China's Infrastructure

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China's Infrastructure

Postby Bill on Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:24 pm

I have a question.

China builds infrastructure, roads and railroads, in Africa and other countries in order to have access to their resources.
I read that China has little of their own oil and minerals and has to rely on importing huge amounts of each. What is keeping China from improving their own infrastructure to access their, I assume, huge reserves of oil and minerals?

Thanks.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Bao on Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:06 pm

The infrastructure in China has great problems. The simple truth is that there's still a thinking in terms of hierarchy. People are not equal, there is no sense of the basic human rights that are the foundation of any democratic country. Most of the resources in China goes directly to Beijing and Shanghai. The rest of China is not much cared about. The idea is that there are a few parts of the country that should have special benefits and that the top regions should eventually pull up the bottom regions. For instance, when the World Expo in Shanghai 2010 was flooded with billions of Yuan there was a great lack of water supply in the Southern parts of China. Beijing and Shanghai didn't care when hundreds of thousands of animals where slaughtered due to the water problems. They "up there" must have all of their resources first. So they believe.

You can look at this story btw... An amazing thing done by a man. But the truth is that this one and many other villages could have a decent water supply if just someone cared.

https://inhabitat.com/this-man-spent-36 ... s-village/

In China, many things are going in the right direction. It's a more equal country than for just ten years ago. But the basis of equality is still lacking. And so there are many things left to be wanted. But the heck, in China the government still do much for the citizens and try to develop the country, which is still much better than what is happening in some other big countries and so called democracies.... :P
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby wayne hansen on Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:18 pm

They lend money to the countries involved ,about half
This gives them access and indents the country
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby windwalker on Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:46 pm

Bill wrote:I have a question.

China builds infrastructure, roads and railroads, in Africa and other countries in order to have access to their resources.
I read that China has little of their own oil and minerals and has to rely on importing huge amounts of each. What is keeping China from improving their own infrastructure to access their, I assume, huge reserves of oil and minerals?

Thanks.


They are being paid in one way or another to build the infrastructure in Africa.

China recently signed a contract worth $12 billion to build the Coastal Railway in Nigeria stretching 650 km across the country from Calabar in the east to Aba, Port Harcourt, Warri, Benin City and Lagos in the west. Never before in human history have we seen the spectacle of a continental-sized China, which was as poor as most African countries only 30 years ago, building up Africa’s infrastructure on such a scale that could help the world’s poorest continent catch up in development.http://www.europeanfinancialreview.com/?p=6110



Why Chinese Infrastructure Loans in Africa Represent a Brand-New Type of Neocolonialism
How will African countries repay massive debts to China?

https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-chi ... lonialism/

The concept of “in-kind payments” smacks of colonialism in some ways. The historical precedent of European colonists comes to mind. Europeans built infrastructure in Africa at the turn of the century, purportedly also for local economic development, but in essence the projects were used for natural resource extraction. The predecessor of both the Nairobi-Mombasa and Addis Ababa-Djibouti railways can be categorized as such. Both connect inland regions with mineral deposits with major ports on the Indian Ocean.



China is widening it's sphere of influence.
Its either being paid directly or gaining accesses to indirectly control areas through development of said areas.
In many cases it puts the countries in debt that they can not pay back directly. Africa went through the same process with the Europeans.
It remains to be seen if the result will be different.



You may not realize how big China is geographically or the size of its population.

During the period of the ninth five-year plan, international organizations and foreign governments
contributed $7.6 billion in loans for the highway and water transportation construction—including rural
roads. The World Bank was involved in the southwest, Qinba, and western projects covering 9 provinces,
91 poor counties, and more than 8 million poor people.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation
(JBIC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
also have cooperated with the Chinese government in poverty reduction and transportation infrastructure
construction.

International cooperation has also brought new management ideas and methods to the
construction of Chinese transportation infrastructure. Loans from international organizations and foreign
governments have strict requirements concerning planning, surveying, design, construction, and
maintenance. These not only ensure the quality and benefit of the projects, but also help to improve the
management capabilities of local governments and the professional capabilities of technicians.

While much progress has been made, much remains to be done. Some 30 million poor people in
the middle and western areas of China still must cope with poor transportation conditions

http://web.worldbank.org/archive/websit ... SE_S-4.PDF
Last edited by windwalker on Wed Aug 08, 2018 3:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Peacedog on Wed Aug 08, 2018 4:26 pm

Bill,

China has little in the way of mineral wealth outside of Tibet and even with the recent roads and railway it is still difficult to get much into and out it.

As for oil, in China that would require the use of fracking. First, the scarcity of water in much of the country would be an issue, but the bigger issue has to do with the top down nature of Chinese decision making. Fracking, as a general rule, requires large numbers of people independently making decisions to work. Culturally the Chinese aren't really capable of pulling this off.

It's just easier to import the oil they need.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Steve James on Wed Aug 08, 2018 7:45 pm

Well, if the size of China is underestimated, then it should be considered that "Africa" could hold China, Europe (East and West), India, and more of of the world's habitable landmass. It's only possible to compare continents, not countries, when it comes to resources. Western Europe, apart from the offshore oil fields, doesn't have much petroleum. Otoh, it has no gold mines, precious metals, or precious stones.

I really don't know how much natural resources China has, but I'm not sure it has fewer resources than Europe. I think China is smart to invest in Africa, though. In fact, the USSR did the same during the 60s and 70s, but that was to support an ideological viewpoint, not an economic. This seems purely economic, and mutually beneficial, unlike colonialism --where resources are simply stripped away from one place and taken to another. Building a railroad (and the necessary infrastructure) in Nigeria (an OPEC member) certainly will increase China's access to oil. It will also increase China's willingness to combat Islamic terrorism in Nigeria --just for selfish reasons.

Afa infrastructure in China, I think it'd be much more relevant to talk about what infrastructure is here in the states. China is probably building more bridges and highways than repairing the old ones --as we need to do. China has high speed trains, like Japan and Europe's, and we still don't. It's also likely that we will borrow money from the Chinese to pay for our own infrastructure improvement. Why? Because the money has to come from somewhere, and there has been no increase in federal revenue. Not to forget, a country where the state essentially runs the economy can afford to invest. Who's going to complain, and what are they going to do about it?

Because Africa has no single controlling government or economy, China doesn't have to worry about creating a competitor.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Bao on Thu Aug 09, 2018 2:55 am

When it comes to oil, there seems to be a whole lot of it, but mostly in the South China Sea. But there are many conflicts about territories between countries, and this is the reason why mush of it is sort of "on hold" state. No one wants to resolve these issues because no one wants to give up potential oil.
...Except for maybe Taiwan who seem to want to give up things to Japan. :/

Some interesting reading about these issues:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gene ... flict.html
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby .Q. on Thu Aug 09, 2018 10:48 am

Peacedog wrote:Fracking, as a general rule, requires large numbers of people independently making decisions to work. Culturally the Chinese aren't really capable of pulling this off.

Is there something unique to fracking as compared to normal oil drilling that causes this requirement?
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Peacedog on Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:52 am

Q,

I've been trying to think of a way that can best answer your question without getting technical.

Here is a video on the differences between conventional and fracking oil wells: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWBdWMF1XSg

The best way I can put it is that conventional oil wells are difficult to find, but produce economically for long periods of time. This favors a top down heirarchy of decision making. As once the decision to drill is made few course corrections need to occur.

Fracking involves drilling large numbers of low productivity wells quickly. It also requires making fairly quick decisions regarding productivity, movement of drill sites/equipment/personnel to remain cost effective. This requires people on the ground to make decisions quickly. If someone is always looking for approval to do something versus being empowered to make decisions on their own, it doesn't work.

As those familiar with manufacturing in China can attest to, a production line can quickly come to a complete halt if there is a problem as the workers won't say anything to management even if they know how to solve the problem. The penalty for making the wrong decision versus making no decision at all is too culturally high. This isn't just a Chinese problem, but is a problem in general for most societies outside Western civilization or those societies that have been heavily influenced by it (Singapore, Japan and to a degree Korea).
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby .Q. on Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:16 pm

Thanks. Interesting stuff.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Peacedog on Mon Aug 13, 2018 4:56 pm

It's an interesting issue for sure.

Barring organizational dynamics, as much of China outside the deep south is very arid, it may be as much a result of a lack of water.

From what I've been told by friends in geology circles if the availability of base layer rock is as ubiquitous as it is thought to be then fracking pretty much solves the scarcity of oil problem.

I would add that the scarcity issue really reflects a lack of understanding the nexus between economics and technological innovation on the part of most groups pushing restrictions in use or conservation for lack of a better term. The world didn't collapse when we ran out of whale oil. We just went with an alternative, that due to innovation over decades, ended up being far more cost and environmentally advantageous.

Even the issue of waste is often more a matter of just not having a known, or economically viable, use for the produced material at the time. For example, in the early days of processing petroleum, a lot of distillates were considered waste products.

Other times, inappropriate legislation presents barriers. For example, in the US commercial processing of nuclear waste was forbidden by the Carter Administration for safety reasons. As a result, no incentive exists to utilize waste products from nuclear power plants. This isn't true in France where reprocessing is quite common and greatly reduces the amount of bulk waste involved.

China has certain advantages in these industries due to their extremely low cost of labor as opposed to developed countries. But if the decision making process is too slow, the whole thing doesn't work as it can't be cost competitive. So for top down processes like building roads and bridges through undeveloped territory they do quite well. The Chinese work in Africa is a good example.

The decision making process is not a universal system, it is heavily influenced by language and culture, and directly impacts organizational dynamics and efficiency in a variety of unpredictable ways. For example, if you are dealing with a culture that has no word for yes, or no, then binary thought is going to be an issue. As will running a logic chart, etc. In engineering this can be outright disastrous, but in medicine like TCM this may create a variety of novel solutions to a problem. It really depends upon the specific scenario.


As my background is in capacity building, when it comes to partner nations learning how to get inside the other guy's decision making loop is critical, and varies GREATLY depending upon the society. Interestingly, depending upon the language I am speaking at the time, my own thought process changes. It can come across as a little schizophrenic for people who have seen me in multiple environments.
Last edited by Peacedog on Mon Aug 13, 2018 7:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby grzegorz on Sat Aug 18, 2018 11:46 pm

China approaches things very differently although far from perfect they understand that by helping other countries they can go further than by bullying them.

If you recall even Afganistan offered up Bin Laden but Bush chose war to get himself re-elected and a second unnecessary war closer to the election to seal the deal.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/ ... terrorism5

One, the Chinese don't worry about elections and two, helping other countries helps your country in the long run. Someday the US will learn but first China will overtake us as number one which will probably happen in our lifetime. Hopefully we will be the wiser and realize that we f***ed up a long time ago.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Peacedog on Sun Aug 19, 2018 9:59 am

What I'm seeing regarding Chinese macroeconomics favors collapse in the mid-term more than anything else.

For starters, debt to GDP is running at 450%. No one can maintain that for long. It's not clear, due to the complete lack of government transparency, just what percentage of the Chinese public still works for the government. Additionally, the costs of running a police state are enormous and not something that is easily captured.

The cost competitiveness of Chinese manufactured goods is starting to tank as Chinese workers now cost too much. I know a lot of textile manufacturing is moving back to Latin America over this issue. The artificially low conversion rate on the Yuan, which should be running at 4 to 5 Yuan per dollar versus 6.9 currently, is not something they can maintain long term.

The Chinese "One Belt, One Road" program is very abusive in terms of the way it is administered in Africa. Hilariously, most of the African countries involved are basically taking the money and running. Apparently even the Chinese weren't prepared for African levels of corruption.

Finally, China has a contracting population that will prove disastrous over the next 20 years or so. The stupidity of the "One Child" policy is hard to overstate. I really can't see how they will avoid wholesale collapse over this one.
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby grzegorz on Sun Aug 19, 2018 12:52 pm

Again China is far from perfect but they are doing things like their government investing heavily in green energy to create a millions of jobs whereas "we" still deny that green energy is useful yet we seem to be overcoming that slowly but surely. Yes China will have obstacles but compared to what? Trump is leaving behind a trillion dollar deficit, few will be able to afford a good college education without going deeply into debt and protections for consumers and unions are being dismantled by this administration as wages slightly decline and CEOs bonuses shoot way up. UPS made 5 billion in pure profit last year, yes they can afford to pay us over $40 an hour which we fought for and we got, just as Apple can afford Foxconn a decent wage for making their thousand dollar phones but they simply refuse to. In Australia someone working at Burger King or Starbucks starts at $15 an hour with full benefits we don't do it here because we have been brainwashed to believe that if we give everything to rich we will get a seat at the table but nothing is further from the truth. With their big tax break what did the corporations do? Bought back their stock. So much for the forgotten man, meanwhile medical insurance will go up again this year. We are f***ed!
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Re: China's Infrastructure

Postby Trick on Fri Aug 24, 2018 9:46 am

There is an huge push on technical development in the field solar energy , wind power, nuclear power. They are in the forefront in nuclear fusion research, the real breakthrough in this field could very well happen in China....They really don’t want to be dependent on oil.....About their business in Africa it’s all about minerals for China all the way they “help” African nations build infrastructure. I think African nations se China(for now) as an better option to do business with.
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