To clarify, I don’t believe in the surface level propaganda thrown in China’s way about “1984 dystopian society,” “Mao killed 60 million people,” “Xinjiang concentration camps” or things like that.

I’m curious about a few negative factors of China that have become widespread knowledge over the past decade or so by even the politically literate audience, and I want to learn how accurate these things are, how prevalent they are in today’s society in China, and how much it would impact the day to day life of someone living in China.

  1. Quality control, I have read stories about Chinese factories producing guns, steel, industrial goods, consumer goods, food products, far below acceptable or safe standards, leading to construction/infrastructure failure and severe health complications. There are also claims that smaller restaurants in China today still sometimes use very low quality ingredients that can result in serious health issues. How much of an issue is this?

  2. Population issue. The Chinese population trend is going in a unfavorable direction right now, and there are reports of young people not wanting to have children because of cultural and cost reasons. How much of an issue is this, and will China end up like Korea and Japan in another decade or two?

  3. Unemployment, it is a fact right now that Chinese people have a 20% unemployment issue due to an abundance of university graduates without sufficient jobs to match this supply. And this has caused internal competition to swell to unreasonable standards leading some people to straight up give up on their careers and become full time neets. Are there any positive trends or actions to resolve this issue?

  4. Education. The education system sounds terrifying in China right now, children as young as elementary schoolers having to sleep only 6 hours a night to finish their homework from school and tutoring services. I have also read that after the government banned tutoring of core classroom subjects, illegal tutoring services have become a thing. I would laugh at how this would be the most asian issue ever if I wasn’t so horrified by the situation. Is there any government effort to resolve this right now?

  5. Nepotism. From what I have heard and read, using connections to obtain positions and resources in China is still very common. How bad is this, and are there any reforms or policies tackling it?

  6. Mannerisms and emotional intelligence of the average person. There are frequent complaints about Chinese people being horrible tourists, being extremely rude, having the emotional maturity of a donut until at least the age of 30, and also taking advantage of anything free to disgusting levels (I have personally seen old Chinese ladies take out a container and fill it with ketchup from a restaurant where the condiments are self served). I understand the reasoning behind this, China in it’s current iteration is a relatively new country, and the education received by different generations varies massively in quality, with only really Gen Z on average obtaining a level of education that is on par with western populations. I just want to ask how bad this is in day to day life, and if it is tolerable.

Thanks for reading my somewhat long post, I’d appreciate any response, you don’t have to respond to all of my points, any point would be fine. I want to have a positive impression of China but these points are really bugging me right now.

  • comvedml@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    I don’t understand why people in the west are so much into Chinese problems, man we indians have hell lot of problems, have you seen your media focusing on unemployment, casteism, racism, tribalism, fascism in India? Sure china has 1.4 billion people and have high degree of urbanization, education, research and development , sure they should face problems. We don’t live in an utopian society. Compare to Indians, they are living far far far better off and dont compare your western state to China. China didn’t invade your country to begin with, neither it did colonization of Africa for 200 years.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      People in the west usually forget India exists. Most people don’t know anything about the awful shit that happens there, because India isn’t the enemy right now. Though as a major part of BRICS, the US is probably going to start talking about how “evil and vile” Indians are soon enough. :/

        • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          I have a feeling that our government will insist that those damn Orientals just kiss the ring already. Then gets a massive shock when SE Asia doesn’t bow down and do whatever the enlightened white nation says.

      • comvedml@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        India is a large shithole compared to China. Here most Hindus have the mentality of Nazi Germany of 1930s. I am a hindu myself but man, the racism, the sheer bigotry, the sheer indifference towards crime against Muslims , Christians and lower caste people is unparalleled in history of India. Rapists are roaming free, Mosques , sufi shrines are being demolished, poor Muslim households are bulldozed by Nazi state governments for protesting against the RSS/VHP. Unemployment is the highest, people resort to cyber crimes, hate propaganda for RSS to fullfil their stomach needs. Man, bourgeois democracy after fascism is the worst for humanity.

      • comvedml@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        People in the west are largely nutjobs, I was in a Carl Zha twitter space where people from Australia and New Zealand were speaking about the arrests made in China linked with Covid protocol and disinformation. The tone was very condescending and bigoted towards Chinese people , as if westerners know about China more than Chinese themselves and they are “Chinese” more than the native Chinese people . And the diaspora of both countries are the worst in the west , Indian diaspora in the US are mostly bigoted and arrogant right wing nutters and some chinese also fall into the same category specially the correspondents of MSM.

        • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yep. So many people here will take the word of a random white guy who went to China for 6 months for a “business trip” than someone who has lived there their entire life.

    • Khabib@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      How do comments of these two’s quality have so many upvotes? Is this some lemmy.world psyop brigade lmao?