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> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years? Yes, but China-bad ideology demands that
by faitswulff 3mo ago
> Didn't they bring hundreds of millions out of poverty, and built amazing cities and facilities in the past 30 years?
Yes, but China-bad ideology demands that we ask ”at what cost?”
- UltraSane 3mo agoChina isn't bad, the CCP is.
- faitswulff 3mo agoThat simplistic characterization is still essentially "China-bad." The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Does it make up for other human rights violations? No. But "CCP bad" flattens a complex and powerful political organization into a fairy tale boogeyman.
- UltraSane 3mo agoThe worst part of the CCP is it's hatred for free speech https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/16/hong-kong-bookstore-bookshop-raids-arrests https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/16/hong-kong-book... Five arrested in Hong Kong bookstore raids in ‘seditious’ materials crackdown Third round of arrests linked to independent bookshops widely regarded as clampdown on dissent in territory
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- coldtea 3mo agoIf that's the "worst part" about them, reacting like that to sedition plans, it sounds quite tame. It's not like people elsewhere, cough, are not arrested for protesting against the bombing in Palestine or against ICE. Or, on the other side of the pond (and on the other side of the political spectrum), for tweeting against illegal immigration to their country. Or in Germany for merely calling the chancellor an idiot.
- UltraSane 3mo ago[flagged]
- scarecrowbob 3mo agoA lot of us have very little love for authoritarian regimes. At the same time, all through out my life I have seen folks in the US us their fantasies CCP as reason to accept a government that they feel is the gold standard for freeedom. I submit to you that what you're hearing are folks who are even more concerned with not being oppressed than you are telling you that it's not that great here for those of us on, say, the anarchist left or among the black radical tradition or whatever. If your history begins at the fall of the berlin wall and you are happy about the ecological destruction being directly created by the US and the carcerial state it represents then of course you're going to read things the way you do. But the reality is that most of us are just tired of hearing how fucking free the US is when they just sentenced 19 of our people in Texas to what are effectively life sentences for participating in a protest that went sideways when one participant decided he didn't want to see the state summarily execute a kid for vandalism.
- UltraSane 3mo ago"A lot of us have very little love for authoritarian regimes." That is quite odd because the CCP is a very authoritarian regime. Your words have very little relation to reality You are outraged by the 19 people sentenced in Texas and SO AM I but this kind of political prosecution is unusual in the US but ABSOLUTELY ROUTINE in China.
- anjel 3mo ago> lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. Basically true, but not much more than that for most Chinese. The urban modern success story presented to the world is a surprisingly small segment of a notably larger population and even for many in that smaller more fortunate segment the gravy days are long ago and no sign of returning yet. https://eastasiaforum.org/2011/08/19/in-the-city-but-not-of-the-city-the-myth-of-china-s-urbanisation/ https://eastasiaforum.org/2011/08/19/in-the-city-but-not-of-...
- UltraSane 3mo agoAnd chinese don't have full freedom of movement. China uses a system called called hukou which binds a persons rights and benefits to their birthplace. This has created a population of 350 million rural migrants who live in cities but still have a rural hukou and are treated like second class citizens in their own country. https://borgenproject.org/chinas-hukou-system-restricts-mobility/ https://borgenproject.org/chinas-hukou-system-restricts-mobi...
- holoduke 3mo agoChina is a communists based country. Everything is organized and for everything there is a plan. Unlike America where it's free for all. We probably would die from unhappiness in China. But it works for them and they are pretty successful in it.
- UltraSane 3mo agoChina is not actually communist anymore. It is totalitarian capitalist
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- QuesnayJr 3mo agoAt this point you're just openly shilling for the CCP. The CCP killed millions of people through incompetence, and then they had the brilliant idea of copying the exact development model of the Asian Tigers. It's their previous incompetence that's the reason that they haven't already caught up with South Korea.
- amrit3128 3mo agoMillions? Please. CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng. Most people died due to Mao. CCP back then was only Mao loyalists. CCP endorsed Mao only to gain public legitimacy as the ruling party, since back then China was still a poor country prone to revolts and extremist ideas.
- leereeves 3mo ago> CCP as it's now was created after reforms by Deng. Their policies changed, so they're no longer responsible for their own history?
- coldtea 3mo agoThe current generations are not responsible for historical things they didn't order or did. As for the country as an abstract in general, sure. As much as other countries are responsible for their own history.
- scarecrowbob 3mo agoI don't think most folks I know in the US are willing to touch the historical wrongs (genocide and slavery) with a 3.048M pole.
- leereeves 3mo ago> I don't think most folks I know in the US are willing to touch the historical wrongs (genocide and slavery) with a 3.048M pole. I hear those discussed quite often in the US. Someone is obviously willing. And more importantly, it's legal.
- graemep 3mo ago> The CCP is the same government responsible for lifting historically unprecedented numbers of people out of abject poverty. The CCP also put most of those people into such abject poverty from the 50s onwards. They give up on communism and thereby reversed the problems caused by communism like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
- holoduke 3mo agoThe CCP now has proved a 'better' system than the western 'democracy' that is in many ways at the end of its life.
- rangestransform 3mo agoThere was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”. China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing. This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
- Robotbeat 3mo agoIn general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
- numpad0 3mo agoIt feels to me more like, East Asian nations tend to have robust domestic sets of expectations that tend to be more stringent, reinforced by geological and cultural barriers, and comparatively lower international castes. Anyone born in EA have no choice but to constantly beat the average and to make contributions to the street cred jar for the nation. And that produce such things as TSMC chips and DJI drones and 7-11 egg salad sandwiches.
- nl 3mo ago> having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies I don't know why people keep bringing this up as though it is surprising. In almost any field other than AI PhDs are underpaid on average. There are many, many bio PhDs working as lab technicians.
- seanmcdirmid 3mo ago> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively). Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
- indemnity 3mo agoI wonder if similar costs were paid when the West was industrializing? Spoiler: Yes.