Comment by 10u152
1 day ago
Oh come on.
Lower socio economic Chinese definitely still fear the rich and worry about being homeless and not getting medical treatment.
1 day ago
Oh come on.
Lower socio economic Chinese definitely still fear the rich and worry about being homeless and not getting medical treatment.
Tell me one way that your statement doesn’t apply to the US or many other wealthy developed nations.
The GINI coefficient is higher in the USA than it is in China.
China in recent years has reduced inequality while the US has done absolutely nothing to curb discontent, the same discontent that has led to the election of a fascist leader.
Don’t believe me, look up the data.
> China in recent years has reduced inequality
After many years of increasing inequality
> the US has done absolutely nothing to curb discontent, the same discontent that has led to the election of a fascist leader.
I cannot imagine possible definition of "fascist" that would include the US and exclude China. China has far more fascist features than any other major country - personality cult, courts compliant with the government, erasure of minority cultures - and actual genocide.
It seems some people have claimed the word fascist to mean something entirely different to what it actually means in an attempt to shut down conversations when things aren't going their way.
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I didn’t say China wasn’t fascist, I only said that the US is moving in that direction rapidly. I am talking about trends not necessarily the state of things at this moment.
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> China has far more fascist features than any other major country - personality cult, courts compliant with the government, erasure of minority cultures - and actual genocide.
These are unsubstantiated allegations that come directly from the governments you are loyally defending.
They are definitely substantiated when it comes to USA: Trump has a legendary personality cult and recently released trading cards for it. Trump's FBI just arrested a judge for noncompliance. Trump is hosting genocidal mass-murderer Ben-Gvir in the country right now. This is all just this week! Spare us the vague "look over there, China bad" hand-waving.
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It is an insight into human irrationality to see a country where hundreds of millions have been lifted out of crushing absolute poverty, that has built one of the world's best infrastructure from nothing...in the 70s, China was poorer than every country in Africa bar one.
...the problem is that some people are concerned only with how things are done, this is feudal government, this is pre-industrial economic growth, who does things, how they do it, make sure nothing new is every tried because that is dangerous and might lead to the elite losing control. China (and much of East Asia) succeeded because they are concerned only with outcomes, and this is all that people care about anyway. Unfortunately, the West is now controlled by people who see change as dangerous, and nothing is more dangerous than a country leapfrogging them in development because it proves that their leadership is bankrupt and incompetent.
Western societies are blinded by the narrative their governments have fed them in the last 50 years: China Bad.
But us in 3rd world countries have the ability to see both Western and Eastern societies' development and compare it ij a more unbiased way.
Frankly the China bet looks more successful.
I don’t think anyone who understands geopolitics can agree with this take.
China has been able to (for a time) sustain this kind of rapid industrialization because of globalization, a model of hyper-inflation and by taking advantage of wage inequality (i.e. paying their workers less) in order to dump goods into other countries’ markets. Take away globalization and China starves in the dark, because the part of their population that is largest, most productive and knows how to even feed itself (China is a heavy net importer of food, especially pork) is also very old. And when those people are too old to work, China is going to rely on the rest of the world to sustain its (rapidly declining) population.
There are a lot of other Asian countries in a similar situation, but China is unique in how bleak the future could be for hundreds of millions of people.
A year ago I would have said “who knows when the scale will tip?” With what’s going on lately it seems that it may have already happened. Whether you agree with the economic policy of this administration or not, the ramifications are astounding. The US is positioned to come out of this the best, at the expense of the rest of the world. This is why China is all of a sudden calling the US bullies. They would never admit weakness, but they are suddenly feeling the heat. If the US took it a step further and decided to stop securing the seas in that part of the world, all hell would break loose.
For instance, do you think Japan and China would just “play nice” with no incentive to? I’m not so sure, and China has no access to the ocean without going through Japan.
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Are you willing to submit to my one party state and be ok with being disappeared if you have an unpopular opinion or being enslaved if you are the wrong minority?
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This is nonsense, ~zero rich people in third world send their kids to study in Shanghai instead of Boston or immigrate to Beijing instead of NYC to park their capital.
In fact it’s the rich Chinese who continue to move to Vancouver and London and Irvine to escape China and have a better future.
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I know many people in third world countries who fear China. I did when living in one (and continue to do so as a citizen of one with still close connections to it).
China is a success for whom? Exploited factory workers, Tibetans and Uyghurs?
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