...not to mention being able to build a nuclear power plant anywhere they like without resistance from the local population, environmentalists etc.
- A data centre using the site of an old landfill. - A data centre next to an oil refinery. - A film studio using the site of a disused quarry. - A solar farm. That one was opposed by Greens. - A housing development, by a roundabout.
And organised campaigns on environmental grounds against:
- A cycle bridge, built next to a railway bridge. A grade-separated railway bridge, in case you were wondering about safety concerns. - A sewage works, near greenbelt land. Not on greenbelt land. Servicing a conurbation that currently dumps raw sewage into the local river. Also opposed by Greens, naturally.
Dare I even say that, after writing a forty-five thousand page environmental report for Hinckley, legal objections - based on matters clearly covered by said report - continued?
Or everything to do with HS2? Also, again, naturally most vocally opposed - by vocally, I mean by trespass - near me by Greens.
Or literally any wind turbines visible by anyone. Including offshore.
Our local democracy, like a fair few other institutions I can think of, was built by idiots with no concept that said system could be abused, from inside (I've not mentioned bribery, have I?) and outside. And so it's a tool of abusers. If the only way China could avoid that abuse was to override the locals entirely, that's a shame. But I can't in good conscience say they've picked wrong.
I think you are being too harsh on said "idiots". These democratic mechanisms were built in times when no one knew what Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V meant, and when it was an order of magnitude harder to organize any campaign.
It is like calling Vauban idiot, because his fortifications are not designed to withstand air attacks. He wasn't in a position to anticipate this way of attack, and neither were the pre-Internet regulators.
The other reality - everyone had nice houses with views and didn't want to see solar panels :) So after fighting and protecting for things like solar, they now only wanted the solar to be forced on folks elsewhere. The project was actually super cool otherwise - an old school type business was going to go green in part with this project.
This is not true. People do protest, and project gets cancelled.
For example, the strike at BYD's factory due to wage cuts and silent layoffs a couple weeks ago [0] (the original QQ post was taken down under the NSL [1]), a work stoppages and strikes in Anhui [2], Guangzhou [3], and Shandong [4] a week ago, as well as Workers Call for Help (basically workers complaints to the govt that often turn into strikes if not listened to) [5]
The issue is Western reporters don't really use Chinese social media and aren't monitoring it, and in a lot of cases can't even really speak or read Mandarin.
Also, China is not that centralized. In most of these protests, the organizers take efforts to point out they are protesting against local functionaries, not Beijing - and they aren't wrong, as Deng's reforms devolved power significantly to the local and provincial level.
In China, it tends to be the working class and poor (rural and urban) that tend to protest the most as they have the least to lose and are the ones that face the brunt of economic slowdowns.
[0] - https://archive.is/dwGdd
[1] - https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/io1cSoE_i_pohJEoDOjkgw
[2] - https://v.kuaishou.com/EokPBo
[3] - https://v.kuaishou.com/CXrU74
[4] - https://v.m.chenzhongtech.com/fw/photo/3xxbacwt646zfwu?fid=3...
[5] - https://liuyan.people.com.cn/threads/mobilelist?tid=20864736...
I am no fan of the Chinese government but failing to acknowledge that they do some things right and learn from it, is how we fall behind as a people and let them take over the global world order.
If the western world wants to claim it’s better, it needs to actually be better.
It's fairly easy and we already are.
For example, free speech. I guarantee you the videos I linked will be removed from Kuaishou in a couple weeks for "unspecific legal reasons".
Or the fact that we can protest without having to put pretentions about why we protest.
Or the fact that we can have this very discussion on HN without being banned.
Or the fact that you don't have to jump through hoops to find information in almost every case.
Or the fact that if you feel your speech is being infringed upon, you can actually work with the civil society actor of your choice to litigate.
Or the fact that the poorest states of the US have a higher HDI than all of China (let alone most of China's provinces).
At the end of the day, we need to remember that civil liberties are the steroid needed for innovation.
The West's:
- free speech helped it productionize LLMs well before China
- support of a liberal democracies and alliances helped diffuse semiconductor technologies like Lithography, EDAs, and Wafers to European (ASML, STMicro, Infineon), Japanese (Tokyo Electron, Nikon), South Korean (Samsung, SK Group, LG), Taiwanese (TSMC, PSMC), and Israeli (Tower) companies and partners, building out a global supply chain
- support for social diversity allowed a naturalized Germany from Turkey and a naturalized American from Hungary to invent and productize mRNA vaccines
- concentration on mutual development that lead to ADB, WB, EU, and IMF grants that helped stabilize and develop China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, and Indonesia economies from LDCs to Middle Income countries
Concentrating on shoring up our allies (existing and upcoming) and well as recognizing that we are the part of the same team will allow us as a whole succeed as a society. There's no reason for the "Free World" to be American run alone
- Japan+SK+Taiwan+Australia have a massive footprint in democratizing and liberalizing much of Asia
- the EU plays a massive role in democratizing much of Eastern and Southern Europe
- Countries in the Americas like Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina are still flawed, yet are much freer than they were 30 years ago after the US adopted it's change in policy
It begs the question that if liberalism is incompatible with doing great things, then why commit to it? I don’t believe it is, but falling back on excuses like that just seeds doubt in our true competency.
Pretending like China can’t do good things because of some preconceived notion that they are evil, and failing to admit that China actually is outclassing us in many things and that we can do better, is a great way to let that world order crumble.
Fair enough, and it's a line of thinking I agree with you about.
I detest "othering" - be it Westerners who do it about China, or vice versa. We're all psychotic apes so there's no point having a superiority complex based on identity.
China imposed a moratorium on inland nuclear construction following the 2011 Fukushima accident, which impedes nuclear from hitting the 10% of power generation goal.
While surveys show nuclear has public support, Chinese citizens have more negative views towards building reactors inland.
“Considering current social and economic pressures, the Chinese government probably deems it too risky to lift the inland nuclear moratorium and agitate the public further,” commented Philip Andrews-Speed of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in an interview.
the May 2024 Wilson Centre pushback on nuclear China concerns.
Also a concept of "Ecological civilization" is currently a key part of the CCP policy framework and, regardless of how others see this, wind, solar, and nuclear are all seen as technologies for an ecologically sensible and sustainable future .. currently being paid for with coal expansion for "seed energy" and planned retirement of coal.
Various publications cover this, eg: the French Groupe d'études géopolitiques in: https://geopolitique.eu/en/issues/chinas-ecological-power-an...
and (Wilson Centre again) Ecological Civilization Goes Global: China’s Green Soft Power and South-South Environmental Initiatives https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ecological-civiliza...
Proposals to build plants inland, as China ends a moratorium on new generators imposed after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, are particularly risky, the physicist He Zuoxiu said, because if there was an accident it could contaminate rivers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for water and taint groundwater supplies to vast swathes of important farmlands.
The context of "inland" here is near rivers and farmland that provide food and water for the population that live in dense urban areas nearer the coast.
Both could be true, just talking about different moratoriums, or one lifted then reimposed, both may have errors, etc.
It really needs a far better China watcher than myself to clarify.
It makes sense because the Chinese public is like any other public and very NIMBY and scared of meltdowns. The CCP is authoritarian, but they do take public sentiment into account.
Misinformation (some of which is government supported) like the Fukushima Water Discharge and the constant reporting about anti-Nuclear protests in Japan (in an attempt to bloody Japan's nose) also hurt the support of nuclear power in China [2]
[0] - https://fjb.nea.gov.cn/dtyw/jgdt/202311/t20231110_200899.htm...
[1] - https://power.m.ofweek.com/2021-04/ART-35007-8420-30494525.h...
[2] - https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/anti-japanese-feeling-rises-i...