9 ms·

Congratulations to China and the Chinese people who have managed to measurably improve their livelihoods over the last few decades.

valarauca1 8y ago
没有共产党就没有新中国
- iamconfused 8y ago
  Or maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. ;p
  - valarauca1 8y ago
    If you consider 50 years to go from having <10% literacy to >99%, while also stabilizing an entire nation's food supply, and becoming an economic super power on par with EU/US then I hate to see what you consider fast. Oh we should also talk about their entire coastal region we’re devistaed by land war and Japanese occupation.
    - ThinkingGuy 8y ago
      I don't have a source for this, but my understanding is that much of the improvement in China's literacy rate came from the government's redefining of "literate" down to about a 1st or 2nd grade school level. Still, I can't help but be happy at how so many people's lives have improved so greatly in such a short time.
      - platinumrad 8y ago
        Simplified Chinese made a huge difference. It's one of the few undeniably good things to come from the CCP, although adopting a phonetic alphabet might have been even better.
    - nimrod0 8y ago
      There were horrible problems that derailed progress, it's pointless to deny them. On the other hand, some of the suffering came externally, like sanctions and embargoes designed to make life miserable and induce the country to fail/the regime to collapse. Also military threats that depleted meager resources and made normal investment impossible. What can be said is that, given this set of very difficult challenges, whether self-induced or not, the outcome, such as it is, is a commendable one.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Japan was devistates by WW2 also, but they bounced back quickly. China being one of the most powerful (and richest) countries in the world is actually not that unusual considering world history.
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  google translate converts this to: Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China But considering the party that the communists replaced were the Nationalists... who are in control of Taiwan.. which is even richer per capita than China (31k/person)... that seems unlikely. Can you explain more why the Nationalists were successful in Taiwan, but you believe they wouldn't have been in China? Edit: this is not to say that I believe the Nationalists would have been more successful than the Communists in China.. China is certainly a far larger task, both in building out a larger country and pulling more poeple out of poverty. So this is a sincere question about your opinion on the nationalists.
  - valarauca1 8y ago
    I don’t believe they’d be successful in China because they weren’t historically. Also we can compare how a nationalist, democratic, and capitalist country of similar size, population, colonial explotation, and natural resource wealth would fair in India. Which again makes the PRC come out rosey.
    - SuperNinKenDo 8y ago
      Ignoring whether I would choose 'Capitalist' as the first word to describe India's economy, India is still a bad comparison. The only reason it's even democratic is because it inherited British institutions. Taiwan built its democratic institutions from the ground up itself, after and during decades of military dictatorship, it's a completely different situation.
  - SuperNinKenDo 8y ago
    I say this as somebody who has had multiple-hour long debates with people on whether China would have been better off under the Nationalists. Despite ambivalence toward the Nationalists mixed with loathing for Chiang Kai Shek, I've always passionately advocated that China would be better off if the Nationalists had triumphed. With that said, I can think of two (good) reasons people might think that China's current rise could not have happened under the Nationalists. 1. The Nationalists were extremely poor at stamping out corruption and warlordism. China appears to have been too large a region for them to competently exercise control. Their success in Taiwan therefore may be partly attributable to a smaller landmass over which they were more capable of exercising competent hegemony. 2. Taiwan's success is partly a result of their gradual liberalisation. It's hard to say whether this same liberalisation could have taken place on the mainland. That said, like I mentioned, I think it's hard to argue that China wouldn't have been better off. Certainly in the short term. Without the Communists taking power you avoid every atrocity under Mao. That alone is hard to offset with any later (pseudo-)unity and progress.
joe_the_user 8y ago
As a developing nation, China should indeed be experiencing an increased lifespan. But under normal circumstances, China's life expectancy increases should be getting closer and close to the curve of developed nations without actually touching - because all countries should be making progress. So the obvious story here is the actual decrease in US life expectancy, a situation broadly reflecting declining living conditions in the US.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  With respect to living conditions, it appears the "everything is gettng better," and "everything is getting worse," ideas are among the most succeptible to groupthink, and to cognitive dissonance. I also see this at reddit. Depending on the topic, and how it is framed, it seems everyone is either in agreement that life getting better, or that it is getting worse. For a counter example to your comment, most at this popylar HN thread(1) were in agreement that life is getting much better. I could be wrong, this has just been my observation. 1- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16258434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16258434
  - Nomentatus 8y ago
    Not in dispute - the question wasn't whether life in the U.S. was getting better but whether it was getting shorter.
    - wallace_f 8y ago
      Ok, but just personally I would say life expectancy / healthcare access are primary measures of 'is life getting better or worse' for people.
      - microcolonel 8y ago
        It depends on whether the factors leading to shorter life are deliberate (or just willful) or accidental.
sametmax 8y ago
And given the terrible air, water and soil pollution they suffer from, this means the rest must be really, really top notch. Or that we don't have all the metrics.
- nol13 8y ago
  Also obesity is bad for you. Or just assume China will fix its air in 10 years while Americans (and Chinese) keep getting fatter? Lotta ways you can work these numbers!
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I don’t know. They said it would be fixed in 2015 back in 2010. The fix is always 5 years away given whatever the current 5 year plan is. Also, China has a ridiculously high smoking rate, with no end in sight for it really. On the other hand, smoking rates in the USA have fallen quite a bit in my lifetime. So is obesity really that much worse compared to smoking and apocalyptic air pollution? An interesting question to ponder.
    - jewelry 8y ago
      Then you should really think if your impression of the apocalyptic situation is actual thing or just propaganda. Smoking though is a probability thing just as the obesity is.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        I lived in Beijing for 10 years (until 2016). Even the most committed wumao wouldn’t it’s pretty bad. Western media (if you mean by propaganda) if anything makes the problem sound not as bad as it really is, but how could any westerner even begin to comprehend an AQI reading over 300 let alone 500 or 1000. Actually, the only people who say the air isn’t bad are the ones who have never been before.
        jdietrich 8y ago
abhiminator 8y ago
They deserve every bit of praise considering the fact that China was known as the 'land of famine' for majority of its history [0] -- having suffered their last major famine in the 1960s [1], that's just 60 years ago -- a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. The turnaround is truly impressive for a country the size of China. Makes one wonder about the power of free markets in lifting huge segments of the population from immense poverty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China [1] http://www.sacu.org/greatleapfamine.html http://www.sacu.org/greatleapfamine.html
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  If you look at that list, you could also argue the free market caused the death of around a hundred million people.
- oblio 8y ago
  > Makes one wonder about the power of free markets in lifting huge segments of the population from immense poverty. One would argue that it was a market economy with heavy state interventions. I'm not sure I'd call that a "free market". But then again, I think a "free market" is a purely theoretical concept that only serves as a rough outline in real life, it has no practical application.
  - eitally 8y ago
    I think that was the point. It has absolutely not been a free market (compared-ish to the US economy) and overall it's worked wonders at the macro level, whether you're looking at QoL, infrastructure, business conditions, education, or most other measures I can think of besides privacy and human rights.

valarauca1 8y ago

没有共产党就没有新中国

iamconfused 8y ago
Or maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. ;p
- valarauca1 8y ago
  If you consider 50 years to go from having <10% literacy to >99%, while also stabilizing an entire nation's food supply, and becoming an economic super power on par with EU/US then I hate to see what you consider fast. Oh we should also talk about their entire coastal region we’re devistaed by land war and Japanese occupation.
  - ThinkingGuy 8y ago
    I don't have a source for this, but my understanding is that much of the improvement in China's literacy rate came from the government's redefining of "literate" down to about a 1st or 2nd grade school level. Still, I can't help but be happy at how so many people's lives have improved so greatly in such a short time.
    - platinumrad 8y ago
      Simplified Chinese made a huge difference. It's one of the few undeniably good things to come from the CCP, although adopting a phonetic alphabet might have been even better.
  - nimrod0 8y ago
    There were horrible problems that derailed progress, it's pointless to deny them. On the other hand, some of the suffering came externally, like sanctions and embargoes designed to make life miserable and induce the country to fail/the regime to collapse. Also military threats that depleted meager resources and made normal investment impossible. What can be said is that, given this set of very difficult challenges, whether self-induced or not, the outcome, such as it is, is a commendable one.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Japan was devistates by WW2 also, but they bounced back quickly. China being one of the most powerful (and richest) countries in the world is actually not that unusual considering world history.
rgbrenner 8y ago
google translate converts this to: Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China But considering the party that the communists replaced were the Nationalists... who are in control of Taiwan.. which is even richer per capita than China (31k/person)... that seems unlikely. Can you explain more why the Nationalists were successful in Taiwan, but you believe they wouldn't have been in China? Edit: this is not to say that I believe the Nationalists would have been more successful than the Communists in China.. China is certainly a far larger task, both in building out a larger country and pulling more poeple out of poverty. So this is a sincere question about your opinion on the nationalists.
- valarauca1 8y ago
  I don’t believe they’d be successful in China because they weren’t historically. Also we can compare how a nationalist, democratic, and capitalist country of similar size, population, colonial explotation, and natural resource wealth would fair in India. Which again makes the PRC come out rosey.
  - SuperNinKenDo 8y ago
    Ignoring whether I would choose 'Capitalist' as the first word to describe India's economy, India is still a bad comparison. The only reason it's even democratic is because it inherited British institutions. Taiwan built its democratic institutions from the ground up itself, after and during decades of military dictatorship, it's a completely different situation.
- SuperNinKenDo 8y ago
  I say this as somebody who has had multiple-hour long debates with people on whether China would have been better off under the Nationalists. Despite ambivalence toward the Nationalists mixed with loathing for Chiang Kai Shek, I've always passionately advocated that China would be better off if the Nationalists had triumphed. With that said, I can think of two (good) reasons people might think that China's current rise could not have happened under the Nationalists. 1. The Nationalists were extremely poor at stamping out corruption and warlordism. China appears to have been too large a region for them to competently exercise control. Their success in Taiwan therefore may be partly attributable to a smaller landmass over which they were more capable of exercising competent hegemony. 2. Taiwan's success is partly a result of their gradual liberalisation. It's hard to say whether this same liberalisation could have taken place on the mainland. That said, like I mentioned, I think it's hard to argue that China wouldn't have been better off. Certainly in the short term. Without the Communists taking power you avoid every atrocity under Mao. That alone is hard to offset with any later (pseudo-)unity and progress.

joe_the_user 8y ago

As a developing nation, China should indeed be experiencing an increased lifespan. But under normal circumstances, China's life expectancy increases should be getting closer and close to the curve of developed nations without actually touching - because all countries should be making progress. So the obvious story here is the actual decrease in US life expectancy, a situation broadly reflecting declining living conditions in the US.

wallace_f 8y ago
With respect to living conditions, it appears the "everything is gettng better," and "everything is getting worse," ideas are among the most succeptible to groupthink, and to cognitive dissonance. I also see this at reddit. Depending on the topic, and how it is framed, it seems everyone is either in agreement that life getting better, or that it is getting worse. For a counter example to your comment, most at this popylar HN thread(1) were in agreement that life is getting much better. I could be wrong, this has just been my observation. 1- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16258434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16258434
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  Not in dispute - the question wasn't whether life in the U.S. was getting better but whether it was getting shorter.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Ok, but just personally I would say life expectancy / healthcare access are primary measures of 'is life getting better or worse' for people.
    - microcolonel 8y ago
      It depends on whether the factors leading to shorter life are deliberate (or just willful) or accidental.

sametmax 8y ago

And given the terrible air, water and soil pollution they suffer from, this means the rest must be really, really top notch. Or that we don't have all the metrics.

nol13 8y ago
Also obesity is bad for you. Or just assume China will fix its air in 10 years while Americans (and Chinese) keep getting fatter? Lotta ways you can work these numbers!
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I don’t know. They said it would be fixed in 2015 back in 2010. The fix is always 5 years away given whatever the current 5 year plan is. Also, China has a ridiculously high smoking rate, with no end in sight for it really. On the other hand, smoking rates in the USA have fallen quite a bit in my lifetime. So is obesity really that much worse compared to smoking and apocalyptic air pollution? An interesting question to ponder.
  - jewelry 8y ago
    Then you should really think if your impression of the apocalyptic situation is actual thing or just propaganda. Smoking though is a probability thing just as the obesity is.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I lived in Beijing for 10 years (until 2016). Even the most committed wumao wouldn’t it’s pretty bad. Western media (if you mean by propaganda) if anything makes the problem sound not as bad as it really is, but how could any westerner even begin to comprehend an AQI reading over 300 let alone 500 or 1000. Actually, the only people who say the air isn’t bad are the ones who have never been before.
      - jdietrich 8y ago

abhiminator 8y ago

They deserve every bit of praise considering the fact that China was known as the 'land of famine' for majority of its history [0] -- having suffered their last major famine in the 1960s [1], that's just 60 years ago -- a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. The turnaround is truly impressive for a country the size of China. Makes one wonder about the power of free markets in lifting huge segments of the population from immense poverty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China [1] http://www.sacu.org/greatleapfamine.html http://www.sacu.org/greatleapfamine.html

boomboomsubban 8y ago
If you look at that list, you could also argue the free market caused the death of around a hundred million people.
oblio 8y ago
> Makes one wonder about the power of free markets in lifting huge segments of the population from immense poverty. One would argue that it was a market economy with heavy state interventions. I'm not sure I'd call that a "free market". But then again, I think a "free market" is a purely theoretical concept that only serves as a rough outline in real life, it has no practical application.
- eitally 8y ago
  I think that was the point. It has absolutely not been a free market (compared-ish to the US economy) and overall it's worked wonders at the macro level, whether you're looking at QoL, infrastructure, business conditions, education, or most other measures I can think of besides privacy and human rights.