| Well, I am from Shanghai and was born in Shanghai and am very familiar with China's situation. What I said was from a neutral angle, not trying to badmouth China. I have observed a big divide between people from inside China and people who had lived outside of Shanghai and be able to see things at a holistic angle. I can sense that there is a blind optimism among Chinese about everything in China without thinking deeper. That includes many of my own relatives who have been doing well in either business and real estate investment ventures. Some of them told me that today is exactly the time to get into the market, either into stock or into the real estate despite my warnings. I agree that there will be a glorious future for China over the long term, but today we are seeing a bubble, a very big bubble that's steering our preciouse sweat money into fluffy areas that serve to boost egos than actual quality of living and long-term well beings for this country. Today's China reminds everybody of the 80s' Japan, an explosion of self-confidence yet an uncontrollable bubble accomanying it. ?Today's China doesn't need more buildings or terminals or bird's nest, these things won't raise this country's industrial food chain. Instead, China needs to steer spendings toward R&D and innovations so that we won't follow Silicon Valley, or having to manufacture Nike shoes with no profit yet enabling Nike Corp to extract huge profit from it. Despite that China has become a world factory, it has actually been pushed further down the ladder of global profit food chain. Chinese manufacturing facilities are being owned or taken over by the global conglomerates with the so called minor ownerships, further suffocating Chinese innovative capability. The most alarming sign is that many high tech or science major university graduates can't get a satisfying R&D jobs, in the end, they will be forced to accept a job that's not really using their trained skills. Currently, there is a huge waste from education systems. This is exactly due to the lowering of food chain for our industries. Yet, many regular people are only seeing those ego-boasting skyscrapers, being blinded by this ego explosion similar to what Japanese was experiencing back in the 80s, remember, Japanese' confidence was much bigger than that for current Chinese psychology. One good development is that SSE's A share has been cut by half, that's a good waking up to the reality. A bust of real estate bubble will even be better for China over the long term. |
Mega-Projects and Raising Power of China