Quote:
|
Originally Posted by irishworld
I think its super interesting that you all mention India in the same breath as China.. its an interesting comparasion.
Although you are correct that in general the education in IN is superior, that is rapidly changing in China, and there is no reason to believe that China will not accelerate beyond China in coming years.
PRC centraized control over resources and programs allows them to address and rectify issues far more rapidly than India- I believe that in the long run this will push them well ahead of India. Democracy is slow and inefficient. In a society of billions, with resource crunches and no particular cultural value placed on individual expressive freedoms, China's system will provide far better in the near term than IN democracy is.
Without getting into the morality of the issue, look at the population controls that China has been able to institute that IN can't come close too. China's population growth has leveled, whereas there is little hope that IN will be able to control it and provide for a skyrocketing population.
The scale argument just doesnt work. The US was 10x larger than any European country at the turn of the century and most made teh same scale arguments about the US ability to provide and bridge the wealth gap.
Here is the thing- yes, urban areas are getting richer faster than rural areas. The average rural income has doubled since 1990, and the average urban income increased nearly ten-fold. Although there may be some resentment that ones neighbors are getting richer faster, EVERONE IS GETTING RICHER. so long as this is the trend, people will not risk thier demonstrably increasing wealth to fight for more wealt, beyond a few grumblings. Don't underestimate the power of national pride either- China is like the US in 1950 in that sense, but even more so. We are in this together, blazing a new world...
China has the necessary central government controls to do things faster and more efficiently than any other country on earth...and although corruption exists, the Party recognises that its legitimacy rests on people getting richer- witness recent central gov't crackdowns on provincial corruption.
Say what you want about inefficiency, but iff experience has taught me anything, the chinese in insatiably practical - you have to work things thier way, but they will get worked. So long as thier system works for them, it will be us Laowai's adjusting. And as more and more are educated abroad and work in FDI generated companies, well management will come to be a practical hybrid...
Call be crazy, but I am glad I speak Chinese...barring huge fuckups the Chinese have a fantastic system of testing new policies, gradually and efficiently putting them in place, and the top-down ability to refine as needed.
|
I agree with much of what you say, but being in the rural areas, where I have spent the majority of my time, they often have drastically different views than the "urban" or more metropolitan areas. The arguement that the poor are getting wealthier is true, but the same can be said for the US. Even the poor are making more money, but it doesn't outstrip the pace of inflation and doesn't remotely approach the middle class/wealthy. Roughly 1 billion people are still just destatutely poor, struggling day to day to just eat enough to survive. They are essentially no better off now than they were 10 years ago.
I think there are tremendous benefits to their government and social system, the ever present opression and blatant corruption not-withstanding.
There's still one example that stands out in my head. I was sitting outside a bar with some friends (westerners) when someone from the hotel next door complained the music the bar was playing was too loud. Next thing you know, the cops get up, pull all the native chinese out of their seats, put them back in the bar. They let us sit there until we got up. Once we got up, they would take the chair, but we could have sat their all night. I appreciated them letting us sit there, but found it odd and couldn't help but notice the looks on the faces of the "locals".
Where'd you spend the majority of your time? I should get insight into a different area as I'll be spending this upcoming week in Beijing (leaving tomorrow for a 4-6 week business trip).
