Socialism

I want that hat in the thumbnail.

Also not falling for new narratives on China either. I don't support any country that doesn't legalize LGBT rights.

Way way back in the day, I wrote a graduate symposium paper on why China was going to become a global power. I was right, and in my presentation at a hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea (so posh...) I stated that many younger people weren't viewing China as any worse than the US. Some were viewing China as the lesser of two evils in a world plagued by, for lack of a better term, oligarchical bull shit.

No nation at the top of the world stage is great, but when you look at thing amorally, China is beating out other countries in a number of places right now, the seeds of which were sown 15 years ago. These include infrastructure, renewable energy spending, mass production of higher (note I said higher, not high) quality consumer goods (cars and battery tech came out on top), education, and well-being for the population. Yes, you can double take, but China has actually invested pretty heavily in healthcare outcomes and population well-being in a way that makes places like the US or UK look laughable because I include transportation infrastructure in that measurement. I'll have an aside below you may find interesting...

On the flip side, today's younger people don't know about the violence of the 1980s and 1990s. China's invasion of Vietnam. The abhorrent human rights abuses then, and the abhorrent human rights abuses of now. The now is important because, China is socially engineering it's population and using very hard engineering via a party approved justice system to ensure China is what the CCP and Xi want. But they don't see it. They see Epstein, Putin, endless wars, inflation, christo-fascism, and a stable and non-confrontational China.

So I get it. And, as RejZor said, Tsingtao beer is pretty good when you compare it to the other "national" brands.

Aside: There's a story from a British journalist I can't find, but is burned into my memory. I think it's from Ken Burns' The West. He observed the Americans built the state capitol of Montana way off in the middle of seemingly nowhere. Might have been a city hall, but whatever. The Americans said the city would grow over to it, and they were looking ahead. That's what China is doing now with their high speed rail, highways, and solar projects. They are building for tomorrow. That's huge and people who are living in a world of potholes, education cuts, and rising prices see that and say, "Hey, they're doing some good shit over there."