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Western societies are blinded by the narrative their governments have fed them in the last 50 years: China Bad. But us in 3rd world countries have the ability

Western societies are blinded by the narrative their governments have fed them in the last 50 years: China Bad. But us in 3rd world countries have the ability to see both Western and Eastern societies' development and compare it ij a more unbiased way. Frankly the China bet looks more successful.

graemep 1y ago
I know many people in third world countries who fear China. I did when living in one (and continue to do so as a citizen of one with still close connections to it). China is a success for whom? Exploited factory workers, Tibetans and Uyghurs?
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  For the hundreds of millions of people who have incomes more than $1 per day now. Simple. China produced one of the greatest economic miracles ever seen in an age when every economic authority said that miracles were impossible. This is still the legacy today where people argue, even after China has thrown up cities housing 20m people in two decades, that isn't real...because it fundamentally overturns basic aspects of the pre-China account of economic growth (which was itself largely based on lies to create support for politicians). Never forget that economic growth is dangerous to vested interests.
christkv 1y ago
Are you willing to submit to my one party state and be ok with being disappeared if you have an unpopular opinion or being enslaved if you are the wrong minority?
- echelon 1y ago
  That isn't the powerful criticism that a lot of people think it is. You can keep saying this until you're blue in the face. It doesn't stop China's growth in power and scale. It doesn't impact their citizens at all. It's cheerleading with hot air and ignores the real work that the West needs to put in to effectively compete or counter. In fact, we should be worried about what the success of such a large non-democratic institution means to developing nations seeking their own model. Or what it means to those in power back at home. Your manner of argument doesn't successfully address the incredible success China has achieved, and if anything, it risks calling the basis of your argument -- the importance of democratic institutions -- into question. The things the West can do to compete are to work harder on education, become an attractive destination for immigration, foster productive innovation, and focus on key industries and supply chains. Right now the US in particular is doing the opposite, and it's damaging America's standing and ability to compete with China. It comes at a time where it's critical to perform. By all means, China should be the north star incentive to work harder. During the Cold War we used the threat of the Soviets being better than us to do some of the best engineering and science we've ever done. If our response to China is to call them names and hope that their growth stalls, then I think I can predict a very different and very mediocre outcome for the West in the coming century. This is our opportunity to rise to the occasion again and be better than we were. Let's not be arrogant and dismissive. Let's not fumble.
- roughly 1y ago
  Look I get it’s a little early to really draw that line in the US, but we were in a hell of a lot better position to have this argument a couple months ago.
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  If I told you that a government would exist in Africa that would eliminate poverty across most of the continent in three decades, would you think it strange if people thought this was a terrible thing?
twodave 1y ago
I don’t think anyone who understands geopolitics can agree with this take. China has been able to (for a time) sustain this kind of rapid industrialization because of globalization, a model of hyper-inflation and by taking advantage of wage inequality (i.e. paying their workers less) in order to dump goods into other countries’ markets. Take away globalization and China starves in the dark, because the part of their population that is largest, most productive and knows how to even feed itself (China is a heavy net importer of food, especially pork) is also very old. And when those people are too old to work, China is going to rely on the rest of the world to sustain its (rapidly declining) population. There are a lot of other Asian countries in a similar situation, but China is unique in how bleak the future could be for hundreds of millions of people. A year ago I would have said “who knows when the scale will tip?” With what’s going on lately it seems that it may have already happened. Whether you agree with the economic policy of this administration or not, the ramifications are astounding. The US is positioned to come out of this the best, at the expense of the rest of the world. This is why China is all of a sudden calling the US bullies. They would never admit weakness, but they are suddenly feeling the heat. If the US took it a step further and decided to stop securing the seas in that part of the world, all hell would break loose. For instance, do you think Japan and China would just “play nice” with no incentive to? I’m not so sure, and China has no access to the ocean without going through Japan.
- echelon 1y ago
  This argument is Peter Zeihan's thesis too, and I'm not sure it'll be what actually comes to pass. China still has an enormous population, and if they convert their society from production to domestic consumption and ride the value-add wave, they'll follow the American growth equation. And with more people to bolster that economy, to boot. You can already see this in their dominance of electronics, drones, EVs, and green tech. They're doing advanced, bleeding edge work in all of the industries that matter. BYD, DJI, Eufy/Anker (vs iRobot), Lenovo, Alibaba, ... China is a formidable powerhouse in advanced products and value-add. These companies absolutely rival the best of what America and the West have to offer. And if your argument is one of demographics, these companies are staffed with young educated workers from a huge and healthy pipeline of STEM grads. I think of all the predictions about the future of China - from the incredibly bearish ones like Zeihan's "death of China", to the bullish ones that declare this the "Chinese century" - I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I don't see how China doesn't become a larger version of Japan or Germany or the US. Despite some demographic and economic headwinds, they've got an incredible head start. If America aims to compete and remain in the top, it needs to stop doing things that look like Brexit that lead to degrowth and isolation. China isn't magically going to get weaker and provide free opportunity to the United States. On the contrary, it's fantastic peer-level competition that the US should use as motivation to work harder. China is an incredible growth and innovation story, and a bar that all countries should hold themselves to. It's no time to slouch. Competition fosters the best innovation anyway.
aianus 1y ago
This is nonsense, ~zero rich people in third world send their kids to study in Shanghai instead of Boston or immigrate to Beijing instead of NYC to park their capital. In fact it’s the rich Chinese who continue to move to Vancouver and London and Irvine to escape China and have a better future.
- em-bee 1y ago
  that is provably false. there are many african students in china. and they all must have some amount of wealth from home to afford that, at least compared to the local average which is a lot lower than in the west.
- erxam 1y ago
  The old-guard rich people don't, that much is true. But the middle classes sure as hell are. There's the fact that Chinese companies are basically hoovering up all the talent. In Latin America, Huawei alone eats up entire graduating classes of engineers. Pretty much every 'industry' event in any sector is nearly 100% Chinese. University staff are increasingly forming themselves via Chinese companies, and are thus transmitting that to their students. Chinese scholarships are popping up like mushrooms. Again, Huawei alone has provided more of them in the past year than the US Embassy has done in the past three decades. People still dream about going to the US, sure. But MAGA is doing their damned best to whittle that lead away.

graemep 1y ago

I know many people in third world countries who fear China. I did when living in one (and continue to do so as a citizen of one with still close connections to it). China is a success for whom? Exploited factory workers, Tibetans and Uyghurs?

skippyboxedhero 1y ago
For the hundreds of millions of people who have incomes more than $1 per day now. Simple. China produced one of the greatest economic miracles ever seen in an age when every economic authority said that miracles were impossible. This is still the legacy today where people argue, even after China has thrown up cities housing 20m people in two decades, that isn't real...because it fundamentally overturns basic aspects of the pre-China account of economic growth (which was itself largely based on lies to create support for politicians). Never forget that economic growth is dangerous to vested interests.

christkv 1y ago

Are you willing to submit to my one party state and be ok with being disappeared if you have an unpopular opinion or being enslaved if you are the wrong minority?

echelon 1y ago
That isn't the powerful criticism that a lot of people think it is. You can keep saying this until you're blue in the face. It doesn't stop China's growth in power and scale. It doesn't impact their citizens at all. It's cheerleading with hot air and ignores the real work that the West needs to put in to effectively compete or counter. In fact, we should be worried about what the success of such a large non-democratic institution means to developing nations seeking their own model. Or what it means to those in power back at home. Your manner of argument doesn't successfully address the incredible success China has achieved, and if anything, it risks calling the basis of your argument -- the importance of democratic institutions -- into question. The things the West can do to compete are to work harder on education, become an attractive destination for immigration, foster productive innovation, and focus on key industries and supply chains. Right now the US in particular is doing the opposite, and it's damaging America's standing and ability to compete with China. It comes at a time where it's critical to perform. By all means, China should be the north star incentive to work harder. During the Cold War we used the threat of the Soviets being better than us to do some of the best engineering and science we've ever done. If our response to China is to call them names and hope that their growth stalls, then I think I can predict a very different and very mediocre outcome for the West in the coming century. This is our opportunity to rise to the occasion again and be better than we were. Let's not be arrogant and dismissive. Let's not fumble.
roughly 1y ago
Look I get it’s a little early to really draw that line in the US, but we were in a hell of a lot better position to have this argument a couple months ago.
skippyboxedhero 1y ago
If I told you that a government would exist in Africa that would eliminate poverty across most of the continent in three decades, would you think it strange if people thought this was a terrible thing?

twodave 1y ago

I don’t think anyone who understands geopolitics can agree with this take. China has been able to (for a time) sustain this kind of rapid industrialization because of globalization, a model of hyper-inflation and by taking advantage of wage inequality (i.e. paying their workers less) in order to dump goods into other countries’ markets. Take away globalization and China starves in the dark, because the part of their population that is largest, most productive and knows how to even feed itself (China is a heavy net importer of food, especially pork) is also very old. And when those people are too old to work, China is going to rely on the rest of the world to sustain its (rapidly declining) population. There are a lot of other Asian countries in a similar situation, but China is unique in how bleak the future could be for hundreds of millions of people. A year ago I would have said “who knows when the scale will tip?” With what’s going on lately it seems that it may have already happened. Whether you agree with the economic policy of this administration or not, the ramifications are astounding. The US is positioned to come out of this the best, at the expense of the rest of the world. This is why China is all of a sudden calling the US bullies. They would never admit weakness, but they are suddenly feeling the heat. If the US took it a step further and decided to stop securing the seas in that part of the world, all hell would break loose. For instance, do you think Japan and China would just “play nice” with no incentive to? I’m not so sure, and China has no access to the ocean without going through Japan.

echelon 1y ago
This argument is Peter Zeihan's thesis too, and I'm not sure it'll be what actually comes to pass. China still has an enormous population, and if they convert their society from production to domestic consumption and ride the value-add wave, they'll follow the American growth equation. And with more people to bolster that economy, to boot. You can already see this in their dominance of electronics, drones, EVs, and green tech. They're doing advanced, bleeding edge work in all of the industries that matter. BYD, DJI, Eufy/Anker (vs iRobot), Lenovo, Alibaba, ... China is a formidable powerhouse in advanced products and value-add. These companies absolutely rival the best of what America and the West have to offer. And if your argument is one of demographics, these companies are staffed with young educated workers from a huge and healthy pipeline of STEM grads. I think of all the predictions about the future of China - from the incredibly bearish ones like Zeihan's "death of China", to the bullish ones that declare this the "Chinese century" - I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I don't see how China doesn't become a larger version of Japan or Germany or the US. Despite some demographic and economic headwinds, they've got an incredible head start. If America aims to compete and remain in the top, it needs to stop doing things that look like Brexit that lead to degrowth and isolation. China isn't magically going to get weaker and provide free opportunity to the United States. On the contrary, it's fantastic peer-level competition that the US should use as motivation to work harder. China is an incredible growth and innovation story, and a bar that all countries should hold themselves to. It's no time to slouch. Competition fosters the best innovation anyway.

aianus 1y ago

This is nonsense, ~zero rich people in third world send their kids to study in Shanghai instead of Boston or immigrate to Beijing instead of NYC to park their capital. In fact it’s the rich Chinese who continue to move to Vancouver and London and Irvine to escape China and have a better future.

em-bee 1y ago
that is provably false. there are many african students in china. and they all must have some amount of wealth from home to afford that, at least compared to the local average which is a lot lower than in the west.
erxam 1y ago
The old-guard rich people don't, that much is true. But the middle classes sure as hell are. There's the fact that Chinese companies are basically hoovering up all the talent. In Latin America, Huawei alone eats up entire graduating classes of engineers. Pretty much every 'industry' event in any sector is nearly 100% Chinese. University staff are increasingly forming themselves via Chinese companies, and are thus transmitting that to their students. Chinese scholarships are popping up like mushrooms. Again, Huawei alone has provided more of them in the past year than the US Embassy has done in the past three decades. People still dream about going to the US, sure. But MAGA is doing their damned best to whittle that lead away.