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China is NOT well run. Life is NOT good. The growth is FAKE 7% every year. There was a very recent event happening in Beijing kindergarten regarding sexual a

China is NOT well run. Life is NOT good. The growth is FAKE 7% every year. There was a very recent event happening in Beijing kindergarten regarding sexual abuses....and the authorities CLAMPED DOWN ON THE MEDIA and DENIED IT TOOK PLACE. http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/rumors-11292017123013.html http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/rumors-11292017123013.... Why do you think the rich and the intellectuals are fleeing the country? Polluted air, polluted water, polluted food, hidden poverty, censorship, police state, the list goes on and on....

ztratar 9y ago
Those sure are a lot of sensationalist claims. Can you provide evidence for your "FAKE" 7% YoY growth statistic? I know plenty of traders & Americans doing business in China who'd disagree with you. I understand why people would flee -- the pollution is insane. But still, by all measures I've see the economic growth is quite real.
client4 9y ago
I've spent the better part of my last few months in China, Beijing and Shanghai specifically. China just speed-ran the industrial revolution at 10x the size of the US and is about to surpass us in the next era of energy, renewable energy. Beijing pollution is still bad. But it's 1/2 of where it was at 4 years ago, and will likely be non-existent in the next 10 years.
- bduerst 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Most westerners' impressions of China are 10 years behind. There's always been a ton of, "Just wait until the sky falls China won't be prepared" doom saying but as a controlled economy they've become the largest producer of green energy in the world, and are racing to produce the first general A.I.
aylmao 9y ago
It's finals season in college so of course I just wrote an essay about this whole thing. I have 3 points to make; 1. I think people need to think of this in the historical context. China has always been closed to the West. The only time they really "opened up" it was because they were forced to after the opium wars, and they lost much of their sovereignty to European spheres of influence that ultimately wrecked them economically. Being closed has historically worked for them and not being so hasn't, so is it such a surprise they want to remain closed? 2. Economically it makes tonnes of sense to do this, and to be honest, I believe that's the main reason they're doing it (more so than to stop criticism's of the party or try to hide stuff). They're beating the West at their own game. Their country has so many people they don't need international markets; China has more people than Europe and North America combined! France, for example, will likely never get it's own Facebook, Uber or Amazon because Facebook, Uber and Amazon are free to operate there, and as long as these big players hang around (which they will, indefinitely) there will be little space for a competing product to develop. This means France, - Will have tech startups, but never with "Silicon Valley" level size or growth. - These services in France will be highly dependant on USA policy - Most importantly, there will be less incentive for certain types of engineering to grow in France. Like, will France ever have a hub for self-driving car research if there's no French Uber/Lyft/etc? Will it ever have as many self-driving car specialists? If there are engineers interested in this, they will most likely come to the US and work here. China is protecting itself from brain/idea/high-skilled-job-drain by ensuring local alternatives grow within its borders. It wants to be a tech hub, and this is really the best if not only way to do it when it comes to software tech. 3. Stability. We might call it censorship and control, and we might be right, but especially after the Russian involvement in the USA's latest presidential elections and how easy it was for them to reach their audience online [1], do they not have reason to be paranoid? It's in the interest of Russia to have Trump as president, and, tbh, to split the American people and have in-fighting. And apparently it's not hard for them to make this happen in this connected world. Propaganda can come from both within, and outside. I'm not trying to say that this is the best approach or that everyone should do this, but there's definitely more to it than "China is evil and wants to brainwash people isolating them from the outside world". Information can definitely get in and out of China; I think the historical, economic and defensive reasons make more sense in explaining China's approach. They're just being protectionist. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-...
- OkGoDoIt 9y ago
  You make some compelling arguments. I’d be curious to see the rest of your essay. Have you published it somewhere?
  - aylmao 9y ago
    Oh, it was just an expression for a super-long comment; I didn't write an actual essay! Though maybe I should actually expand on these arguments and write up an essay to post on Medium or something at some point. I'll keep it in mind (:
longcheng 9y ago
Polluted air, polluted water, polluted food, hidden poverty, blah, blah, ... and yet China's life expectancy is only 3 year shorter than America's (76 vs 79), and China's population is 4 times as bigger as America's. I will have to say, good job Chinese government!
- nailer 9y ago
  Probably due to the trading all Chinese diet. Which has very little to do with the communist party, who are a very recent development.
  - nailer 9y ago
    traditional Chinese diet. Thanks autocorrect.
- prklmn 9y ago
  Asian Americans (similar genetics) have a life expectancy of 87 years, that’s 11 years more.
dang 9y ago
Would you please not rant here, let alone on nationalistic topics, and please not use all-caps for emphasis? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

ztratar 9y ago

Those sure are a lot of sensationalist claims. Can you provide evidence for your "FAKE" 7% YoY growth statistic? I know plenty of traders & Americans doing business in China who'd disagree with you. I understand why people would flee -- the pollution is insane. But still, by all measures I've see the economic growth is quite real.

client4 9y ago

I've spent the better part of my last few months in China, Beijing and Shanghai specifically. China just speed-ran the industrial revolution at 10x the size of the US and is about to surpass us in the next era of energy, renewable energy. Beijing pollution is still bad. But it's 1/2 of where it was at 4 years ago, and will likely be non-existent in the next 10 years.

bduerst 9y ago
Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Most westerners' impressions of China are 10 years behind. There's always been a ton of, "Just wait until the sky falls China won't be prepared" doom saying but as a controlled economy they've become the largest producer of green energy in the world, and are racing to produce the first general A.I.

aylmao 9y ago

It's finals season in college so of course I just wrote an essay about this whole thing. I have 3 points to make; 1. I think people need to think of this in the historical context. China has always been closed to the West. The only time they really "opened up" it was because they were forced to after the opium wars, and they lost much of their sovereignty to European spheres of influence that ultimately wrecked them economically. Being closed has historically worked for them and not being so hasn't, so is it such a surprise they want to remain closed? 2. Economically it makes tonnes of sense to do this, and to be honest, I believe that's the main reason they're doing it (more so than to stop criticism's of the party or try to hide stuff). They're beating the West at their own game. Their country has so many people they don't need international markets; China has more people than Europe and North America combined! France, for example, will likely never get it's own Facebook, Uber or Amazon because Facebook, Uber and Amazon are free to operate there, and as long as these big players hang around (which they will, indefinitely) there will be little space for a competing product to develop. This means France, - Will have tech startups, but never with "Silicon Valley" level size or growth. - These services in France will be highly dependant on USA policy - Most importantly, there will be less incentive for certain types of engineering to grow in France. Like, will France ever have a hub for self-driving car research if there's no French Uber/Lyft/etc? Will it ever have as many self-driving car specialists? If there are engineers interested in this, they will most likely come to the US and work here. China is protecting itself from brain/idea/high-skilled-job-drain by ensuring local alternatives grow within its borders. It wants to be a tech hub, and this is really the best if not only way to do it when it comes to software tech. 3. Stability. We might call it censorship and control, and we might be right, but especially after the Russian involvement in the USA's latest presidential elections and how easy it was for them to reach their audience online [1], do they not have reason to be paranoid? It's in the interest of Russia to have Trump as president, and, tbh, to split the American people and have in-fighting. And apparently it's not hard for them to make this happen in this connected world. Propaganda can come from both within, and outside. I'm not trying to say that this is the best approach or that everyone should do this, but there's definitely more to it than "China is evil and wants to brainwash people isolating them from the outside world". Information can definitely get in and out of China; I think the historical, economic and defensive reasons make more sense in explaining China's approach. They're just being protectionist. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-...

OkGoDoIt 9y ago
You make some compelling arguments. I’d be curious to see the rest of your essay. Have you published it somewhere?
- aylmao 9y ago
  Oh, it was just an expression for a super-long comment; I didn't write an actual essay! Though maybe I should actually expand on these arguments and write up an essay to post on Medium or something at some point. I'll keep it in mind (:

longcheng 9y ago

Polluted air, polluted water, polluted food, hidden poverty, blah, blah, ... and yet China's life expectancy is only 3 year shorter than America's (76 vs 79), and China's population is 4 times as bigger as America's. I will have to say, good job Chinese government!

nailer 9y ago
Probably due to the trading all Chinese diet. Which has very little to do with the communist party, who are a very recent development.
- nailer 9y ago
  traditional Chinese diet. Thanks autocorrect.
prklmn 9y ago
Asian Americans (similar genetics) have a life expectancy of 87 years, that’s 11 years more.

dang 9y ago

Would you please not rant here, let alone on nationalistic topics, and please not use all-caps for emphasis? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.