Lezt,
I didn't want to go in depth as that would make it even more complicated.
My point was, migrant workers come and go through major cities; but they don't have any insurance in case economy slows down. In the case it does slow down, its either food hand outs or starve. My reference towards the Western was that despite the US having 15 million unemployed, they still get some money from the government monthly to PREVENT starvation. China, doesn't have this. I know the costs etc, but my point was towards China as they don't have this social safety net. (Therefore the need to prevent recession at all costs). Notice I am focusing on the people and how they will act instead of the impacts on government finances.
But again, any other country, I`m not going to try and debate cause I`ve been in China for awhile now and haven`t had anything besides CNN so don`t know. All I'm going to say is about China. This is a China forum, didn't want to go really go off base. I'm not saying China is the pinnacle corrupt nation of the world.
My reference towards the food price was towards this current winter, where they are worried that if food costs are too high, and if people can`t afford there will be unrest. They have stiff penalties for people who are hoarding food products to sell and very strict orders to maintain low prices from top to down. Its not about fertilizer, and actual costs, its worry about judicial hoarding of prices in order to gain more profit in times or possible bad supply. Have you considered, why this is such an issue for China? Hungry people don't complain, they riot. And this is where you are not entirely correct.
Obviously, not every single dynasty downfall was the result of peasants. But the huge majority are. The exception is Song Dynasty, that one fell really purely because of the Mongols. But the rest, are all peasants or heavily reliant on peasants. If you are referring to the Jin and Manchus, do you know Li Zhicheng? Did you know that dude messed out Ming Dynasty to near collapse and then the Manchus flooded in? Ming already had a tough time against that rebel. In summary, the peasants uprised first which caused enormous instability before the Manchus came.
If you want to say Britain, it wasn't Britain that forced the Qing Dynasty collapse. Qing was particularly hit pretty hard itself due to bad harvests before the Opium Wars. While Britain certainly supported, it is not solely responsible. This involved with Qing's isolationist backward policies made people poor and eventually it is the peoples movement that Qing Dynasty collapsed.
I just mentioned GDP cause from farm to Chairman Hu, its all fake. Thats just my point
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Bobcou, You have to assume that having social safety nets are better than not having them to make your statement. And, by that statement, you are assuming that it is a natural progression to having a European/Canadian social safety net from not having one.
This is what I dispute, because there are inherent issues with social security nets such as much higher tax, increase in fraud, increase bureaucracy and increases basic necessity costs - it is not necessarily a good thing to have.
And thus, if you understood what I said, you will also find that I am focusing on the society not on the government.
Hungry people do riot, so does any disgruntled civilians like those students in the UK right now. Dissatisfied people are not happy and it is true anywhere, and this is no failure of the Chinese government; people will riot for any reason.
Viewing the change of dynasty as mainly a peasant revolt is naive, The Xia was overthrown by the Shang by rebel nobility, Shang was defeated by Zhou which is not "chinese", Zhou inturn was destroyed by internal nobles. Qin was defeated by Chu rebels whom subsequently was subdued by the han rebels, Where Jin the decendents of the defeated Wei of the seven kingdom period disposed of the Han.
I think you get the picture, it is not peasant revolts, but rebel mobilities and the middle class which caused the majority of dynastic failure.
The Ming is an interesting story, the rebels did capture the imperial city finding the coffers empty, and the Ming relief army did arrive to retake the city, but so did the Manchus. Depending your perspective on the Manchus being decedents of the previous Jin, the Ming relief army sided with the Manchus.
Had the Manchus not be there, or the eight nation alliance, Chinese history would have been much different. But in all these cases, it is the nobility/middle class/educated whom organized, funded and perpetuated the military, economics and systems to replace the government. The peasant had traditionally been only a tool.
Back to the GDP, you can call China's fake, but so is everybody else.
How China contributed to WW2? I think it is more important in noting how China did not join the Axis, being a large supplier of rare earth metals to Germany and China's natural resource would have made the Axis much stronger.
What China did, in defiant of Tojo when he said that to conquer the world, first you need to conquer China, to conquer China, you need to first conquer Manchuria; is to hold the Japanese war machine at bay.
