That only works in China because 1) authoritarianism, and 2) because China's population is heavily concentrated in the west, where the time zone is natural. The US population is much more evenly split between the east and west, so you'd end up with a much more discontented population on average.

You could maybe get away with two US timezones, at best. Four (in the lower 48) is already kind of stretching it; swathes of New England are discussing breaking off into a fifth.

> 2) because China's population is heavily concentrated in the west

I know it's likely just a typo, but anyway: it is heavily concentrated in the east.

Indeed, I'm awful at that. :)

Why would people be discontented? It's just numbers. West coast office work would happen 11a-7p USA Time, while the Midwest/Texas does 9-5 and the East Coast does 8a-4p.

Here in California, bars would be open until 4a. Prime restaurant reservations would be at 9:30p. We'd get that Spanish mystique of "stays up late" - even though it's all still happening at same local solar time.

(This is a far, far smaller adjustment to lifestyles & habits than COVID has forced! We can do it!)

I didn't know they didn't have time zones. Are people there just used to the fact 8am will look very different depending on which region your in?

Most of the population outside of the natural time zone are small rural villages so they just ignore the official time. There is a major city far in the west, and they use two time zones simultaneously. It's a contentious issue, because which time zone you use is basically race-based. Han Chinese use Bejing time, and Uighurs use the local zone.

Wow, that's pretty interesting.

Surely you mean TAI? To hell with leap seconds.