On August 14 2023 22:28 JimmiC wrote: How about a comparison in how the US and its free media is handling Maui in comparison to how China and media is handling the floods?
How many less naturally disaster level events are being suppressed in China? We barely know the surface and that is on purpose.
Speaking on that, with the recent floods as expected there's now problems with disease (hospitals are overburdened) and apparently most people in the country don't even know there was a flood. When asked about it people from other provinces say they just heard some rumors and all they know is they can't travel to Beijing because of rain or something but nothing past that. The amount of censorship going on in this country is staggering.
There are even reports that posts about the flood on Twitter got spammed with porn so they would get taken down and accounts posting any info about it suspended.
I guess one of the saddest things about all of this is the government's mentality that we can trace back to Mao: "Even if half of the Chinese people will die there will still be 600 million Chinese left." (updated the quote for current numbers) They don't give a shit about their own people, the only thing they're interested in is staying in power and they'll sacrifice everything for it.
Well, China is not a free country; 1984 central actually; still, a billion people somehow live their life there; what have you kinda thing
On August 14 2023 22:28 JimmiC wrote: How about a comparison in how the US and its free media is handling Maui in comparison to how China and media is handling the floods?
How many less naturally disaster level events are being suppressed in China? We barely know the surface and that is on purpose.
Apologies for the very late response; just moved to a new flat so been too busy to troll teh forumz!
The point about information suppression in China is certainly fair, and it's not a great look; worse yet are their silly and, in my opinion, completely misguided efforts to 'erase' unpleasant parts of their history. The way CCP tries to censor references to Tiananmen square is straight up comical. That said, the ham-fistedness of their approach actually makes it less malicious than the way Western propaganda operates, in my opinion. Take our earlier back and forth about 'Chinese debt traps' -- plenty of people who are generally intelligent and capable critical thinkers fall for the narratives like those because our 'free' media is more subtle and believable, and nobody in this day and age has the time to research and fact check every single piece of news. It's not limited to just current news, either -- we do plenty of 'rewriting history' to suit our political discourse as well (I figure citing specific examples of this that I have in mind right now could derail the thread pretty heavily, but I'd be happy to share my thoughts on this in PMs or a separate thread if that's a conversation you're interested in having).
Either way, whatever criticisms of Western media I might have, of course that doesn't make the Great Firewall or whatever bullshit CCP 'media' peddles acceptable. But I don't think straight up comparisons between any specific aspects of Chinese society vs the West are very useful, at any rate. They've been playing catchup for the last 100+ years since their country was so late to industrialize, never mind the tremendous damage caused to their nation by WW2 and the following civil war. All things considered, IMO it's fair to say that CCP has done a reasonably good job of leading their country. Looking at 'democratic' India, things certainly could have been much worse.
I guess one of the saddest things about all of this is the government's mentality that we can trace back to Mao: "Even if half of the Chinese people will die there will still be 600 million Chinese left." (updated the quote for current numbers) They don't give a shit about their own people, the only thing they're interested in is staying in power and they'll sacrifice everything for it.
Life expectancy at birth in China was 50 years some short 60 years ago. It is now higher than that of the US and half of Europe. In my cynical mind, most governments don't really 'give a shit about their own people', but some are definitely better at improving the livelihoods of their people than others are.
On one hand, it is impossible to ignore the huge efforts China has undertaken over the past 40 years. Global poverty was massively reduced just because of the hundreds of millions that were lifted out of desperate poverty due to economic development in China. And of course accompanying economic growth are general improvements to quality of life and life expectancy.
On the other hand, perhaps as a result of that amazing turnaround, China today is now on a collision path with the US led West. Today Xi is centralising power in order to focus it on his dream to make China great again, consequences be damned. It is a very scary thought that the entire future of a fifth of the world is being gambled for one man's ambitions.
On August 22 2023 23:09 gobbledydook wrote: On one hand, it is impossible to ignore the huge efforts China has undertaken over the past 40 years. Global poverty was massively reduced just because of the hundreds of millions that were lifted out of desperate poverty due to economic development in China. And of course accompanying economic growth are general improvements to quality of life and life expectancy.
On the other hand, perhaps as a result of that amazing turnaround, China today is now on a collision path with the US led West. Today Xi is centralising power in order to focus it on his dream to make China great again, consequences be damned. It is a very scary thought that the entire future of a fifth of the world is being gambled for one man's ambitions.
Country's development doesn't necessarily mean that people are being lifted from poverty. It can be quite the opposite. Good example here would be the modernization of agriculture, where you no longer need so many people to work the fields and they instead try to move into the cities but lack the skills and education that are desirable in this environment, pushing them out of society and into poverty. That's how favelas came to be in Brazil.
He's making some good points about homelessness and poverty in the West vs China. Everyone knows that US has a big problem with homeless people (among many other societal problems), it's being talked about internationally. No one can really hide or deny it. On the other hand you have China which does whatever it can to not let any information about homelessness/joblessness come out. "It's not a problem if no one can see it" seems to be their stance.
On August 14 2023 22:28 JimmiC wrote: How about a comparison in how the US and its free media is handling Maui in comparison to how China and media is handling the floods?
How many less naturally disaster level events are being suppressed in China? We barely know the surface and that is on purpose.
Apologies for the very late response; just moved to a new flat so been too busy to troll teh forumz!
The point about information suppression in China is certainly fair, and it's not a great look; worse yet are their silly and, in my opinion, completely misguided efforts to 'erase' unpleasant parts of their history. The way CCP tries to censor references to Tiananmen square is straight up comical. That said, the ham-fistedness of their approach actually makes it less malicious than the way Western propaganda operates, in my opinion. Take our earlier back and forth about 'Chinese debt traps' -- plenty of people who are generally intelligent and capable critical thinkers fall for the narratives like those because our 'free' media is more subtle and believable, and nobody in this day and age has the time to research and fact check every single piece of news. It's not limited to just current news, either -- we do plenty of 'rewriting history' to suit our political discourse as well (I figure citing specific examples of this that I have in mind right now could derail the thread pretty heavily, but I'd be happy to share my thoughts on this in PMs or a separate thread if that's a conversation you're interested in having).
Either way, whatever criticisms of Western media I might have, of course that doesn't make the Great Firewall or whatever bullshit CCP 'media' peddles acceptable. But I don't think straight up comparisons between any specific aspects of Chinese society vs the West are very useful, at any rate. They've been playing catchup for the last 100+ years since their country was so late to industrialize, never mind the tremendous damage caused to their nation by WW2 and the following civil war. All things considered, IMO it's fair to say that CCP has done a reasonably good job of leading their country. Looking at 'democratic' India, things certainly could have been much worse.
I guess one of the saddest things about all of this is the government's mentality that we can trace back to Mao: "Even if half of the Chinese people will die there will still be 600 million Chinese left." (updated the quote for current numbers) They don't give a shit about their own people, the only thing they're interested in is staying in power and they'll sacrifice everything for it.
Life expectancy at birth in China was 50 years some short 60 years ago. It is now higher than that of the US and half of Europe. In my cynical mind, most governments don't really 'give a shit about their own people', but some are definitely better at improving the livelihoods of their people than others are.
You’re not going to see me argue that China is not better off than under Mao and I think the India comparison is fair. But I will say it is not better for groups outside of the Han. There is clearly massive corruption as communism should not have elites let alone a billionaire class. We really do not know how good or how bad it is because of the information control. We do know they have sold their labour at slave rates or as slaves to enrich themselves. We do know they have done immense damage to the planet. We do know they want to grow their empire. We do know they do not allow checks or balances or even critique.
It could easily be argued that it’s been trickle down from exploitative capitalism that has led to the gains. It could also be argued that they are not worse than others who let through industrialization on the planet, but I’m not sure that is great given what we know now compared to them.
I mean they are clearly a hell of a lot better than North Korea and a hell of a lot worse than many developed democracies. I would think the VAST majority of people in HK much preferred it before.
If you could get real fair information it would be much easier to do a fair analysis, but it says lots that neither of us can.
I'm not sure why do you think that it's impossible to know what the truth of life in China is like -- it's not as if they are some sort of a closed off state. It's very easy to travel and see how they live for yourself. Obviously you're not going to get 100% accurate numbers on every statistic you might be interested in (but you can't really get that anywhere, since everybody likes to fudge numbers and use whatever methodologies favor them...)
I'm not sure it's fair to say that China has 'done immense damage to the planet.' To this day, their contributions to CO2 emissions and whatnot per capita are significantly lower than those of pretty much every Western nation. And Western nations are at such a point in development where we could actually meaningfully reduce our emissions without necessarily disrupting our lifestyles all that much due to our accumulated wealth, yet we just... don't. Criticizing them selling labor at slave rates is also pretty strange -- I mean, they (used to) sell their labor incredibly cheap because that was still better than nothing when their economy was growing. Today, Chinese labor is actually pretty expensive, which is why the real sweat shops are now in South East Asia & Africa, for the most part. Of course their upper classes enriched themselves in the process -- but they've also generated huge amounts of investments that was used to build up proper jobs and infrastructure for their people, so I don't know why is that a bad thing. And I definitely don't share your confidence about China wanting to grow their empire. Historically, they've always been one of the least expansion-minded hegemons ever.
From a Western perspective, of course you'd rather have a weak and under-industrialized China that has no meaningful influence on global politics or anything of the sort. But from a Chinese perspective, why would they want to play second fiddle to the US forever? They have their own national interests, and it's rather naive and hypocritical to call them evil or whatever for pursuing said interests.
If China keeps industralizing the way it does instead of reverting course to aim for sustainability, they will no longer have a planet left to show off their hypothetical wealth to the rest of the world. You can talk about "per capita pollution" all you want, that won't stop global warming until we reach a breaking point that could end humankind within a few generations. I don't know if people realize this, but global warming is a much greater and more immediate threat to us all than nuclear winter ever was. This is why "per capita" arguments just don't hold up to scrutiny.
You can argue that other countries besides China should contribute in their own way to a massive reduction of pollution. That would be true indeed, and I will support you all the way on that. Both practically and morally that would be the only right thing to do. But to handwave away the fact that China is practically leading the charge in destroying the planet, that might go well with certain crowds like the American conservative base, but it won't convince many liberals, and it'll piss off every single person who cares about the environment in the slightest.
China has an opportunity to become a world leader in green energy. They could show the US how sustainability can be done right. Instead they choose destruction for quick riches. That's going to end horribly for everyone, especially for Chinese people.
There is still a wide gap between "you can't know anything" and "knowing everything accurately". It is true that the censorship in China makes it somewhat harder to obtain the full truth than in a functioning democracy, but just taking your examples we do know that a lot of people died during Covid, and that there was a serious flood that caused more casualties than the government would like to admit. It's not like you, or Chinese people, know absolutely nothing.
A bigger problem for China than it's c02 production is it's pollution on arable land. It's already importing food and their agriculture base has never been industrialized like the cities.
On August 24 2023 06:22 Sermokala wrote: A bigger problem for China than it's c02 production is it's pollution on arable land. It's already importing food and their agriculture base has never been industrialized like the cities.
And keep in mind that this year they had drought and then flooding. Not good prospects for agriculture.
IMO the entire CO2 point is kinda moot because the biggest contributor to climate change right now is CO2 that's already been released and it's a compounding effect since with our current technology we can't reduce our fossil fuel usage to a sufficient level nor are we able to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, oceans etc. In any case we're pretty much fucked on this front unless we can somehow come up with a miracle technology that can solve it quickly (even if all humans on the planet stopped breathing and we cut our CO2 emissions to 0 overnight on a global scale it'll still take a few hundred years for the current levels of CO2 already out to even begin dropping and probably like a thousand years for it to get to safe levels). Scientists have been warning about it since 1985 (and said even back then that the action needs to be taken immediately, so we're almost 40 years late on that trigger already) but no one ever took them seriously, especially that it would be impossible to sustain our current economy and lifestyle with drastic fossil fuel usage reductions.
Edit: Also, China's emissions are almost 3 times that of USA, despite China's emissions dropping by 0.2% last year and USA's increasing by 0.8%. EU emissions are roughly 2/3rd that of USA so EU + USA is still less than China alone (which is roughly equivalent to 2x USA + 1x EU).
Speculations on Chinese economy are also hard. Ever since Xi came to power China has been hiding more and more data from the rest of the world (economic indicators China is sharing have dropped by ~75% since 2015).
By Bloomberg News August 16, 2023 at 5:00 AM GMT+2
China’s abrupt decision to pause releasing data on its soaring youth jobless rate this week was the latest sign the Asian giant is increasingly restricting sensitive information — especially when it’s unflattering to the nation’s faltering economy.
This happened recently when their youth jobless rate hit a new record high (at over 21%) and almost all banks/agencies have dropped their GDP forecasts for China, predicting a decline rather than growth.
Speaking of chinese economics the billionaire founder of foxconn has come out to declare his candidacy to become president of Taiwan. Hes the largest private employer of chinese citizens, not Taiwanese citizens but mainlanders.
"If the Chinese Communist Party dares to do this, which country, which investment fund, which company would dare to invest in China?"
Is his obvious response. Hes running as an independent, Its not TSMC but in that sphere and definitely has deep ties to samsung and apple. Hes failed to win the nomination of the KMT for a few times of asking but money obviously won't be an issue nor will be credability. I have no idea if he will win or not but that'll be a very interesting development in Asia. Taiwans strategic weapon is its chip fabs but this guy could make a very easy pitch that he knows china enough to ensure the peace through trade.
On August 24 2023 06:22 Sermokala wrote: A bigger problem for China than it's c02 production is it's pollution on arable land. It's already importing food and their agriculture base has never been industrialized like the cities.
And keep in mind that this year they had drought and then flooding. Not good prospects for agriculture.
IMO the entire CO2 point is kinda moot because the biggest contributor to climate change right now is CO2 that's already been released and it's a compounding effect since with our current technology we can't reduce our fossil fuel usage to a sufficient level nor are we able to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, oceans etc. In any case we're pretty much fucked on this front unless we can somehow come up with a miracle technology that can solve it quickly (even if all humans on the planet stopped breathing and we cut our CO2 emissions to 0 overnight on a global scale it'll still take a few hundred years for the current levels of CO2 already out to even begin dropping and probably like a thousand years for it to get to safe levels). Scientists have been warning about it since 1985 (and said even back then that the action needs to be taken immediately, so we're almost 40 years late on that trigger already) but no one ever took them seriously, especially that it would be impossible to sustain our current economy and lifestyle with drastic fossil fuel usage reductions.
Edit: Also, China's emissions are almost 3 times that of USA, despite China's emissions dropping by 0.2% last year and USA's increasing by 0.8%. EU emissions are roughly 2/3rd that of USA so EU + USA is still less than China alone (which is roughly equivalent to 2x USA + 1x EU).
Climate activists basically have been in denial for a decade already. It was already too late to stop global warming 10 years ago. Pretending that we can today is doing a disservice to public discourse. We should really be talking about 1. How do we not make things worse, and 2. How do we adapt to the changes
China has never been a 'communist' country, and I don't think they've ever really claimed to be one. They're just on the way to build communism or something like that, but obviously today's China is a capitalist country. That article is garbage, by the way. :p The economic issues China is facing aren't going to be solved by a stimulus check.
On September 07 2023 22:01 JimmiC wrote: It’s way to short to get into any of the issues. The part I found interesting about it was that China is using right economic tools to deal with economic issues and not left. I know they are pretending to be on the path to utopian communism and just not there yet, but you would think using leftist economics would be the key. Or even to keep up appearances.
I wonder if they are going to even stop pretending at some point here.
I don't think it's very useful to look at the way China operates through our left / right lens. For better or worse, their approach to most political and economic issues is quite different from that of Western countries and these labels just aren't very relevant there.
EPT
