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Ask HN: YouTube vids are saying Chinas economy is collapsing. True or not?
There’s lots of videos showing a very grim picture with almost all foreign companies leaving. Massive unemployment, many companies collapsing, the real estate sector at risk of collapse.
The reasons given are Chinas hard Covid measures, it’s security actions and raids on western firms, it’s threats against western countries, its stated intent to take Taiwan and genocide of the Uighurs.
But is this real I wonder or exaggerated anti China propaganda?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoNot just YouTube videos. Yahoo has been running such stories for a week or so. I suspect that "almost all foreign companies leaving" is very much an exaggeration. Some may be leaving, though. I suspect there is some fire behind the smoke. I suspect there is some exaggeration, and maybe even propaganda, in the stories. (And some bandwagon-jumping - wouldn't want to be the one who didn't report on such a hot story.) But I'm just some random dude in the US who has never been to China, so what do I know?
- Justsignedup 3y agoIt doesn't seem far fetched. Creating a narrative of the bad guy people helps try to unify people. They have no reason to go after Taiwan unless they need to absorb their economy and try to look strong in the eyes of their people. Definitely has dictator trying to look strong vibes as things aren't going well internally.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoGoing after Taiwan won't let them "absorb their economy". It will destroy Taiwan's economy (as well as their own). It may let them look strong, though. > Definitely has dictator trying to look strong vibes as things aren't going well internally. Xi has tied his personal prestige (and the prestige of the CCP) to the goal of conquering (or at least unifying with) Taiwan. He has done so for several years. So either he saw things "not going well internally" for several years, or else that is not his (primary) motivation.
- PaulHoule 3y agoThey’ve had 40 years of rapid growth without a recession. At some point you need one to clear out accumulated errors, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle Their housing market is pretty messed up. In China you can buy a condominium and get a mortgage before the unit is ready to live in. If the builder goes belly up and can’t complete it you are stuck paying a mortgage you can’t afford for a home you can’t live in!. That’s a much worse place to be than having an underwater mortgage in the 2008 crisis.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- soueuls 3y agoI have studied and live in China for a couple of years, I kept many friends there. You can’t have 40 years of rapid growth without any consolidation at some point, but I think it’s exaggerated. The news reports are way too sensationalist
- Alifatisk 3y agoHow is it in China really? I find it hard to get a real source of information about whats going on there? Most articles I've read is somewhat sided or somehow funded by the west which shrinks my trust. Like, do they really have mass surveillance? Is it true about the social credit score? What do the people there think about CCP, any general consensus? Do the government censor information? Like are people free to talk about Tiananmen square (1989) there? Is is true about the harsh conditions against the muslims in xinjiang?
- soueuls 3y agoFrom my own experience : 1. China, like Singapore and London, have mass surveillance. You do have a lot of cameras. China takes it a bit further in a sense that when you go to some places like "signing up for a gym" they will ask for your number and communicate the information to the government. But, because there is always another side. The government is not just a giant greedy machine for no reasons. China is safe, insanely safe. I spent one year in Beijing (studying at Tsinghua University), I tried to find a lock for my bike. I gave up after a couple days, nobody was selling any lock. One of the seller told me : "But why are you looking for a lock, if it's YOUR bike?" I almost felt stupid asking for it. Never locked my bike for 1 year, in a city with a population of 20,000,000 people. Never got stolen. I could park anywhere, campus, city center, in front of bar, clubs, whatever. It was refreshing. 2. My personal belief is that the social credit score is a hoax made up by the West. China has a score system similar to FICO, if you have debts, they will restrict your movements (trains, flight) if you are a vocal political activits you will likely have problems. But is there a system similar to the one described in Black Mirror that track everything you do? That makes you lose points if you are associating yourself with people having bad scores? I haven't seen it. Never heard anyone mention it. Never noticed it. Normal Chinese citizens live a perfectly normal life. 3. You have people strongly in favor of the CCP (note they got 40 incredible years, so it's expected) and people opposed to it. Can you openly criticize the government like we do in Europe or USA? No. You can't just create meme like you would do with Trump/Biden/Macron whatever. Of course people still do it, like in any countries, you have sub cultures. Same thing in Thailand (where I am currently living) with the Royal family. It's forbidden, but people do it, of course. More people are in favor of the CCP. People are not full at ease if they are strongly criticizing it. But in private context they do. Overrall the Chinese feels genuinely happy about the government's work. 4. Yes, the government censor information. It's not always easy to set up a VPN (and I am a computer science guy) But can you name a government that does not? The US has been tracking down Snowden and Assange for a while. European governments are censoring and limiting freedom of speech too. There are more red lines in China for sure. But I could be fined in France for my belief as well (if I was living there) 5. People can talk about it, but Chinese are not massively into politics. It's hard to believe for someone coming from the West (I am French so I know what it means to talk about politics, we ALWAYS do it). They don't. And after living in Asia for many years, I am starting to think it's not always a bad thing. Being able to talk about anything in politics comes with a huge cost as well. Extremely divided societies where the leftists think the other ones are Nazis. And the right wing believe the others want to sexualize children and start communism. But yes, many people know about Tiananmen square. 6. Yes and no. I have met several Uyghurs in Beijing, I have mixed feeling about it. I did more research about it and discovered that Uyghurs (coming from Turkmenistan committed numerous terrorist attacks : Kunming, Urumqi, Tiananmen comes to mind. And the Chinese government responded to it rather violently. Is it justified? I don't know. But it's not coming from nowhere, either. And I am just wary of condemning China for it, I know what the US has done. I know what French has done to Vendée, what Russia did, what Africans did, what the Arabs did. Some of these happen not too long ago. I don't like that we are trying to frame ourselves as "defending the oppressed" and that "China = bad". But yes, overall they are being oppressed.