5 ms·

I have two chinese-born coworkers (who spent 20-30 years here in the us) in the same room. When we talk about china's expansion, I am always jealous of the publ

by fusslo 5mo ago

I have two chinese-born coworkers (who spent 20-30 years here in the us) in the same room. When we talk about china's expansion, I am always jealous of the public projects, infrastructure, housing, etc. They always point out the huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills. They say they're worried when the building stops. Even more people will be out of jobs. And when the nation ages all they built will be used and maintained by fewer people I've never been to china so it's interesting perspective from people with family there and go back 2-3 times a year

sureshv 5mo ago
I always take these views with a grain of salt, many immigrant's view of their home country is ossified at the time of emigration.
- simonask 5mo ago
  In the same vein, it’s reasonable to take a foreigner’s view with a grain of salt. For all its impressive progress, China doesn’t show off its problems. The “West” had the same problem many times during the first Cold War, where things in the Soviet Union seemed really great from the outside. Only after the collapse did the truth become clear. Now, I don’t think China is even remotely similar, but never forget that it is not a free society.
  - WarmWash 5mo ago
    In the US it's practically a right of passage to be a young adult and very vocally hate the country, hate the government. In China you don't have a life in front of you if you do that.
    - joe_mamba 5mo ago
      >In the US it's practically a right of passage to be a young adult and very vocally hate the country, hate the government. Well, unless ICE murders you at a protest for expressing your hate of the government's actions. >In China you don't have a life in front of you if you do that. That's very much not true. China isn't North Korea like Westerners imagine. Unless you riot, take to the streets, or become a big agitator or dissident, Chinese government and media actually does allow some controlled escape valves for regular people to vent about problems, no issue with that. This isn't Stalin's reign of terror. You'll only get disappeared if you end up becoming a big fish to threaten the CCP, like Jack Ma, but otherwise the CCP don't end disappearing every schmuck who complains about the government. You might not know this, but as a nation, you don't get very far economically, academically and technologically in the long run by consonantly oppressing your people under a culture of permanent fear of their government. You can't bleed a stone. And China got where it is, due to its successful policies from the last half-century that brought prosperity and lifted millions of of poverty, it's government has earned a certain level of "buy-in" from the majority of the population, meaning the people are more likely to be cooperative and work with the totalitarian government towards a common set of mutually beneficial goals, rather than wasting their energy trying to mass emigrate out of the country or to fight for democracy. And that's what so dangerous about this, because unlike the USSR who served in the west as THE model of inevitable failure for such systems, China found a successful form of totalitarian governance, that some western governments are now trying to copy when they saw how effective it is.
      - tpm 5mo ago
        > China found a successful form of totalitarian governance, that some western governments are now trying to copy when they saw how effective it is. They are certainly trying to copy some elements, but also some parts might be inevitable in the age of decentralised social media which are much harder to control using the old tools. China just enacted that first and the West had to go through all the turmoil to arrive in a similar place much later.
      - stasomatic 5mo ago
        >due to its successful policies from the last half-century >that brought prosperity and lifted Not because of the West giving China its industry, because - greed and China's blatant IP theft? Who cares if the communists make everything we consume, right? Stock price, yo. "Apple in China" by Patrick McGee is a good read. I like Chinese food, the arts, the folklore, they make my favorite bows (archery), but I don't want my grandkids have to learn Mandarin unless they want to. Tangent, I always do a double take when I see CCP, as "USSR" is spelled "CCCP" in Cyrillic, it's charming (I am from a former USSR republic).
        joe_mamba 5mo ago
        >Not because of the West giving China its industry, because - greed and China's blatant IP theft? If I'm voluntarily giving you my IP with no contractual assurance for protection, is it my fault or yours? Never stop your enemy when he's making mistakes. >because - greed Stock price, yo. Why wouldn't you weaponize their greed against them? "Forget about pedophiles, the DOW is over 50,000."
    - culi 5mo ago
      Try browsing Chinese social media (WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, etc). The internet is ripe with non-anonymous criticism of the gov't People often point to the take down of Winnie the Pooh memes as censorship but I don't think people realize there's a long history of racist groups using Pooh as a slur about Asian people and Tigger about black people. The meme exploded in popularity from a picture of Obama and Xi being compared to Tigger and Pooh. You can have whatever opinion you want about taking down racist content but I don't it's any different from Western platforms. But spending any time on Chinese social media will quickly dispel the idea of harsh consequences for speech (an especially silly idea coming from members of the nation that contains 25% of the world's prisoners)
      - WarmWash 5mo ago
        We all saw what happened in Hong Kong...
      - waterhouse 5mo ago
        So is it your position that, when the Chinese government imposes takedowns or worse on Chinese people posting Winnie the Pooh stuff, it's primarily because the Chinese government is opposed to anti-Asian racism?
      - baranul 5mo ago
        > nation that contains 25% of the world's prisoners Among the problems is not being able to look in the mirror. There are those that don't realize, "when you point one finger, there are three fingers point back at you".
- rurp 5mo ago
  Sure, but in this case it seems spot on. China really does have a disturbingly high youth unemployment rate, along with a population that's aging and shrinking. I have no idea if they're headed for a major economic crash, but the track record of command economies controlled by a paranoid aging dictator don't have a very good track record. For all the things China does well there are plenty of reasons for Chinese people to be concerned about their future.
cromka 5mo ago
China will likely become the go-to place for immigrants within couple decades. Just like any other developed economy had.
- strictnein 5mo ago
  That would be quite the change, considering they don't really allow any outsiders to become citizens.
  - Arubis 5mo ago
    Does it matter? If a permanent resident class exists (de facto is fine, if not legal), what would those folks be missing out on that citizenship would confer? You can’t legalize your way to cultural assimilation, and it’s not like the CCP would tolerate a meaningful vote.
    - mytailorisrich 5mo ago
      > You can’t legalize your way to cultural assimilation And that's why we are unlikely to see mass immigration allowed in China. They know that and can see what has happened and is happening in Europe and are thus likely to protect themselves. That's not my opinion but what Chinese think if you can discuss openly with people there. This is a puzzling badly-received point of view here, but I think Europe and its official narrative that are actually the odd ones out globally. China is investing a lot in automation and they already have state of the art automated factories. I think this will be the way forward for them and everyone (birth rates are dropping everywhere).
  - cromka 5mo ago
    Neither do UAE or Hong Kong, and see how this ever stopped immigrants from making them immigrant-first economies. If anything, if you can successfully attract immigrants with a residency only, you get the best of both worlds.
- mytailorisrich 5mo ago
  I doubt it because the Chinese are very protective of their homogeneity and see what has happened in Europe as a massive cautionary tale. So my guess is that they will be very picky and control both quality and numbers tightly.
ErneX 5mo ago
Visit if you can, and take some bullet trains! We had a blast last year there.
- _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
  Shanghai was great in the 2010s. Seems like a different place today. Are the bullet trains making enough to pay down construction debt yet? My understanding is that that has been a struggle, which is going to be a problem when they get past being new and start having more and more maintenance expense on top of paying back construction debt.
  - theendisney 5mo ago
    They dont have to, they are reqired to make the country work. Its like trying to make us roads profitable.
    - munk-a 5mo ago
      Or having some silly notion that the post service should be profitable. Public services generally provide public good that outweighs their cost. Trying to quantify and charge for that cost is a useless exercise.
  - try-working 5mo ago
    I've been living in Shanghai sinze 2010, with some time in between in Shenzhen. Shanghai is much better now than in the 2010s.
    - _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
      That is awesome. I hate the weird 'window' we get into places online, I need to learn to ignore it. I loved the city and it's people! I hate the current bs going on in the US against China. It reminds me of the Japan scare crap pushed in the US when I was a kid.
  - m4rtink 5mo ago
ChoosesBarbecue 5mo ago
I'm passively curious how the long-term maintenance of this all ends up. You don't just build a bridge, you have to keep it up when the natural strain of the world impacts upon it. Given provinces already have debt problems [0], how the hell will all of this infrastructure look in 50 years? [0]: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254680/chinas-debt-ridden-guizhou-faces-reckoning-after-years-splashing-out-pricey-projects https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254680/c...
- HerbManic 5mo ago
  This is the structure of catabolic collapse. When the mere maintenance costs over run the capabilities/resources of the civilisation. Funnily enough it may turn out that those nations that just muddled along could have the best long term out comes. Yes, they never got the really good stuff but they also won't have a harder decline. "You cannot fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor" - Turkish proverb
Danox 5mo ago
Why is that a problem? Most of the people in China live in about 1/3 of the country. Imagine if everyone in the United States lived in just 1/3 of the United States even with 350 million people that would be crowded , but China has 1.3 billion people living in an area the size of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi river imagine 1.3 billion people living just in that area. Building infrastructure for a civilized society is never bad and when I say that nothing is perfect. There are downsides. I would rather have the infrastructure and I wished the United States still had that can-do attitude. The rail system across the country needs to be upgraded desperately. The Chinese have even taken the lessons of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, they have built two Thorium reactors and refueled one without turning it off, and they appear to be right on schedule to have that larger second reactor online by 2030.
- soperj 5mo ago
  > Imagine if everyone in the United States lived in just 1/3 of the United States Take a 100 mile strip down the east coast and the west coast. Add Chicago. That's pretty much everyone.
  - Arubis 5mo ago
    Yeah, same thought. Parent post isn’t theoretical; that’s pretty much what actual US demographics are. The population of the NYC metro area exceeds that of the entire US Mountain _timezone_.
  - shipman05 5mo ago
    IDK if pretty much everyone can exclude Florida and Texas, the second and third most populated states. (Or I suppose you could be excluding the Northeast Corridor instead of Florida)
    - mvdtnz 5mo ago
      I'm no expert on USA but looking at a map Florida is very obviously on the east coast, and the entire peninsula is only slightly wider than GP's 100 miles.
kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
Not hard to find the evidence of tofu dregs. Start being envious when they stop using ewaste as filler for concrete roads and buildings.
devilsdata 5mo ago
Are these not the same things people are complaining about in the West, though?
Markoff 5mo ago
>I have two chinese-born coworkers (who spent 20-30 years here in the us) in the same room. When we talk about china's expansion, I am always jealous of the public projects, infrastructure, housing, etc. They always point out the huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills. You have all of that (huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills) also in Europe MINUS the Chinese progress, your co-workers are clearly biased but for other perspective - I lived in China 5+ years, left in 2016, I returned for 3 weeks vacation/family visit last summer and honestly I didn't see that many changes as you would expect, in China in 9 years you would expect pretty much different country by previous standards, but I was like "meh", hardly any changes beside few more EVs on the road (even there I was disappointed, Beijing clearly ain't Shenzhen, maybe 25-35% cars on the road and I am including hybrids as well), bunch of new subway lines and skyscrapers, but nothing mindblowing, it was actually quite underwhelming, people still smoke in restaurants (and policemen in police station right under No smoking sign), still noise and mess on (some) streets, even more street markets (gentrification) closed, on the positive note thanks to crappy economy and zero inflation or maybe even deflation salaries are same and prices remained same (you can rent apartment for like 200EUR in Beijing suburbs), I can't imagine having pretty much same price for meal after 9 years in European restaurant
seanmcdirmid 5mo ago
But we’ve seen this already in Japan, and it kind of worked out for them? Yes, they didn’t become the richest country in the world like everyone predicted in the 80s, they have stagnated a bit, but life there is still pretty good. I’ve been visiting China since 1999 (and lived there for around 10 years). Rapid progress, lots of investments, over investment (ghost districts and ghost cities) are inevitable, but after its all over they will still have an advanced economy with lots of opportunities.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

by fusslo 5mo ago

sureshv 5mo ago

I always take these views with a grain of salt, many immigrant's view of their home country is ossified at the time of emigration.

simonask 5mo ago
In the same vein, it’s reasonable to take a foreigner’s view with a grain of salt. For all its impressive progress, China doesn’t show off its problems. The “West” had the same problem many times during the first Cold War, where things in the Soviet Union seemed really great from the outside. Only after the collapse did the truth become clear. Now, I don’t think China is even remotely similar, but never forget that it is not a free society.
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  In the US it's practically a right of passage to be a young adult and very vocally hate the country, hate the government. In China you don't have a life in front of you if you do that.
  - joe_mamba 5mo ago
    >In the US it's practically a right of passage to be a young adult and very vocally hate the country, hate the government. Well, unless ICE murders you at a protest for expressing your hate of the government's actions. >In China you don't have a life in front of you if you do that. That's very much not true. China isn't North Korea like Westerners imagine. Unless you riot, take to the streets, or become a big agitator or dissident, Chinese government and media actually does allow some controlled escape valves for regular people to vent about problems, no issue with that. This isn't Stalin's reign of terror. You'll only get disappeared if you end up becoming a big fish to threaten the CCP, like Jack Ma, but otherwise the CCP don't end disappearing every schmuck who complains about the government. You might not know this, but as a nation, you don't get very far economically, academically and technologically in the long run by consonantly oppressing your people under a culture of permanent fear of their government. You can't bleed a stone. And China got where it is, due to its successful policies from the last half-century that brought prosperity and lifted millions of of poverty, it's government has earned a certain level of "buy-in" from the majority of the population, meaning the people are more likely to be cooperative and work with the totalitarian government towards a common set of mutually beneficial goals, rather than wasting their energy trying to mass emigrate out of the country or to fight for democracy. And that's what so dangerous about this, because unlike the USSR who served in the west as THE model of inevitable failure for such systems, China found a successful form of totalitarian governance, that some western governments are now trying to copy when they saw how effective it is.
    - tpm 5mo ago
      > China found a successful form of totalitarian governance, that some western governments are now trying to copy when they saw how effective it is. They are certainly trying to copy some elements, but also some parts might be inevitable in the age of decentralised social media which are much harder to control using the old tools. China just enacted that first and the West had to go through all the turmoil to arrive in a similar place much later.
    - stasomatic 5mo ago
      >due to its successful policies from the last half-century >that brought prosperity and lifted Not because of the West giving China its industry, because - greed and China's blatant IP theft? Who cares if the communists make everything we consume, right? Stock price, yo. "Apple in China" by Patrick McGee is a good read. I like Chinese food, the arts, the folklore, they make my favorite bows (archery), but I don't want my grandkids have to learn Mandarin unless they want to. Tangent, I always do a double take when I see CCP, as "USSR" is spelled "CCCP" in Cyrillic, it's charming (I am from a former USSR republic).
      - joe_mamba 5mo ago
        >Not because of the West giving China its industry, because - greed and China's blatant IP theft? If I'm voluntarily giving you my IP with no contractual assurance for protection, is it my fault or yours? Never stop your enemy when he's making mistakes. >because - greed Stock price, yo. Why wouldn't you weaponize their greed against them? "Forget about pedophiles, the DOW is over 50,000."
  - culi 5mo ago
    Try browsing Chinese social media (WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, etc). The internet is ripe with non-anonymous criticism of the gov't People often point to the take down of Winnie the Pooh memes as censorship but I don't think people realize there's a long history of racist groups using Pooh as a slur about Asian people and Tigger about black people. The meme exploded in popularity from a picture of Obama and Xi being compared to Tigger and Pooh. You can have whatever opinion you want about taking down racist content but I don't it's any different from Western platforms. But spending any time on Chinese social media will quickly dispel the idea of harsh consequences for speech (an especially silly idea coming from members of the nation that contains 25% of the world's prisoners)
    - WarmWash 5mo ago
      We all saw what happened in Hong Kong...
    - waterhouse 5mo ago
      So is it your position that, when the Chinese government imposes takedowns or worse on Chinese people posting Winnie the Pooh stuff, it's primarily because the Chinese government is opposed to anti-Asian racism?
    - baranul 5mo ago
      > nation that contains 25% of the world's prisoners Among the problems is not being able to look in the mirror. There are those that don't realize, "when you point one finger, there are three fingers point back at you".
rurp 5mo ago
Sure, but in this case it seems spot on. China really does have a disturbingly high youth unemployment rate, along with a population that's aging and shrinking. I have no idea if they're headed for a major economic crash, but the track record of command economies controlled by a paranoid aging dictator don't have a very good track record. For all the things China does well there are plenty of reasons for Chinese people to be concerned about their future.

cromka 5mo ago

China will likely become the go-to place for immigrants within couple decades. Just like any other developed economy had.

strictnein 5mo ago
That would be quite the change, considering they don't really allow any outsiders to become citizens.
- Arubis 5mo ago
  Does it matter? If a permanent resident class exists (de facto is fine, if not legal), what would those folks be missing out on that citizenship would confer? You can’t legalize your way to cultural assimilation, and it’s not like the CCP would tolerate a meaningful vote.
  - mytailorisrich 5mo ago
    > You can’t legalize your way to cultural assimilation And that's why we are unlikely to see mass immigration allowed in China. They know that and can see what has happened and is happening in Europe and are thus likely to protect themselves. That's not my opinion but what Chinese think if you can discuss openly with people there. This is a puzzling badly-received point of view here, but I think Europe and its official narrative that are actually the odd ones out globally. China is investing a lot in automation and they already have state of the art automated factories. I think this will be the way forward for them and everyone (birth rates are dropping everywhere).
- cromka 5mo ago
  Neither do UAE or Hong Kong, and see how this ever stopped immigrants from making them immigrant-first economies. If anything, if you can successfully attract immigrants with a residency only, you get the best of both worlds.
mytailorisrich 5mo ago
I doubt it because the Chinese are very protective of their homogeneity and see what has happened in Europe as a massive cautionary tale. So my guess is that they will be very picky and control both quality and numbers tightly.

ErneX 5mo ago

Visit if you can, and take some bullet trains! We had a blast last year there.

_DeadFred_ 5mo ago
Shanghai was great in the 2010s. Seems like a different place today. Are the bullet trains making enough to pay down construction debt yet? My understanding is that that has been a struggle, which is going to be a problem when they get past being new and start having more and more maintenance expense on top of paying back construction debt.
- theendisney 5mo ago
  They dont have to, they are reqired to make the country work. Its like trying to make us roads profitable.
  - munk-a 5mo ago
    Or having some silly notion that the post service should be profitable. Public services generally provide public good that outweighs their cost. Trying to quantify and charge for that cost is a useless exercise.
- try-working 5mo ago
  I've been living in Shanghai sinze 2010, with some time in between in Shenzhen. Shanghai is much better now than in the 2010s.
  - _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
    That is awesome. I hate the weird 'window' we get into places online, I need to learn to ignore it. I loved the city and it's people! I hate the current bs going on in the US against China. It reminds me of the Japan scare crap pushed in the US when I was a kid.
- m4rtink 5mo ago

ChoosesBarbecue 5mo ago

I'm passively curious how the long-term maintenance of this all ends up. You don't just build a bridge, you have to keep it up when the natural strain of the world impacts upon it. Given provinces already have debt problems [0], how the hell will all of this infrastructure look in 50 years? [0]: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254680/chinas-debt-ridden-guizhou-faces-reckoning-after-years-splashing-out-pricey-projects https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254680/c...

HerbManic 5mo ago
This is the structure of catabolic collapse. When the mere maintenance costs over run the capabilities/resources of the civilisation. Funnily enough it may turn out that those nations that just muddled along could have the best long term out comes. Yes, they never got the really good stuff but they also won't have a harder decline. "You cannot fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor" - Turkish proverb

Danox 5mo ago

Why is that a problem? Most of the people in China live in about 1/3 of the country. Imagine if everyone in the United States lived in just 1/3 of the United States even with 350 million people that would be crowded , but China has 1.3 billion people living in an area the size of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi river imagine 1.3 billion people living just in that area. Building infrastructure for a civilized society is never bad and when I say that nothing is perfect. There are downsides. I would rather have the infrastructure and I wished the United States still had that can-do attitude. The rail system across the country needs to be upgraded desperately. The Chinese have even taken the lessons of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, they have built two Thorium reactors and refueled one without turning it off, and they appear to be right on schedule to have that larger second reactor online by 2030.

soperj 5mo ago
> Imagine if everyone in the United States lived in just 1/3 of the United States Take a 100 mile strip down the east coast and the west coast. Add Chicago. That's pretty much everyone.
- Arubis 5mo ago
  Yeah, same thought. Parent post isn’t theoretical; that’s pretty much what actual US demographics are. The population of the NYC metro area exceeds that of the entire US Mountain _timezone_.
- shipman05 5mo ago
  IDK if pretty much everyone can exclude Florida and Texas, the second and third most populated states. (Or I suppose you could be excluding the Northeast Corridor instead of Florida)
  - mvdtnz 5mo ago
    I'm no expert on USA but looking at a map Florida is very obviously on the east coast, and the entire peninsula is only slightly wider than GP's 100 miles.

kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago

Not hard to find the evidence of tofu dregs. Start being envious when they stop using ewaste as filler for concrete roads and buildings.

devilsdata 5mo ago

Are these not the same things people are complaining about in the West, though?

Markoff 5mo ago

>I have two chinese-born coworkers (who spent 20-30 years here in the us) in the same room. When we talk about china's expansion, I am always jealous of the public projects, infrastructure, housing, etc. They always point out the huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills. You have all of that (huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills) also in Europe MINUS the Chinese progress, your co-workers are clearly biased but for other perspective - I lived in China 5+ years, left in 2016, I returned for 3 weeks vacation/family visit last summer and honestly I didn't see that many changes as you would expect, in China in 9 years you would expect pretty much different country by previous standards, but I was like "meh", hardly any changes beside few more EVs on the road (even there I was disappointed, Beijing clearly ain't Shenzhen, maybe 25-35% cars on the road and I am including hybrids as well), bunch of new subway lines and skyscrapers, but nothing mindblowing, it was actually quite underwhelming, people still smoke in restaurants (and policemen in police station right under No smoking sign), still noise and mess on (some) streets, even more street markets (gentrification) closed, on the positive note thanks to crappy economy and zero inflation or maybe even deflation salaries are same and prices remained same (you can rent apartment for like 200EUR in Beijing suburbs), I can't imagine having pretty much same price for meal after 9 years in European restaurant

seanmcdirmid 5mo ago

But we’ve seen this already in Japan, and it kind of worked out for them? Yes, they didn’t become the richest country in the world like everyone predicted in the 80s, they have stagnated a bit, but life there is still pretty good. I’ve been visiting China since 1999 (and lived there for around 10 years). Rapid progress, lots of investments, over investment (ghost districts and ghost cities) are inevitable, but after its all over they will still have an advanced economy with lots of opportunities.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]