Well part of it is China was a severely underdeveloped country. They had to play catch up and so they traded access to their large labor market in exchange for technology transfers agreements.
That said, I think it would be incorrect to say their economy is currently based on copying. They publish more high impact research papers these days than any other country and are technological leaders particularly in green energy. This has been such a rapid change though that I think people’s perceptions of the Chinese economy lag the reality.
They treat Taiwan that way because the Chinese civil war was never fully resolved. The US interfered to prevent the communists from taking Taiwan and ousting Chiang Kai-shek’s fascist KMT. As such, the CPC sees persistent US support for Taiwanese independence as an implicit threat against their sovereignty.
You’re not wrong. The CPC see Taiwanese independence as a threat because the US prevented them from taking it during the Chinese civil war. The US knows this and clearly intends to use Taiwan as a pressure point to gain diplomatic leverage against China. That makes it a high stakes game with the Taiwanese people caught in the middle and no resolution in sight.
Given that context, it’s not surprising most people in Taiwan want to maintain the status quo and prevent any escalation. However, as tensions rise between the US and China the political tensions in Taiwan rise with them.
Sure but the tensions between China and the US never went away. You may not have Chiang Kai Shek seeking US support in order to invade the mainland. That much is true. However, the US is still very much interested in keeping Taiwan within its sphere of influence as part of a militaristic strategy of containment aimed at China.
I don’t think the US state department cares much for the welfare of Taiwanese people in all of this. If you have any doubts about how the US operates all you have to do is look at its relationship with Israel today.
Then I’m not sure you know much about the motivations of Xi, the CPC, or the US for that matter. Since the 80s both sides only real interest has been economic growth. The US was fine with Chinas growth for decades as long as they provide the US a source of cheap labor. However now, China’s economy is actually larger than the US’s in terms of purchase power parity. If left unchecked China would become the economic center of the world without firing a single shot.
The US is clearly worried about losing it’s economic dominance as the worlds only superpower. That’s why it’s made contingency plans for how to confront China militarily. If they tried to subdue China through an invasion it wouldn’t work. China is a nuclear power and that would spell the end of the world. What they could do instead is use islands off the coast of China to enforce a naval blockade of the mainland. From South Korea, to Japan including Okinawa, to the Philippines the US is stationing military assets all the way down the coast. Taiwan would serve as the linch pin to that plan.
Again I have to repeat the US is not the defender of liberal democracy that they claim to be. The people of Taiwan should be clear eyed about that.
It seems she was detained for spreading misinformation about the pandemic when the initial outbreak was at its peak. That may not be illegal in the US. However, plenty of countries have such laws that go into effect during emergency situations.
I think it’s worth discussing the merits of those laws and how effective they are. However, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to use this case as a way to imply that China is silencing journalists when they report on inconvenient truths.
I just clicked through to a guardian link that talked about why she was initially convicted. It’s harder to pin down exactly what misinformation she was accused of spreading though since most western outlets are causally dismissive of the claims.
That said, this guardian article references interviews she did with VoA, an American government outlet, and The Epoch Times, a far right wing outlet run by the Falun Gong cult. The Epoch Times I know in particular has promoted antivax or anti lockdown conspiracies in the US, as well as other stuff like with Qanon and the idea that Trump actually won in 2020. It wouldn’t surprise me to know she was promoting similar anti lockdown conspiracies but just in China.
I think a lot of the problem is western media seems particularly lazy when reporting on China. It allows far right wing or US government outlets to control the narrative and make China look like a real life 1984 to a western audience. That makes it’s difficult for people to discern legitimate critique from misinformation. I understand why some may just avoid criticizing China altogether rather than risk playing into the misinformation that’s out there.
He was never actually arrested though as far as I can tell. The local police basically gave him a warning against spreading rumors of an SARS outbreak because they were worried it would cause a panic. This was an overstep and the police later apologized and admitted they were in the wrong.
Early in the pandemic the rate of death was much higher than it is now. That’s because nobody had immunity and we didn’t know how to treat people with covid. Doctors treating the initial outbreak were also probably exposed to a large dose of virus all at once making their survival less likely.
An appeals court has granted a Hong Kong government request to ban a popular protest song. The ruling deepens concerns about the ebbing away of freedom in the semi-autonomous territory....
Hong Kong was never a vision for what China could be though. British rule was also very authoritarian. Much of the repression of free speech today is being done using laws the British enacted. Even when the British decided to introduce democratic reforms to HK, they explicitly gave outsized control of the city to corporations.
I imagine that’s the likely reason the IDF was attacking and occupying hospitals in Gaza. If there is nobody to count the bodies then Israel can keep the reported death count low as they continue their genocide.
Also we have more in common with the members of the axis of resistance than we do with these so-called reform & “revolution socialists” https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/e067f812-06b9-477d-8350-1c06a1ee887a.jpeg...
They’re trots. To them the transitional method is gospel. They think that you can trick libs into supporting revolution if you make enough reformist demands. It’s idealism pure and simple.
More than 170 attacks have been committed against politicians in the lead-up to the June elections. This violence has put campaigns under tension and is sowing doubts about governability in several regions. Specialists warn that the line between the Mexican state and organized crime is increasingly blurred...
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Hamas or another Palestinian group that attacked either. However, I don’t think it would be without reason.
The problem is if the pier is completed then it offers a route for an aid other than the Rafah crossing. That would give Israel an excuse to invade Rafah and take control of the border with Egypt. If they succeed, Israel would finally have full control over Gaza’s food supply which would allow them to use starvation as a weapon. If you want to genocide a people starving them is far more efficient than bombs and bullets. This is a future Palestinians desperately want to avoid.
I don’t think the article is actually all that critical. It might have been worth providing more context for why China is using that much concrete. However, even without that I think it’s fine.
The real problem I think is the headline. It frames China’s concrete use as an irrational mental illness which is just absurd. I’m betting that was the work of one of the BBC’s editors and not the actual author.
What you’re saying just isn’t true though. China isn’t overbuilding by any meaningful metric. Their urbanization rate is really low compared to developed nations like the US. They have a huge population so their total rate of construction while urbanizing is unique. However the actual process of urbanization isn’t unique at all.
If you look at historical data the US followed a very similar trend with rapid urbanization ramping up until around the 1960s. That rapid development included a mix of shoddy and quality construction. Additional urbanization was more difficult to achieve and growth slowed. That’s basically what you’re seeing in China now too.
The US definitely had its fair share of housing developments that were basically real estate investment scams. Most of the endless suburban sprawl in California was developed that way. One of my favorite examples is California City. It’s still mostly empty and is located in the middle of the desert. Also if you ever watched the show Arrested Development, it was making fun of the people who ran these kinds of real estate scams.
What’s happening in China isn’t all that different. It’s just happening on a much larger scale given the population size and the kind of urban density China is targeting. That’s what I think is shocking to anyone not looking at numbers. Instead of empty blocks of houses you might get empty apartment buildings instead.
In most cases yes. However there is a range to that success. Some developments have been in such high demand that they’re now expanding. Others are still struggling.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s central city of Zhengzhou has asked residents to sell their second-hand homes to a local state-owned company and buy new ones instead, in a bid to reduce new-home inventories and boost the local property sector....
This is just a guess but it might be a way to get people to move into new developments which would increase the value of the other unsold homes in said development. Nobody wants to take the risk of moving into an empty neighborhood in case nobody else does. However if you don’t have to worry about the risk of selling your existing home it might make it easier to take that leap of faith.
Amid heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a former Taiwanese president who supports unification that the countries “belong” together....
I don’t see how you think that’s a gotcha unless you ignore everything else I mentioned. Also your assessment is just incorrect. The DPP (the pro Independence Party) made an effort to push for a new constitution but that failed because they never had enough legislative votes. The opposition wasn’t against it because they felt threatened by the mainland. Rather Chinese nationalism is still very much alive and well in Taiwan.
China’s military shows off rifle-toting robot dogs (www.cnn.com)
Coming soon to a western military near you…
'Stop threatening Taiwan', its new president William Lai tells China (www.bbc.com)
Taiwan’s newly inaugurated president William Lai has called on China to stop threatening the island and accept the existence of its democracy....
Nearly all major car companies are sabotaging EV transition, and Japan is worst, study finds (thedriven.io)
Chinese woman jailed for reporting on Covid in Wuhan to be freed after four years (www.theguardian.com)
Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan’s search for the truth during the early days of the pandemic was seen as a threat by the authorities...
Court bans 'Glory to Hong Kong' protest song (www.dw.com)
An appeals court has granted a Hong Kong government request to ban a popular protest song. The ruling deepens concerns about the ebbing away of freedom in the semi-autonomous territory....
At least 10,000 Gazans trapped under neighborhood ruins (thecradle.co)
They should combat antisemitism by wiping themselves out of existence for being running dogs for the American and Israeli states (hexbear.net)
Also we have more in common with the members of the axis of resistance than we do with these so-called reform & “revolution socialists” https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/e067f812-06b9-477d-8350-1c06a1ee887a.jpeg...
Mexico is heading towards its most violent election ever, with 30 candidates murdered, 77 threatened and 11 kidnapped (english.elpais.com)
More than 170 attacks have been committed against politicians in the lead-up to the June elections. This violence has put campaigns under tension and is sowing doubts about governability in several regions. Specialists warn that the line between the Mexican state and organized crime is increasingly blurred...
Exclusive: U.S. pier attacked during construction work off Gaza coast - I24NEWS (www.i24news.tv)
The environmental cost of China's addiction to cement (www.bbc.com)
The use of concrete exploded to fuel China’s rise. Now the costs of this weighty material are being counted....
Chinese city Zhengzhou tells state-owned company to buy second-hand homes to reduce new housing inventories (news.yahoo.com)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s central city of Zhengzhou has asked residents to sell their second-hand homes to a local state-owned company and buy new ones instead, in a bid to reduce new-home inventories and boost the local property sector....
China’s Xi Jinping says ‘no force’ can stop ‘reunion’ with Taiwan (globalnews.ca)
Amid heightened tensions between China and Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a former Taiwanese president who supports unification that the countries “belong” together....