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I disagree with a lot of this. The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic. Chinese com

I disagree with a lot of this. The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic. Chinese companies regularly publish misleading or outright fraudulent earning statements and quarterly reports. While the Chinese government seems to be taking steps to reverse these trends, it will take a long time to undo their culture of corruption. Contrast this with the American culture of honesty; fraud and cheating are national scandals, not the norm. Second, the US currency is the world reserve currency because the world trusts that the US will keep paying interest on the debts. A trillion dollar debt is not actually that large, and this is reflected in the near-zero interest rates on treasury bonds. If there was a belief in the market that America would no longer be able to pay off the debts, interest rates would be sky-high. But the opposite is true. The national debt is just a talking point for people who don't understand economics. (The largest owner of American debt is...America!) Finally, I am unsure what evidence there is that the US culture has moved away from innovation, risk-taking, etc. If anything, there are many more entrepreneurs today than there ever has been before; the maker movement, youtube celebrities, and startup culture is evidence of a growing number of people who are not employees of large corporations, but independent businesses.

kirse 12y ago
China's growth has long since been an organism that feeds on the back of the gorilla of US growth. If the US economy would hit a major recession, China would come crashing down with it. On the other hand, if the Chinese economy would have a major collapse, the US would suffer, but still be able to re-route core-value manufacturing processes to new countries (or back home). I agree with your cheating note, many of the Chinese take great pride in stealing innovation and ripping off US intellectual property, to the point where anyone well-informed on the matter knows that they have their fingers in the networks of almost every major US Corporation, siphoning away hard-earned gains by our workers. I have further exposure to this through product manufacturing, where Chinese companies are well-known for ripping off blueprints from the US companies that outsource their manufacturing. Tools like Alibaba have only increased this sort of misbehavior exponentially. What the US has that China often doesn't demonstrate are the intangibles in regards to honest work-ethic that produce genuine "value", rather than "value" based on a manipulated currency and outright lazy copy-catting. Once they demonstrate their self-sufficiency by doing honest innovation, then I'll credit them for a job well done. There's a lot of value in US-China relations, but they still have yet to prove that they could "hop off the back of the gorilla" and stand alone.
- tsurantino 12y ago
  I completely disagree with your notion that U.S. is less interdependent than China. The exchange is clear: U.S. needs cheap Chinese manufacturing to proliferate its innovation, and in turn, China gets direct access to U.S. blueprints, and is able to leverage and improve upon them to produce their own products. This is basic economics, not a question of "who is genuinely innovating". American companies need cheap manufacturing as much as the Chinese needs technological know-how. Why? Because if no one buys "innovative" products (because of how much cheaper they get) then we wouldn't get that innovation in the first place.
  - fazzone 12y ago
    I agree. In fact, it is almost like the market has figured out 'a way for both countries to work on what they're really good at' (paraphrasing TFA). "Governments that at least partially cooperate," on the other hand, I agree would be a welcome change.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    >I completely disagree with your notion that U.S. is less interdependent than China. Well we will probably find out shortly as the largest real estate bubble in the history of the world is about to pop in China.
  - kyllo 12y ago
    China is huge but US imports are pretty well diversified at this point. Today we import a whole lot from Vietnam, India, Malaysia, etc. It's mainly the consumer electronics sector that would be hit hardest. The lower-tech manufacturing has already moved away from China to a large extent.
- 3am 12y ago
  Yeah, their ability to replace US/developed nation demand with internal demand in order to allow the RMB to float freely will be interesting. As it is now, a lot of their growth is based on government spending and some creative financial engineering with debt (similar to Fed and containment of toxic mortgage assets) and currency manipulation intended to create a huge domestic manufacturing base. I think, complicating this, is the implicit social contract between the govt and the populace regarding economic growth and jobs. As flawed as the US system is, it is (purely IMO) a more fault tolerant - in a dynamic systems/perturbation sense - than Chinese society.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
I don't understand economics enough to address the point on debt, but I have to comment on that: > American culture of honesty; fraud and cheating are national scandals, not the norm Wait what. Fraud and cheating are sometimes national scandals if media bothers. But there's absolutely no honesty. Corporations lie and steal. Journalists lie. Startups... well, things like astroturfing, lying to users, tricking them into doing things that are harmful to them, "growth hacking", etc. are not only tolerated but encouraged. Call it selection bias, but I don't see much of this "culture of honesty" anywhere in the western world, and especially not in the United States.
- cbgb 12y ago
  I would argue that the very notion that cases of fraud and dishonesty make such large media headlines underscores the American culture of honesty the OP is referring to. Brian Williams was just suspended for six months without pay for lying about a single news story more than a decade ago. From a business perspective, NBC knows their viewers won't take them seriously if they keep a potentially dishonest news anchor on the air. I agree that fraud and otherwise unethical behavior is still pretty present in the American system, but there's at least a cultural understanding that these things are bad; this, of course, presupposes that A) you can prove that the behavior was either fraudulent or unethical, and B) that the perpetrator was caught.
  - Hasu 12y ago
    >Brian Williams was just suspended for six months without pay for lying about a single news story more than a decade ago. From a business perspective, NBC knows their viewers won't take them seriously if they keep a potentially dishonest news anchor on the air. Interesting. I see the fact that he wasn't fired and permanently publicly disgraced, unable to ever work in journalism again, as evidence that the American culture of honesty is a farce. We signal that it's bad, but when we catch people cheating and lying, we give them a slap on the wrist. The message is, "Lie, cheat, but don't get caught. And if you do, you'll get off easy."
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    A recent example. http://blog.solarcity.com/monopoly-money http://blog.solarcity.com/monopoly-money Here we have companies blatantly bribing government, and not even really hiding that fact. Did I miss that massive national scandal it caused?
Alex3917 12y ago
> Contrast this with the American culture of honesty; fraud and cheating are national scandals, not the norm. Fraud is basically the biggest national industry in the U.S. Just look at: - The 30% of all medical spending that is wasted. - The rise of for-profit colleges with super low graduation rates and even worse employment prospects. Same with law schools. - The fact that the majority of people who graduate high school and college are functionally illiterate. - The massive pharmaceutical settlements for faking safety/efficacy data, illegal marketing, bribing doctors, etc. - The complete lack of food safety regulations and/or enforcement. E.g. a third of fish sold aren't even really the species that they are claimed as, 80% of supplements sold don't contain any of the ingredients they are claimed to have, etc. - The crumbling of the train systems, city water systems, etc. - The massive subsidies on fossil fuels that are causing climate change and destroying the oceans. - The financial system - The fact that the vast majority of science isn't replicable, or isn't accurate even when it is replicable. Etc. The main reason corruption seems worse in China is because of the billion dollar propaganda campaigns that use schools and the media to systematically blind people to the underlying issues, and the fact that the vast majority of activists get arrested and threatened with life in prison if they ever protest again.
- api 12y ago
  All that is true, but most of that except maybe the infrastructure stuff is worse in China. (I have relatives who live there.)
- adventured 12y ago
  You're going to have to backup that claim that the majority of people that graduate from college are functionally illiterate. I call bullshit on that being true. The American food system is one of the safest and most regulated on earth. You may disagree with some of its practices, but that does not make it unregulated nor unsafe. The claim that America has a complete lack of food safety regulations is laughable, you couldn't be more wrong. America has always had for-profit colleges, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They work perfectly fine. America has had by far the best university system for many decades and still does. The rest of the world has nothing like it. Massive subsidies for fossil fuels? In fact the subsidies are not massive compared to the industry and dollar figures in question, even if those subsidies should not exist. If you want to talk per capita fossil fuels and the destruction of the environment from that, let's talk about Norway's output - that bastion of everything America is supposed to aspire to. America merely contributes upwards of half of all global science and innovation. Given the immense output record the US possesses, you're going to have to do a lot better to discredit it than throw out an empty soundbite.
tdees40 12y ago
There's a billion people! You can't make any generalizations about "hard work". It's just overly broad stereotyping at that point. Do Uighurs value hard work? Tibetans? Subsistence farmers? City-dwellers? I don't really know what people mean when they say that the Chinese "value hard work". Which Chinese?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Indeed. People forget that China has twice the population of United States and European Union combined. It's often silly to treat them all as one uniform group.
  - tdees40 12y ago
    I once had a friend say something about how the Chinese valued hard work. Then I asked him what cultures don't value hard work. He squirmed as he started ticking off a list of countries whose populations are predominantly black/Latino...
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      Hence the need to separate the concepts of culture and race, rather than using them interchangeably the way we do now.
  - psychometry 12y ago
    A group's uniformity has nothing to do with its size.
    - soulmachine 12y ago
      You're bind-minded
- threatofrain 12y ago
  Why is something overly broad stereotyping? People don't treat populations and individuals as the same thing; the population is its own entity with its unique properties, and, obviously differences. The question is whether those differences are sufficiently exploitable. This is how policy works. If you are saying that you can't generalize over a population, you're saying that there are roughly zero between-population differences that are exploitable for strategic policy. Random things are unstrategizable. I think that the Chinese and Japanese value hard work more than Americans and Canadians, and I think so because Americans and Canadians have an unfortunately true belief that intelligence is highly predictive of performance, and also that intelligence is not meaningfully improvable. On the other hand, I think that Chinese and Japanese people have the belief that effort is a far better explanation to performance. The problem is that performance must surely be at least a combination of effort and ability; a depressed person may have the bodily ability to pick up the phone for their friends, but they might not care anymore. I thus say this: if you go looking for studies on cross-cultural pedagogy, I claim that you're going to find that American and Canadian students are significantly more likely than Chinese and Japanese students to avoid harder challenges, to pursue easier challenges, to practice mastered over unmastered material, and to avoid a problem after poor marks. Does this speak to all work? Of course not. But it's a window into culture, rather than just comparing mean hours studied or worked between populations.
LiweiZ 12y ago
One thing that I do admire from the article is that Americans do worry about the future in a good way even they still have big advantages. This is a key trait most contemporary Chinese are somewhat lack of. And this alone can tell a lot. For this purpose, it does not matter which competitor the op chose to mention in this article. [edit]typo
SystemOut 12y ago
I'd echo the comment of the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. I managed a group in China for a few years and they come in at the listed start time and exit and the listed end time in the job description. They're precise, I'll give them that. But are they harder workers? No, I don't think they are. They work differently than Americans (if that is your sphere of knowledge) and maybe that's where the misinterpretation is coming from.
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rrggrr 12y ago
I'm sorry but you don't understand how reserve currencies work and your conclusions are wrong. Michael Pettis has an excellent explanation here: http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/my-reading-of-the-ft-on-chinas-turning-away-from-the-dollar/ http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/my-reading-of-the-ft-on-chin...
- b6 12y ago
  > you don't understand how reserve currencies work You seem to be making a statement of fact about the contents of the author's mind. Do you really have a way of knowing for sure whether the author understands reserve currencies (or anything else)? > and your conclusions are wrong I don't think the author could be "wrong" about his opinions, so maybe you're talking about his predictions? If so, I don't understand why you're making a statement of fact that his predictions definitely don't agree with what will actually happen, because that would seem to require knowledge of the future. Is it possible that you can't be sure whether or not the author understands reserve currencies, and that you can't be sure what will happen in the future, and that you and the author just have different opinions about complex topics?
thevardanian 12y ago
A better question is why America became a super-power in the first place? I think many of the assumptions of American exceptionalism are not root causes, as the majority of the reasons for why America, and the west in general, have risen to global domination are embedded in, how should I put it, conflict creation, and not conflict resolution. The west has benefited tremendously from the deliberate, and sometimes accidental ability to create conflict around the world, and gain profits from it including in China. This isn't some controversial claim, this is pure, and simple Nationalism, and enlightenment ideas of State. However as the industrial dregs settle down, and as Imperial might whimpers, we're seeing the rise of countries that were left destitute in the past 150-200 years, regaining a sense of internal stability. The result of this new founded stability around the world unfortunately, or fortunately, creates a new world where the center is other than the west. Already India, and China are talking about a polycentric world that activity eschews the hegemony of the west, in favor for a more equal world, because let's face it the west is the 1%. Even if we deny all that it would be very difficult to refute that America has in the past 100 years been an incredibly stable nation compared to the entire world, and coupled with an active participation in global economies. It was perhaps the only nation on the planet that was internally stable, and had a strong external presence. All other nations eventually declined, had internal struggles, or were just emerging as global economies. This alone gave America an unprecedented advantage over the last 100 years, and that advantage is slowly becoming meaningless as the entire globe is stabilizing.
- thatsjustcrazy 12y ago
  These are good points but I would disagree specifically that other nations want "a more equal world". My take is that they want to wear the crown next, not share it.
  - thevardanian 12y ago
    Well a more equal world is in the economic interests of those nation, because it will allow them far greater power than they currently have. However a multipolar world is not in favor of the US as it will mean that there's greater competition. Greater competition means that USA has decreased political capabilities, way less influence in geopolitical matters, and a decreased ability to "protect American interests", we can already see this happening to an extent. BRICs banding together amongst each other to create economic prosperity is the only means for these countries to increase their living standards, and so cooperation is incentivized. Competition is a zero sum game for these countries, and they know that. Here's an interesting article. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/in-rday-message-china-tells-india-dont-fall-into-trap-laid-by-us/article6823793.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/in-rday-mes...
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nether 12y ago
These lazy orientals built the largest high speed rail network in the world in less time than it'd take a US rail bill to even get through Congress. They launched their first space station in 2011 (albeit a minimal one) and are planning a manned moon mission, following their first successful lunar lander in 2013 Starting from a space program that was basically nothing 15 years before. Corruption and fraud are rampant in the BIC (Russia is out of the picture, let's face it) nations but I think it's part of nascent country's development. And let's not forget, Steve Jobs was a huge fan of "great artists steal" quote by Picasso. P.S. Your characterization of 1 billion people as all knockoff makers is dangerously close to the idea that Chinese are mere "culture bearers," while Westerners are the "culture creators," as said by a great mid 20th century ethnologist. Please don't let HN decay into right wing moonbattery, as most anonymous communities do.
- 300bps 12y ago
  There was a time when the United States had loose labor and environmental protections. Combine loose labor and environmental protections with an almost complete lack of respect for personal liberty and property rights and it sure is easy to get things done. P.S. The population of China was 1.357 billion as of 2013.
bduerst 12y ago
>The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. It's very interesting how deep this type of behavior is ingrained in their culture. For example, western cultures have Aesop fables (e.g. Tortoise and the Hare) which tend to celebrate hard work and punish laziness. Eastern cultures have fables that tend to celebrate being clever or manipulative (e.g. The lion and The Rabbit). It's also interesting to see how this plays out today. The Chinese Happy Farm (original Farmville) was a huge success in part because it allowed users to steal crops from their neighbors. This type of behavior is considered okay as long as you are clever enough not to be caught.
- coralreef 12y ago
  Lets not get crazy and read too deeply into things like how game mechanics reflect social values. You can maraud and raid in any popular iOS game for Americans as well, such as Clash of Clans.
- allemagne 12y ago
  This is textbook confirmation bias. You're ignoring the writings of every Chinese philosopher valuing hard work, the tendency for Chinese schools to value rote memorization--a very work-intensive activity--over creativity, the fact that American railroads were basically built by the Chinese, and the fact that you're likely reading this on a device made by hard-working Chinese hands. Your willingness to see East Asian culture as inherently underhanded because of an internet game is somewhat telling. >western cultures have Aesop fables (e.g. Tortoise and the Hare) which tend to celebrate hard work and punish laziness. Eastern cultures have fables that tend to celebrate being clever or manipulative (e.g. The lion and The Rabbit). Aesop fables valuing cleverness: The Clever Sheep, The Crow and the Pitcher, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, the Fox and the Sick Lion, the Fox and the Mask... there are others. Ancient Greek heroes are constantly clever and manipulative. Well-known Chinese fables celebrating hard work and punishing laziness: 磨杵成针 (Grinding an Iron Pestle into a Needle) Li Bai was fond of playing when he was young, so he was always absent-minded in classes. Today he would catch little birds on the hill, and tomorrow he would pick dates on that hill. One day, he saw an old lady sitting at the riverside when he was crossing the brook. The old lady was grinding an iron pestle without fear of tiredness. On seeing this, Li Bai laughed at her and said: "People who do this job are fools." The old lady answered kindly: "I am determined to grind the iron pestle into a needle even if the iron pestle is so thick and hard. "Li Bai took the iron pestle and felt tired after grinding it for a minute. Then he complained: "Oh, how long can I get it done? I quit." The old lady shook her head and sighed: "The pestle can be grinded into a needle, as long as you keep working hard." The old lady’s words moved him, and Li Bai remembered them by heart. From then on, he spared no pains to study, and eventually became a great poet. 精卫填海 (Jingwei filling the sea) Originally the daughter of the emperor Yandi, Jingwei perished at a young age in the East Sea. After her death she chose to assume the shape of a bird in order to exact revenge upon the sea by bringing stones and small twigs from the mountains nearby over the sea in an effort to fill it up. Jingwei has a short dialogue with the sea where the sea scoffs her, claiming that she wouldn't be able to fill it up even in a million years, whereupon she claims that she will then proceed to take ten million years, even one hundred million years, whatever it takes to fill up the sea so that others would not have to perish as she did. 守株待兔 (waiting by a tree stump for rabbits) In the Spring and Autumn Period, a farmer in the State of Song was one day working in the fields, when he saw a rabbit bump into a tree stump accidentally and break its neck. The farmer took the rabbit home, and cooked himself a delicious meal. That night he thought, "I needn't work so hard. All I have to do is wait for a rabbit each day by the stump." So from then on he gave up farming, and simply sat by the stump waiting for rabbits to come and run into it. The saying satirizes those who wait for strokes of luck instead of working.
6stringmerc 12y ago
I agree with your assessment. There is a research firm, Muddy Waters, that specializes in exposing fraudulent companies, and from what I understand, they are doing very well. This article is devoid of the 'counter points' that I see brought up regularly (sometimes too much, or too hyperbole oriented) over at ZeroHedge. That site is by far the other side of the coin to this article, such as the following postulation: The McKinsey graph on China tells it all. For the moment, forget about leverage ratios, debt carrying capacity and all the other fancy economic metrics. Does it seem likely that a country which is still run by a communist dictatorship and which was on the verge of mass starvation and utter impoverishment only 35 years ago could have prudently increased its outstanding total debt (public and private) from $2 trillion to $28 trillion or by 14X in the short span of 14 years? And especially when half of this period encompassed what is held to be the greatest global financial crisis of modern times And don’t forget that most of this staggering sum of debt was issued by a “banking” system (and its shadow banking affiliates) which is bereft of any and every known mechanism of financial discipline and market constraints on risk and credit extension. In effect, it is simply a vast pyramidal appendage of the Chinese state in which credit is conjured from thin air by the trillions, and then cascaded in plans and quotas down through regions, counties, cities and towns. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-06/china%E2%80%99s-monumental-debt-trap-why-it-will-rock-global-economy http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-06/china%E2%80%99s-mon...
mc32 12y ago
In addition this whole thing is anchored on continued growth. At some point there isn't going to be any growth left, specially as pop. growth rates decline and the third world begins toward economic equilibrium. You can't grow forever, at a global scale. At some point, thirty or forty years from now the growth we depend on for economic viability (as a society) is not going to be there. A new model will have to emerge. The so called neo liberal economic system depends on growth... But its not going to be there forever, as Japan has learnt.
- mark_l_watson 12y ago
  You bring up a good point, namely, on a fixed sized planet how can we have growth forever? I have some hopes that society on a planetary scale will learn that materialism is bullshit and that we are manipulated by clever advertising and pro consumerism messages in movies, etc. Notice how many characters in movies drive over the top expensive cars - just as one example. Same with houses way larger than a family needs for comfort and a happy life.
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fredliu 12y ago
"Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic." Care to give some reference and more clarification (Chinese students where? in US? China?) to back this up? Sounds similar to me to the same narrative as "Asians get good scores because they cheat." I'm appalled when I first heard about this, do people really believe that? or is it just an easy excuse for "non-asians-not-getting-good-scores", to feel good about themselves? [Edit] I'm not questioning your comment about Chinese companys' practice, just feeling that sentence about "those cheating Chinese students" out of place. [Edit] Interesting, just got my 1st downvote on HN, ever. Scratching my head now....what's the downvote for? Asking the OP to back up his own claim is offending or what?
- barry-cotter 12y ago
  I live in China. I know a black American guy who used to take IELTS exams for Koreans when he lived in Korea. Please think of how flagrantly obvious this was. The Korean students in question had powerful parents but it's still indicative. The entire country of South Korea has had the SAT canceled on at least one occasion when the exam papers were leaked. My girlfriend's friend was dating a guy who sold SAT answers at one stage. As to the culture of cheating my friend's wife sat an English proficiency exam for her cousin that said cousin needed to graduate ~community college as a kindergarten teacher. Those are things that are a matter of public record or personal experience. There's more in this line from Ed at educationrealist.wordpress.com though I can't speak to their reliability. According to them there are massive threads on college confidential where people reconstruct SAT exams. Cheating on tests is really common in China and Korea.
- thebooktocome 12y ago
  So, for example, http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-exam-cheats/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-exam-cheats/ Note that this particular exam was taken by 25,000 people, so that's almost ten percent.
  - fredliu 12y ago
    Thanks for the reference, at least you cared to search and show it! 10% of 25,000 for that particular exam does sound a lot, and that's probably why it made national news in the first place. Does it mean 10% of all Chinese students (in China) cheat? Is it a proof that "Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic."? Definitely Not. I can find way more examples where 0% of Chinese students cheat in national level exams (actually, I probably can't, because "nobody cheated in the exam" won't make the news). Does that mean "Chinese students never cheat."? Of course not either. I'm not trying to be the PC police here, but I'm just baffled that a sweeping claim like that got used as the basis of OP's thesis and everybody seems to be agreeing with it. I thought HN's audience could do better than that...
tomsun 12y ago
As someone who spent more than half of his life in China, I'd have to agree with you, at least from an anecdotal perspective. Trust is hard to build in China. A lot of people care about making money but people scarcely think about creating value for the society. Wealth is synonymous with consumption. The worst part I think, is the 1) social stability is valued over social mobility 2) individuality is shunned rather than celebrated. In America people are encouraged to pursue your desire, the mentality of "not giving a fuck" and do what you love is admired and regarded as a sign of courage. In China someone who questions the conventions is deemed as social outcast. People in China are more concerned with the appearance (having face) than trying to be innately satisfied. Things may have changed over the last decade. But I think China still faces this tremendous cultural problem, despite the development growth.
- flyrain 12y ago
  As a Chinese, I agree with you. A lot of (let's say most of)Chinese people actually care more about making money than creating value for society. But, I think this is a short-term wave, especially starting from 1978. And in China, people need more money to establish safety of life since there are less social security and public welfare comparing to western countries. This could change when there are more social security program, more insurance, medical care. So, I don't think this is a "tremendous cultural problem".
  - yeukhon 12y ago
    Disclaimer: I came to the US when I was 12 and I have been living here for eleven years. I was born in Hong Kong, but I think I know quite enough about the mainland China. But please correct me if I am wrong. As a Chinese, I think this is not short-term. I think it has to do with culture, how people were brought up. I don't remember the proper term for this, but people are pressured to make money. Call it peer pressure for all and from all sides. It is expensive to live in China. It is very expensive to own a house. Here in NYC I can own a decent house in a very good neighborhood for $500,000 - $600,000. A software engineer with a couple years of experience and working for a decent company can afford the mortgage. Here in America I help my parents with their mortgage (well after all I am also on the paper). But they are okay with me not paying, yet I do because I can afford to help them! But in China, people will talk shit behind your back and people look down on you if you don't help with mortgage or if you don't own a house. Every Chinese New Year you are expected to give out red envelope. $100? No way. You visit someone's place? Gift. I know we do that here in America too, but when was the last time you actually visit your uncle and give him a nice whiskey? Here in America you can get married without even owning a property. Rental is fine. In China people like to own a house because a house is money. In the old days farm owners are like house owners today. Who cares if you worked as a government official? or whether you are literate or not if you don't own a farm or some livestock? Actually in China today there is a 70-year land-use right. You can own a piece of land for 70-year... It has a lot to do with culture, how people were brought up. When everyone started to show off how well their children are doing, everyone are now suddenly in a race for better. Many couples have to break off because their parents believe the child deserves better. But you have a great point about social welfare though. In China social welfare is very hard to get. In the U.S. you can move to CA and get tax benefit if you declare yourself as CA resident after a few months, but in China you can't just move to another province ("state"). Most workers in China work at another province and their children cannot get benefit there because their parents don't have the right "residency paper", let alone the complex over 100 different documents one has to get in one's life time.
novaleaf 12y ago
Americans tend to under-estimate the country we live in, or conversely, over-estimate the competition. I lived in and ran a Startup in Thailand for 7 years, and therefor learned this lesson the hard way.
pselbert 12y ago
Rampant fraudulent reporting from Chinese officials regarding fishing quotas threw off the global catch totals for years. Until they realized that the Chinese officials were lying (due to raises and payments based on meeting quota) the true scope of global fishery loss wasn't understood.
firstresponder 12y ago
There is a fair amount of casual broad-stroke stereotyping, armchair economics and calls to patriotism in this post and throughout the replies that I don't find very appealing. I have seen this type of post increasingly often and it's starting to worry me. Is this the type of community that HN attracts?

kirse 12y ago

China's growth has long since been an organism that feeds on the back of the gorilla of US growth. If the US economy would hit a major recession, China would come crashing down with it. On the other hand, if the Chinese economy would have a major collapse, the US would suffer, but still be able to re-route core-value manufacturing processes to new countries (or back home). I agree with your cheating note, many of the Chinese take great pride in stealing innovation and ripping off US intellectual property, to the point where anyone well-informed on the matter knows that they have their fingers in the networks of almost every major US Corporation, siphoning away hard-earned gains by our workers. I have further exposure to this through product manufacturing, where Chinese companies are well-known for ripping off blueprints from the US companies that outsource their manufacturing. Tools like Alibaba have only increased this sort of misbehavior exponentially. What the US has that China often doesn't demonstrate are the intangibles in regards to honest work-ethic that produce genuine "value", rather than "value" based on a manipulated currency and outright lazy copy-catting. Once they demonstrate their self-sufficiency by doing honest innovation, then I'll credit them for a job well done. There's a lot of value in US-China relations, but they still have yet to prove that they could "hop off the back of the gorilla" and stand alone.

tsurantino 12y ago
I completely disagree with your notion that U.S. is less interdependent than China. The exchange is clear: U.S. needs cheap Chinese manufacturing to proliferate its innovation, and in turn, China gets direct access to U.S. blueprints, and is able to leverage and improve upon them to produce their own products. This is basic economics, not a question of "who is genuinely innovating". American companies need cheap manufacturing as much as the Chinese needs technological know-how. Why? Because if no one buys "innovative" products (because of how much cheaper they get) then we wouldn't get that innovation in the first place.
- fazzone 12y ago
  I agree. In fact, it is almost like the market has figured out 'a way for both countries to work on what they're really good at' (paraphrasing TFA). "Governments that at least partially cooperate," on the other hand, I agree would be a welcome change.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  >I completely disagree with your notion that U.S. is less interdependent than China. Well we will probably find out shortly as the largest real estate bubble in the history of the world is about to pop in China.
- kyllo 12y ago
  China is huge but US imports are pretty well diversified at this point. Today we import a whole lot from Vietnam, India, Malaysia, etc. It's mainly the consumer electronics sector that would be hit hardest. The lower-tech manufacturing has already moved away from China to a large extent.
3am 12y ago
Yeah, their ability to replace US/developed nation demand with internal demand in order to allow the RMB to float freely will be interesting. As it is now, a lot of their growth is based on government spending and some creative financial engineering with debt (similar to Fed and containment of toxic mortgage assets) and currency manipulation intended to create a huge domestic manufacturing base. I think, complicating this, is the implicit social contract between the govt and the populace regarding economic growth and jobs. As flawed as the US system is, it is (purely IMO) a more fault tolerant - in a dynamic systems/perturbation sense - than Chinese society.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

I don't understand economics enough to address the point on debt, but I have to comment on that: > American culture of honesty; fraud and cheating are national scandals, not the norm Wait what. Fraud and cheating are sometimes national scandals if media bothers. But there's absolutely no honesty. Corporations lie and steal. Journalists lie. Startups... well, things like astroturfing, lying to users, tricking them into doing things that are harmful to them, "growth hacking", etc. are not only tolerated but encouraged. Call it selection bias, but I don't see much of this "culture of honesty" anywhere in the western world, and especially not in the United States.

cbgb 12y ago
I would argue that the very notion that cases of fraud and dishonesty make such large media headlines underscores the American culture of honesty the OP is referring to. Brian Williams was just suspended for six months without pay for lying about a single news story more than a decade ago. From a business perspective, NBC knows their viewers won't take them seriously if they keep a potentially dishonest news anchor on the air. I agree that fraud and otherwise unethical behavior is still pretty present in the American system, but there's at least a cultural understanding that these things are bad; this, of course, presupposes that A) you can prove that the behavior was either fraudulent or unethical, and B) that the perpetrator was caught.
- Hasu 12y ago
  >Brian Williams was just suspended for six months without pay for lying about a single news story more than a decade ago. From a business perspective, NBC knows their viewers won't take them seriously if they keep a potentially dishonest news anchor on the air. Interesting. I see the fact that he wasn't fired and permanently publicly disgraced, unable to ever work in journalism again, as evidence that the American culture of honesty is a farce. We signal that it's bad, but when we catch people cheating and lying, we give them a slap on the wrist. The message is, "Lie, cheat, but don't get caught. And if you do, you'll get off easy."
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  A recent example. http://blog.solarcity.com/monopoly-money http://blog.solarcity.com/monopoly-money Here we have companies blatantly bribing government, and not even really hiding that fact. Did I miss that massive national scandal it caused?

Alex3917 12y ago

> Contrast this with the American culture of honesty; fraud and cheating are national scandals, not the norm. Fraud is basically the biggest national industry in the U.S. Just look at: - The 30% of all medical spending that is wasted. - The rise of for-profit colleges with super low graduation rates and even worse employment prospects. Same with law schools. - The fact that the majority of people who graduate high school and college are functionally illiterate. - The massive pharmaceutical settlements for faking safety/efficacy data, illegal marketing, bribing doctors, etc. - The complete lack of food safety regulations and/or enforcement. E.g. a third of fish sold aren't even really the species that they are claimed as, 80% of supplements sold don't contain any of the ingredients they are claimed to have, etc. - The crumbling of the train systems, city water systems, etc. - The massive subsidies on fossil fuels that are causing climate change and destroying the oceans. - The financial system - The fact that the vast majority of science isn't replicable, or isn't accurate even when it is replicable. Etc. The main reason corruption seems worse in China is because of the billion dollar propaganda campaigns that use schools and the media to systematically blind people to the underlying issues, and the fact that the vast majority of activists get arrested and threatened with life in prison if they ever protest again.

api 12y ago
All that is true, but most of that except maybe the infrastructure stuff is worse in China. (I have relatives who live there.)
adventured 12y ago
You're going to have to backup that claim that the majority of people that graduate from college are functionally illiterate. I call bullshit on that being true. The American food system is one of the safest and most regulated on earth. You may disagree with some of its practices, but that does not make it unregulated nor unsafe. The claim that America has a complete lack of food safety regulations is laughable, you couldn't be more wrong. America has always had for-profit colleges, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They work perfectly fine. America has had by far the best university system for many decades and still does. The rest of the world has nothing like it. Massive subsidies for fossil fuels? In fact the subsidies are not massive compared to the industry and dollar figures in question, even if those subsidies should not exist. If you want to talk per capita fossil fuels and the destruction of the environment from that, let's talk about Norway's output - that bastion of everything America is supposed to aspire to. America merely contributes upwards of half of all global science and innovation. Given the immense output record the US possesses, you're going to have to do a lot better to discredit it than throw out an empty soundbite.

tdees40 12y ago

There's a billion people! You can't make any generalizations about "hard work". It's just overly broad stereotyping at that point. Do Uighurs value hard work? Tibetans? Subsistence farmers? City-dwellers? I don't really know what people mean when they say that the Chinese "value hard work". Which Chinese?

TeMPOraL 12y ago
Indeed. People forget that China has twice the population of United States and European Union combined. It's often silly to treat them all as one uniform group.
- tdees40 12y ago
  I once had a friend say something about how the Chinese valued hard work. Then I asked him what cultures don't value hard work. He squirmed as he started ticking off a list of countries whose populations are predominantly black/Latino...
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    Hence the need to separate the concepts of culture and race, rather than using them interchangeably the way we do now.
- psychometry 12y ago
  A group's uniformity has nothing to do with its size.
  - soulmachine 12y ago
    You're bind-minded
threatofrain 12y ago
Why is something overly broad stereotyping? People don't treat populations and individuals as the same thing; the population is its own entity with its unique properties, and, obviously differences. The question is whether those differences are sufficiently exploitable. This is how policy works. If you are saying that you can't generalize over a population, you're saying that there are roughly zero between-population differences that are exploitable for strategic policy. Random things are unstrategizable. I think that the Chinese and Japanese value hard work more than Americans and Canadians, and I think so because Americans and Canadians have an unfortunately true belief that intelligence is highly predictive of performance, and also that intelligence is not meaningfully improvable. On the other hand, I think that Chinese and Japanese people have the belief that effort is a far better explanation to performance. The problem is that performance must surely be at least a combination of effort and ability; a depressed person may have the bodily ability to pick up the phone for their friends, but they might not care anymore. I thus say this: if you go looking for studies on cross-cultural pedagogy, I claim that you're going to find that American and Canadian students are significantly more likely than Chinese and Japanese students to avoid harder challenges, to pursue easier challenges, to practice mastered over unmastered material, and to avoid a problem after poor marks. Does this speak to all work? Of course not. But it's a window into culture, rather than just comparing mean hours studied or worked between populations.

LiweiZ 12y ago

One thing that I do admire from the article is that Americans do worry about the future in a good way even they still have big advantages. This is a key trait most contemporary Chinese are somewhat lack of. And this alone can tell a lot. For this purpose, it does not matter which competitor the op chose to mention in this article. [edit]typo

SystemOut 12y ago

I'd echo the comment of the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. I managed a group in China for a few years and they come in at the listed start time and exit and the listed end time in the job description. They're precise, I'll give them that. But are they harder workers? No, I don't think they are. They work differently than Americans (if that is your sphere of knowledge) and maybe that's where the misinterpretation is coming from.

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rrggrr 12y ago

I'm sorry but you don't understand how reserve currencies work and your conclusions are wrong. Michael Pettis has an excellent explanation here: http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/my-reading-of-the-ft-on-chinas-turning-away-from-the-dollar/ http://blog.mpettis.com/2014/12/my-reading-of-the-ft-on-chin...

b6 12y ago
> you don't understand how reserve currencies work You seem to be making a statement of fact about the contents of the author's mind. Do you really have a way of knowing for sure whether the author understands reserve currencies (or anything else)? > and your conclusions are wrong I don't think the author could be "wrong" about his opinions, so maybe you're talking about his predictions? If so, I don't understand why you're making a statement of fact that his predictions definitely don't agree with what will actually happen, because that would seem to require knowledge of the future. Is it possible that you can't be sure whether or not the author understands reserve currencies, and that you can't be sure what will happen in the future, and that you and the author just have different opinions about complex topics?

thevardanian 12y ago

A better question is why America became a super-power in the first place? I think many of the assumptions of American exceptionalism are not root causes, as the majority of the reasons for why America, and the west in general, have risen to global domination are embedded in, how should I put it, conflict creation, and not conflict resolution. The west has benefited tremendously from the deliberate, and sometimes accidental ability to create conflict around the world, and gain profits from it including in China. This isn't some controversial claim, this is pure, and simple Nationalism, and enlightenment ideas of State. However as the industrial dregs settle down, and as Imperial might whimpers, we're seeing the rise of countries that were left destitute in the past 150-200 years, regaining a sense of internal stability. The result of this new founded stability around the world unfortunately, or fortunately, creates a new world where the center is other than the west. Already India, and China are talking about a polycentric world that activity eschews the hegemony of the west, in favor for a more equal world, because let's face it the west is the 1%. Even if we deny all that it would be very difficult to refute that America has in the past 100 years been an incredibly stable nation compared to the entire world, and coupled with an active participation in global economies. It was perhaps the only nation on the planet that was internally stable, and had a strong external presence. All other nations eventually declined, had internal struggles, or were just emerging as global economies. This alone gave America an unprecedented advantage over the last 100 years, and that advantage is slowly becoming meaningless as the entire globe is stabilizing.

thatsjustcrazy 12y ago
These are good points but I would disagree specifically that other nations want "a more equal world". My take is that they want to wear the crown next, not share it.
- thevardanian 12y ago
  Well a more equal world is in the economic interests of those nation, because it will allow them far greater power than they currently have. However a multipolar world is not in favor of the US as it will mean that there's greater competition. Greater competition means that USA has decreased political capabilities, way less influence in geopolitical matters, and a decreased ability to "protect American interests", we can already see this happening to an extent. BRICs banding together amongst each other to create economic prosperity is the only means for these countries to increase their living standards, and so cooperation is incentivized. Competition is a zero sum game for these countries, and they know that. Here's an interesting article. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/in-rday-message-china-tells-india-dont-fall-into-trap-laid-by-us/article6823793.ece http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/in-rday-mes...

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nether 12y ago

These lazy orientals built the largest high speed rail network in the world in less time than it'd take a US rail bill to even get through Congress. They launched their first space station in 2011 (albeit a minimal one) and are planning a manned moon mission, following their first successful lunar lander in 2013 Starting from a space program that was basically nothing 15 years before. Corruption and fraud are rampant in the BIC (Russia is out of the picture, let's face it) nations but I think it's part of nascent country's development. And let's not forget, Steve Jobs was a huge fan of "great artists steal" quote by Picasso. P.S. Your characterization of 1 billion people as all knockoff makers is dangerously close to the idea that Chinese are mere "culture bearers," while Westerners are the "culture creators," as said by a great mid 20th century ethnologist. Please don't let HN decay into right wing moonbattery, as most anonymous communities do.

300bps 12y ago
There was a time when the United States had loose labor and environmental protections. Combine loose labor and environmental protections with an almost complete lack of respect for personal liberty and property rights and it sure is easy to get things done. P.S. The population of China was 1.357 billion as of 2013.

bduerst 12y ago

>The Chinese value the appearance of working hard, not actual hard work. It's very interesting how deep this type of behavior is ingrained in their culture. For example, western cultures have Aesop fables (e.g. Tortoise and the Hare) which tend to celebrate hard work and punish laziness. Eastern cultures have fables that tend to celebrate being clever or manipulative (e.g. The lion and The Rabbit). It's also interesting to see how this plays out today. The Chinese Happy Farm (original Farmville) was a huge success in part because it allowed users to steal crops from their neighbors. This type of behavior is considered okay as long as you are clever enough not to be caught.

coralreef 12y ago
Lets not get crazy and read too deeply into things like how game mechanics reflect social values. You can maraud and raid in any popular iOS game for Americans as well, such as Clash of Clans.
allemagne 12y ago
This is textbook confirmation bias. You're ignoring the writings of every Chinese philosopher valuing hard work, the tendency for Chinese schools to value rote memorization--a very work-intensive activity--over creativity, the fact that American railroads were basically built by the Chinese, and the fact that you're likely reading this on a device made by hard-working Chinese hands. Your willingness to see East Asian culture as inherently underhanded because of an internet game is somewhat telling. >western cultures have Aesop fables (e.g. Tortoise and the Hare) which tend to celebrate hard work and punish laziness. Eastern cultures have fables that tend to celebrate being clever or manipulative (e.g. The lion and The Rabbit). Aesop fables valuing cleverness: The Clever Sheep, The Crow and the Pitcher, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, the Fox and the Sick Lion, the Fox and the Mask... there are others. Ancient Greek heroes are constantly clever and manipulative. Well-known Chinese fables celebrating hard work and punishing laziness: 磨杵成针 (Grinding an Iron Pestle into a Needle) Li Bai was fond of playing when he was young, so he was always absent-minded in classes. Today he would catch little birds on the hill, and tomorrow he would pick dates on that hill. One day, he saw an old lady sitting at the riverside when he was crossing the brook. The old lady was grinding an iron pestle without fear of tiredness. On seeing this, Li Bai laughed at her and said: "People who do this job are fools." The old lady answered kindly: "I am determined to grind the iron pestle into a needle even if the iron pestle is so thick and hard. "Li Bai took the iron pestle and felt tired after grinding it for a minute. Then he complained: "Oh, how long can I get it done? I quit." The old lady shook her head and sighed: "The pestle can be grinded into a needle, as long as you keep working hard." The old lady’s words moved him, and Li Bai remembered them by heart. From then on, he spared no pains to study, and eventually became a great poet. 精卫填海 (Jingwei filling the sea) Originally the daughter of the emperor Yandi, Jingwei perished at a young age in the East Sea. After her death she chose to assume the shape of a bird in order to exact revenge upon the sea by bringing stones and small twigs from the mountains nearby over the sea in an effort to fill it up. Jingwei has a short dialogue with the sea where the sea scoffs her, claiming that she wouldn't be able to fill it up even in a million years, whereupon she claims that she will then proceed to take ten million years, even one hundred million years, whatever it takes to fill up the sea so that others would not have to perish as she did. 守株待兔 (waiting by a tree stump for rabbits) In the Spring and Autumn Period, a farmer in the State of Song was one day working in the fields, when he saw a rabbit bump into a tree stump accidentally and break its neck. The farmer took the rabbit home, and cooked himself a delicious meal. That night he thought, "I needn't work so hard. All I have to do is wait for a rabbit each day by the stump." So from then on he gave up farming, and simply sat by the stump waiting for rabbits to come and run into it. The saying satirizes those who wait for strokes of luck instead of working.

6stringmerc 12y ago

I agree with your assessment. There is a research firm, Muddy Waters, that specializes in exposing fraudulent companies, and from what I understand, they are doing very well. This article is devoid of the 'counter points' that I see brought up regularly (sometimes too much, or too hyperbole oriented) over at ZeroHedge. That site is by far the other side of the coin to this article, such as the following postulation: The McKinsey graph on China tells it all. For the moment, forget about leverage ratios, debt carrying capacity and all the other fancy economic metrics. Does it seem likely that a country which is still run by a communist dictatorship and which was on the verge of mass starvation and utter impoverishment only 35 years ago could have prudently increased its outstanding total debt (public and private) from $2 trillion to $28 trillion or by 14X in the short span of 14 years? And especially when half of this period encompassed what is held to be the greatest global financial crisis of modern times And don’t forget that most of this staggering sum of debt was issued by a “banking” system (and its shadow banking affiliates) which is bereft of any and every known mechanism of financial discipline and market constraints on risk and credit extension. In effect, it is simply a vast pyramidal appendage of the Chinese state in which credit is conjured from thin air by the trillions, and then cascaded in plans and quotas down through regions, counties, cities and towns. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-06/china%E2%80%99s-monumental-debt-trap-why-it-will-rock-global-economy http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-06/china%E2%80%99s-mon...

mc32 12y ago

In addition this whole thing is anchored on continued growth. At some point there isn't going to be any growth left, specially as pop. growth rates decline and the third world begins toward economic equilibrium. You can't grow forever, at a global scale. At some point, thirty or forty years from now the growth we depend on for economic viability (as a society) is not going to be there. A new model will have to emerge. The so called neo liberal economic system depends on growth... But its not going to be there forever, as Japan has learnt.

mark_l_watson 12y ago
You bring up a good point, namely, on a fixed sized planet how can we have growth forever? I have some hopes that society on a planetary scale will learn that materialism is bullshit and that we are manipulated by clever advertising and pro consumerism messages in movies, etc. Notice how many characters in movies drive over the top expensive cars - just as one example. Same with houses way larger than a family needs for comfort and a happy life.
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fredliu 12y ago

"Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic." Care to give some reference and more clarification (Chinese students where? in US? China?) to back this up? Sounds similar to me to the same narrative as "Asians get good scores because they cheat." I'm appalled when I first heard about this, do people really believe that? or is it just an easy excuse for "non-asians-not-getting-good-scores", to feel good about themselves? [Edit] I'm not questioning your comment about Chinese companys' practice, just feeling that sentence about "those cheating Chinese students" out of place. [Edit] Interesting, just got my 1st downvote on HN, ever. Scratching my head now....what's the downvote for? Asking the OP to back up his own claim is offending or what?

barry-cotter 12y ago
I live in China. I know a black American guy who used to take IELTS exams for Koreans when he lived in Korea. Please think of how flagrantly obvious this was. The Korean students in question had powerful parents but it's still indicative. The entire country of South Korea has had the SAT canceled on at least one occasion when the exam papers were leaked. My girlfriend's friend was dating a guy who sold SAT answers at one stage. As to the culture of cheating my friend's wife sat an English proficiency exam for her cousin that said cousin needed to graduate ~community college as a kindergarten teacher. Those are things that are a matter of public record or personal experience. There's more in this line from Ed at educationrealist.wordpress.com though I can't speak to their reliability. According to them there are massive threads on college confidential where people reconstruct SAT exams. Cheating on tests is really common in China and Korea.
thebooktocome 12y ago
So, for example, http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-exam-cheats/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/world/asia/china-exam-cheats/ Note that this particular exam was taken by 25,000 people, so that's almost ten percent.
- fredliu 12y ago
  Thanks for the reference, at least you cared to search and show it! 10% of 25,000 for that particular exam does sound a lot, and that's probably why it made national news in the first place. Does it mean 10% of all Chinese students (in China) cheat? Is it a proof that "Cheating among Chinese students is pandemic."? Definitely Not. I can find way more examples where 0% of Chinese students cheat in national level exams (actually, I probably can't, because "nobody cheated in the exam" won't make the news). Does that mean "Chinese students never cheat."? Of course not either. I'm not trying to be the PC police here, but I'm just baffled that a sweeping claim like that got used as the basis of OP's thesis and everybody seems to be agreeing with it. I thought HN's audience could do better than that...

tomsun 12y ago

As someone who spent more than half of his life in China, I'd have to agree with you, at least from an anecdotal perspective. Trust is hard to build in China. A lot of people care about making money but people scarcely think about creating value for the society. Wealth is synonymous with consumption. The worst part I think, is the 1) social stability is valued over social mobility 2) individuality is shunned rather than celebrated. In America people are encouraged to pursue your desire, the mentality of "not giving a fuck" and do what you love is admired and regarded as a sign of courage. In China someone who questions the conventions is deemed as social outcast. People in China are more concerned with the appearance (having face) than trying to be innately satisfied. Things may have changed over the last decade. But I think China still faces this tremendous cultural problem, despite the development growth.

flyrain 12y ago
As a Chinese, I agree with you. A lot of (let's say most of)Chinese people actually care more about making money than creating value for society. But, I think this is a short-term wave, especially starting from 1978. And in China, people need more money to establish safety of life since there are less social security and public welfare comparing to western countries. This could change when there are more social security program, more insurance, medical care. So, I don't think this is a "tremendous cultural problem".
- yeukhon 12y ago
  Disclaimer: I came to the US when I was 12 and I have been living here for eleven years. I was born in Hong Kong, but I think I know quite enough about the mainland China. But please correct me if I am wrong. As a Chinese, I think this is not short-term. I think it has to do with culture, how people were brought up. I don't remember the proper term for this, but people are pressured to make money. Call it peer pressure for all and from all sides. It is expensive to live in China. It is very expensive to own a house. Here in NYC I can own a decent house in a very good neighborhood for $500,000 - $600,000. A software engineer with a couple years of experience and working for a decent company can afford the mortgage. Here in America I help my parents with their mortgage (well after all I am also on the paper). But they are okay with me not paying, yet I do because I can afford to help them! But in China, people will talk shit behind your back and people look down on you if you don't help with mortgage or if you don't own a house. Every Chinese New Year you are expected to give out red envelope. $100? No way. You visit someone's place? Gift. I know we do that here in America too, but when was the last time you actually visit your uncle and give him a nice whiskey? Here in America you can get married without even owning a property. Rental is fine. In China people like to own a house because a house is money. In the old days farm owners are like house owners today. Who cares if you worked as a government official? or whether you are literate or not if you don't own a farm or some livestock? Actually in China today there is a 70-year land-use right. You can own a piece of land for 70-year... It has a lot to do with culture, how people were brought up. When everyone started to show off how well their children are doing, everyone are now suddenly in a race for better. Many couples have to break off because their parents believe the child deserves better. But you have a great point about social welfare though. In China social welfare is very hard to get. In the U.S. you can move to CA and get tax benefit if you declare yourself as CA resident after a few months, but in China you can't just move to another province ("state"). Most workers in China work at another province and their children cannot get benefit there because their parents don't have the right "residency paper", let alone the complex over 100 different documents one has to get in one's life time.

novaleaf 12y ago

Americans tend to under-estimate the country we live in, or conversely, over-estimate the competition. I lived in and ran a Startup in Thailand for 7 years, and therefor learned this lesson the hard way.

pselbert 12y ago

Rampant fraudulent reporting from Chinese officials regarding fishing quotas threw off the global catch totals for years. Until they realized that the Chinese officials were lying (due to raises and payments based on meeting quota) the true scope of global fishery loss wasn't understood.

firstresponder 12y ago

There is a fair amount of casual broad-stroke stereotyping, armchair economics and calls to patriotism in this post and throughout the replies that I don't find very appealing. I have seen this type of post increasingly often and it's starting to worry me. Is this the type of community that HN attracts?