Democracy and freedom of thought.
Despite your experience of Foreign Chinese Students being confused rather than liberated by the West...in my experience I’ve never met a Foreign Chinese Student that didn’t want to permanently relocate to Canada or the US.
But not everything is material, and creativity and freedom of expression definitely have an impact. I have a reasonably large circle of Chinese acquaintances via my wife, and anecdotally, I've never met a single emigrant who actually returned.
A lot of them definitely complain regularly about how much better China is, but none of them actually pack up and head back. I think that's telling.
Or in other words, better quality of life? Yes, you can drive a new beemer, have a house with a pool and and 3 holidays abroad every year in China too -- if you are the one in a hundred to win the job lottery and work 60 hours a week not to get sacked (or if your daddy is a CCP aristocrat).
In the US/Western Europe/Japan at least half the people can affort that upper-middle class living standard, while only working 40 hours.
It's less competitive pressure because everyone can achieve it.
> Nearly one quarter of Japanese companies require employees to work more than 80 hours of overtime a month, according to a 2016 government survey. Those extra hours are often unpaid.
The article also mentions the lack of holiday or workers taking holiday, which the government tried to force happen via legislation[2]:
> Japanese workers are so reluctant to leave their offices that they took less than half their holiday entitlement in 2013. The government now wants to raise that total to 70 per cent by 2020, according to the Yomiuri newspaper.
> At present, employees are entitled to a minimum of 10 days paid leave annually, with the figure increasing one day for every year that they work to a maximum of 20 days a year.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/japan-has-some-of-the-longes...
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/113338...
But net migration is still negative, meaning there's more people leaving China than returning.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/net-migratio....
I'm not sure how that figure is calculated, but I also wonder if it under-represents "pseudo-migrants" who claim to be living/holidaying temporarily in (say) Australia, but who seem to stay indefinitely.
Is it really "freedom of expression" they want or just the lack of competition and the increase in living space?
Isn't that the point the OP is making though? That China is full of western brands that seem to outcompete local brands, yet PRC propaganda keeps claiming the rest of the world is using the wrong economic model.
My point is that whatever it is, it’s not material goods. It’s something more ephemeral. Whether that’s democracy, creativity, or simply a slower pace of life due to not competing with 1 billion other people - who knows.
Source: I am Taiwanese. We get way too many of these people.
Some people don't miss that at all,as their personal views are so neatly aligned with the ruling regime that a) their thoughts are not constrained, thus free, and b) having any other form of government would represent a suboptimal solution dictated by a ignorant majority.
This has been observed in pretty much any totalitarian regime since ever in a fraction of the population that in some cases might be the majority.
From my direct experience from a 3 weeks journey 5 years ago:
A super app like WeChat. I'm happy we don't have one because super app == super control. (BTW WhatsApp was still legal back then.)
A ban on gas powered small motorcycles. All of them were electric, some with a retrofitted electric engine, some natively electric. I wish we did the same.
I can't think about other things that were or could look better. In most cases it was the same stuff / processes with a Chinese twist.
I live in one of the major NA cities and I dont feel safe walking outside after dark (after 8pm).
I have a friend got robbed on knifepoint around 11pm this past March. The case hasn't been closed. Numerous friends' homes got broke in and stuff stolen and cases are all cold.
And I was almost hit by a left turning car on a quite street. The car sped away without checking if i'm ok.
Yes I miss getting my privacy striped away by all the CCTV cameras and feeling safe. I miss all the speed cameras and red light cameras. All the cameras that the existence of them having the deterrent effect for thieft and robberies and traffic violations.
I'm aware of the quote: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Because I've been telling that to my friends before I left China and live in NA. But now I think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs more often than that. (https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#:~:text=Maslow'...)
Culturally I'm just used to a higher level of safety I guess. Japan, Singapore, Taiwan other than PRC are like that too. So it's more of an Asian thing.
And that heirarchy actually explain a lot why Chinese seems to be not on the same frequency with westerners on human right issues. Because I guess Chinese are still at a lower level of that hierarchy right now.
In Asian cities, there is plenty of nightlife on the streets. In Europe, places outside the city centre seem to shut down after dinner.
I'm sorry to break it to you but that feeling is nothing more than a feeling. There is no assurance of safety from CCTV camera coverage. There is only the assurance that the ruling regime is spying on you. Case in point: I personally know of a case where a popular restaurant was robbed at gunpoint in a city area that was extensively covered by a network of CCTV cameras, and still the robbery was never solved.
And the robbery looked like an internal job.
So no, CCTV coverage does not mean safety. If it was, London would be crime-free, and it's one of Europe's capitals with he highest crime rate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/7x9eaw/murder_rate_...
Are all of them criminals murdered in self defense? I would be surprised. And if that was the case, then some crime was going on.
That doesn't take a totalitarian oppressive regime like the one forced into China by China's communist party. In some European cities old cars or diesel-powered cars are banned from city centers, and certain types of bikes are only allowed on some zones.
1. Food(any objection?)
2. Public transportation: high speed rail road
3. Huge and fancy malls: USA is behind believe it or not
4. E-payment & WeChat: Chinese people think differently.
5. Food delivery and all kinds of half-day delivery
6. Free of Racism: invisible ceiling
7. Cultural recreational activities that you don’t understand
8. Crowded.
But racism... speaking as a rich white guy who was treated as nicely as you'd generally expect, even I could tell it wouldn't be fun to be an ethnic minority there. Chinese ethnic minorities visiting Beijing are themselves something of a tourist attraction; tour guides leading Westerners around point and stare and talk about those minorities sort of the way you'd point and stare and talk about a wild animal you found roaming the streets. Thing is, 95+ percent of China is a single (self-identified) ethnic group so there are just fewer encounters with minorities.
On a related note, in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China saw fit to have the flag be brought in by 56 children wearing the traditional costumes of the 56 officially-recognized ethnic groups in China. They were all Han.
dumb question: is it possible to tell?
https://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/uyghur.jpg
With Tibetans it's harder to tell for western eyes, but they look a bit more like native Americans do/did:
http://162757811.blogspot.com/2015/06/stop-genocide-tibetan-...
I never understood this line of thinking though - the way you describe it sounds like it was out of pure curiosity rather than racism. It's interesting seeing the difference of how people define racism based on who they are and where they grew up.
For example - racism in Australia can be seen through racial slurs and physical violence from the moment they start interacting with others (preschool) up to adulthood. Or it can come in many subvert forms in the professional workspace. Contrast this to where I hear of racial minorities coming into Asia who for the most part get treated at best above everyone and at worst out of curiosity (e.g. staring)
And "curiosity" doesn't quite explain it. It's curiosity plus lack of respect. Local political bosses are undoubtedly subjects of similar curiosity, but everyone respects (and/or fears) them enough to be courteous.
Besides Scandinavian countries where the social security net is amazing comparably, isn't that the same in most of the world? I'm not sure being poor in China is worse than elsewhere?
Heh, it is easy to do high speed rail roads if you don't value human life. [0]
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/25/chinese-rail-c...
I've only been to China once (Guanzhou), but it was very hard to find vegetarian food. Everything everywhere seems to have duck or pork in it. The variety is definitely lacking compared to Europe or North America.
maybe if you're chinese.
As someone who has never been to China could you list some things the West is missing?
— An American that spent a few weeks in China.
Basic research in (for example) AI is probably on par with the west, I think it’s fair to say the engineering/applied side is ahead. This is helped by essentially zero concern for privacy = more data. WeChat translate CN-EN is miles ahead of Google. Any kind of large scale tech that has anything to do with surveillance, things like CV, deep-packet inspection, would be unmatched I’d say.
It’s definitely not free of racism.
That's interesting!
At the same time, deepl.com is also miles ahead of Google, so I'm not all that impressed by Google Translate anymore. (Deepl itself is impressive is heck!)
I could see myself reading a whole book through Deepl if I had a reason.
Quite impressive, especially that DeepL (and every other machine translation application) makes use of research done at Google.
Public transportation and affordable healthcare are the norm in most highly developed Western democracies such as the UK, France, Sweden, etc.
As for quality of care, obviously the facilities in the U.S. are nicer - they better be, you are paying 10x - 100x for that! For the treatment, most friends of mine from China complain the doctors in the U.S. don't do anything; they just give you some advil and send you home. However, antibiotics are probably prescribed too liberally in China, and IV injections used too much.
Of course there are some drawbacks too. First, the flip side of "no surprise bill" is everything is due upfront, so it's not unheard of that critical treatment is delayed because the patient is trying to find money. Second, since healthcare is so cheap, people usually don't carry health insurance other than the government provided one, which has a maximum payout amount per year. As a result, if you get rare / serious condition you can still get ruined financially. Nowadays more and more people begin to purchase commercial health insurance - which are still an order of magnitude cheaper than the U.S. ones.
US healthcare is notorious for its problems so I was ready to believe your initial statement. But actually you say:
1. "Nobody goes bankrupt from going to the doctor", but "if you get rare / serious condition you can still get ruined financially". Those two statements are direct contradictions of each other.
2. "you can walk into the hospital and be seen pretty quickly" but also ... "it's not unheard of that critical treatment is delayed because the patient is trying to find money". Again, being seen pretty quickly and not being seen because you're trying to find money are in direct conflict.
Nowadays more and more people begin to purchase commercial health insurance - which are still an order of magnitude cheaper than the U.S. ones
Everything in China is cheaper than in the US. It's still a poor country.
Honestly both systems sound just as bad as each other, or rather, the Chinese system sounds far worse. I'd rather be alive and bankrupt, rather than refused treatment entirely, because I didn't have the cash at the exact moment I fell ill or there was some SNAFU with payment systems.
If more and more people choose to buy health insurance, that sounds like China is well on the way to a US style model as it develops.
I wouldn't want to end up in hospital in the US or china. Think the only countries I would feel at ease in are Singapore and Taiwan.
Chinese people's attitudes toward the one-child policy and also sex-selective abortion are complicated and varied, but they don't seem very similar to Americans' attitudes at all!
In the U.S. it's common for people's religions to completely formally proscribe some forms of birth control and/or abortion. This has led to a big political debate about what the scope of their legal rights to avoid subsidizing these things for other people should be. It's not surprising that that debate should exist, but also not surprising that it would be uncommon in China where (1) the most practiced religions largely don't have these teachings and (2) people don't have a common expectation that the state will give their religious practices and beliefs a considerable amount of deference.
I think a median American attitude is that nobody else should pressure you to have more or fewer children than you want to; if your religion encourages you to have children, other people are also largely supposed to respect that, and in modern times, if you just don't want children, other people are also largely supposed to respect that. (In blue tribe environments having many children is suspicious and in red tribe environments having no children is suspicious, but in both cases people are increasingly effective at pushing back socially against other people's scrutiny about this, and even at pushing back against their own families' judgments or preferences.) (These considerations don't necessarily apply the same way outside of opposite-sex monogamous married couples.)
I don't think these norms are common in the same way in China or in Chinese cultures elsewhere. In particular, I think even if Chinese people don't all think their parents, or governments, should get to decide how many children they have, it doesn't seem like many will reach U.S. levels of offense that prospective childbearing couples' parents, or governments, have an expressed preference and actively try to influence this.
The sweet pleasure of being spied upon by the CCP ?
----
On an aside, but related to the broader conversation, the YouTube channel AsianBoss regularly visits China and conducts very revealing interviews with Chinese people on similar topics to those discussed in this thread: https://youtu.be/sTzgE1nvxZs
There's literally a WWII scale Holocaust going on in China right now. You have a lot of nerve asking "what's the difference?"
It's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but it's worth reiterating - safety.
China is one of the safest places in the world. I literally never had a single concern for the physical well-being of my mother, my wife, anyone - no matter what part of the city they were in, or what time of the day.
Worth mentioning that I've found Singapore to be the same.
Contrast that with life in Australia (Melbourne), where I was constantly on edge even in the early evening, I'd worry every time my wife was out late, not to mention the instances where I was physically threatened or assaulted.
Maybe if you're Chinese. Right after college, a friend of mine (white American) worked in a job where he spent time at a factory in China, until he got stabbed in the lunch room by some older worker. He's fine, and while there is may be a degree of safe, it's definitely a question of safe for whom.
I'm mainly talking random street violence, which is far, far rarer than somewhere like Australia. I'm fairly sure that applies to most of "the West", too.
So that leaves anecdotes and personal experience. How many direct experiences of violent crime in both places have you had, and how do you know this generalises?
Not just the CBD though - almost every time I caught the 57 tram, there was some kind of screaming match or altercation (none involving me, thankfully). Visiting St Albans at night, I was treated to roving groups of young men smashing windows and helping themselves to whatever they felt like. Even the train back was really sketchy too.
That's without mentioning the Eurydice Dixon and Aiia Maasarwe cases, which were really unsettling.
I never worried about any of this stuff in China. There were literally zero occasions where I felt physically unsafe. Whereas Melbourne? Every time I was in the CBD after dark, I felt I needed to be on guard - and I'm a physically capable male.
I know the relations are strained between our countries but I hope they improve. Our government has "do not travel" recommendations in place for China due to the current political issues between our nations but I would love to visit one day.
- Reliable high-speed railway.
- Night markets -- lots of people socializing in the street into the early hours of the morning, enjoying street food, beer, etc.
- A sense of shared experience that's difficult to find in hyper-individualistic societies.
The Chinese perspective, AFAICT, is that individual liberties are worth trading for prosperity and so-called "economic" liberties. I'm told that this is something that's difficult to understand unless you've experienced the sort of progress that China has observed firsthand.
Ironically, these night markets are disappearing a bit as prosperity goes up. For example, in Shenzhen, a lot more roads were built to accommodate the huge increase in the number of automobiles, and it seems that many of these markets have succumbed to the concrete jungle.
I think that's a false dilemma. The Nordic states have roughly the same personal liberties as the US, but the welfare system means people are much more financially secure.
Btw I'm intentionally trying to stay take a neutral stance on this topic when discussing my understanding of attitudes in China. In fact my personal viewpoint is that economic prosperity without a strong and healthy respect for human rights will have bounded lifetime, but that's a different discussion. Regardless I think it's important to understand all the viewpoints.
What is the mechanism for redressing grievances like this in China, exactly?
Just today, or yesterday, a respected prof got fired from Tsinghua for being critical of CCP and Xi in particular.