<story><title>Some of China&apos;s greatest advances depend heavily on local conditions</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-03/maybe-china-can-t-take-over-the-world</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>astatine</author><text>I think there are two perspectives that might provide a different view - the world outside the Western countries and when seen from the view of physical products vs soft services.&lt;p&gt;I travel a fair bit in sub-Saharan Africa and the extent of Chinese influence has changed dramatically in the last decade or so. The airports in most countries are being built&amp;#x2F;upgraded by Chinese companies. The major highways are almost always built by the Chinese. Often enough these are financed by Chinese banks. Even at a consumer level there is a visible presence of Chinese cars and trucks. Chinese motorcycles are everywhere. Most supermarkets are filled with Chinese products, and quite often with Chinese brand names. Union Pay from China is starting to get accepted along with Visa and MasterCard at retail establishments. Even WeChat is taking root as a communication tool of choice though WhatsApp is still hugely more popular. There are Chinese owned&amp;#x2F;run hotels in most cities to cater to the increasing number of visitors and it won&amp;#x27;t be long before they compete with the large chains like Accor and Marriot for non-Chinese visitors.&lt;p&gt;To me, there seems a very clear influence at all levels in a very large number of countries (including Sri Lanka, Maldives and many others in Asia). Even in India, where I am from, with its rather complex relationship with China, Chinese products are everywhere. A recent article (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gadgetsnow.com&amp;#x2F;tech-news&amp;#x2F;chinese-fashion-e-tailers-see-increased-demand-from-indians&amp;#x2F;articleshow&amp;#x2F;61814871.cms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.gadgetsnow.com&amp;#x2F;tech-news&amp;#x2F;chinese-fashion-e-taile...&lt;/a&gt;) shows Alibaba competing quite well with Amazon and Flipkart, the current leaders, in some categories.&lt;p&gt;There is also a sense that I see of the Western companies withdrawing a bit, if only anecdotally. Most flights I take to the African countries less popular on the tourist circuit has more and more Chinese people looking like they are on business, and a corresponding reduction from everywhere else.&lt;p&gt;It may be less in-your-face when compared to the spree of Middle Eastern purchases in major Western cities from the earlier decards, but this looks more steady and lasting.</text></comment>
<story><title>Some of China&apos;s greatest advances depend heavily on local conditions</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-03/maybe-china-can-t-take-over-the-world</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>owenversteeg</author><text>IMHO there&amp;#x27;s an interesting case to be made here (that China won&amp;#x27;t take over the world), but this article seems to have all the thought and research of an off-the-cuff tweet. The author spends almost half the article talking about mobile payments, which is a really tiny part of international dominance.&lt;p&gt;He mentions the gravity model being a limiting factor. Huh? If anything, including the gravity model would sway the balance further towards China and away from the US. China is extremely close to a massive number of highly populated Asian countries, and can run inexpensive trains to Europe. The US has Canada (population 36 million) or Mexico (127 million) close by, but not really much else. As a result, China can inexpensively ship to ~5 billion people, and the US can ship to maybe 500MM. Throw in all of South America (only 400MM or so people) and the US&amp;#x27;s reach is still under a billion.&lt;p&gt;Some figures: Northeast US to southern South America is about 11,000 km straight line, which has to be done with a complicated series of trucks, trains, boats, more trucks, etc. Beijing to Eastern Europe is 6400km, and can be done with two trains.&lt;p&gt;I think that one of the big blocks for China will be regulations around product safety and manufacturing&amp;#x2F;labor standards. There will be also regional pride (&amp;quot;made in USA&amp;quot;&amp;#x2F;&amp;quot;made in Europe&amp;quot;) products and specialized equipment (processors, optics, scientific equipment.) There are a lot of cases to be made, but I don&amp;#x27;t think this article makes any good ones.</text></comment>