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Last paragraph basically says it all:
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
China's new 5 year plan says it all too. So does all their previous 5 year plans too. Publicly available too.
In USA affordable EVs from China are illegal. Other affordable green tech from China is made unaffordable.
Maybe it's not the government that is the problem. Maybe the problem is the people in charge of running the government. And those people's plan.
Project 2025 is public too. That's USA's plan or at least the Republicans plan.
Sounds to me the left needs a plan
Yeah it would really help to have a plan like "tax rich people" "decommodify housing" "trade deals that punish outsourcing" "ban medical debt." "College that is so cheap it doesn't need loans" "Corporations posting profits after job cuts and layoffs will have higher taxes" "discourage corporations from selling products in multiple markets" "reduce corporate price fixing through third parties" "force corporations to compete in markets" "disallow investors to buy companies when they hold substantial investment in a corporation that produces any competing product"
One final edit: "Break up regional monopolies"
Any government that relies on individuals to uncorruptly weild concentrated power...... is the problem. Society and human nature will see it abused every time.
If your system relies on being run by exceptional people. Success itself is the exception.
Any government that relies on individuals to uncorruptly weild concentrated power…
All governments rely on uncorruptible civil servants to some degree. Nobody seems to know what the threshold for "concentrated power" actually is.
But the Chinese system has this pernacious habit of benefiting domestic Chinese residents. That's the "corruption" westerners can't stand. That's the concentration of authority they object to.
If the Chinese economy was run out of a board room at JP Morgan or through a series is military based commanded by NATO Generals or via a client state like Israel or Japan, we wouldn't hear any complaints
If the Chinese economy was run out of a board room at JP Morgan or through a series is military based commanded by NATO Generals or via a client state like Israel or Japan, we wouldn't hear any complaints
Western markets would still be overrun by cheap products (partly because of subsidies and partly because forced labour), Chinese residents would still be supressed by heavy surveillance, Taiwan would still be threatened, Russia would still be supplied with technology to invade Ukraine.
Until 15 years ago China wasn't considered a hostile state, just an increasingly powerful competitor. All nations benefit their fomestic residents, or at least their domestic corporations.
The real situation in which there wouldn't be complaints would be when the Chinese benefitted their residents while at the same time didn't do anything the west didn't like. But since they've become pwerful, they can now do whatever they want (just like other powerful countries) - and some of the stuff they want, is bad for the west.
At this point, Chinas goverment may be no more authoritarian than the US government. And China has a lot more social welfare programs than the US. Honestly, when I was in China i felt substantially more free than I did in the US. Far less policed. Far less restricted. Maybe that jsut my experience, but the feeling was real.
Haven't been to either but authoritarian doesn't have to mean suppressive. And in both cases it might matter a lot where you go and who you are (as in your wealth, skin colour, connections etc).
Nah, my existence was illegal. I'm the second son in my family. I'd feel very rejected there.
Hukou was also another form of rejection. To them, I'm just a filthy peasant from some village in Taishan. Doesn't matter if I was born in a hospital in Guangzhou, I get Taishan Hukou. They didn't me in Guangzhou Oublic schools. We didn't belong there, just migrants, second class residents. By the start of highschool, the migrants kids have to go back to where their hukou actually is because Gaokao has to be taken there.
Westerners have their privilaged passport to shield themselves because the PRC authorities won't dare to touch a western citizen. Too much trouble and bad international press. (I mean as long as you don't actually cross their "red line", you're immune) That' probably why it feels so free.
I mean, even an American Citizen of Chinese descent don't get that privilage, since they "look Chinese" they get treated like a Chinese national.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government
Dizzying to see what constitutes "authoritarian" in Evil Foreign Country relative to what is "sensible national security policy" at home.
Almost feels like the complaint isn't with the policies themselves, but who authors and enforces them.
They have also put millions into poverty.
Citation?
China has pushed huge numbers of people into poverty in different ways over the decades — the Great Leap Forward basically wrecked agriculture and caused a massive famine, the Cultural Revolution tore apart schools and workplaces and left tons of families with nothing, and long-term policies like the hukou system kept rural migrants stuck in low-income situations even as cities got richer. On top of that, big relocation projects for dams or new city districts have displaced whole communities with compensation that often didn’t match what they lost, and pollution from rapid industrialization has hit farmers and fishers hard. Outside China, some Belt and Road projects have piled unsustainable debt onto poorer countries, aggressive fishing in disputed waters has squeezed local fishers in Southeast Asia, sudden trade restrictions have hurt industries in neighboring economies, and resource extraction deals abroad have pushed aside local communities.
References (searchable titles):
Eh...
I'm glad my homeland is doing a lot better these days, but still, for my family, we end up doing better in the US (we moved around 2010 for context, way before this admin), the first few years in the US was a struggle, the similar stuggle as before in Guangzhou, but eventually we have a house and then we started saving up and we have a small bussiness and some investments here in the US. So it really depends on personal circumstances...
In China, everyone has an ancestral house, but that is in your village; in the city, unless you are from the city, you probably won't have housing. Jobs were in cities, so people migrate there, migrant workers... most of them have to rent a small apartment unit, probably in some slum. There are handweitten "for rent" posters everywhere. My family didn't have to rent, they "bought" an apartment in Guangzhou (bought in quotes because the 70 year lease thing... which we still don't know how it works... 70 years have not passed), its a very shitty one, in a slum neighborhood, but that was all they could afford. Most had to rent.
Prior to the Opening Up and Reforms, people weren't allowed to move around, so you'd just get stuck on your farm... and farming manually... which really sucks.
After the Opening Up and Reforms, the relaxed the restriction on movements. But the Hukou still had restrictions.
I was born in Guangzhou, but wasn't allowed into their public schools, no Guangzhou Hukou, my hukou was Taishan, my mom had to pay for a privately-run one that she said was inferior to the public school. Some migrant workers just left their kids beind in their village to attend school there. So those kids rarely get to see their parents. I did see them because I was going to school in Guangzhou so we didn't really get separated like those kids did, but usually we didn't get to see out parents for most of the day, so either grandmother was home to watch me and my brother, or sometimes we just get left at home alone.
I think most of the kids in that school I went to were all kida of migrant parents... because a Guangzhou kids would just go to public school.
Someone with Taishan Hukou also can't like get any healthcare benefits of Guangzhou.
It's like a internal passport system. Countries withing countries...
Then there was another issue with me essentially being an "illegal child" since my mother violated the 1 child policy, as I was the 2nd to be born, so my parents had to pay a huge fine before I can even get registered in Hukou and legally exist and have identity documents.
Converting to Guangzhou Hukou was practically impossible. Somehow, getting US citizenship was easier... 🤷♂️
Maybe one day this stupid Hukou thing goes away, because it is stupid af.
Believe it or not, there are plans to "overhaul" the Hukou system.
https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/china-unveils-ambitious-5-year-plan-to-overhaul-the-hukou-system/
Recently I think they make it so couples can register their marriage in any jurisdiction. And not have to go to one of the couple's birth town.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333785.shtml
I couldn't fully understand whether or not their children's Hukou will now be in the location of their marriage registration. But it's a good step forward and they saw a brief spike in marriage registration overall.
It's so weird that they've been so stubborn about it for so long, even as their cities expand to accommodate migrants and the population growth is slowed.
Not surprised at all. American has done a fantastic job at propagandizing the populace against China.
Does China have major issues? Yes. Does China care more about its own sucess as a whole? Also yes. America invested in individuals, Chain invested in their people. This is the natural outcome.
Those individuals being exxon, Raytheon, and for-profit prison companies.
Excuse me, have you heard of the K shaped economy? It’s the everyday hellscape we now live in, where the rich can’t buy enough, and the poor can’t buy anything. Plane ticket sales down, first & business class have no inventory. Less people than ever can afford a house, and mega mansion sales are booming. We can’t afford groceries, but 5* restaurants have no reservations.
At some point, this shit comes to ahead. My pessimism suggests the rich want to figure out AI / robot security, so they can stop relying on any people at all.
Oh yeah, add in some sycophantic computers telling everyone they are perfect and every solution we have is paradigm breaking or revolutionary. Nothing will go wrong at all.
My pessimism suggests the rich want to figure out AI / robot security, so they can stop relying on any people at all.
Look at the plans to tech-ify Gaza. This is exactly what is planned
when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
I like that it uses “wouldn’t” rather than”couldn’t”. So relevant to today’s politics
Over 90% of Chinese households would be below the US poverty line. Their GDP per capita is only $13k.
Germany has a GDP per capita lower than Alabama. Yet the average German has a quality of life that is significantly higher than that of an average person in Alabama. GDP doesn’t tell the whole picture.
I've spent a good amount of time in China. Sure, Chinese household earnings would be below the US poverty line, but you also have to consider that things in China cost about 1/5 to 1/6 of what they do in the US. Their purchasing power completely blows us out of the water. They also have great public transportation, fantastic infrastructure, and free healthcare. And they are at this point more cutting edge than we are with regard to pushing the limits of medical science. The US is a failed state. China is prospering and all the US can do to defend against it is run smear campaigns that propagandize against it.
Free healthcare? When I went to a people's hospital, I saw people paying. I think they have a public option or something that covers a portion of the cost, and even the uncovered portion is hilariously low to an American, but it didn't look free.
Yes, but you also need to look at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). PPP compares the relative value of currencies by measuring the price of a basket of goods in different countries. Accounting for that, China’s GDP per capita is more like $30k. To do that in a little over 70 years, when in 1952 83% of China’s workforce was engaged in agriculture, is nothing short of amazing. They are already well on their way to reducing their dependence on non-renewable energy and seem poised to overtake the US as the technological powerhouse of the world within the next 50 years.
When rent in city center of a T2 city is 300 USD, a meal costs 1USD, and bus/subway fare 14 cents, its easier to make ends meet.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. GDP per capita is not really a good measure of quality of life on its own.
Historically the USA has brought a lot of people (most?) out of poverty by the world standard. Recent policy seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Quality of life has been declining for a long time, IMO mostly with our sense of community, the completely broken healthcare system, media consolidation, absurd levels of car dependency, high cost of having children, and a whole bunch of other location-specific factors (like cost of living in metro areas)
US cost of life has got nothing to do with Chinese cost of life though.
You need to understand that most basic stuff is cheap, in China. I can feed myself heartily for like a dollar a meal. And that's if I don't want to cook!
I appreciate you talk about GDP, but those $13k are more like $130k when you live there. I was earning $20k and that was a comfortable life with no worries, on par with what I have now in Europe around 40k€.
The idea that they have zero poverty is just absurd.
The source is the World Bank. They are extremely unlikely to lie about this as their ideology is diametrically opposed to communism.
I appreciate your fine estimation of TWB, but a study is only as good as it's data.
Data from the government, by the government. Have conditions and quality of life improved? Yes. But it was only a few years ago the people were buying gross tonnage of cheap fashion clothes during a rather harsh winter so people could survive the cold by burning it instead of coal to heat their homes.
That's not even counting the hundreds of millions that live life like it's the great depression, and the conditions in which they work.
But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
My favorite idea is that the Mainland regime -- then under Deng -- took their economic development ideas and business customs from Japan -- including industrial espionage -- and basically modified those for Chinese needs while addressing the problems which led to Japan's later bubble burst by the late 80s. That local corporations were given first priority, with a lot of incentives, tax breaks, programs to increase productivity and cut away inhibitions, hire young people from the far provinces who are willing to work for less, anything to have the world buy cheap from China. So they treated business like warfare, as essential for national survival and prestige where by 2049 the world must look up to Mainland China, never to be humiliated again.
However, China in its current state has its younger generations in urban areas having to deal with overwork burnout (996工作制 or 996 working hour system for example) and so creating basically its own anti-work culture. That there are godawful displays of wealth by tuhao almost everyday, while most others complain how it's so expensive to live in, say, Shanghai. I could try to go on, but I put it that it's still not a happy place as long as there is class conflict.
Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work.
Only a handful of countries manage to produce more money per hour of work.
That's an important distinction IMO.
Different starting points, it used to be 8/10 Chinese living in extreme poverty.
The article sent me on a tangent.
https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/united-states-largest-export-statistics/
Arms aren't listed. Some things listed depend on parts imported.
