You wake up as Xi tomorrow. What are your moves to save China? \ stacker news ~libertarian

You wake up as Xi tomorrow. What are your moves to save China?

2507 sats \ 25 comments \ @tomlaies 13 Mar libertarian

You have a lot of economic issues at your hand:

A pseudo-communism larp where the government symbolically owns 51% of all companies
A command-style economy. You recently killed the online gaming industry. You recently put out absurdly high subsidies to develop EVs to the point where phone maker Xiaomi made an EV and proceeded to only collect subsidy and not sell it etc.
Who knows if more personal freedom will instantly lead to extreme braindrain.
You recently made disappear Jack Ma. Why should people aspire to build stuff and be successful if you recently incentivized so extremely against success?
Recently underperforming the US in growth, industrial output etc.
Last time China tried slow steps towards more economic freedom under Deng lifted a lot of people out of poverty but you reverted many of these freedoms
There is a social credit system. Through party-friendly social media posts or smiling a lot in the subway people can move up in waitlists to get apartments and jobs.
The inland far from the coast is very empty. And has a huge housing bubble with whole cities where nobody wants to live that look like Paris
Military and its industrial complex might either be the second strongest in the world or paper mache. Even you might maybe not quite know.
Stocks in chinese companies are listes through complex structures through Singapore/Cayman Islands and ADRs. But foreign investors distrust you and the stocks trade very cheaply
etc etc you probably know a lot more other points

Answer this question however you like. The "best" way to save the economy, the "safe" way, save it as a god emperor, or with trying to not get killed by other ccp members.

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37 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Mar

with trying to not get killed by other ccp members.

This is the only interesting way to answer the question, in my mind. I'm a little rusty on my knowledge of the situation in China, so I'll just outline my strategy.

The problem is that more liberalization will often come at the expense of other powerful CCP members. The solution is to either bribe them outright to go along, or find some other way to make sure they benefit financially: that could be something like non-controlling shares in competitors to the "company" they used to operate as a monopoly.

Another approach would be going back to the Special Economic Zones experiments. Choose the most politically expedient area first and radically liberalize it. There would probably have to be some sort of first mover advantage granted to party insiders. Then move on to the next most politically expedient area and convert that to a SEZ.

tl;dr Radical liberalization + insider trading

38 sats \ 2 replies \ @freetx 13 Mar

I think we (US / West) should take a similar approach.

I think we should start a public "Bitcoin Fund" and offer to fund politicians for favorable bitcoin laws. Imagine a $1B bitcoin fund, we could get the laws we deserve written easily.

13 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 13 Mar

The problem is that bicoiners are too cheap to fund such an endeavor. It's hard to overcome the hodl mentality.

Maybe Saylor will do something like that.

38 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 13 Mar

Yes, it would definitely take some prominent hodler to kickstart

25 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies OP 13 Mar

Another approach would be going back to the Special Economic Zones experiments. Choose the most politically expedient area first and radically liberalize it.

So more freedom to Hongkong, then Shenzhen, then Shanghai etc?

When I think of these approaches it makes me think of the perverted incentives of gaps between artificial zones (geographical or other). E.g. Kowloon City: 1.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Mar

I was thinking of creating new SEZ's, but I'm also in favor of increasing the freedoms within the existing ones. The key to making it palatable, is letting the party insiders know it's coming well in advance, so that they can profit from it. Hopefully, that's enough incentive for them to not assassinate me.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @PlebeiusG 13 Mar

Imma zap the hell out of this just for the fact of its relevance and creativity! Thanks!

5 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 13 Mar

I will first of all make it a democratic nation by allowing more political parties to exist. Without making a great noise, I will be reaallowing Bitcoin mining and other related operations.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies OP 13 Mar

Would you introduce Bitcoin El Salvador style with an app and hope the ecosystem develops from there on its own? Or a different approach?

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 13 Mar

Not really Bitcoin Salvador style. Instead, I would let the people decide, may be have voting for what they really want to go with. Surely a consensus thing. If they pass something with 75% that would be applied asap.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 13 Mar

@SwearyDoctor Regarding the whole concept of a social credit system in China- I've heard over the past year a couple times, that the whole concept of "China has an all-powerful social credit score system" is actually wrong, it's propaganda.

See the comment section on this post: #369064

Thoughts?

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 13 Mar

Be even more opressive
Build up Renmenbi + social credit score to an actual cbdc
Higher taxes
Wear the funny emporer hat (important)
Be provocative with champagne and hot tub on state. Hollywood villain style personal protection.
Eat hot chip and lie
Escape with helicopter when revolution comes

😎

5 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 13 Mar

Your Jack Ma point really makes anything short of suicide doomed to failure. It seems impossible to regain trust when a rug pull is possible at any moment.

76 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies OP 13 Mar

So you think no sane developer would build his business there and immediately leave for other places like Singapore etc?

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 13 Mar

I do, but I'm not a developer. What I can say is that incidents like that also destroy any credibility of publically traded companies there. A good example is this manufactured stock market rally a month after the middle class got crushed. Even some sort of earth shaking "free market reforms" announcement couldn't be trusted coming out of his mouth.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @OT 13 Mar

Nationalism in China has grown. They love Xi cause he's a "strongman" like Mao.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @arrivederci 14 Mar

I suggest @tomlaies should start following Arnaud Bertrand on twitter.

Arnaud has a little bit too much of a rose-coloured spectacles view on China, in my personal opinion, but he's undeniably good at destroying the pathetic anti-China propaganda that too many still swallow and dutifully regurgitate, just like Tom does here.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies OP 14 Mar

See, the difference is that I'm not judging and only listing facts in a neutral manner without opinion. While they are obviously a politically biased contrarian.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @arrivederci 14 Mar

In other words, you have made yourself unreachable to conflicting views and want to remain stuck in your squalid little echo chamber.

The fact that you describe your diatribe above as

only listing facts in a neutral manner without opinion

only shows how delusional and unself-aware you are.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 14 Mar

I’d start buying as much bitcoin as humanly possible.
I’d change bitcoin to the only legal tender in china
I’d sit back and watch the world pump my bags
I’d invite Melei over to hit piñatas filled with shitcoins
I’d start a bitcoin podcast, railing about the evils of socialism and endlessly pontificate about the benefits of becoming a sovereign individual in the new digital age

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @RockBrand 14 Mar

Everyone else should try to be like China. In 5000 years of peaceful co-existence, not once did China invade India. India never invaded anyone because we have the best most valuable and fertile land and all the needed resources. Every invader of India was from the so called Abrahamic Faiths controlled by jewws.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @guts 13 Mar

I have met many Chinese who like Xi, stronger nationalisms than many west countries. I would fix surveillance and more privacy freedom.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TomK 13 Mar

I would move to Florida, enjoy life and take the shadow of the CCP off the people

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jonathan_Adly 13 Mar

I think we are a little biased when viewing success from the Chinese perspective as being free & prosperous. That's not how the average person thinks across the globe. The goals there are stability & safety. Xi and the CCB are mostly successful at this front as well as shielding most of people from the downsides of pursuing those goals.

It's the same reason America is really attractive for certain groups of people. You might go from being a respected doctor in your country to an Uber driver. But the pursuit of freedom & prosperity is worth it for you, and no one else in the world thinks this way. (South America is the closest, but still a distant second)

This is also why some people absolutely go nuts when politician in Americans take a little bit of freedom for safety or stability or whatever.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @koqoo 13 Mar

6G and total Control