I know China’s economic philosophy is different than America’s but was it ever so glaring as a week ago, when it was reported that China “loaned” China National Petroleum Corp. $30 billion for yet more overseas projects?
Can you imagine Uncle Sam doing this for Exxon? (Okay, maybe GM, but the terms were a lot less sweet.)
But I’m not quite at the Thomas Friedman stage. He recently bemoaned the amount of compromise the US political system requires versus the autocratic Chinese one, which can take the longer view without political resistance. To me, there are still fewer democratic freedoms in China, less political inclusion, minimal public protection, and probably more corruption. And obviously, there are plenty of other autocratic countries that abuse their power far worse than China. And obviously, Exxon really hasn’t done so badly under the US system.
China is also investing heavily in its green energy projects. It has spent this recession moving heaven and earth to insure its commodity security.
Will China’s approach “win” against America’s?
It’s hard to say, its situation is so different. China doesn’t seem as geologically lucky with oil and natural gas deposits as the US. It has modernized at an amazing clip of course, but it has just now started to bump into ideas that must slow it down for the better: consumer safeguards, corruption control, environmental protection, unhappy outer provinces. Industrialized World economies have to deal with Industrialized World standards and norms.
Anyway, as we saw with Japan in the 1980s, sometimes a little competition, a different approach, can push us harder in the right direction than we would otherwise go.
