The China Clipper...of Eagle Wings

A growing consensus among those who study these things is that China will surely go the route of the West, overbuild, overextend and then blow-up. That their central planners have a fear of citizen revolt and therefore use unsustainable GNP growth as a safety fuse. But...

China, by the time Nixon went back home, knew that those Western liberal consumer types would buy all the stuff they could manufacture. In an historical heartbeat, the Middle Kingdom left the third world wilderness, made stuff, sold stuff and saved the profits. Now, it is assumed, the Commissars, deathly afraid of the folks, build city after endless empty city simply as make-work for the minions. Crap! Such a conclusion is pure West-centric jingoism.

This is what we are told.

" 1. China Blows Up
Andrew Lawrence proposed the Skyscraper Index in the aftermath of the 1998 Asian Contagion. His theory says that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns. That is, countries that put up the world's tallest buildings enter an economic downturn shortly thereafter.

There is a lot of evidence to back him up: 1907 panic in the U.S. was marked by the Singer Building; the Great Depression followed the Empire State Building; the Asian currency crisis of 1998 - the Petronas Twin Towers.

The world's tallest building at present is the Burj Dubai, which will officially open on January 4, 2010. As you know, real estate prices in Dubai have been cut in half and their biggest company, Dubai World, just defaulted on $50 billion.

The next tallest building being built is The Shanghai Tower in China - expected to be 2,073 feet tall to be completed in 2014. " WEALTH DAILY

and

"It seems that China is not playing by the same rules as the rest of the world when it comes to real estate development, China with its $2.3 trillion US dollar foreign reserves has the financial resources to spend without the restrictions of debt financing. It does not have to go out and borrow money to fund its developments.

In China economic growth is not an option, it is a government “strategy and target.” The Chinese Government seems to push these targets with a “cost is not a problem” approach. Developments in China do not appear to be restricted by either their financial or environmental cost."
.By Kris Cyganiak

So

EXIT THE DRAGON

"Ghost towns, theme parks and enough empty Beijing offices to fill 35,612 tennis courts: Revealed – what's REALLY driving the Chinese property boom... and why you're staking your financial future on bogus demand.

Chenggong – where there's no one home... Construction of this city in Yunnan province started in 2003. Seven years later this shiny new metropolis teems with pristine high-rise apartment blocks, marble tiled government buildings, state of the art high schools, a large university campus, and a CBD filled with shops, banks and municipal offices. It's got everything except for the one major ingredient a thriving city needs: people! " DailyReckoning

Brand China was a going concern when our folks were painting themselves blue and worshipping a big tree. Consider; the Soviet imploded and that new regime started about the same time China shifted into gear. Any comparison there? Aside from raw material and fossil fuels exports ,what have the Ruskies done financially in the same time frame? For that matter, what have we done except write checks 'pay to the order' of Beijing?

Maybe, when, not if, the Geenback and its pal, the Euro, fall off a cliff, China will go to The People's Plan B, 'B'... for Bye-Bye. " So long foreign devils, you should have saved your money. Now 'China for Chinese' is the new logo of Great Wall Motors Company! Let's see. One billion three of us, billion or so Indians, lots of other Asians...there's Russia, Brazil. All Chinese PhDs come back home now. Business is good. Plenty of brand new houses for everyone. Bye-Bye, broke-ass Nixon people."