Seems to be a lot of bizarre worship in the USA these days.

I don’t think I have any illusions. I’d never want to live under Chinese censorship, lack of civil rights, the weird errors caused by centralized economic control. But I can also acknowledge some of the things they do well.

Having a nuanced view of a complex topic is probably essential for proper understanding.

How about this:

I’d never want to live under Trump's censorship, lack of civil rights, the weird errors caused by centralized economic control

Luckily if enough Americans agree with you in a few more years you can vote him out. Can you say the same for Winnie the poo (xi)

I have a feeling however, that since the leftist priorities these days are so ridiculous to the regular voter that you'll just get another republican president

> Luckily if enough Americans agree with you in a few more years you can vote him out. Can you say the same for Winnie the poo (xi)

You are weirdly naive about thinking Trump has any respect for democracy and that his camp isn't going to do everything possible to maintain power at all cost.

It has nothing to do with what trump wants. If public opinion changes he will be voted out it’s that simple.

Also, if many western countries don’t get their shit together, their lives will be greatly influenced by China at current trajectory. Which particularly involves the negatives. China's success should be motivation to many western ex-empires, excellence nostalgia hubs and industrial graveyards.

And yeah, credit where credit is due, I think no observer seriously doubts the great feat China pulled off in such a short period of time, even if the stats are not reliable. People travel there, Jobs warned about this years ago.

And between US, Russia and Israel, China is the least obnoxious villain in my news feed. They somehow conquer the world without cringe overdrive and the undignified post-pretending social media executive memefare. China does not make me wanna drive a dining fork into my frontal lobe, it’s more like the cough that doesn’t go away.

A lot of the cringe from China is simply in Chian social media that is seperated from hours.

Well, Russian, Hebrew and English are not my country's languages either and yet here we are.

Listen, I am not at all celebrating Chinese politics as absolute, their grave human rights violations, minority suppression, the Uyghur genocide or imperialist ambitions. I am not even saying they are the least, in fact they are probably the most dangerous. But they contribute little to the erosion of political dignity in my reality.

I've been talking so much shit on China over the years I decided I'd come over when the opportunity presented itself to visit. I'm in Shanghai and mostly it feels the same as any capitalist city except it's super clean. Everyone is shopping, living their lives. All of the Chinese I've interacted with are super pleasant. What really struck me was the decency and patience of the border control and security control folks coming over. In western countries I'd typically get exasperated annoyed calls to do this or that.

Anyway, it got me thinking that mostly the freedoms we are afforded, which are very precious to me, seem to come at great cost. A cost people under countries like China would rather bear when the affordances are clean streets, no or little homelessness and the freedom to consume luxury assets.

Every time I visit the US (frequently) I'm just assaulted by its continual, very visible rot. Cities like Seattle and Los Angeles are just fundamentally unsafe places to walk around in. The huge climb of school shootings over the last decade should have everyone alarmed. Americans appear to be stuck in the race to the bottom of who can be the greatest victim and the truly extreme painting of the Left or Right depending on which side you're on because people would rather obsess and come into conflict over what gender they can identify as or race guilt (or its opposite if you're a minority) rather than unite over common class struggles that are eating the country alive.

I think most people would rather pick comfort and safety over the freedom to say what you want and a right to privacy. I'm not sure I blame them when the alternative is getting sexually assaulted trying to walk to your car in LA (speaking from many many second-hand stories of American friends) or having your kid shot and killed in school.

It's a lot easier for China to limit the homeless problem in Shanghai when they have the hukou system to keep them out. But it is a shame that we have allowed failed progressive policies to wreck some of our cities.

There is much to love about authoritarian states. Clean, safe cities, and a suppression of news and other information to keep (naive) people comfortable. Draconian law and migration enforcement (eg, the hukou and propiska systems, and external borders) have their advantages, and looking at Singapore and Japan you don't necessarily need the rest.

China and the US are not the only option. If you go to Switzerland, Netherland, Sweden, Korea or Japan you can get some of the same things.

You dont need China dictatorship to not have dirty fucked up public places.

I’ve lived in the USA, China (Beijing), a Switzerland (Lausanne), and I’m not sure what your point is. Guess the only place where riot police stormed my apartment because I wasn’t registered correctly?

90% of Chinese own their own properties vs 65% of Americans, so there's that. Regarding property rights, I'm not sure how it works there but we've all seen the malls and highways that diverted around homes where owners were unwilling to sell out. Also, they actually have functional public infrastructure and have brought something like 800 million out of abject poverty. Are ahead of us in several spaces and about to pass us or at least equal us in others. Obviously I'm not arguing for that type of top down authoritarian system, but this is the objective reality. What's bizarre actually is all the denialism and copium over China - should we not be glad that they are doing better than they were 30 years ago and much more liberal than before?

Give the average person in china the opportunity to move to America, and vice versa, there is no comparison. China has done some things right but to pretend it is some model for America is absurd

This is a pretty outdated view of things too. Majority of chinese students return to china after getting their degree in the US.

That is in large part to our nightmare immigration system.

The average person in America is living paycheck to paycheck and has negative equity.

20 years ago you couldn’t see in Shanghai. Trump pulled back the clean air act, it’s not hard to see a trend. It’s also not hard to buy a ticket and see it yourself.

Great point, I almost wrote that they’ve cleaned up pollution (of all types) by a lot and also are accomplish some impressive feats by regreening and pushing back desertification. Amazing things can happen when you get your peoples basic needs met (ie, they can focus on higher level stuff).

Regarding "not owning anything", I think you need to look up communism and consider if that's better there.

60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. It depends on which Americans you are looking at if you want to understand who capitalist ownership is benefiting.

100% of communists own nothing and live bureaucrat to bureaucrat. It does not depend on which Americans we are looking at to know who is benefiting.

But thats not the reality of China right? People own cars, apartments, TVs, refrigerators, they are not distributed centrally.

I would absolutely take a chance to live in China, but I wouldn’t expect to be welcomed there. Their tech, disposable income, food costs, etc are so superior to what we have today in US.

Many Americans live in China. Give it a shot.

You are deluded.

"Superior". 你不是认真人. Though you would probably be welcomed.

Yo, I literally pointed out that I’m not for this model. But thanks for the comment?

> 90% of Chinese own their own properties

By "own" you mean 70 year leases with ??? renewal conditions?

> Urban land use rights in Mainland China were typically granted for fixed terms: 70 years for residential, 50 years for office or industrial, and 40 years for commercial purposes. As these terms approach expiration, the question of renewal becomes paramount. The legal framework, primarily the Property Law and the Urban Real Estate Administration Law, provides a general outline but leaves specific implementation to local governments.

> Mainland China’s Property Law (Article 149) and The Civil Code of Mainland China (Article 359) guarantee automatic residential land use right renewals but provides no specific arrangement in respect of non-residential terms. Currently, without detailed implementation guidelines, local governments devise varied approaches, skewing valuations and unsettling investors. This uncertainty hinders market efficiency.

https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/greater-china/insights/b...

But yeah, you could argue that you have to pay property taxes in USA and if you don't, you'll eventually lose your land

If you follow the public policy discussions in China, you’ll likely notice more complication surrounding the 70-year leases. Basically everyone already feel they own the property, the government’s forceful attempt to reclaim property would be counterproductive and unlikely to succeed. Additionally, many government officials are not particularly fond of this policy. They prefer property tax like US. Individuals currently do not pay property tax in China, they are reluctant to pay property tax and argue that they have indirectly paid them when purchasing property. Consequently, the property tax and ownership restructuring are essentially stuck in a stalemate.

I agree that that is a meaningful difference, but since I expect to be be on my last legs at best 70 years from now, it really doesn't make much of a difference to me, especially when contrasted to here where my home owning plans amount to little more than "hopefully the housing market will collapse"

> There is a bizarre reverence and worship for China I have observed with some Americans.

No. There isn't. It's just that we've gotten sick of the bullshit and lies from the anti-china propagandists like you.

> Yes, you can build things faster and have smooth 5% YoY growth if you don’t have property rights and manipulate the statistics

If they can build things faster, what need is there to manipulate the statistics? If the chinese don't have property rights, then how come they own so much property?

When you and your kind spout such nonsense over and over again, people tend to get sick of it.

"China" isn't "China". Like everywhere else, ther's a maze of conflictiong incentives. The CCP measures regional governments on their stats. Gaming there. Regional governments measure administrative areas, ditto. More gaming. No stats can be trusted in a society that does not prize allegiance to the truth above all else.

Let’s say it how it is, this is the cost of freedom. Yes, China can build more quickly and has advanced more technologically, but it came at the cost of freedom. The degree of freedom is not something I’m fit to argue.

Now, there are those they believe the difference in freedom is worth that technological advancement. I’m not so sure.

COVID was a great example of this. China was able to slow the virus spreading faster than the US since they were literally locking people into their homes. In the US, this didn’t happen because of the rights we have.

China's system created the virus, allowed the virus to spread rapidly . Then arrested people warning about it. Locked people in blocks causing more deaths, made up stats and censored the press.

Plus their vaccine didn't work.

I wouldn't call them more technology advanced. Good at controlling people and information but bad at outcomes and process.

Strange to me that the US has fallen behind is supposedly due to its commitment to freedom. The ownership class sold out the industrial base for profit, beginning with Reagan. They’re the ones who have driven policy - and continue to do so in the current turn to naked authoritarianism. The freedom the US supposedly stands for is the freedom of the capitalist class. Is it any wonder we haven’t seen investment in public infrastructure that prioritizes public good over private profits? That would have be financed by taxing the private interests that determine our policies. Instead we finance wars and a police state.

> No stats can be trusted in a society that does not prize allegiance to the truth above all else.

What society, government or political entity prizes allegiance to truth above all else?

Truly you win the prize of the dumbest anti-china comment.

I trust Finland's economic data far more than China's.

No offense to Finland but Finland is basically an irrelevant country when it comes to geopolitics.

How is that relevant to the accuracy of their economic data? Finalnd's long border with Russian and recent joining into NATO means they are actually relatively geopolitically important.

It’s easier for small countries to do certain things that’s much more difficult for large countries to do. And by your logic, North Korea is relevant too, and it is and Finland is too, but in very narrow areas; and not really relevant when talking about economics of big countries.

" North Korea is relevant too" It very much is.

Okay…but I’m not going to say North Korea’s economic data is fraudulent, therefore implications for the economic data for large countries. Also, read the thread before replying to random phrases you see.

Yeah, from memory Finland scores very highly in global surveys of honesty.

> What society, government or political entity prizes allegiance to truth above all else?

Exactly.

The problem is that people use all kinds of alternative methods to measure GDP. Stuff like light emissions. Import and export volumes and so on. And broadly speaking those are not that different from the offical stats. So just claiming its all lies doesnt really work.

> If they can build things faster, what need is there to manipulate the statistics?

A lot to unpack here. You completely blipped over the part about “no property rights” which is pretty clear when you look at, for example, how their rail construction projects go. Choochoo, rail is coming through, time to move this village, no eminent domain payments necessary.

> If the chinese don't have property rights, then how come they own so much property?

If ownership of a half-finished concrete shell by a bankrupt construction firm on the 33rd floor is counted as “owning property”, then the statistics will look pretty good.

> You completely blipped over the part about “no property rights” which is pretty clear when you look at, for example, how their rail construction projects go. Choochoo, rail is coming through, time to move this village

Better than exterminating the natives to build railroads? Using your logic we don't have property rights in the US either.

> no eminent domain payments necessary.

Doesn't explain nail houses though.

https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-house...

> If ownership of a half-finished concrete shell by a bankrupt construction firm on the 33rd floor is counted as “owning property”, then the statistics will look pretty good.

Yes. 1.4 billion people live in half-finished concrete shells.

Come up with something better. You guys are getting boring repeating the same nonsense over and over again.

China has the same property rights as America because the US built railroads over a hundred years ago and had wars with natives.

What property rights are you expecting America to grant non citizens who never build anything?

You lost the debate awhile back. I wonder when you will realize it.

“You lost the debate a while back”.

If you are downvoted for political stuff especially when it relates to non-western things, that’s a great indicator you didn’t lose any discussion.

Ghost cities have been shown as western made up cope.

—

China is not individualist in a selfish way like the west. Collectivism is a good concept.

Thank god their property rights are not barbaric like the west.

Where did you get the idea that they don't make eminent domain payments?

My great-grandmother’s home, those of her neighbors, and their church was bulldozed for the US75/I45 rebuild/connection in Dallas in the 1950s. They were given the choice of new public housing built nearby in an industrial area (around Fair Park where State Fair of Texas is held) or figuring it out on their own. Being Black and low-income meant whatever rights they “had” were hard to come by.

I guess my point is rights and freedoms are unequally held, regardless of a nation’s stated values and laws. What makes/made the US great is not that things happening in China couldn’t happen here. It’s that we (used to?) aspire to greater ideals about individual freedom even if it isn’t present for all. CCP and I think Chinese citizens are under no such illusion, and in some cases reject the individual for the collective. (I’m hedging a bit since my understanding is limited second-hand anecdotes from Chinese American friends).

LoL what the actual fuck are you going on about? China is extremely particular about market rate eminent domain payments. The only difference being it's often a take it or leave it offer, but they make prompt payments nonetheless.

That's why China ends up with cases like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FkePxUA6UE8

Yes owning appartments is propery. I know that people in the US have an absurd glorification of the single family home but things other the single family homes are a thing in most of the world.

“ No. There isn't.”

Yes. There is. Obviously both are happening simultaneously because the world is complicated.

You’re simply mistaking the acknowledgment of their successes as reverence. I don’t have to agree with someone or something to give them credit.

The very reason that China can bulldoze thousands of homes for a new highway or train, are the very things that would make an American scream “fascism” at an authoritarian government

Bulldozing homes to make room for a highway or train is an American tradition, even if we do it less often now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses#Criticism_and_The...

> Moses's critics charge that he preferred automobiles over people. They point out that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City and destroyed traditional neighborhoods by building multiple expressways through them. The projects contributed to the ruin of the South Bronx and the amusement parks of Coney Island, caused the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants Major League Baseball teams to relocate to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, and precipitated the decline of public transport from disinvestment and neglect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain_in_the_United_S...

There used to be an entire road and tenement houses in Seattle where I5 is now. They’ve also taken all or part of many properties abutting the new rail project.

For us Westerners our highway system was already pretty much complete by the 1980s so none of us actually remember how it went. But when we see pictures in historybooks you will see sprawling construction sites with bulldozers...

There have been several posts on HN in my recollection about the building of highways in urban areas in the USA over the objections of local residents, it's just if they are poor or minorities they historically do not have the political power to stop these projects, and the private sector makes a bundle, which is the recipe for a lot of things that go wrong in the USA.

Here's one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9561895

There's a whole sector of articles about how racism fueled the highway boom in American cities, when those people affected had lot less right to vote. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-... It's still happening https://apnews.com/article/environment-houston-pollution-71c... But the average HN reader probably does not live in such a neighborhood nor know anyone who does.

Exept that in reality the US bulldosed cities as agrssivly as China and still does many idiotic projects. The reason it doesnt happen as often today is that less is invest and the lesser amount that is invested doesnt go as far as it did before.

The differnece today in the US is not that they dont bulldoze its that before they bulldoze there is years of political battle.

I follow various groups around the US that try to fight highway expansions and the almost always lose in the end.

So there really isnt much moral high ground here.

I once heard someone say "China is the only country in the world who knows on Jan 1st what their GDP for the year is going to be."

There's also a bizarre need to simultaneously downplay them and fear them in other Americans. If they're so weak, why the fear?

They have high speed rail connecting the whole country, and lots of other stuff which is real and not a number in a spreadsheet. They crashed their housing sector by building too much.

We have roads connecting the whole country. (And the world.) And motor vehicles which a hundred years later we now call cars.

We like China's progress. But let's keep it real.

American relationship to China is frankly weird on every sides.

Between the ones who apparently can’t fathom a world where other countries are as economically successful as the USA and see it as a threat and the ones who are fascinated by its authoritarian policies, it’s really hard to have a dispassionate conversation involving China.