japan's Prime Minister Mr. Yukio Hatoyama. In this context, he is the first Japanese Prime Minister that trusts future of China more than the current state of America.
Yet, China has no pacifist Constitution unlike Japan whose Constitution forbids the Government to make war.
CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
(Adopted on December 4, 1982)
Article 29. The armed forces of the People's Republic of China belong to the people. Their tasks are to strengthen national defence, resist aggression, defend the motherland, safeguard the people's peaceful labour, participate in national reconstruction, and work hard to serve the people. The state strengthens the revolutionization, modernization and regularization of the armed forces in order to increase the national defence capability.
P.M. Mr. Hatoyama might lack some commonsense if he simply thinks America is bad and China is good.
But, Americans stressing the term G2 look like being die-hard loopy.
*** *** *** ***
When you are young, it might be not so bad flying all over the world and travelling far and far.
Yet, you must know that a true solution is neither in the jet plane nor inside a foreign hotel.
It truly exists locally, since a revolution always starts locally.
(http://www.just-oldies.com/1988/kokomo.htm
Source:http://www.just-oldies.com/1988/kokomo.htm
Smatra, Sichuan, Haiti, Chile, and Qunhai, by and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity, ooh I wanna take you down to...it's ahh redemption!)
Mat 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
Mat 4:24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.