There is a bizarre reverence and worship for China I have observed with some Americans. Yes, you can build things faster and have smooth 5% YoY growth if you don’t have property rights and manipulate the statistics
They have high speed rail connecting the whole country, and lots of other stuff which is real and not a number in a spreadsheet. They crashed their housing sector by building too much.
We like China's progress. But let's keep it real.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses#Criticism_and_The...
> Moses's critics charge that he preferred automobiles over people. They point out that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City and destroyed traditional neighborhoods by building multiple expressways through them. The projects contributed to the ruin of the South Bronx and the amusement parks of Coney Island, caused the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants Major League Baseball teams to relocate to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively, and precipitated the decline of public transport from disinvestment and neglect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain_in_the_United_S...
Here's one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9561895
There's a whole sector of articles about how racism fueled the highway boom in American cities, when those people affected had lot less right to vote. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/07/984784455/a-brief-history-of-... It's still happening https://apnews.com/article/environment-houston-pollution-71c... But the average HN reader probably does not live in such a neighborhood nor know anyone who does.
The differnece today in the US is not that they dont bulldoze its that before they bulldoze there is years of political battle.
I follow various groups around the US that try to fight highway expansions and the almost always lose in the end.
So there really isnt much moral high ground here.
Having a nuanced view of a complex topic is probably essential for proper understanding.
And yeah, credit where credit is due, I think no observer seriously doubts the great feat China pulled off in such a short period of time, even if the stats are not reliable. People travel there, Jobs warned about this years ago.
And between US, Russia and Israel, China is the least obnoxious villain in my news feed. They somehow conquer the world without cringe overdrive and the undignified post-pretending social media executive memefare. China does not make me wanna drive a dining fork into my frontal lobe, it’s more like the cough that doesn’t go away.
Listen, I am not at all celebrating Chinese politics as absolute, their grave human rights violations, minority suppression, the Uyghur genocide or imperialist ambitions. I am not even saying they are the least, in fact they are probably the most dangerous. But they contribute little to the erosion of political dignity in my reality.
Anyway, it got me thinking that mostly the freedoms we are afforded, which are very precious to me, seem to come at great cost. A cost people under countries like China would rather bear when the affordances are clean streets, no or little homelessness and the freedom to consume luxury assets.
Every time I visit the US (frequently) I'm just assaulted by its continual, very visible rot. Cities like Seattle and Los Angeles are just fundamentally unsafe places to walk around in. The huge climb of school shootings over the last decade should have everyone alarmed. Americans appear to be stuck in the race to the bottom of who can be the greatest victim and the truly extreme painting of the Left or Right depending on which side you're on because people would rather obsess and come into conflict over what gender they can identify as or race guilt (or its opposite if you're a minority) rather than unite over common class struggles that are eating the country alive.
I think most people would rather pick comfort and safety over the freedom to say what you want and a right to privacy. I'm not sure I blame them when the alternative is getting sexually assaulted trying to walk to your car in LA (speaking from many many second-hand stories of American friends) or having your kid shot and killed in school.
You dont need China dictatorship to not have dirty fucked up public places.
I’d never want to live under Trump's censorship, lack of civil rights, the weird errors caused by centralized economic control
I have a feeling however, that since the leftist priorities these days are so ridiculous to the regular voter that you'll just get another republican president
You are weirdly naive about thinking Trump has any respect for democracy and that his camp isn't going to do everything possible to maintain power at all cost.
Between the ones who apparently can’t fathom a world where other countries are as economically successful as the USA and see it as a threat and the ones who are fascinated by its authoritarian policies, it’s really hard to have a dispassionate conversation involving China.
By "own" you mean 70 year leases with ??? renewal conditions?
> Urban land use rights in Mainland China were typically granted for fixed terms: 70 years for residential, 50 years for office or industrial, and 40 years for commercial purposes. As these terms approach expiration, the question of renewal becomes paramount. The legal framework, primarily the Property Law and the Urban Real Estate Administration Law, provides a general outline but leaves specific implementation to local governments.
> Mainland China’s Property Law (Article 149) and The Civil Code of Mainland China (Article 359) guarantee automatic residential land use right renewals but provides no specific arrangement in respect of non-residential terms. Currently, without detailed implementation guidelines, local governments devise varied approaches, skewing valuations and unsettling investors. This uncertainty hinders market efficiency.
https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/greater-china/insights/b...
But yeah, you could argue that you have to pay property taxes in USA and if you don't, you'll eventually lose your land
20 years ago you couldn’t see in Shanghai. Trump pulled back the clean air act, it’s not hard to see a trend. It’s also not hard to buy a ticket and see it yourself.
No. There isn't. It's just that we've gotten sick of the bullshit and lies from the anti-china propagandists like you.
> Yes, you can build things faster and have smooth 5% YoY growth if you don’t have property rights and manipulate the statistics
If they can build things faster, what need is there to manipulate the statistics? If the chinese don't have property rights, then how come they own so much property?
When you and your kind spout such nonsense over and over again, people tend to get sick of it.
Yes. There is. Obviously both are happening simultaneously because the world is complicated.
A lot to unpack here. You completely blipped over the part about “no property rights” which is pretty clear when you look at, for example, how their rail construction projects go. Choochoo, rail is coming through, time to move this village, no eminent domain payments necessary.
> If the chinese don't have property rights, then how come they own so much property?
If ownership of a half-finished concrete shell by a bankrupt construction firm on the 33rd floor is counted as “owning property”, then the statistics will look pretty good.
I guess my point is rights and freedoms are unequally held, regardless of a nation’s stated values and laws. What makes/made the US great is not that things happening in China couldn’t happen here. It’s that we (used to?) aspire to greater ideals about individual freedom even if it isn’t present for all. CCP and I think Chinese citizens are under no such illusion, and in some cases reject the individual for the collective. (I’m hedging a bit since my understanding is limited second-hand anecdotes from Chinese American friends).
Better than exterminating the natives to build railroads? Using your logic we don't have property rights in the US either.
> no eminent domain payments necessary.
Doesn't explain nail houses though.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-house...
> If ownership of a half-finished concrete shell by a bankrupt construction firm on the 33rd floor is counted as “owning property”, then the statistics will look pretty good.
Yes. 1.4 billion people live in half-finished concrete shells.
Come up with something better. You guys are getting boring repeating the same nonsense over and over again.
That's why China ends up with cases like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FkePxUA6UE8
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China is not individualist in a selfish way like the west. Collectivism is a good concept.
Thank god their property rights are not barbaric like the west.
Now, there are those they believe the difference in freedom is worth that technological advancement. I’m not so sure.
COVID was a great example of this. China was able to slow the virus spreading faster than the US since they were literally locking people into their homes. In the US, this didn’t happen because of the rights we have.