Mao's Great Mass Murder

[Chinahand]

I really enjoy Gapminder - you can use it to get so much information - who has had the economic miracle - China, Taiwan, or Thailand?

 

Gap Minder

 

In 1945 Taiwan, Mainland China, and Thailand were all basically at the same level.

 

Today, Thailand and China are at basically the same level - you rarely hear about the Thai miracle! While a typical Taiwanese is 4 times richer (on this measure PPP measure).

 

China is now about as rich as Taiwan was in 1980 - interestingly when it started to Democratize. If you adjust the settings to add in Japan you'll see China is currently as rich as Japan was in 1964 - Japan was able to grow strongly for another 10 years from that level and then it progressively slowed to the current stagnation - with Taiwan actually catching it up.

 

What will China do? We certainly live in interesting times!

[Ringwraith]

In 1945 Taiwan, Mainland China, and Thailand were all basically at the same level.

 

Today, Thailand and China are at basically the same level - you rarely hear about the Thai miracle! While a typical Taiwanese is 4 times richer (on this measure PPP measure).

 

Didn't Chiang Kai-shek remove most of China's gold when he retreated to Taiwan though, is that why they were able to grow their economy so rapidly?

 

What will China do? We certainly live in interesting times!

 

We sure do! China's growth and strength really is quite incredible though. When you consider what the country has been through in the past 80 years. The death toll alone from Mao added to the Japanese attrocities must be at or over 100 million, yet the population has bounced back physically, economically and technologically.

[Chinahand]

Ringwraith - I don't think the gold is really significant in developing Taiwan's economy - certainly alot was brought to Taiwan by the Nationalist Government, but you've got to compare it to an economy of 10 million people. It was only the equivilent of less than a year's worth of GDP - at the time the military economy on Taiwan was dominant, but basically unproductive. Chiang Kai Shek maintained a standing army of 600,000 which would eat the value of the gold in about 2 years! Link

 

If it hadn't been for the Korean war and a major US change of heart Taiwan would probably have fallen, but with that war the US built bases on Taiwan and provided aid worth many times the Gold - this aid was comparable to the Marshall Plan aid into western Europe - the UK got $3 billion, Germany $1.5, Japan $2.4, South Korea $0.8 and Taiwan $1.0 etc. This aid allowed the military to be maintained, and an industrial economy to develop.

 

There are strong arguments to say that Taiwan, Japan and South Korea developed successfully under US protection - they were given access to US markets with few concessions.

 

That was far more significant than any gold - however the KMT remains one of the wealthiest, and corrupt, political parties in the World as a result of its usurping of state assets and I am sure the odd gold bar was invovled! Sure the communists did the same thing, but they never claimed to be doing anything other than siezing the state's assets!

 

Interestingly China's access to US markets is also responsible for its boom - shame 10s of millions had to die before it realized the way to wealth is via trade.