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Leaving China

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Re: Leaving China

#531

Post by ospider »

EFreethought wrote: post #221
simonh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do change, in mainland China they have devolved considerably under Xi. I have Family over there, and a lot of the optimism of a decade ago was already being squeezed out of the country before the pandemic.

I have never been to China, but to me it seems that with all their faults that ultimately Deng, Jiang and Hu wanted what was best for China. But Xi seems to care about Xi.

Indeed. In China, we used to joke that Deng's opening policy has created the second republic, on the contrary to Mao's first republic. With Xi's coronation, the second republic has died.

Re: Leaving China

#532

Post by ninjin »

coldtea wrote: post #526
ninjin wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is difficult to get distances in time into my own mind. But for those other than me reading this and having trouble with this mentally. The first democratically elected president in Taiwan in 1996, which was arguably a high point in the democratisation process, is now in 2023 temporally equidistant to the moon landing in 1969 and us in the present.

It's also difficult for societies with populations absorbed deep into their private sphere, with very little feeling for history, how developments 30, 50, or even 100 and 200 years still leave all kinds of traces and influences, materialized in attitudes, political affiliations, laws, and so on. History is not a "that was back in the day, doesn't matter anymore" affair.

Your response feels largely tangential to the point I was making: That the 90s feel closer in history than they really are (especially to those of us that “were there”).

It also feels like a borderline attack, implying that I and others are somehow “absorbed deep into their private sphere, with very little feeling for history”. Pretty odd to make a statement like that in response to someone who you know next to nothing about, no? If you want to contribute to a good debate and hope to bring me around to your point of view, I would ask that you try harder.

Re: Leaving China

#534

Post by ospider »

onethought wrote: post #442
opinionsonly01 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan and Singapore did not do extended lockdowns. They had lockdowns, but we could still order food delivered, still go out to buy food or go to the doctor, and we had constant updates on the number of infections, as the rate went down, restrictions were relaxed.

That is still a lockdown. So the argument isn’t against Chinese doing lockdowns, it’s “how” they did them?

You have no idea of how bad a Chinese lockdown can go. There are literraly two versions of lockdown in the world: the lockdown and the Chinese lockdown.

Re: Leaving China

#535

Post by ospider »

markus_zhang wrote: post #182

For me the biggest issue is that the bureaucracy has a lot of free hands in legislation. Each office can push out some regulation to go around the requirement for a proper legislation, which usually takes years. Also the mindset of deciding for the people instead of deciding by the people is pretty unpopular but people can't do much. The cultural inertia is strong. Whenever there is an issue, people automatically tur…

Fun fact: you have to get an ISBN to release a game in China.

Re: Leaving China

#536

Post by raspberry1337 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #351
einhverfr wrote: post #321

I am an American expat who just moved from Germany to Indonesia about six months ago. One thing I see is that the comments he makes about China echo my views of the West. Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression (though in the US, we outsource this to the private sector so that we can actively argue that it doesn't exist). What is driving a lot of this in the West is the effor…

Moving from Germany to Indonesia is a wild move! Did you move to Bali or somewhere else? "the West": This term is meaningless to me. Does this include Africa, South America, AUS/NS, Middle East? "Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression": In continental Europe? I don't think so. Please provide concrete examples.

"I don't think so. Please provide concrete examples."

You would get fired in Sweden if you spoke against mass immigration just 15 years ago. The social democrats still ban people who have romantic relationships with an individual of the nationalist party.

Working corporate in the west is about having the correct progressive opinions, dissent means you are an evil conspiracy theorist. Just 2 years ago it was evil and racist conspiracy theorist to say that Covid came from a lab leak.

It's evil to say the the truth until the emperor becomes absolutely naked, such as the case with mass immigration in Sweden. When you suddenly have more murders than the UK (a 7x larger country) and bombings every day it's kinda hard to deny that immigration has a link to crime.

Re: Leaving China

#537

Post by refurb »

robomartin wrote: post #190
jasonjei wrote: post #63

I used to travel to China all the time for work during my first job in 2008. Those times were super optimistic. Hong Kong was filled with Chinese pride, and it seemed inevitable that China would absorb Taiwan. China had just hosted the Olympics. I visited Hong Kong late 2018 after many years of not having been there. It was a very different place from the Hong Kong I had visited in 2009-2011. The energy was a bit dar…

How would you wrap Singapore into your comment? I was recently there and took note of what looked like significant Chinese cultural influence almost everywhere.

76% of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese, so no surprise you saw a lot of Chinese influence there.

Re: Leaving China

#539

Post by VK538FY »

RedCondor wrote: post #105
ren_engineer wrote: post #64

>But in order to live everyday life, most people living in China find it necessary to turn a blind eye until it affects them directly. That became impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the force of China’s technocracy was on full display it's amazing how people were able to delude themselves for so long, Tiananmen should have been enough to make people and governments realize things weren't going to change

[dead]

Thank you for your comment with relevant citations. The dominant version of the story in western circles is too often accepted uncritically. There are many other elements to consider. Same for many stories regarding China.

Re: Leaving China

#540

Post by galangalalgol »

TomK32 wrote: post #474
galangalalgol wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin as an option stands out both geographically and in cost of living. What makes it attractive despite that?

Culturally it has a lot of offer, vibrant scenes for any art or music taste and museums stuffed artifacts stolen from all around the globe[0] that might almost rival the British Museum. Also many musicians and artists have called it their temporary home, from Josephine Baker to David Bowie and his flat mate Iggy Pop[1]. Call it a litmus-test for how open a society is, even if you prefer complaining about the noise an…

I think I would love Berlin. It is just very different than all the other options presented, so I was curious why it was listed. It is like someone saying they are trying to decide between several types of dark roasted coffee but also having ginger kombucha in the list. Put more succinctly, I did see a common trait between Berlin and the other locations, so I wondered what it was.
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