From our other sites
The story
China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced on the 19th that GDP for the July-September quarter grew 4.5% year-on-year. This is an improvement over the April-June quarter’s 4.3%, but falls short of the January-March quarter’s 5% growth, landing at the lower bound of the government’s annual target range (4.5-5%). According to BBC reporting, a boom in AI-related exports is said to have offset the drag from the real estate slump and weak domestic demand. On 5ch, reactions came from several angles: skepticism about whether to take China’s official statistics at face value, debate over the relationship between authoritarian rule and economic growth, and sarcasm aimed at the long-running “China collapse theory.”
China’s economic growth rate recovered over the three months through the end of September. An AI boom pushed up exports, lifting growth from its lowest level in three years.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced on the 19th that GDP for the July-September quarter grew 4.5% year-on-year. The growth rate rose from 4.3% in the April-June quarter, but came in below the 5% recorded in the January-March quarter.
The latest growth figure sits at the lower end of the Chinese government’s annual growth target of 4.5% to 5%. Analysts note this gives policymakers some room to address China’s economic challenges.
Source: bbc.com / Original article here
What people said
Nope, wrong.
It's because they're the most competitive society on earth.
Without a competitive society, having slaves doesn't actually get you growth.
Case in point: Japan has its own "slaves" too — the Technical Intern Trainee program (a labor scheme widely criticized as exploitative) — and Japan's still in decline.
A slave that costs money versus a slave that costs nothing and never quits — what do you think the difference is?
More to the point, you'd have to be out of your mind to take China's official statistics at face value.
EVs are a good example.
Subsidies got revised this year and domestic car sales in China dropped over 20%.
Chinese automakers are making up for it with exports.
And luckily for them, Trump's war with Iran drove gas prices up, which got EV exports rolling.
– Authoritarianism
– Hyper-competitiveness
– Population
– Diligence and dexterity
– The shamelessness to do whatever it takes, copying included
Even if the whole world ganged up on it, nobody can beat China.
China's biggest resource isn't rare earths — it's a huge labor force they can work to the bone for next to nothing.
This right here — this is the power of socialism.
And on top of that, the population is on a whole different scale.
Think materials for building data centers, parts for power grid infrastructure, stuff like that.
Unlike a company like Kioxia that can't make the core semiconductors used in AI, China can actually produce what's needed.
It's not a manufactured bubble like Kioxia's — the buying is real demand happening inside China.
That turns into massive exports, and that's where the big profits come from.
What it proves is that a government that lets its people starve is garbage.
But socialism is exactly what starves people. Look at Japan.
China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty over the past 40 years. A feat of that scale is unprecedented in human history.
Apparently paper textbooks stick in your memory better than tablets. Plus you can doodle on them for fun.
Authoritarian rule makes for a stronger economy. Democratizing means you inevitably have to start protecting workers.
When a country's developing economically, authoritarian systems are just more efficient.
You could even say Japan's postwar high-growth era only happened because of the LDP's one-party dominance.
Countries like India or Brazil, which have the potential but spend their energy on internal infighting, are hopeless by comparison.
Apparently it's already brutal. Rich people in the cities are absurdly wealthy while farmers out in the countryside have it rough.
Background and key points on this topic
China’s GDP growth is being weighed down by the real estate slump and weak domestic demand, while exports tied to AI infrastructure — EVs, semiconductors, and related goods — are propping it up. Overseas analysts have long questioned the transparency of how China’s official statistics are calculated, and the skepticism in the thread is an extension of that history. The view that “authoritarian systems are better for economic growth” rests on the idea that such systems can avoid the costs of protecting workers and mediating domestic interests — it isn’t unique to China and has come up in discussions of other cases too, such as Japan during its era of rapid economic growth. At the same time, there’s plenty to be cautious about in the substance of this growth, including the urban-rural income gap and EV makers’ heavy reliance on exports, so judging the real situation purely by the headline growth figure would be premature.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Trade Surplus ¥189 Trillion] China’s Economic Growth Accelerates as AI Export Boom Outpaces Sluggish Domestic Consumption…“
Leave a Reply