4 ms·

"It's complicated" is a phrase to dodge facts. Here's some balance. The US has done a bunch of terrible things to other countries, they aren't a good and righte

"It's complicated" is a phrase to dodge facts. Here's some balance. The US has done a bunch of terrible things to other countries, they aren't a good and righteous nation, none are, and neither is China. There are ghost cities in the US, to say there are none in China is ridiculous. You can do quick search and turn up many respected news sources reporting this. One side of the argument has been heard for decades, we thought China was quaint and had an old quiet society that respected traditions. The other side we are just now starting to hear (from respected news sources, other governments and yes vloggers), is that China has been hiding it's true nature. And that is the garbage. Just go look up what is going on in Hong Kong right now. Or go look up how the current leader of China declared himself ruler for life. That is what despot does.

dirtyid 7y ago
>phrase to dodge facts Not so much as dodge facts as, I assume your questions are rhetorical, and it's not worth the effort to elaborate on each. Re: Ghost Cities I didn't claim there are none? Though if we are on the topic they are loaded propaganda characterization like "debt trap" to paint a certain image of Chinese (mis)allocations of resources which was used to support unending China inflate GDP, China collapse theories that have failed to manifest. The alternate narrative is that these are under-utilized cities that will slowly become populated as Chinese urbanization continues. Chinese urbanization targets is 50% to 80% in the next 30 years, or 400 million people and 100 million more new residential units. Building new cities ahead of time and populating them on a 15 year phase is literally part of the development strategy [1]. That's not to dismiss the wild speculation that surrounds these development, and that some will take longer than others, but many previously touted ghost cities are reaching targeted capacity. Often after transit infrastructure is finalized. This kind of alarmist news has happened for decades. I don't know how you're drawing conclusions that reporting on China has focused on quaint Chinese interest stories, or that China somehow managed to conceal it's nature all this time. When the dominant coverage is has been over the scale of Chinese modernization and the sustainability of Chinese development model including ghost cities, previously they might have been filed under human interest. Now they're given more significance post Olympics -> global financial crisis which China percieved as failure of western systems -> China decided to be more assertive -> China 2025 / SSC makes Obama pivot to Asia -> present day trade war / great power competition with US. Non of this is new. It's just being activated opportunistically now. As for despot / emperor / dictator Xi, this again is a profound naive social media tier hottake. Xi has to play domestic politics and is beholden to the CPC politburo standing committee. Repealing term limits required the consent of standing committee, same with his recent elevation to people's leader at BeiDaiHe this year after failing a year before. His power is not absolute. There's various analysis of his ascent and relative power in the Chinese system, but the one I subscribe to is that Xi was elected internally to shepherd China through a difficult transition (middle income trap / demographic bomb etc / reunification). The CPC is flexible enough to nominate a despot when the situation calls for. [1] https://pic1.zhimg.com/80/5a158c5bda6b768cdebc6571663c4e84_hd.jpg https://pic1.zhimg.com/80/5a158c5bda6b768cdebc6571663c4e84_h...
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  >Xi has to play domestic politics... All tyrants have the same excuse.

dirtyid 7y ago

>phrase to dodge facts Not so much as dodge facts as, I assume your questions are rhetorical, and it's not worth the effort to elaborate on each. Re: Ghost Cities I didn't claim there are none? Though if we are on the topic they are loaded propaganda characterization like "debt trap" to paint a certain image of Chinese (mis)allocations of resources which was used to support unending China inflate GDP, China collapse theories that have failed to manifest. The alternate narrative is that these are under-utilized cities that will slowly become populated as Chinese urbanization continues. Chinese urbanization targets is 50% to 80% in the next 30 years, or 400 million people and 100 million more new residential units. Building new cities ahead of time and populating them on a 15 year phase is literally part of the development strategy [1]. That's not to dismiss the wild speculation that surrounds these development, and that some will take longer than others, but many previously touted ghost cities are reaching targeted capacity. Often after transit infrastructure is finalized. This kind of alarmist news has happened for decades. I don't know how you're drawing conclusions that reporting on China has focused on quaint Chinese interest stories, or that China somehow managed to conceal it's nature all this time. When the dominant coverage is has been over the scale of Chinese modernization and the sustainability of Chinese development model including ghost cities, previously they might have been filed under human interest. Now they're given more significance post Olympics -> global financial crisis which China percieved as failure of western systems -> China decided to be more assertive -> China 2025 / SSC makes Obama pivot to Asia -> present day trade war / great power competition with US. Non of this is new. It's just being activated opportunistically now. As for despot / emperor / dictator Xi, this again is a profound naive social media tier hottake. Xi has to play domestic politics and is beholden to the CPC politburo standing committee. Repealing term limits required the consent of standing committee, same with his recent elevation to people's leader at BeiDaiHe this year after failing a year before. His power is not absolute. There's various analysis of his ascent and relative power in the Chinese system, but the one I subscribe to is that Xi was elected internally to shepherd China through a difficult transition (middle income trap / demographic bomb etc / reunification). The CPC is flexible enough to nominate a despot when the situation calls for. [1] https://pic1.zhimg.com/80/5a158c5bda6b768cdebc6571663c4e84_hd.jpg https://pic1.zhimg.com/80/5a158c5bda6b768cdebc6571663c4e84_h...

RobertRoberts 7y ago
>Xi has to play domestic politics... All tyrants have the same excuse.