I had an Aussie partner. He came to the USA for the laissez-faire paradise. He explained it was relatively tougher for startups down under. I believe him.

Seeing our (USA) squalor, day in and day out, he began to doubt. Rhetorically, he asked "If this is the result, maybe Aussie's high taxes aren't so bad."

Beijing is a third world city with first world aspirations. The most annoying thing about it is just propaganda and the outright lying about what the situation really is. China cares way too much about faces and Beijing has nothing going for it beyond its government top-down mandate (other cities in China are much more appropriate as tech hubs).

That's an extreme exaggeration. I know human rights record in China is not good, but getting killed for doing minor things like that don't happen.

And I am surprised that you brought up killing because U.S. does not do well in this area either.

China harvests organs from people who belong to a rather wacky religion[1]. That's pretty bad, and I think counts as getting killed for something minor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

First you need to decide whether that religion is illegal or not. That has been a debated subject for many years.

From the Chinese government's standpoint, the religion is illegal, and the people practicing it are put into prison.

Then you have to decide if it is ethical and legal to harvest human organs from prisoners (on death penalty of course).

This again has be debated over many decades.

Bottom line is, you committed a crime by practicing a religion deemed as illegal in China so that is something not minor.

Yes, it is against the law. The violence against these people is sanctioned by the government. Thats the whole reason it is horrifying!

It is not a tricky issue. The fact that this is all sponsored and done by the government makes it even worse!