Political Memes

I'm gonna butcher this but I heard a quote once like "Countries think in decades, China thinks in centuries" and it feels true enough. China makes big plays that don't pay off for a long time but when they do....

They are prostitutes for Russia though.

Trading private oligarchs for a one-party authoritarian state isn't exactly a win though.

Especially when seeing what they've done to oppress Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong democratic protesters, etc.

It doesn't also change the fact that there are many very rich people in China, and they more behave like Russia where if you play ball with the mafia state you'll be rich; but if you don't, there's a window.

They don’t just disappear them, they hold trials and execute them for their crimes.

They usually come back, though, suddenly enlightened by the right path.

Is this a bad thing?

You mean these flattening emissions while manufacturing most of the worlds finished goods along with a lot of the inputs for our manufacturing?

So how does it look if we break down where the many products China produces for others are actually sold?

Many countries at the top of that list outsourced a lot of their manufacturing and production to China, meaning they no longer create the industrial pollution locally to make the products actually consume. So their pollution is artificially lowered by that outsourcing while China's is inflated.

A lot of that pollution is Western pollution outsourced to China.

It's like how California has a water crisis because its agriculture is supporting half the country, making their per capita water usage insane.

Here is the Ginni link, it isn't updated often but China isn't exactly topping the list

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coefficient-by-country

There are a lot of things China does badly but not the ones you mentioned.

Comparing China to Europe is apples and oranges. Europe didn’t start the last century as a feudal backwater with ~~3 centuries~~ a century of imperialists extracting its wealth and invading to get its citizens addicted to opium. China was unimaginably poor even 50 years ago. The fact that their economy is so strong now is frankly astounding, and a true testament to the effectiveness of socialism.

The inequality has led to crazy situations. For instance, people from cities are banned from buying property in rural areas because they would price locals out of the market. However this ban also extends to institutions, which means that effectively banks (being urban) are banned from offering mortgages on rural properties which creates real problems for the locals who then can’t afford the properties anyway.

Western countries, American in particular, are very short term minded. China knows not to aggravate the very same people that give them consent and social contract to be in power in the first place.

This is not a China-praise thread, but an America-hate thread. It is being done by pointing out that an objectively shitty empire is somehow managing to do the obviously correct thing where the entire western world seems to have chosen social suicide.

I don't know if you're aware, but the Chinese have a leadership philosophy similar to the social contract called "mandate of heaven". It's been the cornerstone of Chinese leaders since the imperial dynastic days. A leader's authority is supreme but only if they could sustain the well being of the population. The subjects are willing to look over some of the personal liberty being infringed, if the overall well being of the population is well looked after. China's leading role in green energy did create jobs for many people. And not only that, it has a strategic purpose of weaning off of oil consumption for the country. The only reason that the global oil price did not shoot up to $200 as predicted this year is because China, the biggest oil importer, immediately stopped imports and their green energy kicked in to gear. Meanwhile, many countries are experiencing inflation and social unrest because they are too short sighted to have invested in renewable energy long ago.

Also weirdly enough, they are more capitalist than capitalist countries themselves. China do not bail out failed companies. Free market advocates will say if a company fails, it's their fault. And yet, the same free market advocates will demand government bail out. I'm pretty sure not bailing out companies is a popular sentiment for the public.

Lastly, they have extensive capital flight controls and rein their billionaires. Meanwhile, many countries are beholden and afraid to tax the wealthy for fear that "they will leave with their wealth and businesses" (it's not like the wealthy already did that when they offshored industries to poorer countries with very low worker rights and regulatory standards). Actually, I am more impressed with Vietnam because the government threatened to execute a billionaire who made money from defrauding clients, if that billionaire did not return half of the money. In the West, most only get a slap on the wrist with very lenient sentencing or no prosecution at all in the aftermath of the 2009 financial crisis.

According to the Chinese news south South China Morning News there are 81 billionaires across China's congress, and it's advisory board. According to Hurun Report there are 209 people across these bodies that have more than 100 million dollars. According to a variety of Chinese sources the majority of the people making up these government bodies have more than 1 million dollars. It is widely agreed China's legislature, if not the richest, would be in second place.

To make a comparison the 50 richest people of the US congress are worth a combined 1.6 billion, and China's top 50 are worth 95 billion. China also has a per capita amount of congress members that exceeds the US significantly in millionaires.

The richest person in US congress is Darrell Issa with 355 million The richest person in China's congress is Zong Qinghou with 19 billion