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No it isn't actually true. Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. Most people don't care about cens

No it isn't actually true. Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. Most people don't care about censorship and the ones that do can get around it. From their point of view, it is no different to the NSA or the cameras in the UK (way more than China). Most Chinese people I know own a house (more like a shack) BUT it is out in the countryside. They want to move to the city where apartments are more expensive and there are more opportunities. They look at their parent's life and their life is a lot better. The ones that have enough money (not all of them) generally move to another country since they can afford it. The ones without money don't care. The pollution is bad but at the same time China is putting more money into green energy than any other country. Every bus in the cities are being sent to the country or scrapped and replaced with electric busses (more than every other country combined). As far as the debt goes it is something they worry about. At the same time, it is lower than the USA debt. The housing bubble is also an issue but they are building millions of apartments unlike other cities in the world. Basically, the working class is currently better off but they have the same problem that the USA has right now. Lots of students graduating from universities without enough high paying jobs to match. Technology scales really well so you don't need a lot of workers. You need a lot of low paid works ... same as in other countries.

adventured 8y ago
> Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. An obviously fraudulent setup. There are very few things you can get 80% of people to agree on unless they feel compelled to agreement. The Chinese people no longer possess the ability to dissent. What little ability they had to do so, briefly, has been wiped out in the last five years under the new dictatorship. Your China reference is as legitimate as Putin's approval rating.
- alehul 8y ago
  As an American with family in Russia, I think you're underestimating the conformity of opinion developed in countries that aren't America. We're unique in the amount of diverse cultures and perspectives that we have in large numbers, and we're constantly fighting with one-another, and we hold polar opposite views. If you look at a country like Sweden, arguments amount to "Should we give more financial assistance to refugees, or to the elderly?". Their environmental regulations, their high welfare state, their criminal law... None of that is ever debated, because they're all in near-unanimous agreement. Russia is similar but leaning conservative, and they view Putin as the person who can accomplish their national goals and uphold their conservative values. This is how most of the rest of the world exists, and children in those countries are very likely to continue that trend, given that it's all they're exposed to. 80% approval is totally believable, with that in mind.
chibg10 8y ago
> No it isn't actually true. Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. This doesn't really have much do with superior governance though, does it? It has a lot do with the country's recent history. a) It help government approval tremendously when you can censor bad news and disproportionately cover positive news. b) It's also really difficult to assess how much credit the Chinese government actually deserves for China's economic success. Every other old-world power that has embraced capitalism has achieved similar success. China has also had the benefit of playing their economic catch-up from 1980-present, starting from an essentially pre-20th century economy. Is there really some amazing government wizardry (that couldn't be replicated by any of the governments of developed countries) in achieving immense growth by applying highly advanced (relative to yours) foreign technology to your gigantic populace through a market system? Is censorship, stoking nationalism, and violation of human rights really the magic formula? I'm really skeptical there. c) It's easy to overlook the immense inequality in China, both in economic terms and in terms of human rights. If you're a Han Chinese living in a first-tier city, you likely have a very different experience with the government that a Uighur or Tibetan. The CCP, to stay in power, really only needs the support of the Han population (they make up 90% of the population). This distorts incentives for treatment of minority groups significantly. If it's good for Han, it's good for the CCP. On the other hand, the whole "censor the bad news" thing means that Han Chinese don't necessarily hear about how minority ethnic groups in Xinjiang or Tibet are treated... removing the historically most powerful feedback mechanism for improving the treatment of the oppressed. Which, obviously, is the dominant ethnic group being aware of the plight of minority groups, feeling human sympathy, and calling for change. Worse still, as China's sphere of influence grows and yet the censorship remains, the same dynamic will occur--the CCP is incentivized to keep the Han Chinese population happy, and the Han population feels none of the guilt that a population with a free press provides when reporting on the its government's less-than-acceptable actions elsewhere. ---------- I'm happy for the Chinese people and their economic success and progress so far, but it's dangerous to overpraise the its government model given the misaligned incentives that exist. I understand that rapid change can be dangerous and believe steady progress may be preferable, but that's a very different position than promoting China's governmental model as something to be praised and replicated.
- 8y ago

adventured 8y ago

> Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. An obviously fraudulent setup. There are very few things you can get 80% of people to agree on unless they feel compelled to agreement. The Chinese people no longer possess the ability to dissent. What little ability they had to do so, briefly, has been wiped out in the last five years under the new dictatorship. Your China reference is as legitimate as Putin's approval rating.

alehul 8y ago
As an American with family in Russia, I think you're underestimating the conformity of opinion developed in countries that aren't America. We're unique in the amount of diverse cultures and perspectives that we have in large numbers, and we're constantly fighting with one-another, and we hold polar opposite views. If you look at a country like Sweden, arguments amount to "Should we give more financial assistance to refugees, or to the elderly?". Their environmental regulations, their high welfare state, their criminal law... None of that is ever debated, because they're all in near-unanimous agreement. Russia is similar but leaning conservative, and they view Putin as the person who can accomplish their national goals and uphold their conservative values. This is how most of the rest of the world exists, and children in those countries are very likely to continue that trend, given that it's all they're exposed to. 80% approval is totally believable, with that in mind.

chibg10 8y ago

> No it isn't actually true. Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. This doesn't really have much do with superior governance though, does it? It has a lot do with the country's recent history. a) It help government approval tremendously when you can censor bad news and disproportionately cover positive news. b) It's also really difficult to assess how much credit the Chinese government actually deserves for China's economic success. Every other old-world power that has embraced capitalism has achieved similar success. China has also had the benefit of playing their economic catch-up from 1980-present, starting from an essentially pre-20th century economy. Is there really some amazing government wizardry (that couldn't be replicated by any of the governments of developed countries) in achieving immense growth by applying highly advanced (relative to yours) foreign technology to your gigantic populace through a market system? Is censorship, stoking nationalism, and violation of human rights really the magic formula? I'm really skeptical there. c) It's easy to overlook the immense inequality in China, both in economic terms and in terms of human rights. If you're a Han Chinese living in a first-tier city, you likely have a very different experience with the government that a Uighur or Tibetan. The CCP, to stay in power, really only needs the support of the Han population (they make up 90% of the population). This distorts incentives for treatment of minority groups significantly. If it's good for Han, it's good for the CCP. On the other hand, the whole "censor the bad news" thing means that Han Chinese don't necessarily hear about how minority ethnic groups in Xinjiang or Tibet are treated... removing the historically most powerful feedback mechanism for improving the treatment of the oppressed. Which, obviously, is the dominant ethnic group being aware of the plight of minority groups, feeling human sympathy, and calling for change. Worse still, as China's sphere of influence grows and yet the censorship remains, the same dynamic will occur--the CCP is incentivized to keep the Han Chinese population happy, and the Han population feels none of the guilt that a population with a free press provides when reporting on the its government's less-than-acceptable actions elsewhere. ---------- I'm happy for the Chinese people and their economic success and progress so far, but it's dangerous to overpraise the its government model given the misaligned incentives that exist. I understand that rapid change can be dangerous and believe steady progress may be preferable, but that's a very different position than promoting China's governmental model as something to be praised and replicated.

8y ago