Why Egypt Should Worry China
Tom Jigme Wheat
Barry Eichengreen
2011-02-08
Why Egypt Should Worry China
BERKELEY – A strictly economic interpretation of events in Tunisia and
Egypt would be too simplistic – however tempting such an exercise is
for an economist. That said, there is no question that the upheavals
in both countries – and elsewhere in the Arab world – largely reflect
their governments’ failure to share the wealth.
The problem is not an inability to deliver economic growth. In both
Tunisia and Egypt, the authorities have strengthened macroeconomic
policy and moved to open the economy. Their reforms have produced
strong results. Annual growth since 1999 has averaged 5.1% in Egypt,
and 4.6% in Tunisia – not Chinese-style growth rates, to be sure, but
comparable nonetheless to emerging-market countries like Brazil and
Indonesia, which are now widely viewed as economic successes.
Rather, the problem is that the benefits of growth have failed to
trickle down to disaffected youth. The share of workers under the age
of 30 is higher in North Africa and the Middle East than in any other
part of the world. Their economic prospects are correspondingly more
limited. University graduates find few opportunities outside of
banking and finance. Anyone who has traveled to the region will have
had an experience with a highly literate, overeducated tour guide.
With modern manufacturing underdeveloped, many young workers with
fewer skills and less education are consigned to the informal sector.
Corruption is widespread. Getting ahead depends on personal
connections of the sort enjoyed by the sons of military officers and
political officials, but few others.
It may stretch credulity to think that a high-growth economy like
China might soon be facing similar problems. But the warning signs are
there. Given the lack of political freedoms, the Chinese government’s
legitimacy rests on its ability to deliver improved living standards
and increased economic opportunity to the masses. So far those masses
have little to complain about. But that could change, and suddenly.
First, there is the growing problem of unemployment and
underemployment among university graduates. Since 1999, when the
Chinese government began a push to ramp up university education, the
number of graduates has risen seven-fold, but the number of high-
skilled, high-paying jobs has not kept pace.
Indeed, the country is rife with reports of desperate university
graduates unable to find productive employment. Newspapers and blogs
speak of the “ant tribe” of recent graduates living in cramped
basements in the country’s big cities while futilely searching for
work.
In part, these unfortunate outcomes reflect the inflexibility of
China’s education system. Students spend their entire four years at
university studying a single subject, be it accounting or computer
science. As a result, they have few skills that can be applied
elsewhere if the job they expect fails to materialize. There has also
been a tendency to push students into fields like engineering, even
though the Chinese economy is now beginning to shift from
manufacturing to services.
Thus, China needs to move quickly on education reform. It needs to
provide its university students with more flexible skills, more
general training, and more encouragement to think critically and
creatively.
Moreover, there is the problem of less-skilled and less-educated
migrants from the countryside, who are consigned to second-class jobs
in the cities. Not possessing urban residency permits, they lack even
the limited job protections and benefits of workers who do. And,
because they may be here today but gone tomorrow, they receive little
in the way of meaningful on-the-job training.
The migrants’ predicament underscores the need to reform hukou,
China’s system of residency permits. A handful of provinces and cities
have gone so far as to abolish it, without catastrophic consequences.
Others could usefully follow their lead.
Finally, China needs to get serious about its corruption problem.
Personal connections, or guanxi, remain critical for getting ahead.
Recent migrants from the countryside and graduates with degrees from
second-tier universities sorely lack such connections. If they
continue to see the children of high government officials doing
better, their disaffection will grow.
The ability of disaffected youth – university-educated youth in
particular – to use social media to organize themselves has been on
powerful display recently in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. Last
month, it was still possible for the Egyptian government to halt all
Internet traffic and for the Chinese authorities to block the Chinese
word for “Egypt” from its Twitter-like service Sina. But in social
media, as in banking, the regulated tend to stay one step ahead of the
regulators. Such shutdowns will be increasingly difficult to enforce.
If Chinese officials don’t move faster to channel popular grievances
and head off potential sources of disaffection, they could eventually
be confronted with an uprising of their own – an uprising far broader
and more determined than the student protest that they crushed in
Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics and Political Science at
the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book is
Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
www.project-syndicate.org
rst0wxyz
China. When events are getting out of hand, you will see the tanks
and PLA soldiers ready to shoot to kill.
Tom Jigme Wheat
so you believe that Hosni Mubarak should have the army open fire on
the protestors in egypt.
Obviously the CCP is a party that only represents its 78 million
members and the oligarcs, not the interests of the chinese people.
Obviously the CCP does not represent the oppressed or those
marginalized by capitalism. Its reaction to unrest in china is not to
address systemic problems or allow for independent thought but rather
to resort to brutality and violence. The CCP only represents the
ruling class the bourgieouse not the proliterariate or peasants. If
karl marx were alive today he woud call china reactionary.
thomaswheat1975
DP
Why don't you do something to me in a LEGAL sense because you are
criminals and you can only resort to criminal means since mental
illness is a SCAM! Do you understand what I am trying to say? I know
for a fact that mental illness is a scam that I am willing to put my
LIFE on the line. Why don't you put their LIFE on the line since you
believe mental illness is real? Because I have offered proof that
mental illness is a SCAM and you have been caught! You have no
confidence in you scam anymore and act like a little boy who hides
with his hands in his ears ignoring what someone is telling him hoping
that it will all go away. But as people with conscience we have to
teach the child right from wrong because people should not be rewarded
being a CRIMINAL.
Anti-DabianchenVirus
So, that was the reason you gave for coming to Britain and become a
beggar, huh? Go suck your Dalai and fuck your yak!
rst0wxyz
> On Feb 8, 4:42 pm, rst0wxyz <rst0w...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Why Egypt Should Worry China - The CCP will not lose control in
> > China. When events are getting out of hand, you will see the tanks
> > and PLA soldiers ready to shoot to kill.
>
> so you believe that Hosni Mubarak should have the army open fire on
> the protestors in egypt.
No, I believe Mubarak should leave Egypt.
>
> Obviously the CCP is a party that only represents its 78 million
> members and the oligarcs, not the interests of the chinese people.
The CCP holds the power of the gun, and the interest of the Chinese
people. That is why China will not allow Western influence their
decisions.
> Obviously the CCP does not represent the oppressed
Why don't you go to China and see for yourself how "oppressed" the
Chinese people are? You are nothing but a loud-mouth brainwashed
junkie repeating CIA/American government propaganda lies to stir-up
trouble for China in order to destroy China.
> or those
> marginalized by capitalism. Its reaction to unrest in china is not to
> address systemic problems or allow for independent thought but rather
> to resort to brutality and violence. The CCP only represents the
> ruling class the bourgieouse not the proliterariate or peasants. If
> karl marx were alive today he woud call china reactionary.
Why don't you go to China and see for yourself how "oppressed" the
Chinese people are? You are nothing but a loud-mouth brainwashed
junkie repeating CIA/American government propaganda lies to stir-up
trouble for China in order to destroy China.
>
> thomaswheat1975
rst0wxyz
> On Tue, 8 Feb 2011 16:42:32 -0800 (PST), rst0wxyz <rst0w...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
You have seen it at Kent State!!!
Government sent its people to kill other people as in Vietnam, in
Iraq, in Afghanistan,...
And in turn, got its own people killed.
Tom Jigme Wheat
at kent state only 4 people were killed. In 1989 democracy protests in
Tiananmen square over a 1000 people were gunned down by the PLA.
thomaswheat1975
rst9
No one really know how many. Your 1000 may be as bad as my 4. Anyone
killed is one too many.
tfkmjk6262
"rst0wxyz" <rst0...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7a017f9d-ea60-404d...@s11g2000prs.googlegroups.com...
Anti-DabianchenVirus
fuck your pet kiwi!
On Feb 9, 1:01 pm, "tfkmjk6262" <ke...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> so speaks a rent boy for the chicom mass murderers.
>
> "rst0wxyz" <rst0w...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > thomaswheat1975- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Peter Terpstra (獅心彼得)
> at kent state only 4 people were killed. In 1989 democracy protests in
> Tiananmen square over a 1000 people were gunned down by the PLA.
> thomaswheat1975
On the first day of the killings the Chinese red cross spoke about 2600+ killed people counted on the
first day, the government denied this, according to a few PLA officers, the total number died is
around 3100.
Peter