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China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

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271–280 of 666 posts

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the government is trying to encourage more births through subsidies and other measures. In fact, experience from developed countries has already shown that this approach doesn’t work. Moreover, the subsidies the Chinese government provides are far lower than in developed countries and far below the actual cost of raising a child. The most common nationwide subsidy is 3,600 RMB per child per year, which is basically i…

Immigration would be another option… but not sure how willing China is to adopt that

I’ve actually thought a lot about this issue. My conclusion is that it’s not feasible. China has never been good at integrating other ethnicities and races. Even managing the 56 recognized ethnic groups within mainland China hasn’t gone very well; it has copied many mistakes from the Soviet Union, which has now led to a certain degree of backlash.

So I’ve always felt that China’s ambition extends only to Taiwan, and Taiwan is the endpoint. After all, the people on Taiwan are Chinese too, sharing the same culture and ethnicity. Another point that people might overlook is that China’s approach to incorporating outsiders is based on cultural identity rather than racial identity, which is the opposite of the U.S. In the U.S., you can come in, bring your own culture, help reshape American culture, and still become an American. In China, you can only be considered Chinese if you adopt Chinese culture.

Of course, sometimes we discuss online hypotheticals like whether it would be good for China to annex Mongolia or Myanmar. From a purely military perspective, it would be very easy for China. But almost no one supports it, because our way of thinking dictates that it would require an enormous cost to transform those populations into Chinese culture, and that cost is simply not worth it. Trade and cooperation are the best approach.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#272

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

"Have fewer children" implies that people are a burden, which can be true in a dysfunctional society, like perhaps China under Mao. But in a well functioning system, more people get more things done and make society wealthier. The old idea was that the planet can only produce enough food for a certain number of people. But it turned out that people produce the food, not the planet!

So most people believe it was a mistake. We were misled by some so-called experts at the time. Conspiracy theorists claim that many of those experts weren’t Han Chinese, since the one-child policy only applied to the Han population.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten me - hasn’t Xi and the government recently demanded 2-3 children from each woman? I imagine they’ll push heavily for births again.

the government is trying to encourage more births through subsidies and other measures. In fact, experience from developed countries has already shown that this approach doesn’t work. Moreover, the subsidies the Chinese government provides are far lower than in developed countries and far below the actual cost of raising a child. The most common nationwide subsidy is 3,600 RMB per child per year, which is basically i…

>the government could require state-owned enterprise employees and Communist Party members to have children.

Or Beijing could ban birth control and rely on the natural human sex drive to increase the birth rate.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#274
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, here are the top 10 biggest footprints 1. China 26.16% 2 United States 11.53% 3. India 7.69% 4. Russia 3.75% 5. Brazil 3.16% 6. Indonesia 3.15% 7. Japan 2.15% 8. Iran 2.06% 9. Saudi Arabia 1.60% 10. Canada 1.54% The top 10 countries account for about ~60% of global CO₂ emissions.

That's not great context: China and India have huge populations, it's expected that they should be at the top. Better context can be found here[1] (countries by emission per capita). It's still not great because it shows a lot of small countries at the top. For example: Palau is the first, but it has a population of a few thousand people, so their emissions are a rounding error when compared to other countries. [1] h…

Per capita isn't the useful metric in this regard for the reason Palau illustrates. The climate cares about volume.

Per capita emissions is a way to assign relative sin by those who feel guilty about living large.

Bill Gates today, "This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives. Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries. The biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been. Understanding this will let us focus our limited resources on interventions that will have the greatest impact for the most vulnerable people.”

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#275
post #262

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

> a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Why call it propaganda though ? That doesn't sound like a biased, deceptive or misleading policy. It hasn't been thought through much which is universally common for some govt policies everywhere, but it results have been positive for the most part ?

I probably often use that term in a neutral sense.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#276
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, here are the top 10 biggest footprints 1. China 26.16% 2 United States 11.53% 3. India 7.69% 4. Russia 3.75% 5. Brazil 3.16% 6. Indonesia 3.15% 7. Japan 2.15% 8. Iran 2.06% 9. Saudi Arabia 1.60% 10. Canada 1.54% The top 10 countries account for about ~60% of global CO₂ emissions.

That's not great context: China and India have huge populations, it's expected that they should be at the top. Better context can be found here[1] (countries by emission per capita). It's still not great because it shows a lot of small countries at the top. For example: Palau is the first, but it has a population of a few thousand people, so their emissions are a rounding error when compared to other countries. [1] h…

Why? I would expect China to be at the top since it's #1 manufacturing country? But India is like behind Germany at (5).

How about GDP per emission? And that would make China way higher than US.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the government is trying to encourage more births through subsidies and other measures. In fact, experience from developed countries has already shown that this approach doesn’t work. Moreover, the subsidies the Chinese government provides are far lower than in developed countries and far below the actual cost of raising a child. The most common nationwide subsidy is 3,600 RMB per child per year, which is basically i…

>the government could require state-owned enterprise employees and Communist Party members to have children. Or Beijing could ban birth control and rely on the natural human sex drive to increase the birth rate.

China is a country that does not prohibit abortion at all. Maybe this could be a starting point…

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really respect the hell out of the nation of China if it wasn't for the authoritarianism and imperialism.

Imperialism? Expand.

The most charitable interpretation I can think of, if OP didn't misuse the word, would be, the generic "China bad" narrative being applied to things like equating the Belt and Road (loans, infrastructure projects) to centuries of old-fashioned exploitation of Africa. After all, it takes one to know one.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have fewer children" implies that people are a burden, which can be true in a dysfunctional society, like perhaps China under Mao. But in a well functioning system, more people get more things done and make society wealthier. The old idea was that the planet can only produce enough food for a certain number of people. But it turned out that people produce the food, not the planet!

So most people believe it was a mistake. We were misled by some so-called experts at the time. Conspiracy theorists claim that many of those experts weren’t Han Chinese, since the one-child policy only applied to the Han population.

The policy last about 35 years and didn’t end till 2015. Even today there a limit on procreation as the cap was only increased to three children in 2021. At some point the CCP has to own its mistakes.

The problem isn’t that China instituted the policy (although its use of forced abortions to enforce was… problematic), it’s that its system of government prevented open discussion, reflection, and self-correction.

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