4 ms·

Only now? Can you elaborate?

anovikov 9y ago
Probably he meant that China went from being a top #1 economy in the world by a huge margin when the opioid epidemic began there, and it has just recently became #1 again, so far by a small margin. That sounds about right. They lost ca. 200 years. Of course explaining that by opioids alone would be balancing between a huge oversimplification and a plain lie, but at least opioids have been the biggest single factor.
- Banthum 9y ago
  Just because they fell in the rankings doesn't mean they actually lost anything. E.g. Another way for a country to lose the #1 economy spot is for it to simply stay the same while other nations (e.g. Europe in this case) make huge advances. Being fair, a few other things happened in there too. I don't think that during the communists' Cultural Revolution the country was primarily being held back by opiod abuse.
  - anovikov 9y ago
    In a way it was. Majority of population were just off the drugs, and most kids who became 'red guards' - they were born in China's darkest days - had prenatal drug problem so they were kinda mentally impaired which caused most or all that shit. If such a relatively innocent thing as inhaling lead vapours from suddenly omnipresent cars in 1960s and 1970s could cause a 1980s-1990s crime wave in the U.S., it is easy to see what putting whole nation on opioids could do with the next generation.
PakG1 9y ago
China's Century of Humiliation started on the eve of the opium war. The current Chinese government has a goal to never let China ever experience anything like that ever again. I visited their museum of Chinese history in Xian, really eye opening about how this thought drives almost ALL of their foreign and domestic policy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation The Century of Humiliation started them on a road of weakness that took several revolutions to figure out how to stop. Only with Deng Xiaoping in the 80s did China begin to find its stride, and only now are they starting to finally become a world power that the world needs to reckon with instead of ignore. Whatever you think of politics and philosophies, China is now considered a world power in a way it never has been before.
tim333 9y ago
The opium wars were from 1839 to 1860. If you check out this graph of Chinese percentage of global GDP since 1000AD, it started dropping from about 30% to <10% around the time of the wars and started recovering around 1970 but still isn't back to where they used to be. You could argue us brits owe them a few trillion in damages. In the scheme of a 1000 years of history you could argue 1970 counts as only now perhaps. https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/mis-charting-economic-history https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/mis-ch...

Probably he meant that China went from being a top #1 economy in the world by a huge margin when the opioid epidemic began there, and it has just recently became #1 again, so far by a small margin. That sounds about right. They lost ca. 200 years. Of course explaining that by opioids alone would be balancing between a huge oversimplification and a plain lie, but at least opioids have been the biggest single factor.

Banthum 9y ago
Just because they fell in the rankings doesn't mean they actually lost anything. E.g. Another way for a country to lose the #1 economy spot is for it to simply stay the same while other nations (e.g. Europe in this case) make huge advances. Being fair, a few other things happened in there too. I don't think that during the communists' Cultural Revolution the country was primarily being held back by opiod abuse.
- anovikov 9y ago
  In a way it was. Majority of population were just off the drugs, and most kids who became 'red guards' - they were born in China's darkest days - had prenatal drug problem so they were kinda mentally impaired which caused most or all that shit. If such a relatively innocent thing as inhaling lead vapours from suddenly omnipresent cars in 1960s and 1970s could cause a 1980s-1990s crime wave in the U.S., it is easy to see what putting whole nation on opioids could do with the next generation.

PakG1 9y ago

China's Century of Humiliation started on the eve of the opium war. The current Chinese government has a goal to never let China ever experience anything like that ever again. I visited their museum of Chinese history in Xian, really eye opening about how this thought drives almost ALL of their foreign and domestic policy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation The Century of Humiliation started them on a road of weakness that took several revolutions to figure out how to stop. Only with Deng Xiaoping in the 80s did China begin to find its stride, and only now are they starting to finally become a world power that the world needs to reckon with instead of ignore. Whatever you think of politics and philosophies, China is now considered a world power in a way it never has been before.

tim333 9y ago

The opium wars were from 1839 to 1860. If you check out this graph of Chinese percentage of global GDP since 1000AD, it started dropping from about 30% to <10% around the time of the wars and started recovering around 1970 but still isn't back to where they used to be. You could argue us brits owe them a few trillion in damages. In the scheme of a 1000 years of history you could argue 1970 counts as only now perhaps. https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/mis-charting-economic-history https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/mis-ch...