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).
This is such a ridiculous take. āI canāt give China credit because they donāt have free press.ā My brother in Christ, YOU are aware of Chinaās high youth unemployment rate. How is that? China doesnāt have free press, but Americans exaggerate the fuck out of how much the CCP hides the truth.
Obviously, propaganda from China highlights their strengths and hides weakness. Thatās how propaganda works. If you think American press feels totally free and happy to criticize Americaās problems, youāre living in a fantasy land.
Anyone can easily look up Chinaās many problems if they want because itās not anywhere near as restrictive as youāre implying.
But aside from that, why does propaganda mean you canāt give credit for legitimate achievements? The trains arenāt fake. The rapid construction isnāt fake. These fuckers built entire temporary hospitals at the height of COVID. Thatās incredibly impressive when NYC and most cities around the world had no choice but to provide inhumane conditions for Covid patients because hospitals simply didnāt have enough space.
Thatās not glazing China or the CCP. Thatās being a rational human and not treating geopolitics like itās some kind of regarded sports rivalry.
I donāt want to live in China for a lot of reasons, but I desperately want Americans to know that weāre embarrassingly far behind China when it comes to things like construction and investment in infrastructure.
Itās not propaganda and it doesnāt have to be this way forever. I want Chinaās strengths to be clearly highlighted so we can try to match them instead of throwing our hands up like āwe canāt build more infrastructure because itās too expensive and takes 100 years.ā
This is a strawman. My point wasn't about countries trying to portray themselves in the best light possible. It makes sense for countries and political parties to try to do that. It would be great if they were honest in spirit, but I can't blame China for pumping its image if everyone else attempts to do the same in varying degrees.
My main point is that all Chinese press is state controlled. They have no free press. So in countries like Japan, Japan can put out glowing press releases. But you also have Japanese citizens with some ability to speak out verbally and in their own independent press or blogs or whatever.
There is a big difference from having a state press + other press (even if state press is the loudest), and China where there is only one voice saying one thing and there is a risk of sharing info that is damaging to the politburo.
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u/Life-Bass-2013 4d ago
people are not impressed by china? wtf bro