Chinese Economics Thread

[krautmeister]

The Chinese will have to seriously consider redistributing the increase in rainfall in the southern part of the country to the parched north western region. They can synchronize the pumping of dammed water in the southern region just before the rainy season to higher level reservoirs in the dry western region from where it can then flow by gravity to deserts or aquifers under the deserts. In this way the flood water can be saved and diverted to reclaim desert land for food crops.

This was actually reported by Indian media a couple of years ago. It is the so-called Red Flag River project that was discussed among some forum enthusiasts on the China Internet and then picked up like it was official fact by Indian conspiracy theorists. Here is a map of that hypothetical project.



Basically, it involves diverting a part of the river flow of several major rivers around the Tibetan Plateau upwards and northwards where it would flow by gravity through the Gansu corridor and onwards to the Western edge of Xinjiang with upwards of 60 billion cu/m of water annually. This would be enough to solve China's water problems in the southwest, northwest through to Gansu and Xinjiang. It would also replenish the Yellow River, irrigate Inner Mongolian desert north of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei and replenish north China aquifers. It would literally solve almost all of China's water problems and create 200000 sq/km of arable land. However, this was just a hypothetical project and never received official sanction.

 

[krautmeister]

Technology in oil extraction has improved so much over the decades that even the most expensive oil field can produce oil at around $50-$60 a barrel. I would say since this field is still a conventional oil field even very deep one, it shouldn't cost more than $50-$60 a barrel.

It is worth it for China to pump out oil even at a large loss if China oil imports are blockaded as long as the loss is lower than the business profit gained from the use of that oil in other industries. I believe that is how China government views it. If push comes to shove, I see China pumping oil from every uneconomic well it has, as well as going all out on CTL coal-to-liquid oil production.

 

[krautmeister]

Production of bitcoin basically consumes a heck load of energy and computational power to produce... nothing. And it is not backed by any major governmental body or entity. All of this is public information.

It produces a lot of "money" for some people to buy stuff for Free! Easiest money to be made, best to take advantage as long as this lasts.

 

[BoraTas]

This was actually reported by Indian media a couple of years ago. It is the so-called Red Flag River project that was discussed among some forum enthusiasts on the China Internet and then picked up like it was official fact by Indian conspiracy theorists. Here is a map of that hypothetical project.

View attachment 73727

Basically, it involves diverting a part of the river flow of several major rivers around the Tibetan Plateau upwards and northwards where it would flow by gravity through the Gansu corridor and onwards to the Western edge of Xinjiang with upwards of 60 billion cu/m of water annually. This would be enough to solve China's water problems in the southwest, northwest through to Gansu and Xinjiang. It would also replenish the Yellow River, irrigate Inner Mongolian desert north of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei and replenish north China aquifers. It would literally solve almost all of China's water problems and create 200000 sq/km of arable land. However, this was just a hypothetical project and never received official sanction.

How expensive and time consuming this artificial river can be? Are there any guesses on it? This would likely be the largest scale engineering project ever.

 

[voyager1]

How expensive and time consuming this artificial river can be? Are there any guesses on it? This would likely be the largest scale engineering project ever.

However costly it would still be worth the expense. Water issues have historically been a huge problem for China

But this would present international problems for China in regards to its neighbors

 

[KYli]

It produces a lot of "money" for some people to buy stuff for Free! Easiest money to be made, best to take advantage as long as this lasts.

Those mining companies can always move to other countries. Money laundering is a big issue. Energy consumption is also a problem. More importantly, speculation could be a problem down the road. If Bitcoin keeps rising, then there would be a huge bubble that would wipe out a lot of wealth since many Chinese have invested in Bitcoin. On the other hand, Chinese mining companies should be fine as long as they operate in other countries.

 

[siegecrossbow]

 

[steel21]

Yknow, the fall of crypto and the resurgence of growth stocks, and Chinese tech in particular might be correlated.

 

[krautmeister]

How expensive and time consuming this artificial river can be? Are there any guesses on it? This would likely be the largest scale engineering project ever.

Absolutely the largest civil engineering project ever by at least an order of magnitude. It would totally transform China by solving its water scarcity problems forever, while adding hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of new arable flatlands. It never went beyond expert discussions and it was part of a private investment conference with some notable actual experts in the panel but it was never on any official government plans or conferences. The main problem was crossing the various mountain ranges. Supposedly, the tectonic plate movements and earthquakes was the hardest nut to crack. The proposed solution was to use flexible tubing like they use between articulated buses. This would be done on a gigantic scale and would be very risky. Here's a good video describing it.

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[krautmeister]

Those mining companies can always move to other countries. Money laundering is a big issue. Energy consumption is also a problem. More importantly, speculation could be a problem down the road. If Bitcoin keeps rising, then there would be a huge bubble that would wipe out a lot of wealth since many Chinese have invested in Bitcoin. On the other hand, Chinese mining companies should be fine as long as they operate in other countries.

The mining ban in China is a huge boon for every other miner in the world because the reduced global hashrate now makes it easier to mine for us with less. China represented over half the world's mining. So, unless the price of the coin you are mining dropped by that ratio, it is a net positive for miners. The only possible drawback is that the most energy intensive coins like Bitcoin will lose their speculative appeal. So, now we have to mine and sell earlier because of the increased risk of this collapsing like it did many times in the past.