Comment by coldtea
20 hours ago
>But China’s industrial dominance is also the government immiserating its people
Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
>Domestic consumption in China is famously low
Compared to what, the US? Compared to China is at a historical high, isn't it? And they're doing quite well even compared to like 70% of the world and rising.
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
A lot of that was the result of stopping doing the damage they had done in previous five decades that resulted in such a high proportion of their population living in poverty.
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
Yes, but China-bad ideology demands that we ask ”at what cost?”
I wonder if similar costs were paid when the West was industrializing?
Spoiler: Yes.
There was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”.
China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing.
This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
> having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies
I don't know why people keep bringing this up as though it is surprising.
In almost any field other than AI PhDs are underpaid on average.
There are many, many bio PhDs working as lab technicians.
> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
In general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
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China isn't bad, the CCP is.
That simplistic characterization is still essentially "China-bad." The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Does it make up for other human rights violations? No. But "CCP bad" flattens a complex and powerful political organization into a fairy tale boogeyman.
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The CCP now has proved a 'better' system than the western 'democracy' that is in many ways at the end of its life.
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Not as much as their East Asian neighbors, who had increasing democracy and fewer deaths to starvation…
The Eastern neighbors all also had way more outside funding....
Their economy has grown, and continues to grow faster than that of any of their neighbors.
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For bringing people out of poverty, they had laminated placards attached to the doors of people who were poor, and the name of the government official who was responsible for lifting that family out of poverty, and if that government official failed at it, they wouldn't advance in their career.
>Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
So did the western world.
Ask Poland, the Baltics and East Germany if they want communism back. I'll wait. :)
I am so tired of the praise of China online while condemning the west. Worst part is you probably live in the west.
*Nono, dont reply, just downvote instead :)
China is not Iron Curtain countries dominated by the USSR. to compare China to Poland has no merit.
China has built high speed rail, a quality universal health care system, and huge tech and mfg sectors. It most certainly is orders of magnitude above East Germany, and not even the same type of socialism.
There are good things about the West and good things about China, it’s not as simple as “our side good”.
China is still a dictatorship who massacred its own people despite building high speed rail...
They only got it good when the USA opened relations in the 80s something they never did with Soviet.
China does not have universal health care.
China helps Russia invade Ukraine. That is simple. Unless you like that too?
Also, where do people want to live? North EU. Yet when we keep our lands people call us racist.
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Did that comment indicate any condemnation of the west?
What I'm tired of is zero-sum jingoistic nationalism of any kind. Can we just be happy for all of the world to prosper?
edit: I didn't downvote you but it's probably the uncalled-for cynicism.
Nationalism is a cancer
>Ask Poland, the Baltics and East Germany if they want communism back. I'll wait. :)
We could, but don't expect the results to be as clear cut as you think :)
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-...
https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/10/12/many-eastern-eur...
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2009/11/02/end-of-communi...
https://brnodaily.com/2023/11/20/news/poll-17-of-czechs-say-...
https://english.radio.cz/poll-less-25-feel-better-now-under-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_nostalgia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie
And of course 2026 China is the very opposite of some failing economy, like Eastern Bloc countries have been in 1989.
Many eastern europeans who had good life in soviet block have nostalgia, however, Ukraine fights with all it power to prevent returning back to soviet block, because majority have very unpleasant memories of soviet times and dozens of millions murdered by soviets.
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Yes, their system has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be in order to support domestic industry. It seem’s to be for geo-strategic reasons rather than in the interests of the Chinese people, it’s also probably unsustainable.
WOW the classic yes...but..., where's these statement coming from? I'm Chinese and I don't get the point here at all, you guys seem living in vacuum with biased news, and know much much better than we people living here, that's really confusing everytime I see/read comments lie this.
China now is open freely for almost everyone, come and see by yourslef, if you not living poverty.
The world itslef does not work the propaganda way whether you dislike or hate the gov for whatever reason. And yes you can criticize the gov as you like with the news you read otr the party you pro with, but never assume how the people feel and belives if you are not the people, and if you do then that's the same mindset as Trump or any other war-bringing president the US had, and you know what they did and still doing.
China interns a million Uigurians and other people with beliefs.
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Tell your neighbors, friends, and government bureaucrats about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Let me know how that goes.
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> but government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
What country has perfect government policy?
The US has atrocious government policies. Costs of college, cost of healthcare insurance, the reason so many uninsured people use the ER as their primary medical usage, tax policy prioritization of capital reinvestment over wage earnings, caring for the environment over affordable housing, etc are all problematic policy outcomes which make the average person poorer.
They are also unsustainable.
> government policy is now making Chinese consumers poorer than they otherwise would be
Right, that sort of thing never happens over here. We don't give the rich tax breaks while robbing the middle class (and saddling it with mountains of debt that will be coming due in their future), we don't print money hand over fist to fund idiotic wars and other vanity projects, and we don't do everything in our power to prevent workers from organizing for higher wages and better working conditions.
Congress and the executive is hard at work to make the American consumer richer than they otherwise would be. Everything they do is with that goal solely in their minds. It's all they live for, not for making their backers and friends richer and more untouchable.
If governments introduced a whataboutism sin tax, they could solve budget deficits overnight.
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