China's Empty City

Hi
This is ZhengHui.
I agree that the spending in infrastructure programs contributes a lot in the increase of the GDP of China. It's interesting that I haven't heard about the city of New Ordos. However, I did see some empty buildings in cities of China. But I think this empty buildings are built by Real Estate companies not government. One of the main reasons that companies stop building them is because they lack investment money. The companies will continue to build them until they find money.
I think the benefits Chinese get from the spending in infrastructure programs are outweigh the disadvantages. Last year, the economics was really really bad. A lot factories in China were shut, especially the ones in export businesses. A large numbers of workers who worked in these export factories are from the poor areas of China and most of them are not well-educated. They earn money using their physical power. Infrastructure programs actually enable them to work in construction places. Therefore, they can afford their life.
What is more is Infrastructure programs makes the country more stable. Because if more people get jobs, there will be less crimes happened in the society.
There are some Infrastructure programs in my hometown. They are good for the local there. For example, the government built a special park for the old last year. My grandpa sometimes takes a walk there. Another example, the boss of my father is making a sewage treatment plant in a village now. It is known that methane gas is a better quality, cleaner and saver to fuel energy. This project is very valuable for the farmers who live there. And this project is Infrastructure programs too.

I'm sorry ZhengHui. I think this is a prime example of sheer government incompetence.

Looks like a negative return on investment is the best that can be hoped for on this project.

No offence intended if I am off base here...but...

An obviously native-chinese-speaking poster, making the first comment on a posting that could be deemed critical of the Chinese government, at 4:17 in the morning.

Is ZhengHui employed by the Chinese government to whitewash any comments critical of the Chinese?

I don't want to sound paranoid, but I have seen (on other sites out there) previously unknown commentors show up at a moments notice when the Chinese government is criticized.

My apologies if this is not the case...just my spidey sense is tingling...

Bridges to no where. The repeat.

Zheng, this isn't infrastructure. Infrastructure is roads. It's sewage. It's electricity. This is a bunch of buildings. The difference? Well, if you are in location A, it matters if neighboring locations B, C, and D have roads, sewage, electricity, communications, water, etc. etc. in order to make sure you have those things as well. However, for you to have a house in A, or an office building in A, or a theater in A, or a parking garage in A, it doesn't matter if B, C, or D has any of those.

A city is not infrastructure. A city has infrastructure, but the infrastructure is not the point of the city. By claiming that New Ordos is an infrastructure project, then you are admitting that the Chinese government is populated by idiots who get these things confused. So, it's good to see dissent is getting through.

Actually assigned 'minders' of our Dear Leader are appearing on some of the sites I frequent.

Our $787Billion Succulus package has been about half spent on useful State government support of infrastructure and union labor. Unfortunately, ours is not a command economy and we now begin to feel the effect.

Poor performace of US Treasuries has started the inflation engine as banks have inflated a stock market bubble with their leveraged purchases. Economic unintended, perverse consequences squared.

The Fed has its soft-landing, hyperinflation and depression.

Interesting that that clip is from Al Jazeera.

You can have quite a bit of extra government spending if there is a budget surplus, as is the case in China. Impressive when you consider that China's economy is based on the industries that most economists claim aren't profitable enough for what used to be the "industrialized countries". I think we need to send the economists to China as well.....

Red:

Those industries can be profitable in industrialized countries as well, provided you don't care about wages, working conditions, or local environmental impact. Generally, industrialized countries do care about those things, as things like starvation are further removed from their list of pressing concerns.

Mecheng, 4:17 in the morning works out to 5:17 PM in Bejing: well within the governmment work day!

First thing I noticed was a lack of senior citizens. Not many people over 60. Tells me all I need yo know about the new China and its self-euthenizing bee hive society.

No one lives except to work for the state.

Supply and Demand in reverse? The place is abandoned yet the rents are still too high for people to live there?

This sort of thing used to be the hallmark of Stalinism.
Constructing things that aren't demanded by a market is what command economies are all about.

It looks like New Ordos and Dubai have a lot in common.
I like the scene of the traffic cop standing in the huge intersection amid the traffic lights that are turned off.
I guess he's cheaper than turning the signals on.

Only in communist countries do you see things like entire brand new towns standing empty. That's because only in communist countries can a tiny number of guys command that much power and not have to show a return on investment. They can waste the money. Capitalists can't do that.

Also, only communist countries see the need to pay people to sit all day and comment on foreign web sites who dare to disrespect their glorious People's Republic.

What did you do ZhengHui, set up a program to track every site that links the Al Jazeera video? How're you liking that iron rice bowl there, eh?

We have people like you here in Canada too y'know. We call them Liberals. They get paid to take pictures of bathroom walls.

Point made, aparatchiks?

Al Jazeera is not exactly a prime source for accurate news. So I certainly take what they say with a grain of salt.

But in this case there is nothing surprising. A whole town built and standing empty, whole factories built and standing empty, bridges that don't go anywhere as Revnant Dream reminds above, car companies that lose money on every car they build but get billions from the taxpayer anyway, farmers who get paid to not grow a crop, these things are typical of big government. The bigger the government, the bigger they screw up.

China has a -really- big government, their screw-ups are the stuff of legend! ZhengHui, ask your Grandma Zheng about the Great Leap Forward. She'll fill you in, buddy. Or she'll sell you to the secret police if she's an aparatchik too. Hmmmn, better be careful there ZhengHui.

Maybe you should invest in some Norinco products. If you can, anyway.

This is another case where economists have to revise the way GDP is calculated, I believe. We have to remove government spending from the calculation since the money stolen from its citizens does not actually stimulate anything but false hopes and false numbers.

I wonder what the actual amount of money spent would be if you removed government spending as well as all money sent back into the economy in the form of welfare and other payouts.

In some ways it is refreshing/encouraging to see a government...any government....vigilant enough to actively defend it's image......rather than having it's President stumbling about the world apologizing......and bad mouthing...his own citizens.
A "teachable momment...."

mecheng: you could be spot on here,

Im not sure what keywords to google, but the Chinese gov't pays web surfers to make plugs on a host of blogs praising and making favourable comments on decisions of Chinese authorities. they make the equivalent of 50 cents per posting or some such thing.

it was a news item somewhere, cant recollect the source.

You have to admit, though, that those houses look rather nice.

Full disclosure: I am not being paid by the state to make this comment. Although I might go out for some Singapore noodles for lunch, but I don't think that counts.

I forget if it was Lenin or Stalin that said the capitalists would sell him the rope that he would use to hang them.

If that statement is true then maybe Norinco will sell us the cheap firearms we can use to defeat them.

" If you build it, they will come..."

Looks like Chinese are baseball fans. On the other hand, if it is too expensive to live in New Ordos then Detroit has plenty of affordable housing.

We have a ghost city called Detroit and creating it didn't cost taxpayers a dime. Trying to bail it out has been very expensive.

I have no idea whether the first poster is a typical propagandist from the Chicom government or one of it's brainwashed denizens, but the result is the same - worthless excuses and recriminations. When I made a post about underage Chinese gymnasts and the government's complicity in the fakery I got instant responses. Clearly there are people trolling the internet to spread lies for the Chicoms.

This is clearly a failure of central planning and clearly China is making up all growth data leaving the country.

The article and the poster though are correct in that we have financed this boondoggle with our debt and our own central planners, intent on spurring residential and commercial development, created our crisis.

I do not agree that Al Jazeera is a poor source of news. After you adjust for their known and potential biases, they are as reliable and unreliable as any other news source.

Bubble.

I think that this clip has less to do with China and more to do with internal Middle Eastern politics and the interest in building-cities-from-the-scratch. Doha in Qatar (where al Jazeera is based) is a political rival of Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia is building cities from the scratch. In 2005 KSA started to built King Abdullah Economic City north of Jeddah and has plans to built 5 other cities. I think that the underlying message of the program may be "see, we think Chinese failed, the city is empty and you may fail too"

ZhengHui sounds like a parody of communist propaganda.
The typical for communist country facts are: 1. Chinese government is obsessed with GDP - real or cooked-up - creating intensives for regional political administration to fulfill the wishes of central committee. 2. Lower levels of administration are interested in infrastructure projects for the oldest of reasons: kick-backs.

Zheng, lei ho mah?

I heard a prediction of dumping, in a big way, of Chinese goods. The only way to fight dumping, is with tariffs.

I keep asking, when did a house stop being a home? We used to buy a house to live in and pass-on to our children...now we buy speculatively to flip for profit. Good for the economy? If they sit empty??? I'm not sure, this one....

"They don't really look at real estate as a place to live. They look at it as a place to put their cash"

Sound familiar?

This sort of thing isn't restricted to Communist countries. Empty spec housing caught on the wrong swing of the economic pendulum is pretty common in Canada. However, the worst examples of over-optimistic construction that I've seen were in and around Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during the economic downturn of 1985, when dozens of cranes hung idle in that small city and entire sub-divisions sat half constructed in the dessert.

This just sounds like another five year plan to me.

This is not unprecedented. Brazilia was made from scratch - however it was planned as the new national capital of Brazil, so there was a reason for its construction.

The buildings look like buildings in any North American city. Building codes appear to be becoming standard worldwide. Surely China didn't merely get the empty buildings - they got a new skilled construction workforce, too. They had to, otherwise they would have been taking virtually all of the available construction workers of the rest of the country to do the job.

China holds a good deal of American national debt, and undoubtedly Canadian debt too. If China itself is pumping stimulus money into its own economy, then we all could be in for a rough ride ahead.

This is not the first time I have found myself surprised at the professionalism of Al Jazeera. I used to think they were merely the propganda arm of various middle eastern factions, but it looks like they are a serious news agency.

@Ed Minchau

Why should propagandists be not professional?
Al Jazeera people are as professional as anybody else; the original journalists came from BBC and the new ones are well educated and smart. The journalists from al Jazeera have much more money to play with than journalists from western media because the Qatar oil money pays for their salaries and trips overseas. They also believe in what they are doing, in contrast to some Western journalists. Most importantly they believe in the message they are trying to give - that West is in decline. So in many of their programs they put forcefully that message (forcefully does not means pushy-like). One only needs to read their side-bar entitled "the Imperium" to see their pervading message.
Do you really think al Jazeera (or al Arabiya) people are stupid and uneducated?
They are news agency and a propaganda arm of Muslim Brotherhood.

Looks like great place to setup a movie studio. Saw an article recently on the various ghost towns in the US, we are starting to have a few in Canada as well, ie Windsor.

This reminds me of Brazil & its new capital Brasilia in the 60s. Built in the middle of the Jungle. The city still isn't full.

http://www.aboutbrasilia.com/

Thanks Kate this was interesting.

Obamba would fill that city!

Everyone would have free heath care and rent to boot............

Hi RCGZ
How can you know the return will be negative? Any evidence or data?

Hi Mecheng, this is ZhengHui. I am not a Chinese Spy, I swear. I just wanted to correct some incorrect and untrue ideas someone gave to China.If I work for the Chinese government, I would have blocked this website.I think you are a spy who are from anti-China organizations, because your spy sense is so strong.Is the reason you said I am a spy because you wanted to hide the truth that you are the spy? Why you didn't believe what I said? Are you a Chinese? Have you lived in China before? I believe not!
So Mecheng, are you a spy? If not, I apologize.

Hi JSchule, this is Zhenghui.Please look at the definition from Wikipedia:
Infrastructure is the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise,or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function.So the sewage project and New Ordos are the infrastructure, no matter it is a city or road. You said that Chinese government get these definitions confused. Obviously, you are the one who got confused. If you just believe in your own definition on "infrastructure", I won't be able to help you.
I think the example of A,B,C you used is pretty good. But I think this example happens everywhere in the world. Any country has the A,B,C and the rich and poor.It is not a typical and unique phenomenon for China.

Orlin, I have to say you are such a genius about correcting the time.

Phantom
This is ZhengHui. You said that Capitalists can't waste money? Go to check how much you guys spent in the Iraq war! What you got from this war with spending trillions of us dollar? Wow, you capitalists not only waste money, but also someone's life.

"Wow, you capitalists not only waste money, but also someone's life." -Zhenghui

Wow, it sure is good that Communists never waste anyone's life.

It's a little peculiar that you say something negative about capitalists since the only prosperity that China is enjoying is due to the fact that it is trying to incorporate some capitalism into the Communist ideology. It will be interesting to watch China tear itself apart as the contradictions between repressive government and capitalistic economy eventually manifest themselves. It will also be quite tragic since many innocent people, who want nothing more than to live their lives without interference, will suffer.

Before you further sing the virtues of this marvelous empty city, please look up the very important concept of "opportunity cost". It will make you a wiser person.