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Yet China is set to come out of 2023 with GDP growth above 5% with numerous economic forward indicators indicating a massive rebound, ie:

https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-feb-manufacturing...

China's factory activity stuns with fastest growth in a decade

BEIJING, March 1 (Reuters) - China's manufacturing activity expanded at the fastest pace in more than a decade in February, an official index showed on Wednesday, smashing expectations as production zoomed after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions late last year.

The manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) shot up to 52.6 from 50.1 in January, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics, above the 50-point mark that separates expansion and contraction in activity. The PMI far exceeded an analyst forecast of 50.5 and was the highest reading since April 2012.

Government numbers, enough said.

This is a government that just raised the retirement age from 60 to 65, proclaimed that one can take on a mortgage at age 70 and let the heirs inherit the mortgage, and do not issue passports freely. Where its banks has delayed its customers from paying off mortgage in full, and from withdrawing large amount of cash. Does that sound like a healthy economy?

Again, watch online testimonials from average citizens, and you will see entirely empty malls in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oApzG9ycwkw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBpybdnYVEs

You can also look at the US-China trade numbers which are at record high if you don't trust the Chinese government.

that's for 2022. 2023 numbers will be horrendous, based on the 40% export collapse seen in January 2023.

Hong Kong exports post biggest plunge in 70 years https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/Hong-Kong-exports-post...

No. They won't. That's what the manufacturing PMI shows.

What accounts for a 40% collapse? That's an enormous shortfall for such a large economy.

- factories in Southeast Asia that were started shortly after the Trump sanctions in 2017 or covid 2020, that have finally come online

- CHIP act in mid 2022 from Biden that spurred Apple to finally drag its immoral lazy feet

- Russia invasion of Ukraine, and Chinese proclamation of friendship with no limits shortly after

- covid lockdowns in China in early 2022 that shut down factories

- increasing electric rationing every year in China that shut down factories

- Foxconn factory riots

- very loud geopolitical risks that C level execs can no longer pretend not to hear

- can't move money out of China. 'I can't get my money out': Billionaire investor Mark Mobius says China is restricting flows of capital out of the country. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/mark-mobius-...

> - can't move money out of China. 'I can't get my money out': Billionaire investor Mark Mobius says China is restricting flows of capital out of the country. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/mark-mobius-...

This has been true for 10+ years

Which is always hilarious to me that people complain about USD as a global reserve currency and then propose CNY take over.

Whatever the US is doing with sanctions is still much looser than China's controls on capital, and they've made it an explicit point that they would rather keep capital controls and the ability to suddenly put in even more draconian ones, than to become a global reserve currency.

This is easily explainable if you look at a whole chart for the past 5 or 10 years: https://tradingeconomics.com/hong-kong/exports

HK (and China) export always plunges in the month with the Lunar New Year Holiday. In 2022, that would be February, but in 2023, it's January, hence the large decrease. In fact, HK export this Lunar New Year is the third highest ever, only standing behind 2021 and 2022.

Hk isn’t the main way goods leave China. Guangdong, Shanghai and Tianjin all have massive ports and are still not the only ones. I don’t know why this is being used as a yard stick for anything other than HK is going through a pretty intense change since the failed protest movement.

There are certain things that China appears to be the leader in, in particular LFP / Sodium Ion batteries (CATL / Gotion).

It will be interesting to see if the US decides to do to China for those that CHina did to the US for practically ... everything. Essentially take the technology from them with "partnerships" (you see CATL proposing and building factories in EU and US now) that will effectively onshore whatever advantages they have there.

A lot of that GDP growth is in real estate, construction, tearing things down (GDP!), building new things (GDP!), tearing them down again (also GDP…), repeat. Youth employment numbers will give you a better idea of how the economy is really doing, I’ve been through plenty of non-recessions in China where growth is still amazing yet kids are having trouble finding jobs.

China's youth unemployment is at 20% end of 2022. https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20221021-i-feel-lik..., a Great Depression type of number. With the recent estimated 80% reduction in factory jobs in 2023, One can assume the unemployment is a lot worse than 20%. If you look at some of the online videos, you will see factories that are now requiring only female workers, workers under 23, etc. You will see 100 people in line for 3-4 positions.

> If you look at some of the online videos, you will see factories that are now requiring only female workers, workers under 23, etc.

For perspective, this is rather common outside China too. Working in a factory is hard work and factories often have severe age limits. China's demographic problems mean that its time as a factory hub was always going to be limited.

The thing about Chinas GDP is we don’t know their real GDP. We only know what we have been told.

Just like COVID. We are told there’s very few COVID deaths, but we don’t know how many deaths there are and no one talks about the days long queues for cremation.

People have been saying for 30+ years that all numbers out of China are lies. If that's true then China is as poor as Africa. When it's so weak, why worry about China all the time? Just let them die in their misery, there is no China Threat.

In the mean time, you could also visit China, talk to people, and ask them whether they prefer the China today or the China from 30 years ago.

Just because they can lie and fudge statistics doesn’t mean they are poor or weak. If it’s so great why aren’t you there though?

That's such a weird argument. Do people only leave their home country if their home country is bad? Do people who live abroad have no right to defend their home country from slander? The answer is generally "no" to both, but when it comes to China people can't comprehend anything other than "yes".

Just think about how weird that is. I increasingly believe that such hypocrisy simply indicates bad faith.

Every argument you make on China is defending it from any form of criticism. Half the time your defence is whataboutism. Obviously there’s no debate to be had with you when any sort of criticism causes you to go into straight up denial.

You feel like it’s your right to defend your country but it’s strange you want to defend your country and not your people. Majority of people here opening admit the faults in their own countries yet when it comes to China you pop out your red scarf and make sure your family back home don’t get a call. But you call that weird and hypocrisy.

shrug

Edit: as a side note my original message was criticism of the CCP, not China.

How interesting that you are accusing me of whataboutism when you are literally steering the conversation into another direction, dodging my criticism of you. In my first reply to you I stayed on topic (alleged fudging of statistics). In the 2nd reply I did too (living abroad). It is you who is dropping a "dead cat" on the table and yelling "but what about everything else??"

---

No I am not defending China from "any form of criticism". I am defending China from your criticism because I think yours is unjust and/or wrong. Big difference.

There are legit points of criticisms. But you are not raising them. Instead, what you are raising is the sort of stereotypical hysterical character assassination that's propagated by mainstream Anglo media. That I will gladly oppose.

---

I have had many many conversations with people about China, and by now it's clear that the mantra "I am only against the CCP, not the people" is blatantly disingenuous. We are in a Cold War with the Anglo MSM spouting anti-China hysteria day by day, creating an atmosphere which implicates common Chinese people and other common Asian people as potential CCP spies. This hysteria also contributes to popular support for a war against China. But as anti-Asian attacks in many countries reach a high, I don't see many of these supposed "loving the people and only hating the CCP" figures speak up about that. It's abubdantly clear that we common people are, in such figures' eyes, merely good enough as cannon fodder in a holy war against the CCP. It doesn't matter that the common people are implicated and yet the mantra "loving the people" goes on.

Your comments are the very manifestation of this disingenuity. Apparently your "love" for the people only covers those who agree with you.

----

The Chinese people are not China the country? This sort of rethoric is just like "love people hate CCP" mantra: sounds nice in theory, but rings hollow in practice and doesn't stand up to scrutiny. US sanctions against China hurt common Chinese people. US escalating military tensions in SCS and developing consent for war, hurts people. Who stands up for that? Not the HN crowd that's for sure.

Meanwhile,the CCP has 95M members, or 5% of the population. Pretty much everybody has a releative that's a party member. But the Anglo media and govt coalitions are pushing the idea that anybody who has the slightest "links to the CCP" is a threat. This has ruined the lives of a great many American Chinese engineers and scientists. Who stands up for that?

I'll give you the answer in case you didn't get the hint. For all its faults, the Chinese state is the only entity that actually protects Chinese people. They are flawed, but they are all we have.

When a war occurs with China because of this hysteric environment, Chinese people become cannon fodder. So, no sir: defending China and criticizing this anti-China hysteria is defending the people.

Hysteria as you call it is just words and punitive policies. When the CCP starts arming Russia or invades Taiwan as it has signaled it will do with increasing volume over the last five years—reunification is a must—those are violent acts that will lay at the feet of China, not the hysteria of the West.

They've already taken a side with a country determined to wipe the identity of tens of millions of people from the earth and do so with tanks, shells and hundreds of thousands of armed men. What is there to defend there? How many tens of thousands of people must be murdered for their soil for China to disavow it's unlimited friendship?

No it's not just "words and punitive policies"! Very real people, common and innocent people, are getting attacked on the streets or having their lives ruined by baseless accusations of being "CCP spies" or even "virus spreaders"!

Anti-Asian discrimination cost Chinese restaurants $7.4 billion during the pandemic's first year, new study finds https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/977098

A majority of Americans (55%) support limiting Chinese students studying in the U.S. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/03/04/most-americans...

Nearly 90% of the defendants charged with spying are of Chinese heritage. This includes citizens with connections to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and long-standing Chinese diaspora communities in Southeast Asia https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/02/1040656/china-in...

The environment is pushing the idea that there's a commie under every bed, so they're massively charging many innocent people, and you deny this is hysteria and even look the other way?!

Now you are even engaging in whataboutism for the 2nd time, right after having accused me of doing it.

For all your talk about being only against the CCP, you sure show that you don't care about the people. You're blatantly denying anti-Asian racism that's flared up as a result of all this hysteria.

You should atleast check who you're replying to before you throw your toys out of the cot.

Ah you're right, I apologize on that point.

And in any case you completely side-stepped addressing my point that any violence that results from Western hysteria (as you put it) lies squarely at the feet of China. China alone will be responsible for the deaths that result from a forcible invasion of Taiwan. China will share bloodied hands with Russia if they sell arms to Russia to advance its crusade of terror.

So you are endorsing current violence against Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese citizen in the United States, before China has actually performed any invasions?!?

Actually I was being too charitable in my other reply.

"Olaf Scholz suggested that Germany received bilateral assurances from China that it won't supply Russia with weapons for its war against Ukraine.

EU Commission President von der Leyen said she had seen "no evidence" of Chinese considerations to send arms."

https://www.politico.eu/article/china-ukraine-war-russia-wea...

So you're essentially saying that it's okay to attack Asians in the west even though China has not actually supplied weapons to Russia!?!?!

> So you're essentially saying that it's okay to attack Asians in the west

You seem to care alot more about how Chinese people are perceived abroad than you are at home. While covid coming from China caused increased racism against Asian people in the west, it pales in comparison to the human rights violations that occur on a daily basis in China.

Tho I guess welding people into their homes, separating children, killing animals, genocide against an entire ethnic population, social credit system, millions of homes forclosed, banks stealing money and destorying peoples lives, etc. It's all fake western news.

We know this is all fake because harvard released a paper detailing the results of a survey done by a chinese company in a country where all research and surveys must be reviewed by the CCP before being released told us that 98% of the country loves the CCP.

What's the point of raising all these things? I can dispute those claims but at this point it doesn't matter one bit whether those claims are actually true or not.

How does flooding the media with such claims improve human rights in China? They achieve no positive effects for anyone in China: sanctions and war only hurt people. They are also spectacularly effective at making the lives of Asians in the west miserable.

Yet you keep myopically focusing on these claims, heedless of the actual harm they do to innocent people, just so that you can feel like you're being virtuous for raising these claims. You are not actually supporting human rights, you are abusing the very concept to feel good about yourself.

See what I mean, you care more about saving face than the people suffering. "none of its true, I can dispute it, its you who is wrong"

Look, I don't know why you keep replying to me. No one buys your propaganda and conspiracy theories and whataboutism. You can keep getting upset all you want but it doesn't change the fact you're doing nothing more than attempting to protect the CCP.

You've broken the site guidelines so badly in this thread that I've banned your account. This is a longstanding pattern and it's seriously not cool on this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34786906 (Feb 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34227145 (Jan 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29665289 (Dec 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29407968 (Dec 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28590539 (Sept 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22893867 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22880789 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827321 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22827309 (April 2020)

I hate to ban you, because you've been here a long time and you've posted good things. But this kind of abuse is simply not ok, and if we don't ban accounts that break the rules this badly—not to mention ignore this many warnings—we might as well ban nobody.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The Apple-focus is indicative of a wider trend - viewing China and its economy through a Western lens - even seeing what we want to see. The CCP is going nowhere, the market while having taken a recent hit, is in no way about to collapse.

> There are people with entire savings lost in real estate and small business. It's a very volatile situation.

The same could be said of NYC or Switzerland in the previous couple of years too.

Can you clarify what is "the market"? The stock market? The economy?

Export is 20% of China's economy, real estate is another 20-30% of China's economy. That's 50% of the total economy. Based on on the ground estimate (short sale/foreclosure by the court figures), real estate price has collapsed 50%. Based on Hong Kong numbers, export has collapsed 40%. The vicious cycle of collapsing demand -> job losses -> weakening spending -> investments pulling out -> collapsing demand will see no end.

The mind-boggling side for me is that the West is obsessed with Apple leaving China, but never bothers to check where all the EV manufacturers are. Even Tesla, without the Shanghai factory, would probably be doomed.

If I had to put money on which EV company becomes the next major car company of the world, I would almost certainly bet that it's going to be a Chinese one.

So sure, while a stagnant industry that is no longer growing may leave and that sucks, but the next huge growth industry is firmly entrenched in China and dependent on Chinese companies.

Tales of China's demise are grossly exaggerated.

Tesla is building its next major factory in Mexico https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/business/tesla-mexico-plant/i..., that's how much Elon believes in China.

> If I had to put money on which EV company becomes the next major car company of the world, I would almost certainly bet that it's going to be a Chinese one.

Do you mean WM motor? one of the most promising startup https://www.autonews.com/china/wm-motor-pay-cuts-layoffs-sig... where at least 20 percent of WM Motor’s workforce has been laid off since November?

or Didi/Li auto venture? https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas... which declared bankruptcy?

or Nio, whose stock was as high as $62, now below $10?

or BYD, whose stock has been offloaded by Warren Buffet by 1/3 since august of last year?

or China's car industry as a whole https://www.marklines.com/en/statistics/flash_sales/automoti..., whose production dropped 35% and sales dropped 34% in January 2023?

And why would a Chinese car company not be sanctioned/outlawed relating to the CHIP act, or something similar out of Europe?

I know nothing about EVs so I wouldn't be able to tell whether you're right or not, but

> or BYD, whose stock has been offloaded by Warren Buffet by 1/3 since august of last year?

Arguing that a company would fail because Warren Buffet no longer holds their stock seems a bit weak. Berkshire Hathaway doesn't hold a lot of stocks, but you wouldn't say most public companies are doomed to fail. And Berkshire doesn't hold any Telsa stock either.

In any case you might want to revisit your assumptions: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/15/charlie-munger-says-byd-is-f...

Tesla building in Mexico has a lot more to do with the EV subsidy requirements from the IRA than it has to do with China.

> Even Tesla, without the Shanghai factory, would probably be doomed.

That makes no sense whatsoever: all the Teslas (Model 3/Y) produced in the Shanghai plant are meant to be sold in China. Without the Shanghai factory, Tesla wouldn't have much of a Chinese business, BUT it wouldn't affect at all its production capacity for the rest of the world.

The only EVs made in China that are being sold in the USA ATM are the Volvo/Polestar EVs made in Luqiao. There is a huge tax on that (into the USA from China, likewise for cars coming into China from the USA), even BYD opened a factory in california to get around that for their EV bus production (and Tesla's Shanghai plant exists for preferential tax treatment in China, which is a no brainer business move).

Only 60% of Chinese made Teslas are sold in China.

https://insideevs.com/news/630002/china-tesla-ev-sales-decem...

If China is in terminal decline and closing off to the world then why is everybody hysteric about the China Threat? Why is the US throwing increasingly harsh sanctions on China, to the point of coercing allies into sanctioning China as well?

I propose that the media and HN stop reporting on China, and that the US stops sanctioning China. This frees up mind space and resources to focus on domestic problems such as climate change, income inequality, housing, improving democracy, etc. After all China is in decline anyway so no point in worrying about them, right?

China’s involvement in atrocities against Uighurs (including putting them in “reeducation” camps, forcibly sterilizing women, forcing Uighur women to marry chinese men, trying to erase Uighur culture) is reason enough to maintain and increase sanctions. Sure economically countries often ignore things like this, but with the current US orientation against china Increasing, it makes sense to focus on this more.

The US lost a war against Afghanistan FFS. A China in terminal decline is probably still a "threat" to the US in the sense that American Imperialism still wants to believe it can enforce its values by sheer military power.

> Apple, a China laggard, has finally decided to pull the string and move itself and all its related supply chain out of China.

Apple got shaken down by the Chinese government right before Covid. If they didn't finally pull the plug after that, I would have to question whether anybody was awake at the helm.

I wonder what happens when Western megacorps run out of third world to put their factories in.

Hopefully put them in their home countries.

That means wages have equalized in every country, which is a good thing. I was talking with someone a few years ago who is from one of these third world countries who lamented that corporations were coming in. I asked them whether they thought the people who worked there would prefer a relatively stable factory job over backbreaking farm work, factory jobs which usually pay more than the average wage of the area anyway in order to entice people to start working there. Free trade is good.

>That means wages have equalized in every country, which is a good thing.

maybe climate changes makes lots of hotter countries unlivable.

Foreign companies in China will probably do fine as they live in the real world and not in the wild world of politics and speculation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64563855

US-China trade hits record high despite rising tensions

Trade between the US and China hit a record high last year even as their diplomatic relations deteriorated.

Imports and exports between the two countries totalled $690.6bn (£572.6bn) in 2022, official figures show.

Really not sure what trade relations between the US and China has to do with the very general strategic practice of placing factories in countries with low wages and limited worker rights, in order to cut costs.

China is not the cheapest place in terms of labour costs. Hasn't been for decades.

But my point is that contrary to the rhetorics and the politics, western countries hasn't stopped trading with China, actually the opposite has happened.

Increased investment in automation.

Factory work is not going to come back to the west in a big way. Labor costs would make goods more expensive than customers would be willing to pay.

When there are no more humans willing to do the work for cheap, which will happen when the third world catches up with the first world, everyone (including third-world factories) will pivot to robotics and automation as much as possible.

Robots.

"China is terminal" is such a strong meme now that the Chinese will sure find a way to capitalize on it. And pay some royalties to Zeihan

> China's unwavering decision to be friends with Russia with "no limit" is slow changing into "directly giving military aids". US and EU is threatening sanctions on China for this, something that most on this board would consider impossible a year ago.

This is pretty contradictory. If you're friend with no limit, military aid should be clearly on the table. There are in fact hard limits.

China is extremely hesitant to send military aid and have been his entire time. I don't think they will send anything noteworthy personally, but it's more than plausible I'm wrong here.

I'm vaguely optimistic that a Ukranian move to get Crimea within fire control will in fact make the war come to a relatively fast end. Ukraine simply needs to recreate the conditions that led to Russia's flight from Kherson in Crimea. Such a loss will be far more devastating. At that point something needs to give. Fingers crossed for the spring.

China is falling into the Dictator's Trap with Xi. I'm not saying the Communist Party was ideal, but having a system where the entire party kept itself in check worked surprisingly well, and each generation knew the next generation, including their children, would inherit the party and they worked to keep things good and all the factions in check. With Xi, there is no point in any of that. You surround yourself with sycophants and send away anyone who you deem a threat. Your concerns for the country become entirely around how the country can benefit yourself, specifically securing your position as their master until your death. Expect to see a lot more nationalism and isolationism as Xi pits China against the boogeymen countries of the world.

>>> but having a system where the entire party kept itself in check worked surprisingly well, and each generation knew the next generation, including their children, would inherit the party

The system you are talking about was Jiang's faction. Every few years one or the other faction becomes dominant. Now it's Xi's faction. Nothing has changed, it is business as usual.

That's ignoring that Xi ended presidential term limits and stacked the PSC with loyalists. The last Chinese leader with this much concentrated political power was Mao Zedong.

>terminal decline

I don't think so. It boomed epically from Deng Xiaoping opening up to Xi closing down a bit again. But Xi won't be there forever and the place will muddle through. Maybe a temporary relative decline for a decade or so.

China backing Russia only further entrenches Western support for a side that is fundamentally winning the war.

And really, China is backing Putin to a certain degree, not Russia. If Putin's regime falls, the next power structure has a choice:

1) ally with Europe and apologize to the newly empowered Ukraine that is just a couple hundred miles from Moscow (and now has a modern, well-trained Western military of substantial capability), and where all your elites want to travel and live in

2) ally with China who are thousands of miles away, where most significant economic activity is across deserts and mountains, and none of your elites want to visit

> Apple, a China laggard, has finally decided to pull the string and move itself and all its related supply chain out of China.

Is there a citation for that? If so then I have missed it.

> China is in a state of terminal decline

People have been saying this 1949.

And they were right for 35 of those years. Will they be right or wrong in the next 35?

Wealth is a headwind against bad policy. Rich nations can survive many, many bad policies simply because they are rich. The policies it takes to get rich, stay rich, and continue to grow into the future all vary, and the transition is difficult to manage.

I think the relevant question is: are China's current policies pushing the country in the right direction? I don't see how they are.

Jack Ma shows how dangerous it is to be truly successful, so the next generation will at best be more conservative in what they pursue, and at worst won't even try. Given Western money won't be investing any more - the ability to realise capital gains is growing more difficult - and the CCP steals the wealth of potential investors, not being able to pursue big bests is probably inevitable anyway.

China has AWFUL demographics that are getting worse - their population is projected to be 650M by 2100 - and worse it is aging fast, with > 50% post retirement age in the next decade to 3.

On top of that, the CCP has re-emerged as the only force in China. CCP officials see stealing the wealth of other's as their right - a twist on the old joke to "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's fortunes to steal".

Minimal foreign investment, killing internal investment by stealing the wealth of anyone rich, rising wages, awful demographics and a polity determined to remain isolationist (with few to any friends) and knock down the high achievers sounds like a recipe for imminent (in the decades sense) collapse to me. Not to levels of Sub-Saharan Africa, but even just with their population decline, China's GDP is going to fall in absolute terms, even if their GDP PPP per capita can be improved.

The scary thing is a Nuclear China in decline is likely to become increasingly erratic. Hopefully, the war in Ukraine gave China some pause, but having gone from starvation to world's largest economy in a generation, I'm not sure China is equipped for stagnation, let alone decline. I feel bad rooting for a likely vicious and brutal CCP internal crackdown over invasions of their neighbours, but that seems to me the lesser of two possible evils.

Well depends on what terminal decline means. GP added the caveat of regime change. You can't be right for X years and then wrong thereafter, that just meant you were incorrect that there was terminal decline.

> Jack Ma shows how dangerous it is to be truly successful,

There's a conceptual gap that can and should be opened up. "Successful", even "fantastically successful" doesn't mean that you get to start throwing your weight around the state and social order.

It's fundamentally about being bound by the same rules and expectations as everyone else. He shouldn't be able to use his wealth and connections to try to steer the course of the state, or buy his way out of a situation he doesn't like. That sounds pretty damn wholesome and egalitarian to me.

Personally, I have a fair bit of faith in their government, because they have the economic and political levers to rapidly pivot to where the Next Big Thing is. Look at their dominance in solar manufacturing. You can argue it's low value, not innovative, whatever, but they certainly found a way to take over a significant industry that has global impact. Could the West even supply their demand without China's current market share?

I have to wonder if being a single-party state also helps keep their political discourse sane. There's no need to pander to an extremist base to make a candidacy viable, and there's the chance to say what needs to be said without risk of electoral backlash.

and, wow, it was true under Mao.

In 1960, something like 30 million people starved.

GDP up until the 80's was like that of a small US state.

while Mao's era was comically brutal and took a wrecking ball to economic development it also unified the country (China's foremost problem throughout thousands of years of history), life expectancy jumped by 30(!) years, and the country obtained universal literacy. Today in India a quarter of the population is still illiterate.

The evaluation of Mao's legacy seems somewhat emotional, short-sighted and ahistorical given that modern state formation, for example in Europe, was almost always preceded by catastrophic violence.

And of course the rise of China in the following decades invalidates the claim that China 'declined terminally', unless we're literally inverting the meaning of the word 'terminal'.

The evaluation of Mao's legacy seems somewhat emotional

Sorry for getting emotional about 30 million people killed by by a brutal, dictatorial government.

Thanks for putting it in perspective! /s

I mean does perspective not matter if we're talking about history? The Qing conquest killed 30 million, so did the Taiping Rebellion. 40 million died during the Three Kingdom wars, in 200 AD! About half the population at the time. Dynastic historical change in China was always that violent. It's not that unlikely that people in a hundred years, if China continues to develop, look at that period as the foundation for it.

No different than our perspective on Napoleon. Incredibly brutal, brought war to Europe, but also implemented the civic code, arguably the most influential legal document in history.

I see a difference between millions of deaths due to war and millions of deaths due to government incompetence/policy/brutality?

By your logic the 6 million killed in the Holocaust shouldn't be such a big deal either.

Of course it's a big deal, but certainly we're more mature than descending into Godwin's law two posts into the conversation?

Mao despite his failures is the foundational figure of modern China. He's not Hitler, who brought ruin not just to the Jewish population but to Germany as well. Mao still matters in China, Hitler doesn't in Germany. It's historically impoverished to grasp for Hitler analogies and having a reflexive panic attack every time Mao is up for discussion. Same with Stalin. Both still have significant influence in Russia and China, among the people as well as leaders and understanding why that is makes some sense.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Earlier you said "The Qing conquest killed 30 million, so did the Taiping Rebellion. 40 million died during the Three Kingdom wars, in 200 AD! About half the population at the time."

I'm not sure how one could interpret that as anything other "no big deal Mao killed a lot of people, lots of people have died in other empires".

And you're somehow conflating their legacy with the death toll. Those are separate things. Mao's brutal rule can be condemned while at the same time acknowledging his influence on China today.

And I would argue that Hitler had a massive influence on what Germany is today. Look at its role in the EU and its policy towards other countries and conflicts.

> that modern state formation, for example in Europe, was almost always preceded by catastrophic violence

Am I reading this correctly? As in to have the modern Europe, you'd have needed WW2?

not only modern Europe itself is the consequence of war, but so are its individual nation states. Bismarck explicitly engineered the three so-called unification wars because he believed that German unity was only achievable while facing an enemy, hence the symbolic founding of the nation in Versailles.

Same is true for America really. The country transformed twice, once through civil war and then into a superpower with a modern state during World War II. Military competition and war both internal and external are by far the strongest drivers of modernization.

> In 1960, something like 30 million people starved.

Interestingly if you check wikipedia it appears that China had major famines every decade or up until that particular one, and nothing since then.

> People have been saying this 1949.

...And they would have been right until the 1980s. "If only Taiwan were unified with the mainland in the 1950s, they also could have experienced the horrors of the cultural revolution" is not great marketing for reunification.

China was in terminal decline in the late 1800s. The period until 1980s was not decline, it was attempt to recover with various success. Mistakes were made, but success were also made. Despite the famine, life expectancy was steadily increasing during the Cultural Revolution, in no small part thanks to the "barefoot doctors" program of organizing and allocating medical personnel.

Western comments on the Cultural Revolution is one-sided and myopic. The Great Famine was a failure to recover. It was also the last famine: famines were a regularly occurring event even before PRC. And Taiwan also wasn't a great place back then.

Well, although arguably not as bad as mainland China under Mao's rule. Taiwan didn't have any democracy back then (before late 1980s). And interestingly, the US was OK with Kuomintang's dictatorship.

Oh for sure. The reason Taiwanese dislike mainlanders ruling them so much is probably more due to Chiang Kai Shek than Mao Zedong. They would just have nothing to do at all with Chinese politics, they don't want to be ROC as much as they don't want to be PRC.

The USA was actually on China's side about supporting Pol Pot, with Vietnam against. Things are definitely blurred in history.

> China is in a state of terminal decline and closing off to the world, barring any huge macro trend reversal (CCP loses power)

While everyone would love this to be true, I've been hearing this shit for a decade.

I'll believe it when there are Islamic dronelords rampaging through the hinterlands of Sinkiang province, neo-steppe cyberwarriors laying waste to Peking, and Elon Musk has a territorial concession over Shenzhen.

That's what a proper true-blue "China collapse" scenario looks like in the 21st century, accept no substitutes.

>While everyone would love this to be true

Please speak for yourself only. Also, not everyone want bad things for others because of some hatred guided by politicians. PRC is no worse than the US - just different.