Earlier quoted context omitted.
The wonderful culture and arts you're thinking about is historical. It doesn't really exist in China now. It was mostly wiped out during The Great Leap Forward, along with 30 million people give or take. Fun fact: advanced Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners travel from China to Japan to learn. Japan preserved records of the TCM knowledge that China destroyed during the great leap.
GLF was terrible, but the west shares a shame in throwing away our intellectual and cultural pursuits. There's an argument that a very long time ago, the islamic intellectual tradition preserved enlightenment values whilst we were off doing other things. I don't know the gritty details of the argument, so I'd be the first to say I'm wrong.
Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
51–60 of 134 posts
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#52If the political system in China collapses everyone should worry. That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen.
If the political system in Chine does not collapse everyone should worry too. Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. I am of a boring old school of thought that thinks democracy is a pretty cool system and that it should be preserved. I really hope the Chinese political system collap…
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Putin is popular, because he's better than what was before (i'm speaking mostly of the old drunk). And also because he does stuff that a lot of russians actually like. A lot of people (mostly westeners) don't understand, that if someone gets back "historic russian territory" from a "neighbor" you don't really like, and noone can do anything about that, that's a good thing for Russia. It's bad for the neighbors, it's…
Citation for that last paragraph? All I've seen is a shrinking coal industry leaving workers unpaid for their last month on the job[1], 25% tariffs slapped on our hardware imports [2] (causing a 30% drop in our sales) and kids being killed by Customs and Border Protection [3]. None of this is good for the USA or my fellow American 1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/us/kentucky-coal-miners.h... 2 - https://www.for…
> kids being killed by Customs and Border Protection
Are you actually trying to claim that CBP is deliberately killing children?
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the political system in Chine does not collapse everyone should worry too. Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. I am of a boring old school of thought that thinks democracy is a pretty cool system and that it should be preserved. I really hope the Chinese political system collap…
> I am of a boring old school Like authatorian dictatorships are now super hip? :D
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#55I expect China to clamp down harder and harder on its population as well as deflect attention from it as the economy slides to try keep the party in power. Look for the social credit system to expand even more and also more rhetoric about it all being the fault of evil foreigners.
It is scary. Man's psychology is vulnerable and governments taking advantage of it can only end bad as history has taught us.
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#56Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#57The increase in pork prices is due to a swine fever epidemic that started in Liaoning province.[1] SCMP has a reasonably good article. China's huge boom is starting to level off. Down from 10%/yr to 7% a year. The US is under 3%/yr. That happened to all the "Asian tigers", as they caught up to the developed world. Its a long way from a recession. [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/c...
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#58If the political system in China collapses everyone should worry. That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen.
If the political system in Chine does not collapse everyone should worry too. Because they are very quickly becoming the #1 economic power in the world and I really do not want to see them spreading their views on authoritarianism and citizens control. I am of a boring old school of thought that thinks democracy is a pretty cool system and that it should be preserved. I really hope the Chinese political system collap…
Western nations have plenty of authoritarianism already. It's just more insidious and under the surface. For example, here in the UK there are CCTV cameras everywhere[1]. They're all linked up so the police can remotely follow citizens around towns, along roads, down motorways, etc. Every bus and train has CCTV on it. Every shop has cameras. People are encouraged to have them in their houses. Whenever there are police documentaries on television they always have CCTV footage of crimes.
We pretend that we're a free liberal democracy, but we're not really. I suspect the same is true for most first world countries.
[1] I live in a small city in the North East of the UK - here's a portion of our traffic cameras https://api.newcastle.urbanobservatory.ac.uk/camera/
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#59The increase in pork prices is due to a swine fever epidemic that started in Liaoning province.[1] SCMP has a reasonably good article. China's huge boom is starting to level off. Down from 10%/yr to 7% a year. The US is under 3%/yr. That happened to all the "Asian tigers", as they caught up to the developed world. Its a long way from a recession. [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3020488/c...
The problem in China is that they're likely to get old before they get rich. China's GDP per capita is still only a quarter (or less) of Japan, Singapore or South Korea: https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/japan
Re: Life in China Is Getting Harder With High Prices
#60If the political system in China collapses everyone should worry. That would likely result in a global economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen.
If the alternative is China going unchecked and eating the world. I'll take the economic crash. I grew up in poverty and I'd rather go back to poverty than live under a dystopian surveillance dictatorship.
Unfortunately there are too many people on earth who have been trapped in poverty for far too long, they will gladly to be like China.