How the CCP Does Job Promotions
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There is no free lunch, might not be even for the restaurant people too. My guess is the restaurant people were having their own motivations why they allow them to eat for free.
In a corrupt society. Corruption begets corruption. Eventually money is just a means to trade things/services, if you have money going around that doesn't account for things/services, very likely there is tons of cheat/corrupt economy. Imagine this like a kind of inflation, on top of existing inflation.
You are basically suggesting that the restaurant intentionally let a first time visitor (you) who they didn't know & trust to know the special relationship they have with the "chief of police". Why would they do that? A revenge to get rid of the guy?
It is also pretty strange to have "chief of police" accepting such high risk and low value "free meal" as gift. As a corrupted official, will you feel comfortable walking into a restaurant fitted with security cameras to enjoy your "free meal"? Sounds like a failed IQ test to me.
The restaurant staff did not betray any information to me. That is why they were horrified. It put them in a diffiuclt position. I assume that they would not accept my money because of the risk that it might flow back to the chief that I had paid.
Also I didn't totally understand your point, since the host paying for the meal is the only right thing to do in the Chinese culture. Of course, when it was in 2001, the police chief probably covered the meal using public money, if by corruption this is what you mean. (By no means would the restaurant be asked to just give out food for free.) As someone also pointed out, this has become much harder after Xi's crackdown on such spending.
I personally experienced a modern anecdote of this while I worked for a public works project in northern CA. This project was estimated to bring a significant amount of economic activity to the area so we were all “bribed”.
Even now in the US it’s a lot about who you know.
Compare with:
> When I approached the restaurant staff and expressed my intention to pay, they were horror stricken
Here they instead fear something bad would happen, if they don't pay (offer the food for free)?
It's still norm to bribe local officials so they will go easy on the businesses, such as speedy things up when dealing with the local gov, not enforcing laws when the business wants to pay less taxes.. etc.
I have tons of personal anecdotes which would make this post a hell lot longer. But for feelers, these days your ordinary mid level bribe making government employee is worth around 500 crores. For the western readers, that is in the ball park of $60 to $70 million. Higher up the hierarchy, the assistants to ruling party ministers, top bureaucracy, district level administration, or head of government organizations average twice to thrice that easily. The politicians themselves are likely in the ballpark of a few billion dollars worth.
The bribe market in India is so hot, you need to pay bribes, to get posted to positions where you can make more bribe. There's an entire corruption economy. So immense that it would dwarf anything real you could make working hard. Most of these people have regular meets and hire top lawyers to work around legally. They also pay-up the hierarchy for protection.
By the way it's not just some evil cabals meeting underground. Parents explicitly aspire their kids get these jobs. People spend bulk of their 20's just on entrance examinations, just for this.
The scale of corruption economy in India is just so mind boggling, it would be hard to explain any non-Indian just really how immense and all pervasive it is.
When it comes to illegal territory money the Forbes wealth lists are just a gigantic joke.
The problem with this system in modern times is that incentives are unaligned to objectives.
Corruption really interferes with the proper functioning of markets. Does indirection lessen the effect?
If US were to be as corrupt as India, imagine the DMV employees asking for a $500 bribe just for a State Id Card. Or asking for bribes for as little as a $50 bribe to even issue a form at the Social Security Office.
That's like just the beginning of it.
She needed to register for her identity card so she went to her local police station and filled out the forms. Gets a call a week later - “oh sorry, one of the forms was filled out incorrectly, can you come back and fill it out again?”. Sure, no problem.
A week later “oh, one of the forms filled out was the wrong form. I have the right one now, can you come fill it out?”. Well this is silly, but ok.
A week later “it turns out you need a form from the district as well, please fill that out and bring it in”. This is stupid, but she does it.
A week later “oh, that form had the wrong stamp on it, you need to fill out a new form and get the right stamp”.
A this point it was obvious - she went to police station, explained that the stamp was the correct one and oh, yeah, by the way, I know you’re working hard so let me give you some coffee money ($10 USD in local currency).
She had the identity document the next day.
Once I accompanied a domestic delegation to visit the United States. After dinner, we asked the waiter for an invoice, but the waiter did not know what an invoice was, so we talked to the boss and explained to him that we need an invoice so that we can be reimbursed back in China. The restaurant boss listened to us with great bewilderment. He asked, “Aren't you eating for yourselves, so why are you having the government pay for it?”
When travelling on business, asking for a receipt to be reimbursed is very normal. Perhaps the problem was asking for an "invoice" instead of a "receipt"?
However, I just tried Google translate, and it gave me “invoice”. Well, I think we’ve found the culprit.
The less formal option is a "shouju" but doesn't work for official business reimbursement.
0: https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2019/08/29/what-is-a-fapia...
The only way to get this refund is to ensure that you are issued a 'fiscal receipt'[2] for your purchases. These have a little QR code which you can scan into an app on your phone.
Of course, the whole point of the system is to ensure that retailers actually declare revenue and therefore pay tax on it. I wonder if similar systems exist in more countries?
[1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/02/c_138190143.htm
[2] https://www.geneko.rs/en/products/fiscal-products-and-soluti...
Stores who don't comply get massive fines.
To be honest, I really liked the idea as I feel like it could help the average person with personal budgeting.
[1] https://guidetotaipei.com/article/taiwan-receipt-lottery-統一發...
That is my understanding, anyway. I have been out of the country for so long, it must have changed a lot. Most of it must be electronic now, I imagine. I still remember a shop owner's audible complaints when I asked for an invoice around the time the system was initially introduced.
At least in the US those kinds of taxes are declared on receipts themselves.
You gave an excellent example. Tax rates are NOT on receipts in China. That would put pressure on the government to lower tax.
How do the private companies know how much taxes to pay then? Or all shops state-run?
I saw a clip of Chinese news broadcast giving shocking rates on Youtube, like a quarter to a third, but unfortunately I cannot find it now. There is little public information about effective sales tax rate. However, people do realize it. High taxes is one reason Chinese tourists buy a lot when overseas; they could see the price difference.
20-25% VAT is pretty common in Europe, so while that's high I wouldn't go so far as shocking.
It has been a while so it is a little fuzzy, but I recall the broadcaster said up to 50% of pre-tax price. The official VAT rate is like 17% now, I think (just googled it). So it is other fees imposed by local governments that are onerous.
Average Chinese may not think about paying tax for each sale because it's not printed on the receipt. But the price they pay do include all the taxes incurred to the business.
It's been a while, I remember that the receipts I got from IKEA and 711 do print the exact tax applied to this sale.
Sure, if you're shopping at IKEA or 7-11 (notably, large-scale foreign businesses).
If you're shopping at the local corner store or restaurant, they're not declaring sales unless you specifically ask for a fapiao (and even then, half of them will lie and say their machine is broken).
> If you're shopping at the local corner store or restaurant, they're not declaring sales unless you specifically ask for a fapiao (and even then, half of them will lie and say their machine is broken).
Yeah. I agree. Though it's bit extreme to say `half of them`.
> various “failures of democracy” that, if left unchecked, could lead to the weakening of the Chinese political system. Not only does his analysis argue the importance of having more senior officials rather than the rank-and-file party cadres select competent officials, but also serves as an implicit suggestion of the superiority of the Chinese system in contrast to western democratic systems.
I believe that is a misinterpretation caused by misunderstanding "failures of democracy" as referring to "failures of Western democracy". However, as an academic affiliated with the Central Party School, Wang Dongjing can safely be assumed to be using official terminology, in which China is defined as a democratic country. So all references to "democracy" in the article should be understood to refer to the system of leadership selection implemented in China. In particular, the "failures of democracy" he talks about are specifically "failures of leadership selection in China".
That is also very noticeable when he talks about the difference between "majority of the minority and the majority of the majority". In his example of minority selection, all 20 superior officials are corrupt, blocking the young official's promotion for not doing them a favor. Then later he says that "in our society, the good guys are in the majority and the bad guys are in the minority" and "if under the guidance of democratic centralism, we elect those who have the support of the majority of the people and entrust them with important tasks, then the bureaucratic culture will change greatly. In this way, there will be no market for those who are political ‘social climbers’, who only seek to curry favors with others but don’t seek to accomplish anything."
I.e. he is arguing explicitly against having senior officials decide on promotions and wants rank-and-file cadres to get a vote instead.
Just because he is affiliated with the Central Party School, it should not be assumed that he wants to paint a rosy picture of the government. On the contrary, it is kind of their raison d'être to be aware of the government's shortcomings, so that they can educate future cadres to improve the system. (Though I don't think posting such criticism publicly was part of the job description.)
If you're not allowed to conclude that the whole system has to go, then it is impossible to have any credibility in saying that the whole system doesn't have to go.
I come across a lot of such people online. The same bureaucratic disease of any established government.
I would also like to say the idea that this system has to be changed/replaced is generally agreed upon.
As a Chinese national and frequent Zhihu user, this comment is probably satire... I would also like to say the idea that this system has to be changed/replaced is generally agreed upon.
Have not heard about this. What ideas are floating around for the replacement?
Also not sure what you exactly mean with "generally agreed upon" and "has to be changed/replaced". There could be varying degrees of interpretation, but I don't think by far that a radical change is a "general consensus" throughout the nation. Many do see that the system has been working for the country so far and are taking note.
If authoritarian government is by default this effective and easy to success, why most of them failed?
Because the decision makers will inevitably make very large mistakes, and generally don't have the ability (or capacity) to course correct.
The western system is far from efficient, but it generally lands on the right solution in the long term.
The main reason why it lasted so long in China is because it is now operating in the economic system and condition it was designed to work under.
Indeed, this system of governance was designed by Lenin and his cronies precisely to operate under and regulate State Capitalism. It's not designed to work with a planned economy, or with a completely capitalist economy, or with an agrarian economy, but explicitly with State Capitalism (see: NEP).
Secondly, it's not actually supposed to last. This kind of government was designed to last more or less 70 years under the correct economic system, it wasn't designed to last forever.
China happens to be a case of the government system operating in exactly the correst economic system during the period where its supposed to work.
The rest of it is just typical "democratic" centralism, self-criticism, a strong ideological backing, and the ability for flexibility and reactivity at the local level, as well as a good dose of fear.
Also maybe the exact definition of "state capitalism" could still be somehow controversial. People would describe the system in China especially in the past 3 decades or so as very much wild west capitalism. Private companies competed for survival and market shares like crazy without much regulation at all. Regulations have only been picking up in the recent 5 years or so. Sure there are state enterprises especially in more inland regions, but they are not really the most important drivers of China's economy boom, especially in manufacturing and exports.
The 'contract officials' are 'doomed' because they have to chose between competing senior officials, many of which will be upset?
Then why would anyone take the job?
He literally says they are 'coveted' while at the same time '99% chance of failure'?
And he indicated that some don't accept bribes. But then, randomly, they might accept one for which they could get caught?
How about just don't take bribes? Seriously.
I really enjoyed reading this however, I wish there was more real data to analyze as often, it's hard to really ascertain how much of these things are really true or just things that even people with experience and insight happen to believe.
People, who are from poor provinces, would really prefer to get the job even if it means bribing.
however, the official cadre, in next para, refers to all the official cadres regardless of their priority being money or doing a good job
> but also serves as an implicit suggestion of the superiority of the Chinese system in contrast to western democratic systems.
This is clearly a wrong impression. The superiority is always in the context of being for China. Without that quote, it becomes a challenge to US hegemony. Although, it should be mentioned that, no superpower can convince the old one to peacefully transfer the power.
So fake. Don’t people in US require an invoice for reimbursement for business meal?
> Thirteen and a half tonnes of gold worth up to £520million is found in a corrupt Chinese official's home
When I read it, I thought to myself somebody ended up on the wrong side of the party. Hm, I wonder where all of that gold went?
1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7528217/13-5-tonnes...
Also I wonder how much of this could be applied to western democracies as well
In San Francisco for example, we are undertaking a street repair of 19th street that will take an estimated 2 years. My best guess is that it will actually take a decade to complete, like the van ness project. This is simply a modification of a sewer system and a street re-pavement - nothing new. China could complete this in a week.
The west is slow and we are in decline. China is growing fast.
And who of course would object when doing so would ding your "social credit" score and restrict your right to do things like travel, or access the internet.
I agree that single party states run very well, after all when you don't have to worry about pesky freedoms or rights it's amazing what you can accomplish.
Next up President Xi Jinping has a 99% approval rating. How does China produce such beloved politicians?
Americans know very well that their public sector fails to execute projects on time and on budget. They just don’t think the tradeoffs to convert to the Chinese system are worth it, nor are the benefits of the Chinese system exclusive to that system.
It was written to agree with the parent, not disagree. Yes, that does break from the normal comment thread cadence of agreement on odd layers and disagreement on even layers. ;)
When I visited China, China feels like America. I'd argue China has embraced capitalism and we are moving in the opposite direction.
The CCP has embraced capitalism when it's convenient for them. What they haven't embraced is a consistent rule of law or anything approaching a democratic government, which are the basis of every other functioning, stable nation on Earth.
Also, I think it's likely that Trump has made leaders in the the West realize how much they rely on each other, and ties will be quickly re-strengthened under Biden.
A dire contrast with the west which since the industrial revolution grew up so fast by respecting human rights, the environment, other nations, international law. The lack of self-awareness of people like you genuinely scares me. You vote people who has the power to erase the planet with nukes and you consider yourselves superior to other races/nations. Truly hair-rising stuff.
Well, no, exactly like the West that did many of the same things as China at a similar stages in their development, with similar results (there's a difference between the hybrid of state capitalism and corporatism with central elites in practical control of "democratic centralism" in modern China and peak private capitalism with capitalist control of notionally democratic institutions in the early industrial West, but there are also lots of similarities), and very much like what lots of Western countries did later under slightly different systems than peak private capitalism that are also similar to China's current system (e.g., fascist corporatism)
Which is exactly why "how China can do what they do" isn't at all a mystery or place the West needs to go to learn lessons. Its not that the West has never done the kind of things that China has done, but that its been there and moved on. Certainly not completely, and certainly with deep remaining problems. But a few pretty prestige projects for the elites and those willing to knuckle under for them aren't worth the cost of reversing progress on those fronts.
Aren't people supposed to do better knowing how much people in the past screwed up? Isn't that what progress is all about? Learning from your mistakes?
Because it's not terrifying. China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty. What's terrifying is nations like India and continents like Africa haven't followed and developed. Instead there are nearly 1 billion indians and africans without electricity, plumbing, etc.
> Aren't people supposed to do better knowing how much people in the past screwed up?
Well, china didn't invade australia, canada, US, etc and wipe out the people and steal their land and destroy other people's environment to enrich themselves. So maybe they learned something. The hypocritical hubris is not going to do us any good. Over the long term, it's gonna be our undoing.
Or maybe, there is no other option. In order to make an omelette you gotta break some eggs. And in order to develop, you have to suffer through some environmental degradation.
Not only are the chinese entitled to it, so are the indians, africans, middle easterners, etc. Are they all supposed to languish in poverty while they wait for some magic development process to appear.
While a privileged virtue signaler can comfortable whine about the environment, the millions of people living in poverty don't have the luxury.
If one is serious, it isn't hard to take a look at how the industrial revolution happened over the past hundreds of years to understand how the West reached its current status in the first place, going through exactly similar stages. Development is a hard, long-winding process, and one doesn't magically get there overnight. There was an interesting study that looked at the corruption level in the US in the 1800s and found it to be 8 times more than the corruption level of 1990s/2000s China. When countries like Norway were poor before they discovered oil, it was not like they were exactly the model paradise of equality, green economy and "human rights" at all, while China now has the ambition to lead the green economy by 2050.
As you said, one could simply look at a third-world African country. Are people there objectively suffering from more human rights abuses, more poverty, more environmental pollution, than people in China? Is the supposed parliamentary democracy working there?
The West talks all the time about how they're supposed to help those countries develop by implanting all its system, while eventually all it does is to make it easy for the multinational western capitalists to reap the rewards. Nobody helps anybody else develop at its own expense for no reason. This is just how politics naturally works. China took advantage of the manufacturing boom to get out of poverty, which of course benefited the West a lot along the way as well, but China always also had a clear determination to grow out of such a "world factory" role, which the West clearly didn't foresee nor wanted to see. Thus the tension nowadays.
China is pushing a lot of policies in Africa nowadays and of course it's also largely out of China's own geopolitical needs, but maybe some of its infrastructure projects actually benefit the population more than some previous foreign investments, or maybe some of them don't. The point is, in the end you have to look at what actually benefits the common folks the most, instead of all the hypocritical gesturing and varnishing talks on the surface.
A lot of the "environment, safety, human rights" stuffs originate from official propaganda by western state apparatus which want to contain China/feel threatened by China's progress, so they want to reassure themselves of their superiority and contain every country in their designated place in the food chain with a certain narrative, just like how China does official propaganda to paint the west in a bad light on issues such as COVID containment and affirm its own superiority. But people who unquestioningly gobble up such propaganda are definitely aplenty out there (I would guess the desire to feel superior/justified against an unknown threat/"others" could even be part of human nature, which however is what education and rational thinking are exactly supposed to allow us do better at).
How you can conclude that the US is in decline because a street repair in a single city takes longer than it probably should is beyond me.
I would argue the opposite is usually true. Setting aside China, authoritarian regimes are usually NOT known for being efficient or well-run.
I am not American, but I came back from my visits to China with a similar feeling to the grandparent comment. The West tends to stick their fingers in their ears and yell "Authoritarian regime, I can't hear you!" at the mere suggestion that China does certain things better and there may be something to learn there.
well run != efficient
Authoritarian regimes are highly efficient at accomplishing what the people in charge want to do, long term consequences be damned. Frequently, the people in charge are primarily focused on retaining or even acquiring more power and wealth, which is generally not well aligned with what most people would consider a well run nation.
> I am not American, but I came back from my visits to China with a similar feeling to the grandparent comment. The West tends to stick their fingers in their ears and yell "Authoritarian regime, I can't hear you!" at the mere suggestion that China does certain things better and there may be something to learn there.
The issue here is that there isn't an agreement on what "better" means. Social harmony at the expense of individual freedoms isn't better. Technological advancement that is based on IP theft isn't better. Infrastructure improvement that causes long term harm to the global environment isn't better.
Are you saying there are no lessons the West can learn from China's infrastructure projects without resorting to authoritarianism, IP theft, or environmental harm? That there is no way to pick apart and separate some positive learnings from the negatives?
Are you saying THIS is the best we can do as a Western democracy?
https://torontolife.com/city/transportation/tortured-history...
To me, this kind of paralysis on infrastructure projects is not "better" by any definition you use. It's not an intentional tradeoff between infrastructure and environmental protection, or between public development and property rights. It's just indecision, waste, and stagnation.
Every time a comparison to China's infrastructure comes up, the knee jerk reaction is to point out that it's an authoritarian regime so of course they can force through any infrastructure project they want. Which is fair enough, but it drowns out any discussion asking "Hey, CAN we do any better in the West than we are doing right now? Is what we have good enough?"
Not at all. Every nation can always learn from others, or at least be motivated by the accomplishments of others to improve internally.
> Are you saying THIS is the best we can do as a Western democracy?
Maybe? Again, it depends on what your definition of "best" is. If not enough people in Toronto think it's important enough to have a robust public transit system, then it doesn't happen. I'm very confident Toronto has the resources required to complete an ambitious project if desired.
> To me, this kind of paralysis on infrastructure projects is not "better" by any definition you use. It's not an intentional tradeoff between infrastructure and environmental protection, or between public development and property rights. It's just indecision, waste, and stagnation.
If the project isn't a good use of resources, indecision and inaction is the better outcome.
> Every time a comparison to China's infrastructure comes up, the knee jerk reaction is to point out that it's an authoritarian regime so of course they can force through any infrastructure project they want. Which is fair enough, but it drowns out any discussion asking "Hey, CAN we do any better in the West than we are doing right now? Is what we have good enough?"
Unlike in China, these discussions already happen regularly, and the key difference between the status quo in China and the West is the decision making process, so that's where the conversation is focused.
I wish I shared your confidence, but this suggests otherwise:
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/09/26/transit-the-number-1-...
I find it difficult to accept that this is the best outcome by any metric I can think of.
>Unlike in China, these discussions already happen regularly, and the key difference between the status quo in China and the West is the decision making process, so that's where the conversation is focused.
Is it? The conversation is focused on how China is authoritarian, not on how the Western (I really should say North American) decision-making process often leads to poor outcomes and stagnation when it comes to public projects.
This IS getting pretty far off-topic from the actual article, so I'll stop here.
That's a pretty recent poll (on the timeline you provided in the earlier article), so maybe it's a sign that a more comprehensive transit system will be built soon.
> I find it difficult to accept that this is the best outcome by any metric I can think of.
It's definitely not optimal if you support public transit. The western model is more concerned with preventing tyranny than efficiency or optimal outcomes, for better or worse. This could very easily be one of the times where "worse" is the case. I'd still prefer it over an authoritarian system.
> Is it? The conversation is focused on how China is authoritarian, not on how the Western (I really should say North American) decision-making process often leads to poor outcomes and stagnation when it comes to public projects.
It seems to have expanded quite a bit beyond that (not between you and I, just generally), which seems pretty common for these types of topics.
> This IS getting pretty far off-topic from the actual article, so I'll stop here.
Fair enough, thanks for the discussion.
The West and China have different goals.
China's goal is to grow fast at all costs.
To use your street example, the West makes a great effort to listen to the views of all the people affected by the project, including people who live near and work near the project. The West will also do a study to make sure the environmental impact is acceptable. The West will also do a survey to make sure nothing of any historical or archaeological importance isn't affected. The West will put the project out to multiple bidders and make sure that minority-owned companies are represented in the project. Depending on the project, there may also be other studies and considerations.
China just does the project, and if it's done wrong or harms anyone, too bad. Get out of the way.
Different systems. Different philosophies.
One isn't better because it's "fast."
Barbaric is a fun word, but one that would be easy to twist the other way. In one system you get to be crammed into a little train car with dozens of other people, in the other system you have some privacy and personal space and a seat...
Again, pros and cons all over the place... the US doesn't have good trains because it built other systems instead due to the point in time in which many of its cities developed, and they are "good enough" that most people would see little benefit from ripping it all up to replace it with trains.
It's worth noting too that "they make the trains run on time" is literally a cliche about certain types of government at this point, not some unique accomplishment.
If you have enough money for both options, then it's not surprising that the option which costs at least an order of magnitude more provides a slightly more comfortable seat.
If you consider car-centric society barbaric, you've never experience barbarism, or understand what the word even means. Hyperbole is not helpful.
Being factual and a little more subtle goes a long way.
I live in an urban area and enjoy not having to drive long distances (or at all) to run errands, but I don't see them as an extenstential threat to humanity as many posters here apparently do.
I still haven't figured it out.
And then you projected that all of western civilization is in decline because the US hasn't prioritized high speed rail. Among other things, this completely ignores the countries within the "West" that have high speed rail as well.
That's what people are taking issue with, not that you pointed out that China has high speed rail.
We've been surpassed in PPP, Global Trade, Industrial Output etc. China's steel production is 1 billion tons a year, the US 80 million tons. They poured as much concrete in the last 10 years as we poured in the 20th century. In just a few years we will be surpassed by GDP and witin 25 years China's GDP will be double the United States.
China's rise is not disputed.
The other poster with the analogy about a child's height is 100% accurate.
China doesn't care. You do what you're told. If you complain too much, you disappear; if the project has an atrocious safety record, they are not reported and no such records exist (or blame a low-level official); if an entire neighborhood was destroyed without compensation, shut up and deal with it. You can get what you want, just how many bodies are you willing to bury to get it?
You need to destroy neighborhoods to built road infrastructure, though. This is because "I/O operations" on high-speed roads with massive bandwidth à-la-USA requires ungodly amounts of space.
Here is the infrastructure needed for high-speed rail : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/FXD1-J00..., plus one train station per city. The switches can be built outside.
Here is the infrastructure needed for traditional highways: https://i0.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sit...
If the infrastructure that was built was not horribly inefficient due to an almost ideological opposition to mass transit, there wouldn't have been neighbourhoods destroyed wholesale, and the precedent leading to the gargantuan opposition we see right now would simply not be present.
Its actually not that hard and Chinese content platforms are a breath of fresh air
Me thinks you would be surprised at what works
The state there takes a paternal approach, like a literal parent, or teacher or school principle (or unit commander, or HR department). It isn’t that unrelatable, we all grew up in similar restrictions. When everyone agrees that is what the role of the state is, nobody is trying to be a freedom fighter to alter that
That's sort of like saying Chinese politics is a breath of fresh air because you don't have to worry about picking a side and hearing the various parties arguing with each other.
they have a heavily neutered internet and it is a pleasant experience
its a walled garden, at the country level, do you want a sticker because of your awareness of Beijing?
there is simply a life beyond imagining it as oppressive all the time, when the reality is that you just hang out in communities in your niche and you dont have to worry about it being randomly politicized. A large part of the mindshare in the west is trying to figure out how to do that, checking out the other internet is probably good for your mental health
I guess Hong Kong's problem is they just haven't experienced China's rail system yet. /s
You clearly misunderstand what the First Amendment is about. It's a restraint on government, not a restraint on everyone else.
Around 1865 we reached the conclusion that it is the duty of the Government to protect some people from having their freedom taken away by some other people. Since then the Constitution started imposing restraints not only on the ability of the Government to curtail your freedom, but also the ability of your fellow citizens to do so. And this is a good thing.
But lately we started regressing. I'm talking about the cancel culture.
Do you think that if one day a person were to be physically tarred and feathered by a crowd of puritans because of some perceived transgression, that is ok? But then if the tarring and feathering is in the digital world, and much more permanent (nothing is forgotten on the internet), is that ok?
The end result is that people learn there are some things you can say, some things you can't, and some things you must say.
/s
China executes at scale, but does not necessarily execute good things at scale.
Feel free to invite me. But it's not necessary. I've been on China's high speed rail system.
Its a huge accomplishment that our society isn't capable of producing.
I've also been on the one in Japan, Korea, Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium.
The Chinese state can produce projects, but how valuable they are is often up for question; the Urumqi high speed line doesn't even make enough money to pay for the electricity to run the trains. https://www.ft.com/content/ca28f58a-955d-11e8-b747-fb1e803ee...
America's problem isn't with building new roads, it's with maintaining them.
Building new is easy. Let's see how China fares in 50 years when it has to maintain an aging infrastructure.
There is a middle ground where projects are ethically and considerately done in a reasonable amount of time, at a reasonable cost. This doesn't seem to be happening in either SF or China, but I can imagine it's happening in many places around the world.
The middle ground is also the middle between US and China, something like Germany.
I do meet Americans who moved to Europe but they also have to contend with various dissatisfaction. A dysfunctional and Kafka-esque bureaucracy is one of them, and the high tax + mediocre income + unfriendly laws on share grants, as well as a way too "socialist" system which doesn't recognize individual contribution much, is another huge factor that have led many people to reconsider their choices. If they have some particular reason, e.g. chronic medical condition, have a family and want more work-life balance etc., then sure, Europe might work better for them. But for a young single person Europe is actually nowhere that good at all.
I think eventually people just have to understand that there is no paradise on earth. Every place has its set of unique strengths and weaknesses and characteristics formed by their culture and history that are not replaceable. Romanticizing an "exotic" place too much will invariably lead to deviation from the reality and disillusionment in the end. Similarly, demonizing a place, be it China or the US, will also be very one-sided and biased. Only clear-headed objectivity will benefit you the most.
In my city, the reason why this happens is because municipal officials are corrupt, incompetent, and not held accountable. It has nothing to do with what you said.
The city has a lot of difficult problems to solve, but it sure does do some horribly wrong things with the simpler problems.
It’s not like the city budget has doubled in the last 10 years.
I heard that Italian fascists made the trains run on time, too.
Here is the Chinese high speed rail built in the last decade, it is not propaganda, it's literally something you can buy a ticket for and travel on at 350 km/h right now. I truly worry for Americans incapable of seeing what is happening in the rest of the world.
Yeah, its nice. Authoritarian regimes usually have some nice prestige projects to show, which is really nice if you are a foreigner they are trying to impress, or a local that is in favor with the regime. Not so much if you are out-of-favor, whether because you opposed the particular approach they took for the prestige project or for some unrelated reason.
But, as much as I like HSR and wish the US would do it, emulating China -- whose ability to do it isn't a mystery needing study, but well-understood -- isn't a cost worth paying for it.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/High_Spe...
When it's keeping the "other" out it's gross, but when they are shutting down pointless vanity projects like a sculpture park no one wants maybe that's democracy as advertised.
Before I moved to San Francisco, I lived in Beijing for 9 years, the last 3 of those in an apartment in the Sanlitun area of Beijing, within 3 mins walk of a Bentley dealership, Lotus dealership, a craft brewery etc.
When we moved in, a school down the street had construction going on, and was surrounded with scaffolding and then some signage or whatever. The sidewalk was completely blocked off, making it difficult for pedestrians to pass.
Over a year later, they finally finished construction and the updated building was revealed. They'd extended the building to take over the sidewalk completely. You'd think that, if this was intended, then they'd build a new sidewalk and narrow the car lanes a bit. But, no, pedestrians have to walk into the road to go around this school.
This construction was both slow and bad. I admit it's not typical: the nearby Holiday Inn went from zero to operational within a few months.
Maybe a change of scenery is in order for you. I can't imaging living in a hellscape like San Fran. I'm in a veritable paradise as far as I can tell. There are problems, but we are working on them, and we generally have the freedom to do so on our own terms without nanny government holding our hand.
This goes both ways. I’m from Dallas and live in Los Angeles. Both cities have their own share of problems (and their own great qualities) — and yet both are much more likely to quickly dismiss the other as lost causes than take a deep look at their own issues.
It’s fine to have a preference, obviously, but don’t let your preference cloud your judgement: many would say the exact same thing about rural Arkansas — and for many, it probably wouldn’t be a paradise, based on any number of politics, orientations, race, socioeconomic status, or even just where your friends and family are! — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t for you.
An example in Atlanta was a politician friends with those of the same party works in another county but serves on advisement boards for the city as a sole employee of those boards netting him hundreds of thousands a year. It only came to light because he screwed up the taxes. This is wide spread, as in nation wide. All those committees and such are mostly there to reward each other, family, and friends.
China just eliminated having any competing political power. They have factions within but all serve the same top.
Example of gaming the system https://www.ajc.com/politics/fulton-da-howard-fined-by-state...
Why? I mean, its not news that top-down authoritarianism is very good at doing whatever the top decides needs done without considering anyone else's concerns or interests, this isn't something that needs study.
And there are no shortages of places practicing that to decamp to if that is your preference for style of government.
However, before we go asking the commies how to run governments, there are perhaps some other, less authoritarian, countries who also get things done that we might look at?
There’s an interesting story with Deng Xiaoping and Lee Kwan Yew behind this.
China is not 'well managed', rather, they can 'move quickly and build things of questionable quality' in some places, not others.
The ability to build some material things very quickly is definitely useful and creates some utility, but it's not tantamount to 'well managed'.
SF has busses, trains and a subway that run, it's far from perfect, but what they suffer from is 'too much money'.
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/#:~:text=Gr....
LOL. China is able to move very fast, but the idea that it's a well-oiled machine functioning in perfect harmony is a ridiculous fiction.
Construction projects in China cut every corner possible. When something fails catastrophically, they'll throw a low-level official under the bus. At every level, there is total abdication of responsibility. The whole system incentivizes this.
See: "The Chabuduo Mindset" https://www.chinaexpatsociety.com/culture/the-chabuduo-minds...
> The west is slow and we are in decline. China is growing fast.
Yes, and this should terrify everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopSDJq6w8E
> At every level, there is total abdication of responsibility. The whole system incentivizes this.
Exactly like the USSR and Chernobyl.
Construction quality satisfies fast, cheap, good like everywhere else. As someone who worked adjacent to construction industry in both China and North America, the difference is China has the "fast" option available, whereas NA is mostly cheap + good, and frequently just cheap. It's less about being well managed, but having all the options and managing appropriately. Tons of capital projects in China and related prestige developments aging well. The latter surprisingly so considering how many retardley ambitious (almost unworkable) starchitect designs were built. Sure, lot's of uninhabited commodity projects falling into disrepair but abandoned bubble subdivisions don't fair much better. Difference is China builds more, so more catastrophic failures. Question is, it worth the cost? Deng wanted poor China to develop fast. So China ChaBuDuo's as deliberate development strategy and manages accordingly.
>When something fails catastrophically, they'll throw a low-level official under the bus. At every level, there is total abdication of responsibility. The whole system incentivizes this.
Chinese Aviation and HSR safety? Public accident -> regulate + execute those responsible = about safest aviation and HSR in the world. Surmise the same with food and vaccination safety, but effects of those scandal stake longer to determine. Regardless, incentives seem to align with state interests to me. On building stock specifically, there's no interest high quality commodity construction. Why would there be? Current 60% urbanization rate, goal 70%, realistically 80-90%. That's 140-420M people who needs apartments. Queue current 65M empty condos and ghost city memes.
Obviously it's not perfect, but it has more tools to address some serious problems that's stumping the west, especially beyond political cycle timescales. Curious if west would try deleveraging or could successfully regulate FAANG. Too many things west can't do, but should. Also too many things CCP can do and shouldn't.
Any civil engineers here that can explain why “simply” might not apply?
I have watched some sewer modifications[1] here in Christchurch (earthquake damage, Insituform product), and it looked incredibly complicated and I didn’t see how they reconnected each home’s connection to the main.
A typical metaphor for software engineering is rebuilding a plane while it is running. What is an appropriate metaphor when you are fixing old pipes that carry human excrement and the system mostly keeps working while it’s being done...
Almost all American infrastructure is either a vanity project, a jobs project, or a political quid pro quo operation to an ally to get some other thing done.
The problem is that once you get really used to this mode of operating, you kind of forget that there are sometimes things that really do matter. I think America has a picture of the things she already knows of: crucial highway collapses? gotta fix now! But the ability to recognize new crises goes away without novel crises.
So America can't build ventilators in an emergency, can't train nurses in an emergency, can't do anything new. But I think America can deal with the old things just fine if she wants to.