China Trip Part IV: Shigatse to Guangzhou

[tcpip]

The last leg of this year's trip to China started with a long drive to Shigatse, Tibet's second-largest city, a visit to the Tashilhunpo Monastery and staying at the Shiga Yangcha Grand Hotel. The Monastery grounds reminded me of the old parts of some European cities, whereas the hotel had a Victorian-colonial style (flocked wallpaper, dark wood features, lush curtains) all of which I quite enjoy. The following day we had a day of travel from Shigatse to Lhasa, to Chongqing, and eventually to Guangzhou which elder folk will know as Canton. The word "eventually" is due to the delay in the flight to Chongqing for a few hours. Despite the extended delay, I could only touch upon wandering among the enormous shopping centre of name-brands, which is not really my thing, but impressive in its scale.

Eventually, we reached Guangzhou and were whisked to the Chaoman Hotel located in the old town, next to the famous Pedestrian Street and near the arts and crafts district. Our post-midnight taxi driver was notable for being gruff, their "efficient" driving, and having the sort of physique that you would want him as a friend in a dark alley. I'll take this opportunity to mention that the Hotel had perhaps the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in (and I have some experience in a variety of sleeping locations). The following day we made our way around our surroundings, spending time at the Art Museum of Cantonese Opera, which included a live performance among the gardens. Cantonese opera, of which my knowledge is woefully insufficient, is really quite an extraordinary art form. Nearby was Blan Bunny, a rabbit-themed tea vendor which proved to be too cute to resist, and Bruce Lee Ancestor's residence, now turned into a museum. Rather famous for his martial arts films, Lee combined these skills with some rather insightful comments on personal development inspired by Taoist philosophy. The evening was topped off with a pleasant canal cruise.

For this final day, we started off at the Cheng Family Academy and Folk Arts Museum, an extraordinary building dating back from the days of the Imperial exams and now dedicated to historical and continuing arts and craft. From there we went to Sun Yat Sen's Memorial and Gardens. Revered as the founder of modern China for organising the revolution against the Qing dynasty and establishing the Chinese Republic, Sun Yat Sen has certainly been extremely influential in developing my own social and political theory, especially with his contributions to balancing nationalism and cosmopolitanism, the importance of resource rents as a foundation of social welfare, the importance of planned infrastructure on the large scale, and the modernisation of political systems. The gardens and memorial were fitting to the greatness of the man, with the central hall, in particular, being especially grand. Speaking of which, I now find myself at Guangzhou International Airport, an item of exceptional modernism and grandness. As I am about to board and return to Melbourne, I rather suspect that Sun Yat Sen would mostly approve of how China is developing.

Comments

[garote]

How China is developing? Wan’t Tibet basically invaded, annexed, and subjugated by China not so long ago?

[tcpip]

Growth in the rest of China has been slower, but it started from a higher level. Tibet was really behind if one goes back 30-plus years.

Politically, the Tibet matter is a lot more complicated than is commonly reported in the western world.

The Chinese point of view is that:

a) Tibet has been part of China since the 1600s.
b) During the first half of the 20th century, when nobody had effective control of China, Tibet had de facto independence.
c) When the PRC won the civil war it turned to re-assert rule over Tibet.
d) The government of Tibet at the time was... not great. About 95% of the population were serfs or slaves, with all that implies and about 5% were royalty or functionaries. Unsurprisingly, the Communists had an issue with a province being an effective medieval theocracy.
e) There was only one battle of any note (Battle of Chamdo), suggesting that the Tibetan royalty did not have extensive popular support.

Now, all of these can be true while one still supports Tibetan self-determination, expresses concerns about human rights etc.

But of course, political realism is in place and I doubt that China would allow an independence referendum or anything like that. Tibet is too strategically important.

[garote]

An odd situation, to say the least. I see how it would be convenient for China to declare that they were doing Tibet a favor by civilizing it. But with the difference you mention in development at the time, and the assistance from the USSR, it really reads more like a subjugation and forced re-education, where what’s being “liberated” and “modernized” is land and buildings — not people. People are driven out, imprisoned, silenced, or just plain slaughtered and quietly buried. I frankly would take any interpretation claiming “liberated” with a boulder-sized hunk of salt if it was being put forth by Mao’s China… a revolutionary regime in the classic communist mode, which says, “first thing we need to do to make our perfect society: kill everyone who doesn’t believe in it”

[tcpip]

I don't doubt that there is a part that the current economic development and investment in Tibet is politically motivated. For their part, the Chinese claim that they are ensuring that no province misses out on the benefits of economic development, and I read one article that wryly commented "unlike West Virginia"; ouch.

I made a mistake in my previous comment; China points out that Tibet was part of China from the Yuan dynasty (1200s) rather than the Qing dynasty (1600s). In both these cases it was a vassal state, allowed local rule of internal affairs but not as an independent sovereign state.

FWIW, the Republic of China (Taiwan) also claims Tibet as part of its territory :)

[garote]

Interesting. That sounds like the exact justification given by Russia for invading Ukraine. “Iit was our kingdom already, we are just bringing it under tighter control. It’s what the Tibetans want. They’re actually ethnic Chinese, you know.”

[tcpip]

That's just not true. The Chinese do not make any suggestion at all that the Tibetans are ethnic Chinese, unlike Putin who does claim that Ukrainian ethnicity is a myth (something that ethnologists and linguists disagree with).

FWIW, China has consistently argued that Ukraine's territorial integrity needs to be respected, has argued for a ceasefire, and negotiated resolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_Position_on_the_Political_Settlement_of_the_Ukrainian_Crisis

[garote]

An interesting and surprising document and I'm glad you pointed it out to me. I honestly don't know what to make of it. Looking it over - or, at least, looking over the translation - it's heavy on language about preserving economic development, and contains zero information about how a "negotiated" resolution should play out. Doesn't that strike you as strange?

I think a condensed, and probably more honest, version of this document would be:

1. Other countries should mind their own damn business.*

With a footnote that reads:

* Nobody likes bloodshed or economic turmoil, so a country that's been invaded should do its part in achieving peace, by making concessions to the aggressor.

That more honest version would handily explain why China is A-okay with massively increasing trade to Russia with a heavy emphasis on material for the military industrial complex. (Sanctions are for those busybody democratic countries, feh.)

The more I think about it, and wonder about the existence of this document, the more I suspect that it was created to sow confusion among those opposing Russia's "they were Russians before we got here" justification for their land war.

[tcpip]

Well, as I pointed out in a "highly recommended" article in talk_politics ten years ago, there are oblasts of Ukraine that probably prefer to be part of Russia.

But neither Russia nor the West wanted to test that.

[garote]

A good read. And yes, it's a shame, because a few oblasts changing allegiance bloodlessly would have been far preferable to what's happening now. On the other hand, it is very hard to maintain a sense of equivalency in weighing the "desire" for a territory to remain part of the country it's in, versus desire to join another, when the country it would hypothetically join is known to use such appalling tactics of disinformation and terrorism as we've seen Russia progressively refine since the death of the USSR.

( Here's a darkly amusing twelve pages of recent examples: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/response_conflict-reponse_conflits/crisis-crises/ukraine-fact-fait.aspx?lang=eng#dataset-filter )

And the commenter here is raising a legitimate point, I think, when we consider the veracity of a vote taken by a nearly defenseless oblast along the fringe of Ukraine when it is staring out at a large chunk of the Russian military camped within easy firing distance.

Whether Russia or the West wanted to test this scenario may be secondary to: would the population of the oblast itself ever be able to withstand the meddling?

[garote]

By the way, what’s so unfortunate about West Virginia? Its GDP is 4x that of Tibet. Do they not like Bluegrass?

[tcpip]

As previously mentioned, the comment was about the distribution of wealth within the respective countries.

[garote]

It’s also utterly nonsensical, and I’m honestly surprised you think it has any sting behind it, as I find it simply confusing. West Virginia is a state, not a country, and It is not beholden to a centrally organized communist overlord to chart its economic course. And it’s doing quite well. I’m sure it’s convenient for China to bind Tibet further into welfare and mock the democratic west with nonsense as it does so, because they’ve always got to be on message, but … dang, you really think that comparison is favorable to the Chinese government?

[tcpip]

> West Virginia is a state, not a country

And Tibet is a province, not a country. The comparison is quite valid.

The issue being raised is how a country distributes resources and infrastructure internally. The article (which I can't find, regrettably) was comparing California's wealth to West Virginia's relative poverty - which has a greater disparity compared to Tibet and the wealthiest province, Tianjin.

[garote]

Ah, so, 500 or so years of Tibetan “independence” was not actual existence as a country per se, but as a former and now happily once again “province” of China. It’s all in the phrasing.

Well I’ll admit there’s a commonality there: West Virginia was also something else before it was a U.S. state. It was an overlapping collection of Native American territories. And what both places have in common is, their prior occupants were all either slaughtered, driven out, or forcibly re-educated as the current political borders were drawn.

Now, if the broader point of that comparison is to bring in California and say that West Virginians being collectively poorer than Californians is an injustice that the federal government should address, well, what that really does is illustrate the contrast between the Chinese attitude towards economic development, and that of the United States: The CCP believes that wealth is best created and evenly distributed by the guidance of a central committee, and therefore, the US federal government is amiss by not simply taking wealth from California and dumping it into West Virginia until all fortunes are equal. In the US, California and West Virginia are generally expected to interoperate, with a minimum of interference from the federal government, except to set and enforce regulations over how they do so. It’s true that California generates WAY more federal tax revenue than it receives, so there is indeed some wealth transfer going on, but wealth transfer is not seen as the responsibility of the federal government, and certainly not an exclusive one that gives it a moral imperative to do so.

The comparison is not in China’s favor. The greater economic freedom exercised among US states is a large part of their mutual success. Hence even lowly West Virginia’s economy grew at about the same rate as Tibet’s last year, even with the mighty efforts of the CCP.

[tcpip]

> 500 or so years of Tibetan “independence”

That's only wrong by an order of magnitude.

> their prior occupants were all either slaughtered, driven out, or forcibly re-educated as the current political borders were drawn.

Let's check demographic facts. The ethnic Tibetan population makes up the overwhelming majority (80-95% depending on how you classifiy ethnicity). Since the "annexation". their population has doubled, as has their life expectancy (yes, doubled). Literacy has increased from 5% to 99%. Infant mortality has declined from 43%(!) to under 0.5%.

If you wish to make a comparison on these metrics with that of the few remaining Iroquois in West Virginia, feel free.

> Hence even lowly West Virginia’s economy grew at about the same rate as Tibet’s last year, even with the mighty efforts of the CCP [sic, CPC].

The US government's stats show a GDP increase of 1.1%, annualised, for West Virginia. Tibet's is 9.8% for the previous nine-months.

[garote]

Interesting. The demographic information you linked to was published by the China Population Information and Research Centre, in Beijing, and is from 1992. And the abstract reads more like a PR press release. Given how hard it is to find anything close to impartial demographics for that area for most of the last century, I have trouble buying into it. But it does remind me of that "liberating people" versus "liberating land" thing I brought up earlier.

To your general point: Yes, I'm more inclined to believe the economic numbers since the late 90's, and the growth is quite remarkable. Reminds me of earlier times in US history, which again gives me pause, because our modern awareness of just how nasty and bloody that process of "civilization" was is sketchy -- with history being written by the winners and all. How much more sketchy is it even now, in a place under the rule of a communist party that very actively polices free speech and its own historical narrative to weed out dissent and embarrassment?

By the way, if I'm reading your link right, that 1.1% figure for West Virginia is for one fiscal quarter. I believe a more accurate value is about 5% for 2023. Not the ~9% I thought I saw earlier, but I suppose this is what I get for doing hit-and-run statistics at 3:00am after driving 400 miles.

[tcpip]

> that 1.1% figure for West Virginia is for one fiscal quarter.

It's Real GDP at Annual Rate.

"Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 39 states and the District of Columbia in the first quarter of 2024, with the percent change ranging from 5.0 percent at an annual rate in Idaho to –4.2 percent in South Dakota."

[garote]

So, just to be clear, you're referring to a number for 3 months of change, yes?

As the chart says: "Real GDP: Percent Change at Annual Rate, 2023:Q4-2024:Q1".

The figure I have is for a year, from here. (1 - (76.53 / 80.14)) * 100 , or about a 4.5 percent increase from 2022-2023. It's honestly not bad, if we're comparing the drastic economic intervention in China with the "oh hey, are you still around?" of the US feds... (Only somewhat joking.)

And of course there's all this going on... :(

[tcpip]

The number refers to three months but annualised to represent a year's growth. Otherwise we're looking at an annual rate of +20% for DC or -16.8% for South Dakota. Which is nonsensical.

The following gives a fairly clear longitudinal trend, which suggests that 1.1% for West Virginia is not unusual.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1036450/west-virginia-real-gdp-growth/

[garote]

I looked at these numbers again today, and I'm getting more and more confused. I figure this should be easy for me as a software developer, but nnnope.

Finally I found a document explaining the relationship between quarterly and yearly growth rates. Weird stuff but I think I grasp it. It's interesting how all these charts have to account for inflation. I think my calculation from here is alright, but it's for 2022-2023, which is missing from here. But then I do the same calculation for 2021-2022 and my result is 1% higher than theirs. So, I give up. Finance tools have defeated me!!