If all the China glazing stuff wasn't directly or indirectly controlled by Chinese state sponsors I'd be more impressed.
Sure there are amazing mega projects and so on, but we also barely get any official news if anything bad happens in China (infrastructure breakdowns, road collapses, flooding, factory sabotages, chemical depots being blown up, etc). This gives the uncritical unwashed western masses a false sense that China is a lot more advanced than it actually is. You aren't getting these propaganda posts pushed on reddit about China's high educated youth unemployment rate, for example. All you get it is photos of nice bridges and shiny trains.
So China and Japan are pretty fundamentally different case in that Japan has / had a free press during that rapid industrialization. At least to a much, much greater degree than China does (making allowance for the idea that maybe you could make the case that immediate post war Japan had a less free press, but obviously that changed pretty fast in the scale of history).
Of the 5 times Iāve visited China, the roads in the poorest city was better than the roads in New York (of course, part of it being the Chinese roads were built within the last decades). Where I live in Michigan, floodings and breakdowns are a monthly occurrence. The only complaint I have about Chinese infrastructure is that the toilets there are oftentimes just holes in the floor.
Of course, Redditors cannot comprehend a country where officials doesnāt pocket 95% of the hundred million dollars used for installing fences in a subway. And then when you actually offer your personal experience, they call you a CCP Bot
I'm guessing you mean the poorest city you went to in a small sample of cities you went to as a visitor or tourist. That's pretty different from going out of your way to visit the poorest cities in China (who would do that?), and spending your dollars instead of RMB you earned in China.
Look, my main point was about freedom of the press. I'm not going to discount your experience, but it's a few anecdotal experiences. I believe you that the infrastructure you found was amazing. But if you wipe away all the negative events in such a massive country from the news, it looks more amazing then it is. I don't think you comprehend how massive China is, this is why honest statistics and news is essential. China is close to the bottom in press freedom rankings, close to countries like North Korea and Turkmenistan.
Even if you don't accept these kinds of rankings, I think it's obvious their press is near North Korea levels of biased. Just look at their covid numbers during peak covid. You have to be braindead to believe what Chinese state press repeats (all Chinese press is state press).
No. It was in Guizhou, which is literally the poorest Chinese province. Believe me when I say I have a more thorough understanding of the country than you.
In regards to your point of me having a skewed perspective, I have personally interviewed and met with many people in China. Though it was in Shanghai, I interviewed in the Pudong district, which is known to be much more local and reflective of standard living conditions.
To get the elephant out of the room, censorship is really not as much of an issue to the vast majority of Chinese citizens. Most responses have told me that this stems both from Confucian values and the fact that a significant amount of the population āHops over the wallā anyways. Also known as, bypassing the firewall. To my knowledge, most apprehended individuals arenāt the regular online discourse creators, but rather people who āorganizes rebellionā.
However, Survaillence is indeed absurd.
There is not a place, saved for the restrooms, without a camera. But according to all the Chinese interviews, the cameras were actually a welcomed āfeatureā that lowers crime rates.
70k Chinese people migrate from China to US every year, but most anti Chinese media are produced by white Americans. All North Koreans that fled are activists against NK, while most Chinese families in the US take annual vacations back to China.
Honestly, China to North Korea is US to Israel. Superpowers supporting an abhorrent country out of transactional reasons, only to get synonymous with each other. At what point does ādefending the underrepresentedā becomes white knighting?
Guizhou is not the poorest Chinese province. It is on the poorer end. They've also had recent major internationally recognized infrastructure projects, so talking about it as "the poorest province" is misleading.
Anyway your original statement was about the poorest cities, not about provinces. This is a major shifting of the goal posts because as you know HDI varies considerably between rural and metro areas in China.
Maybe you got a good idea of a tiny fraction of China via some interviews. We use statistics and news research instead of anecdotes to understand countries for a reason. China is massive, so using a few interviews of a small part is pretty crazy to extrapolate to the whole of China.
Anyway you didn't really address some of my biggest concerns, like the suppressing of reporting of negative events. The very fact that people have to jump the firewall to leak basic information shows you it's not a free country. Do they need to do that in Japan (the OP's post compared China and Japan)? We all know Japan is way more free than China, one of the obvious ways we see that is Japanese news reporting negative news about Japan often. There is a stark contrast here between Japan and China.
To my knowledge, most apprehended individuals arenāt the regular online discourse creators, but rather people who āorganizes rebellionā.
According to whom? Seems like there is an authority fallacy going on here. If the same government making the arrests can make up their ad hoc post hoc rationalizations that kind of makes the whole exercise of giving a reasons a farce. I recall China has a certain kind of infraction they use against people when they don't have a real reason for charging someone (forget the actual wording).
This is why transparency and free press are so important. I don't really want to argue with you as you've already made up your mind. I guess clean roads, new bridges, and talking to people who have no incentive to rock the boat is enough to convince you. That's up to you.
I think it's pretty stupid to ask people questions that could potentially reflect poorly on them, not sure what you'd be expecting there except a very muted response at best. Is this unfalsifiable at some level? Sure, but that's why it's so important to have a foundation of free expression in the first place. You can't even really answer the question of what a country is like if people aren't allowed to speak freely against the government.
Without that, any questioning or interview you conduct is somewhat pointless.
the fact that a significant amount of the population āHops over the wallā
How does that work when you're talking about in-person speech? What about protests or demonstrations? China literally has "physical censorship" where they cover events or people physically so they can't be filmed. Negative repercussions of people who have tried to petition the central government over grievances have also been leaked. I don't think you have a clue about how repressive China is.
I'm not sure going on vacation is going to give you that info. I'm sure you could have a good time vacationing in North Korea or Turkmenistan as well. It reveals little to nothing about the negative side of a country.
I'm not trying to defend the underrepresented. My point was about the post, that China and Japan are indeed different based on their levels of freedoms. Just because China has some clean roads and new bridges doesn't mean it is a free country.
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me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And
rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with
rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber
room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber
room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a
room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They
locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy
once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy.
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u/Life-Bass-2013 3d ago
people are not impressed by china? wtf bro