el_ingeniero wrote: My wife has a college roommate who lives in Inner Mongolia now ... she ripped off her boss by taking kickbacks for steering orders to a competitor, then bought and furnished a second house with the proceeds even nicer than the one she co-owns with her husband. The kicker is that the husband knows nothing at all about the second house.
For that matter, my wife had a colleague at her old sales job, that kept the contact information to a major customer to himself, then left and tried to start up his own business in competition. I was able to google the name of the business, and my wife was able to take it from there, so now the ex-colleague is broke.
That's just people I know about.
These sorts of stories abound. Recently, a prominent charity head was sacked after his mistress blog posted photos of their love nest, cars, and her trinkets, borbels, shoes, and bags that he'd bought her with money embezzled from the needy. She did it to show her friends she was no loser! Once that went viral he was gone and she was dumped!
In fact, this is a message I'd like to impress upon all you American guys. The very idea of an open forum like this one in China is laughable. Bill's IP would be ripped off in an instant with no come back for him. There'd be commercial production under other names with fake and inferior parts, there'd be supplying of all kinds of shonky goods from whoever a Chinese Leland might be, and no-one is going to share the advice and experience that we find so readily here.
To my mind, as a Brit, it is one of America's greatest strengths that you, as a culture, as a society are advanced enough in something as abstract as trusting people you will never meet in person with your life's work or passion. And it pains me every time I hear US people talking negatively about the good ol' US of A. Without you China would be absolutely rudderless. The race to imitate America in everything other than frank admission that that is what they are doing drives China. China wants to be America - basketball courts are full of kids wearing NBA merchandise (not European soccer shirts), KFC is a gigantic success here, millions apply for study at a US university every year and so on and on. They aren't doing Tai Chi Quan and reading the ancient classics! And the day China has anything like the cultural output of the States in terms of architecture, music, art, movies, literature etc is centuries away. Never mind hi-tech industries, science, and medicine. The much-vaunted moon exploration programme (yet more aping of American policy) has no plans for a manned mission for at least two decades!
The Economist recently cited an Asia Development Bank study which based on the most optimistic assumptions put Chinese as half as wealthy per head as Americans by 2050. Less optimistic assumptions see China (and perhaps India) caught in a 'middle class trap' where genuine wealth and innovation are stifled and the economy stagnates. Healthcare in a rapidly aging population is a major concern. If you have billionaires and stratospheric GDP growth what use is it if the majority are left behind and the social institutions are non-existent? Percentage share of world trade is one thing. Social justice an entirely different kettle of fish.
The point I have made before is how well China has played the PR game to place itself seemingly alongside America on the world stage. Laughable in reality. China just bought it's first aircraft carrier - actually a Ukranian-built hull they picked up on the cheap onto which they plonked a flight deck built in Dalian (a port city in north east China). For now it's a training vessel only. Why? Because China doesn't have technology or skilled enough pilots to land on a moving airport at sea. At the same time though in public China lambasts America for wielding power at a distance around the world and abstains on UN resolutions on Syrian state murder of unarmed civilians.
And why is China buying this military technology when the policy of non-interference (
mei you ban fa)[where trade supposedly with no strings enables dealing with odious African regimes in return for raw materials] is touted as part of the so-called 'Beijing model' (open economics but illiberal politics)? Becuase Libya (from where 3000 Chinese oil workers had be evacuated at short notice when it all kicked off) showed them that non-interference is based on absolute superiority and that events, events my dear boy can occur beyond their sphere of influence. Hardly deft handling of global politics. Just like how China has alienated all the countries around it's coast from S Korea to Vietnam.
The day China is fit to lead the world with anything like the sense of purpose of America if it ever comes will be itself down to American influence even if America has faded (which I don't believe it will - remember Japan? the Asian Tigers?)
America is very very far from perfect but your strength is talking about where the shortfalls and what the problems are whereas here me even putting on a mask of President Hu in Tiananmen Square would have me arrested, imprisoned, and deported never mind opening public debate about state corruption, exploitation of workers, secret prisons, and human rights.
Can you tell I feel rather strongly about this?
Sorry to get a bit political Mr Moderator!
Back to puns about the length of my horn!
I am truly grateful.
what I heard out of those Nexos though. 
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