• matlag@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    We’ve been hearing about this decades.

    Yes, you’ve been hearind that for decades, just like climate change: if you wait for an abrupt treshold with a clear before/after cut , you’re going to wait for a while.

    China has developed an advanced high speed trains network. You have no idea how much US looks backward on that.

    China still opens coal burning power plants, jut also a very large number of renewable and nuclear power plants. They’re serious about electrification.

    They took the lead in scientific publication.

    US needs to put up tariffs to protect its car makers from being wiped out by Chinese ones. Western car makers rely more and more on Chinese batteries suppliers.

    All the signs are there. You just need to ackowledge them.

    People underestimate just how corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent the Chinese system is under the CCP.

    As compared to what? In the US, corruption is legal, it’s called campaign donation and SuperPAC. At this stage, elections pick which pack of oligarchs will rule: GOP donators or Dems donators.

    If the system is so much better, where are the high speed trains, advanced power grid, decarbonation plan, school that can get high potentials to the top, decent healthcare system?

    Where are the fruits of this less corrupt dysfunctional and incompetent system?

    China’s isolation give it the illusion that it’s better, but in reality, it’s even worse.

    Alother delusion from local US news. China is not that isolated, they have developed deep relations with a number of countries in Africa and middle east, and they’re a privileged trade partner with many more. Worse even: with the current US policy of tariffs, several countries that were reluctant to have deeper ties with China are pushed in their arms.

    Every major Chinese achievement from their mass transit system to their big corporations to their economic growth to them pulling ahead technologically to so many more, all come with big asterisks attached that make them much more questionable.

    Meaning what? Their high speed trains are absolutely working. In large cities, half of the cars in the street are electric cars, majority from domestic brands and a few Tesla. They have very advanced and very cheap mass transit networks.

    As I was saying: it’s just like global warming: if you sit and wait claiming it’s not really happening and/or not that bad, you’re totally unprepared when disasters hit you.

    The only thing I will agree with you here is their emonomy is not half as great as they want to claim. The estate market has been in a free fall in all but the big 4 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guandong, Shenzhen).

    But if the US wants to be the first power of the rest of the 21st century world, they need to wake up!

    • LePoisson@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      This is the dawn of the new Chinese century. I have no doubt in 20 more years China will be in an even stronger position as the USA continues to decline.

      We, the USA, could do all the stuff that would make us competitive. That would require more socialism, more taxing of billionaires, more spending in green energy, education, transportation, healthcare becoming affordable and an actual human right for all in our borders, a real plan to transition off fossil fuels and shore up our domestic energy production and electric grid.

      Idk more than that of course but that’s the elevator pitch.

      We won’t do it though because corrupt capitalism and the oligarchy.

      Maybe we will if at some point enough of us are struggling but we’re pretty fat and have plenty of entertainment to distract us even if we are being fucked. So … Yeah … Desperately hoping I’m wrong about most of my predictions, devastated as I keep seeing them come true.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        This is the dawn of the new Chinese century.

        Betting on a totalitarian kleptocracy saving the world is as unwise as betting in the 1980s that already overworked Japanese wage slaves could be overworked even further.

        • LePoisson@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I didn’t say they were going to save the world, no more than the USA did or any nation state turned empire.

          I do think China will eclipse America when it comes to being in a position of strong global leadership and the hegemonic power on the world stage. The USA seems to be shirking our duties, reshaping and destroying our society’s moral fabric, racing towards worse and worse education results and hellbent on making sure our healthcare is broken and our people are fat and dumb.

          It’s not a winning recipe, even with a military that can dominate.

          Every country has its problems and its demons, China is no different and certainly their problems are complex and grand. As far as greater or lesser evils - I’d put the USA and China about on par for all the fucked up stuff we have done the past hundred years and keep doing now.

          I’d love to at least visit China sometime - honestly there’s so much fascinating history and getting to see a different approach to community building and infrastructure planning would be neat.