Well, China is a “beacon of prosperity” by any objective measure. I’ve not seen anyone there make the other claims. Though they do debunk a lot of the anti-Russia and anti-China propaganda, they back it up with facts.
Compare for instance homelessness in china and the west. Homeownership. Access to healthcare, higher education, public transportation etc. Why do you think it’s not a beacon of prosperity?
China doesn’t have better healthcare than the US, their system is essentailly Obamacare. I’ve asked my aunts in China about it.
Homeownership? I mean that’s just white westerners mismanaging their money. Literally I heard of white dudes be spending their entire paycheck in bars and gambling, while still having unpaid bills. Look at the percentage of Asian Americans owning homes compared to non-Asians Americans, maybe its not a “China vs West” thing, but just Asian people are more responsible with money, I mean, we literally live in the same country as y’all, and as a matter of fact, we even face more discrimination and prejudice, yet somehow, Asian people have higher home ownership. No offense, and not to victim blame, but what are y’all doing? I mean… My family didn’t come from a rich background either, we grew up in poverty.
High education? I mean, depends. I had a Hukou in Taishan (rural) and was denied access to Guangzhou’s (urban) public schools. A permanent 2nd class resident basically. Even the US (prior to 2025, at least) had allowed undocumented immigrants to go to public school, yet China denied their own citizens education if they dare to move to another location even within the country. If we hadn’t moved abroad, we have to eventually go to highschool in Taishan, which has a much lower quality of education than Urban areas.
Public transportation… well you got that part right, I’ll ackowledge that. I remember Guangzhou’s metro being way more modern and cleaner than the US, and I loved the platform safety door protecting people from falling. But that doesn’t exactly matter that much when the job market is fucked. And Hukou system is fucking stupid.
The only way for China to be a “beacon of prosperity” for you is if you have some skills like being a scientist or something like that, or just born into wealth. Otherwise, its not a great place for average people.
If its a beacon of prosperity, why are there so many people leaving? Why is there a consensus amongst the most of the Chinese Diaspora that the west is better?
My parents both grew up in poverty in rural villages, the Hukou system prevented people from leaving Taishan to seek better income, until Deng Xiaoping’s Opening Up and Reforms. Even then, jobs have much longer hours and minimal break time. I never really got to see my parents much, they just left my brother and I at home, just the two of us alone, so we end up fighting a lot. That was what “child care” was. At least until I was even old enough to be enrolled in pre-school and primary school.
Because I was the 2nd child, I didn’t get legal recognition of my existence until my parent paid the government’s demand of a large payment (aka: a "fine) for not having a government permission slip for childbirth, which is like wtf, why is that the government’s bussiness?!?
And because we didn’t have Hukou in Guangzhou, they didn’t let us be in public schools, my parents had to pay for those privately run “school” which have a lower quality of education.
When my family (legally) immigrated to the US, at first, the work wasn’t that much better, but eventually they managed to save up and buy a house, and eventually found better income, much better than any of the work they could find in China.
Of course, western countries has its own problems, such as xenophobia and racism, but for the most part, for most people, including many of my parents friends and relative who left China, life is generally better abroad compared to staying in China.
Depending on your circumstances of course, if you are a scientist, maybe its would be best for you to stay, but most of us aren’t scientists, don’t have much opportunity for income in China.
life is generally better abroad compared to staying in China.
Do you expect this to be true for the coming years?
My impression was that migrant workers don’t earn enough to own a car but that cities are build for that so that overall quality of life, especially when it comes to healthcare services, starts to be better in China.
No I do not expect the US to remain what it used to be. But non-US western countries would probably still be prosperous for a while, but I cannot predict anything beyond like 10 years, it all depends.
The future seems bright in EU, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to get a visa there. Its much harder to get into good places like the EU.
healthcare services, starts to be better in China
Perhaps its getting better, but currently its still effectively the equivalent of US’s obamacare. Prior to coming to the US in 2010s (remember, the US was like much better back then, so the decision to immigrate was based on the circumstances at that time), my family has Hukou in Taishan which was rural. I was born in Guangzhou, but my Hukou is still in Taishan, I wasn’t even allowed to attend public school in Guangzhou, and whatever healthcare system they have, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy those benefits, since my Hukou wasn’t in Guangzhou. And Taishan is just even more fucked, zero job opportunities in rural areas other than the farmland, which sucks, so many bugs trying to bite you on the farms. Public school in Taishan has much lower funding and way worse quality of education than Guangzhou.
I mean, maybe if my family had a Guangzhou Hukou, things would’ve been better, but we didn’t. Transfering to Guangzhou Hukou was impossible, Guangzhou didn’t allow it at the time. Even US’s citizenship process is much easier.
So, for me its not just China vs US, its more like Taishan Hukou vs US Citizenship. I can’t speak for the future of the US, things do seem very bleak in terms of politics, but for now, US seems less shitty compared to being in China with a rural Hukou.
And when it comes to healthcare, good luck if you have depression, nobody takes depression seriously, and I’m not even saying its the government’s fault, but society literally downplays how serious depression is, everyone would just call you lazy. At least some westerners actually try to understand my depression.
I’m not an expert, so I don’t really have an answer to this. But I dislike the concept of using a system that attempts to restrict movements and rights, and tries to prevent people from seeking better economic opportunities, I think its unethnical. It sort of reminds me of anti-immigration sentinments in western countries. Except that in this case, this Hukou thing is even weirder, like wtf, aren’t we supposed to be part of the same country? Like?!? I am literally a citizen* of the country, why can’t I move somewhere else that’s better? Imagine you’re from rural Alamaba and you can’t go to California, and even if they eventually allow it, you can’t get California’s healthcare despite living and working there, and you can’t go to California’s public schools. Like wtf, imagine this bs in your country.
(*was a citizen, I no longer have PRC Citizenship after moving abroad and gaining another citizenship.)
Besides…
After Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, which included relaxing the restrictions on internal migration, the China’s economy only grew stronger, less people were in poverty, so that’s proof that these weird Hukou restrictions are totally unnecessary on the development of the country.
No, freedom of press is not a measure of prosperity. And I don’t know many western countries that are in a position to point fingers at this point, considering how many journalists they’ve helped kill when they covered a genocide.
They deradicalized a sect that had been trained to destabilize the region by western intelligence, and reintegrated them into society. The facilities don’t even exist anymore, because they were successful.
It’s a beacon of prosperity when there are anti suicide nets at foxcon? Or like the 996? Run by a dictator, also committing genocide isn’t very prosperous. My interactions have been " if it’s western propaganda it’s entirely false, but Chinese or Russian propaganda is entirely true"
The UN did not find genocide only human rights abuses at best. You can go to China, you can go to a mosque and talk to Uyghurs there.
Meanwhile the west is funding a real genocide in Gaza. You can’t go there to film the atrocities being committed and brave people still try. Israel has killed more journalists in their genocide than ww2
Or maybe if it’s so prosperous people wouldn’t want to work in a place where they want to kill themselves.
America has a higher suicide rate lol
That has never stopped authoritarian governments lol
I don’t understand what you’re saying. The 996 thing does exist but it was made illegal. Sometimes private companies try to make workers do more hours illegally.
Ok sorry ethnic cleansing isn’t genocide, sorry…
They didn’t find ethnic cleansing either. Again, you can go to Xinjiang and visit mosques with Uyghurs praying in them. So yeah ethnic cleaning ain’t happening.
And you think I’m supporting the west’s genocide in palestine? Nah miss me with that shit
You brought up the genocide to someone speaking positively of China. But the only ones doing genocide are the west. China does a bunch of bad shit it isn’t perfect but if genocide is the criteria we’re running with then China is the lesser evil.
They didn’t find ethnic cleansing either. Again, you can go to Xinjiang and visit mosques with Uyghurs praying in them. So yeah ethnic cleaning ain’t happening.
Who’s “they” ?
You brought up the genocide to someone speaking positively of China. But the only ones doing genocide are the west. China does a bunch of bad shit it isn’t perfect but if genocide is the criteria we’re running with then China is the lesser evil.
Nah china’s treatment of a Uyghurs is cultural genocide, China does do a lot of bad shit, and isn’t perfect, the western governments are also fucking horrible.
800 million people out of poverty is a stretch but if you wanted to make that claim, it’s because the west spent so much money to get goods from China. And the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs
800 million people out of poverty is a stretch but if you wanted to make that claim
Yeah, where do these stupid tankies get these numbers anyway? I’m sure China says they lifted 800 million kajillion people out of poverty or whatever, but let’s see what a western source like, say, The World Bank has to say about it.
it’s because the west spent so much money to get goods from China.
I swear these arguments get worse every day. You could just as easily say that the only reason the West has so much stuff is because China made it for them for cheap.
Wait, that’s actually a much more coherent argument lol.
The world bank? My person they are quoting the Chinese propaganda. The west had lots of stuff after ww2, they got more cheaper stuff when they offshored it to China that’s the coherent argument
Why are you so adamantly defending a country which abducts people for their beliefs? (Don’t come at me with “but murica does the same!!!”) The world is not the USA.
They didn’t “abduct people for their beliefs.” They had to reeducate a population that had been radicalized by western intelligence. Now the facilities no longer exist, they’ve been reintegrated, and the west was forced to admit they had no proof of their claims.
Well, China is a “beacon of prosperity” by any objective measure. I’ve not seen anyone there make the other claims. Though they do debunk a lot of the anti-Russia and anti-China propaganda, they back it up with facts.
Lol. Lmao even.
Compare for instance homelessness in china and the west. Homeownership. Access to healthcare, higher education, public transportation etc. Why do you think it’s not a beacon of prosperity?
China doesn’t have better healthcare than the US, their system is essentailly Obamacare. I’ve asked my aunts in China about it.
Homeownership? I mean that’s just white westerners mismanaging their money. Literally I heard of white dudes be spending their entire paycheck in bars and gambling, while still having unpaid bills. Look at the percentage of Asian Americans owning homes compared to non-Asians Americans, maybe its not a “China vs West” thing, but just Asian people are more responsible with money, I mean, we literally live in the same country as y’all, and as a matter of fact, we even face more discrimination and prejudice, yet somehow, Asian people have higher home ownership. No offense, and not to victim blame, but what are y’all doing? I mean… My family didn’t come from a rich background either, we grew up in poverty.
High education? I mean, depends. I had a Hukou in Taishan (rural) and was denied access to Guangzhou’s (urban) public schools. A permanent 2nd class resident basically. Even the US (prior to 2025, at least) had allowed undocumented immigrants to go to public school, yet China denied their own citizens education if they dare to move to another location even within the country. If we hadn’t moved abroad, we have to eventually go to highschool in Taishan, which has a much lower quality of education than Urban areas.
Public transportation… well you got that part right, I’ll ackowledge that. I remember Guangzhou’s metro being way more modern and cleaner than the US, and I loved the platform safety door protecting people from falling. But that doesn’t exactly matter that much when the job market is fucked. And Hukou system is fucking stupid.
The only way for China to be a “beacon of prosperity” for you is if you have some skills like being a scientist or something like that, or just born into wealth. Otherwise, its not a great place for average people.
They literally invented a diabetes cure, and the US is banning it to maintain insulin profits. They win healthcare.
I don’t see how corporations being allowed to buy up 1/3rd or US housing inventory is any indicator of how people manage their money.
“I asked my aunts” lol pinnacle of scholarship here
If its a beacon of prosperity, why are there so many people leaving? Why is there a consensus amongst the most of the Chinese Diaspora that the west is better?
(Rhetorical question, don’t bother answering)
Forbes about the topic:
Have you seen the non-.ml posts on lemmy about the unjust economy and the billionaires?
Arguing that billionaires have a better life in the west is not the flex you think it is.
My parents both grew up in poverty in rural villages, the Hukou system prevented people from leaving Taishan to seek better income, until Deng Xiaoping’s Opening Up and Reforms. Even then, jobs have much longer hours and minimal break time. I never really got to see my parents much, they just left my brother and I at home, just the two of us alone, so we end up fighting a lot. That was what “child care” was. At least until I was even old enough to be enrolled in pre-school and primary school.
Because I was the 2nd child, I didn’t get legal recognition of my existence until my parent paid the government’s demand of a large payment (aka: a "fine) for not having a government permission slip for childbirth, which is like wtf, why is that the government’s bussiness?!?
And because we didn’t have Hukou in Guangzhou, they didn’t let us be in public schools, my parents had to pay for those privately run “school” which have a lower quality of education.
When my family (legally) immigrated to the US, at first, the work wasn’t that much better, but eventually they managed to save up and buy a house, and eventually found better income, much better than any of the work they could find in China.
Of course, western countries has its own problems, such as xenophobia and racism, but for the most part, for most people, including many of my parents friends and relative who left China, life is generally better abroad compared to staying in China.
Depending on your circumstances of course, if you are a scientist, maybe its would be best for you to stay, but most of us aren’t scientists, don’t have much opportunity for income in China.
Do you expect this to be true for the coming years?
My impression was that migrant workers don’t earn enough to own a car but that cities are build for that so that overall quality of life, especially when it comes to healthcare services, starts to be better in China.
No I do not expect the US to remain what it used to be. But non-US western countries would probably still be prosperous for a while, but I cannot predict anything beyond like 10 years, it all depends.
The future seems bright in EU, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to get a visa there. Its much harder to get into good places like the EU.
Perhaps its getting better, but currently its still effectively the equivalent of US’s obamacare. Prior to coming to the US in 2010s (remember, the US was like much better back then, so the decision to immigrate was based on the circumstances at that time), my family has Hukou in Taishan which was rural. I was born in Guangzhou, but my Hukou is still in Taishan, I wasn’t even allowed to attend public school in Guangzhou, and whatever healthcare system they have, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy those benefits, since my Hukou wasn’t in Guangzhou. And Taishan is just even more fucked, zero job opportunities in rural areas other than the farmland, which sucks, so many bugs trying to bite you on the farms. Public school in Taishan has much lower funding and way worse quality of education than Guangzhou.
I mean, maybe if my family had a Guangzhou Hukou, things would’ve been better, but we didn’t. Transfering to Guangzhou Hukou was impossible, Guangzhou didn’t allow it at the time. Even US’s citizenship process is much easier.
So, for me its not just China vs US, its more like Taishan Hukou vs US Citizenship. I can’t speak for the future of the US, things do seem very bleak in terms of politics, but for now, US seems less shitty compared to being in China with a rural Hukou.
And when it comes to healthcare, good luck if you have depression, nobody takes depression seriously, and I’m not even saying its the government’s fault, but society literally downplays how serious depression is, everyone would just call you lazy. At least some westerners actually try to understand my depression.
Thanks.
Do you think China could have managed to transform without the Hukou system? How would you have done it?
I’m not an expert, so I don’t really have an answer to this. But I dislike the concept of using a system that attempts to restrict movements and rights, and tries to prevent people from seeking better economic opportunities, I think its unethnical. It sort of reminds me of anti-immigration sentinments in western countries. Except that in this case, this Hukou thing is even weirder, like wtf, aren’t we supposed to be part of the same country? Like?!? I am literally a citizen* of the country, why can’t I move somewhere else that’s better? Imagine you’re from rural Alamaba and you can’t go to California, and even if they eventually allow it, you can’t get California’s healthcare despite living and working there, and you can’t go to California’s public schools. Like wtf, imagine this bs in your country.
(*was a citizen, I no longer have PRC Citizenship after moving abroad and gaining another citizenship.)
Besides…
After Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, which included relaxing the restrictions on internal migration, the China’s economy only grew stronger, less people were in poverty, so that’s proof that these weird Hukou restrictions are totally unnecessary on the development of the country.
Does that objective measure also happen yo include freedom of press? Because boy i have some news for you…
Revisionist facts? Whose alt is this?
No, freedom of press is not a measure of prosperity. And I don’t know many western countries that are in a position to point fingers at this point, considering how many journalists they’ve helped kill when they covered a genocide.
I don’t see how China is in a position to point fingers considering the treatment of the uyghurs
They deradicalized a sect that had been trained to destabilize the region by western intelligence, and reintegrated them into society. The facilities don’t even exist anymore, because they were successful.
What would your country do in that situation?
My country did exactly that to the native population, and you know what we call the residential schools now? A fucking ethnic genocide.
We’re not talking about cultural erasure nor mass deaths. Just reeducating them from what the CIA and state dept did to them.
Freudian slip
Autocorrect. Have any proof they killed anyone? Because the state dept was forced to admit they didn’t.
https://law.stanford.edu/press/state-department-lawyers-concluded-insufficient-evidence-to-prove-genocide-in-china/
Just more eastern propaganda.
Is the state dept assisting China with their propaganda?
https://law.stanford.edu/press/state-department-lawyers-concluded-insufficient-evidence-to-prove-genocide-in-china/
It’s a beacon of prosperity when there are anti suicide nets at foxcon? Or like the 996? Run by a dictator, also committing genocide isn’t very prosperous. My interactions have been " if it’s western propaganda it’s entirely false, but Chinese or Russian propaganda is entirely true"
Should they just let people kill themselves?
Is illegal
The UN did not find genocide only human rights abuses at best. You can go to China, you can go to a mosque and talk to Uyghurs there.
Meanwhile the west is funding a real genocide in Gaza. You can’t go there to film the atrocities being committed and brave people still try. Israel has killed more journalists in their genocide than ww2
Or maybe if it’s so prosperous people wouldn’t want to work in a place where they want to kill themselves.
That has never stopped authoritarian governments lol
Ok sorry ethnic cleansing isn’t genocide, sorry…
And you think I’m supporting the west’s genocide in palestine? Nah miss me with that shit
Yeah dawg I saw the source of that and I was banned in an .ml instance for saying “hows life in north Korea?” “Can’t complain” lol
America has a higher suicide rate lol
I don’t understand what you’re saying. The 996 thing does exist but it was made illegal. Sometimes private companies try to make workers do more hours illegally.
They didn’t find ethnic cleansing either. Again, you can go to Xinjiang and visit mosques with Uyghurs praying in them. So yeah ethnic cleaning ain’t happening.
You brought up the genocide to someone speaking positively of China. But the only ones doing genocide are the west. China does a bunch of bad shit it isn’t perfect but if genocide is the criteria we’re running with then China is the lesser evil.
K? Do they have suicide nets at factories?
Who’s “they” ?
Nah china’s treatment of a Uyghurs is cultural genocide, China does do a lot of bad shit, and isn’t perfect, the western governments are also fucking horrible.
You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, you should stop talking
Lifting 800 million people out of poverty is more than economic system has ever done.
What genocide?
800 million people out of poverty is a stretch but if you wanted to make that claim, it’s because the west spent so much money to get goods from China. And the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs
Yeah, where do these stupid tankies get these numbers anyway? I’m sure China says they lifted 800 million kajillion people out of poverty or whatever, but let’s see what a western source like, say, The World Bank has to say about it.
I swear these arguments get worse every day. You could just as easily say that the only reason the West has so much stuff is because China made it for them for cheap.
Wait, that’s actually a much more coherent argument lol.
The world bank? My person they are quoting the Chinese propaganda. The west had lots of stuff after ww2, they got more cheaper stuff when they offshored it to China that’s the coherent argument
I see. So The World Bank is also in on the communist plot to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
“You only made a bunch of money because you produced stuff people wanted to buy” is not the own you think it is.
What?
Who said anything about “own”? It’s just what happened. Forget the issues that this type of capitalism brought though.
Go watch Dr. Strangelove.
You can literally go to Xinjiang and visit mosques with Uyghurs praying in them. There is no genocide.
Turns out you can’t go there to investigate, I wonder why? https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/china-two-years-after-xinjiang-findings-un-rights-chief-reports-limited-access-to-information-reprisals-against-activists/
Why are you so adamantly defending a country which abducts people for their beliefs? (Don’t come at me with “but murica does the same!!!”) The world is not the USA.
They didn’t “abduct people for their beliefs.” They had to reeducate a population that had been radicalized by western intelligence. Now the facilities no longer exist, they’ve been reintegrated, and the west was forced to admit they had no proof of their claims.
Israel says the same
Except you can’t go visit. And there is clear evidence.
Yeah there is pretty clear evidence of what China is doing
So you have evidence the state dept couldn’t find? Why don’t you share it with them?
https://law.stanford.edu/press/state-department-lawyers-concluded-insufficient-evidence-to-prove-genocide-in-china/
Anything’s possible when you make shit up