<p>Horsham, that would definitely be a hook!</p>
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<p>Actually, their track record from 1949 onwards has been mediocre at best to absolutely horrid. </p>
<p>Late 1950’s/early '60s - Great Leap Forward where an estimated 60 million starved to death. </p>
<p>1966-1976 - Cultural Revolution when the entire country practically shut down, sent their intellectuals to the countryside to do coerced manual labor, and research/educational institutions completely shut down as admissions became mainly about who is from the best class background(peasant/worker)/political hack who could shout political slogans. Even nowadays…the CCP does not want much discussion/even remember it as many of them were themselves persecuted due to intra-party factional infighting. </p>
<p>By the start of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, Mainland China was starting from an extremely low base. China’s trend of economic growth really only started in the late '80s…and picked up pace around the last decade. Even in the late '90s, there were still sections of Beijing that were underdeveloped. </p>
<p>Moreover, another thing to keep in mind is that one reason why they are able to make long-term plans is precisely because they’re a one-party state with much more room for action without regard to the wishes of their diverse populace than their more democratically/rule-of-law based counterparts. </p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that just because one’s parents are great at something doesn’t necessarily mean that he/she is also great at that particular task/trait like long-term planning. I certainly didn’t see that among the more junior CCP princelings I’ve encountered at various US colleges.</p>
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<p>That’s a manifestation of the best in laissez-faire capitalism reminiscent of the late 19th century US/West…build it quickly, cheaply, with the lowest-cost bidder, and no basic safety code laws to bother with.</p>
<p>In this, the CCP are actually proving to be more capitalistic in the most ruthless sense than the US is nowadays.</p>
<p>SoMuch2Learn, at the risk of going off on a political tangent, I happen to think their one-child policy was and is a great strategic decision. Keep in mind it is intended to be carried out through economic incentives (incidents of forced abortion are not condoned by the government). There are exceptions and nuances to the policy. It has prevented at least 400,000 births in a country that is still overpopulated. You can bet they are figuring out how to deal with supporting an aging population–which in any case will be a temporary problem in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>Freedom is relative and its value, subjective. The Chinese may never have the type of system we do and it is wrong to assume that a majority would want it.</p>
<p>@wildwood11,</p>
<p>I think mere mortal Chinese int’l students are probably keen to mingle with American students and exchange cultural perspectives. But these CCP princelings don’t mingle with the riff raff.</p>
<p>I beg to differ on your opinion of the one-child policy, which has led to widespread female infanticide, and a demographic imbalance which is going to translate into a huge economic problem when these single kids are going to have to support an inverted pyramid of retirees. </p>
<p>Forced abortions are in essence supported by the gov’t when performance of local gov’t officials is assessed on how well their districts are in compliance w the one-child policy.</p>
<p>Wildwood11, we think very differently.</p>
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<p>Avoiding the misery and turmoil produced by overpopulation which leads to environmental decay, wars over resources and general poverty justifies a policy that has certain bad consequences. </p>
<p>Some may focus on the unintended horrors resulting from a policy but it may not be a reason to do away with it totally. At least, that’s what 2nd amendment lovers will tell you about open access to guns in the U.S., a “freedom” that horrifies most of the industrialized world. I would wager there are more gun deaths in America than infanticides in China.</p>
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<p>Except that if they do not have the freedom to say what they want, how does one know what they really want?</p>
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<p>In 2007, there were 31,224 firearm deaths in the US, of which 17,352 were suicides, and 12,632 were homicides.</p>
<p>No reliable numbers for infanticide in China are available. However, China’s reported boy:girl birth ratio is 116:100, versus the typical 107:100. This means that about 8% of girl births are “missing”. Since there are about 20 million babies born in China each year, 9.3 million of them girls, that means that there are probably about 800,000 girl babies “missing” each year. However, not all of these are due to infanticide; some may be due to gender-selective abortion, or simply not reporting the birth (which has unfavorable consequences for the child in terms of going to school, etc.).</p>
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<p>Most, apparently:</p>
<p><a href=“Zeng%20et%20al.,%20%22Causes%20and%20Implications,%22%20p.%20285.”>quote</a> They add: “Underreporting of female births accounts for about 43 percent to 75 percent of the difference between the reported sex ratio at birth during the second half of the 1980s and the normal value of the true sex ratio at birth” (p. 289). The authors contended that “sex-differential underreporting of births and induced abortion after prenatal sex determination together explain almost all of the increase in the reported sex ratio at birth during the late 1980s,” and thus “the omission … of victims of female infanticide cannot be a significant factor.” Moreover, “Both the social and administrative structure and the close bond among neighbors in China make it difficult to conceal a serious crime such as infanticide,” while additionally “Infanticide is not a cost-effective method of sex selection. The psychological and moral costs are so high that people are unlikely to take such a step except under extreme circumstances” (p. 295).
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<p>[Gendercide</a> Watch: Female Infanticide](<a href=“http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html]Gendercide”>Female infanticide in India and China - Gendercide)</p>
<p>Some of those unreported births may be baby girls that end up in orphanages. My sister happily adopted two of them.</p>
<p>Correction: I meant to say that it has prevented 400 million, not 400,000, births in post #43.</p>
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<p>I could just point to Pew surveys that indicate that a large majority of Chinese are happy with their government, but then you would just say it is because information is censored and they don’t know what they are missing–to which I would reply that Americans also have limited information because the vast majority only follow mainstream media perspectives and rarely really try to imagine how other cultures view the world. They just assume everyone would think like them if they could.</p>
<p>And on and on and on.</p>
<p>Wildwood11, thank you for introducing some sanity to CC. The US cultural/political/economic wasteful mess, constructed through the use of so many layers of disinformation and misinformation that even those at the highest levels must live with information chaos and confusion, is completely unsustainable just in this one country of 4.5 percent of the world’s population. No one in power actually intends for others to copy the US mess, as the world’s resources and the planet’s capability to absorb the externalities would be used up in a very short time frame. But propaganda that appears to convey that message can be useful in manipulating the unsophisticated and creating doubts in the unsure to reduce resistance so that policies beneficial to some can endure way beyond the point it makes sense under any utilitarian analysis.</p>
<p>I keep getting emails like this, even after I mark them as spam. Finally unsubscribed to this newsletter:</p>
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<p>While many or most Americans are poorly informed, that does not mean that Chinese are any better informed. Among the few who try to be better informed, Americans do have less restricted access to varied media and viewpoints, including foreign ones, than Chinese do.</p>
<p>Of course, “mainstream media” is an obsolete concept in the US. Most Americans follow partisan media. Of the three big cable news networks, CNN (which tries to be “mainstream” or “centrist” by US standards) is in third place, behind Fox (partisan right) and MSNBC (partisan left).</p>
<p>Do not make the mistake of assuming that because the situation of some particular aspect is bad in the US, that it must necessarily be better in China or some other country.</p>
<p>Also, being happy with the government does not necessarily mean being happy with all aspects of the government. Someone may be happy with the government in general, but not be happy with a specific aspect, like amount of freedom or economic management or whatever.</p>
<p>One difference between the Chinese and Americans is that most Chinese rightfully distrust virtually all of their mainstream media (at least that’s the impression I have been given by my wife and her family members), while most Americans inappropriately place trust in at least some of theirs.</p>
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<p>Moreover, also keep in mind that polling data is often skewed in favor of those who are interested enough and have the leisure time to participate. </p>
<p>In Mainland China, that’s mainly going to skew upper/upper-middle class…the very folks who are corrupt party politicians/bureaucrats, the main beneficiaries and the group the CCP government mainly caters to in their “We’ll create a strong economy for you to get rich, just don’t “meddle” in political matters”. </p>
<p>In the process, anyone outside of this exclusive group is effectively ignored and often suppressed by the government…especially at the more corrupt provincial and local levels. </p>
<p>Moreover, levels of income/wealth inequality is such that when some Western/Hong Kong news reports said Premier Wen Jiabao’s family has billions in hidden wealth, the CCP government immediately blocked access to those news sites as inequality in wealth distribution has become a sore point among many Chinese who are shut out of this group.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus, The fact that you don’t believe Fox, CNN and MSNBC (all of which I view at times) are not part of the mainstream media, is a reflection of the mindset I am talking about. Almost all who appear on those outlets believe the U.S. has the best political system, the best legal system, the best free-market economic system and the best foreign policy. If you leave this echo chamber for another country, even the closest U.S. ally, Britain, you will find very different opinions. The right and left in the U.S. remain in a very narrow ideological band relative to other countries.</p>
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<p>I do not make this mistake. The U.S. does many things very well, and some things better than anyone, but the same could be said for China and every other country.</p>
<p>The populace of both the U.S. and China are both uninformed as are those in every country to varying degrees, but while it may be tougher in China, those who wish to seek out alternative viewpoints, can. Most people don’t bother, especially when they are fairly satisfied with the system they have.</p>
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<p>The Pew Center is quite experienced in international polling. I trust they have controlled for these variables in their sampling.</p>
<p>Here’s an article citing a 2008 poll in the conservative The Washington Times:</p>
<p>[Chinese</a> satisfied with government - Washington Times](<a href=“http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/23/chinese-satisfied-with-government/]Chinese”>http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/23/chinese-satisfied-with-government/)</p>
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<p>As I suspected, this poll is really skewed to the upper/upper-middle classes as they are overwhelmingly concentrated in urban areas. Moreover, the majority of China’s populace still live in rural/non-urban areas. </p>
<p>Moreover, from my own academic studies of Chinese society in the ‘90s and my friends’ much more current field research in Chinese rural areas…rising incomes doesn’t really mean much if they’re starting from an extremely low base and huge numbers of them are still trying to migrate to cities to seek work as “undocumented workers” because they don’t have urban hukou permits.</p>
<p>I spent two weeks in Beijing on a business trip this summer. Naturally, the people I met were mostly middle to upper middle class urban professionals. They were more similar to their American counterparts than some here would think. Equipped with many of the same electronic toys that we favor (e.g. smartphones, iPads) and with their thoughts mostly occupied by family, child, career, vacations, etc. Ordinary Chinese, like ordinary Americans, express pride in their country. For many Americans, pride in our country translates into a belief or assumption that we are the envy of the world. Outside the US media echo chamber (as someone upthread aptly described it), this is not generally true. The vast majority of people in other countries are not sitting around pining to trade their political system for the American model. If anything, they are often slightly resentful or disapproving of what they see as US arrogance.</p>
<p>I don’t find it surprising that Chinese polls skew to the urban educated classes. So do ours. How significant do we consider the views of the impoverished and poorly educated segments of our own population?</p>
<p>I’m not saying that I approve of the Chinese government or see no room for improvement there.</p>