Interesting to think that China might have some "special sauce" capabilities or situations that other nations (past or present) do not (did not) have. Higher intelligence, strong social conformity and orientation to maintain civility, and authoritarian governance could all contribute to enhance or augment your 5 factors for progress. Except as you also point out, the issue of restraining the elites from exploiting the masses also improves with decentralized control and flexibility, so that is also very important. Some writers have characterized the Chinese social structure as closer to a Mafia environment than a politicaly ideological one. So the leadership is oriented to advancing their personal interests and not worrying about the overall benefits or impacts on the wider populace. This has to have some detriment to advancing nationwide progress.
"I am no expert in monetary policy, but it is not clear that another developing nation can acquire such a huge debt load via domestic financing." I am no expert here either, but to the extent I have read and thought about monetary policy and money in general, I believe too many people look at money as the fuel that drives the economy (i.e., Keynesians of various stripes?), or an essential element. [Possibly they also ignore Say's Law?] Instead, I view money as a supporting commodity that acts as a lubricant for the economy. There is demand for more money to be available (as money capital) once the human capital has surfaced or discovered or generated the innovative ideas and entrepreneurial drive to improve productivity, etc.
Under normal Western cultural environments, I perceive if you have a good idea, you can find the capital needed to bring it to fruition. Convincing the potential investors may not always be easy, but modern VC firms, etc., seem to be pretty accommodating to supplying start up funds for most new (and some old) proposals. They just spread the risk across many options.
In terms of debt risks, there used to be some mortgage debt rules of thumb that you could afford a mortgage of 2.5 times your pretax income, or maybe being in debt to no more than 36% of your net income. Even these rules, while generally reasonable, were more risky than previous lenders were willing to endure unless they got 10 to 25% rates of return. [You must know a lot more about the details on that than I do. :-) ]
So debt in and of itself is not bad (vs. older ideas about usury) but must be managed and controlled so as not to become excessive (the situation we seem to be facing at the consumer, corporate, and governmental levels). History is replete with examples where this proper level of management fell down, including among our modern "oh so smart" people.
A nation that can first invest in their human capital (Japan, Korea, Singapore?) can use that to overide any real deficits in mineral or related natural resources. The debt levels to achieve that are pretty small, comparatively. Then wisely managed debt solicitations can build the factories, etc., as long as the expectations are not too large or fast. Starting from a very low baseline may be part of what distorted the Chinese situation and the realism of their expectations?
Interesting to think that China might have some "special sauce" capabilities or situations that other nations (past or present) do not (did not) have. Higher intelligence, strong social conformity and orientation to maintain civility, and authoritarian governance could all contribute to enhance or augment your 5 factors for progress. Except as you also point out, the issue of restraining the elites from exploiting the masses also improves with decentralized control and flexibility, so that is also very important. Some writers have characterized the Chinese social structure as closer to a Mafia environment than a politicaly ideological one. So the leadership is oriented to advancing their personal interests and not worrying about the overall benefits or impacts on the wider populace. This has to have some detriment to advancing nationwide progress.
"I am no expert in monetary policy, but it is not clear that another developing nation can acquire such a huge debt load via domestic financing." I am no expert here either, but to the extent I have read and thought about monetary policy and money in general, I believe too many people look at money as the fuel that drives the economy (i.e., Keynesians of various stripes?), or an essential element. [Possibly they also ignore Say's Law?] Instead, I view money as a supporting commodity that acts as a lubricant for the economy. There is demand for more money to be available (as money capital) once the human capital has surfaced or discovered or generated the innovative ideas and entrepreneurial drive to improve productivity, etc.
Under normal Western cultural environments, I perceive if you have a good idea, you can find the capital needed to bring it to fruition. Convincing the potential investors may not always be easy, but modern VC firms, etc., seem to be pretty accommodating to supplying start up funds for most new (and some old) proposals. They just spread the risk across many options.
In terms of debt risks, there used to be some mortgage debt rules of thumb that you could afford a mortgage of 2.5 times your pretax income, or maybe being in debt to no more than 36% of your net income. Even these rules, while generally reasonable, were more risky than previous lenders were willing to endure unless they got 10 to 25% rates of return. [You must know a lot more about the details on that than I do. :-) ]
So debt in and of itself is not bad (vs. older ideas about usury) but must be managed and controlled so as not to become excessive (the situation we seem to be facing at the consumer, corporate, and governmental levels). History is replete with examples where this proper level of management fell down, including among our modern "oh so smart" people.
A nation that can first invest in their human capital (Japan, Korea, Singapore?) can use that to overide any real deficits in mineral or related natural resources. The debt levels to achieve that are pretty small, comparatively. Then wisely managed debt solicitations can build the factories, etc., as long as the expectations are not too large or fast. Starting from a very low baseline may be part of what distorted the Chinese situation and the realism of their expectations?