You don't have to like their government or even their culture, but you have to recognize their entrepreneurial energy and hard work. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/china-high-speed-rail-cmd/index.html
Tax cuts for the rich and military spending higher than the next 12 countries combined is more important in this country.
As an outsider looking in, it looks to me like China has an imagination/innovation problem, not from lacking one mind you, but due to their governance. Innovation trumps hard work every time if stuck w/old methods I'm afraid. Having said that, China may be turning a new leaf this decade and are leading in blockchain tech and EV development. They've been leading in manufacturing and will continue to outpace us in solar, nuclear, and wind energy. We'll see how AI plays out
Completely agree. Because they are culturally hierarchical, ideas come from the top and repeated down. In the arts, for example, the emperor's designated artists would make a vase and switch from yellow to blue. If the emperor liked it, every artist down the food chain would copy the original work to be sold as the newest and best thing. That process wasn't very different until very recently and what we westerners see as lack of innovation for copying others work (copyright is a curious western rule), they see simply as a technical challenge to make the same thing and still sell at a profit. So you have layers upon layers of guys trying to figure out how to make the now slightly cheaper item and still make a profit. Ultimately, the bottom of the barrel product is clearly different from the original but if a buyer isn't sophisticated enough to see that, then it's on them, they are the fools. Westerners and Americans in particular hate it. They're used to buyers protection rights, refunds, innovation, all of which is foreign to Chinese culture where if you make something that hurts people and get caught, you go to prison or be executed. Chinese are doers and makers and sell things on their merits and price point to extract value. Until recently they had no clue what marketing is and never set budgets for that. Their best attempt at marketing is "world's greatest..." which is still on 90% of manufacturers website today! Westerners sell ideas, then make products as cheaply as they can to extract value. When China was allowed to open up, it became the world's greatest manufacturing boom since America's post WW2 boom. Quickly, Chinese realized that whatever they were asked to make, they could do much cheaper than agreed. And so Chinese continued to do what they do best, down to the bottom of the barrel. But things have changed a lot since the 90s, 2000s and even 2010s. China is much wealthier and now has a real massive market. They no longer have to rely on western designed products built at home. They have become sophisticated and learning to make what people want, not just what the elite says should be. They make products to Chinese tastes and, more extraordinary, westerners are adjusting their products to suit Chinese and greater Asia markets. Noticed how lights on automobiles are now slanted? Bingo. More importantly, Chinese are very competitive (try surviving in a billion people country) and don't take criticism lightly (the hierarchy thing). They've herd loud and clear that they can only make cheap stuff, and they're intent on showing the world that they can do better than anyone else. America goes to the moon? They go to a part of the moon no one has been. America goes to Mars? They go to Mars. Westerners build a space station? They have a space station. But they also built the world's most extraordinary bullet train rail network in less than 20 years, and built not 1 or 2 megalopoles but dozens in that time span, complete with modern road and subway networks, international airports, etc... We in the Bay Area couldn't build a freaking bridge in that time span! They are learning at lightspeed compared to us westerners, having the most patents granted since 2019, a country which in our life time was considered a 3rd world country. Yes, they've acquired much knowledge by any means necessary, like any other developing country in the world that could did. Yet, look at how many Chinese PhDs innovate in US labs, universities and private enterprises. I know, people can't be bundled in a monolithic group, but this is meant to show that Chinese are not all rabid nationalists like some would like to portrait them in order to hate them more. Like Japan before them and Korea today, China will one day be secured enough in its achievements and with owning too much crap that kids will grow up to color their hair and pierce their nose and act bored. They will care more about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll than going to college, they will want to become artists, creative and innovative because food has always and will always be on the table. It's going to take time though; it's not easy to pull 1.2 billion people into middle class levels.
When I see chinese astronauts on the Moon driving a car they brought with them and stopping to swing a golf club for the cameras I might become concerned.
Ya nice. NOT. You and your ilk cheer on and self-stimulate over your Chinese overlords for their ingenuity, scientific knowledge, business acumen, and focused approaches while simultaneously rooting for policies in this country that turn our educational system into dogshit and relieve all minorities and young people of all ethnicities of any expectation that they should learn math, learn to compete and be competitively graded, develop good work ethic ethics etc because that is all white colonial legacy bullshiite that you do not need to be a YouTube influencer when you grow up or to gain entry into a math for TransSexuals degree program. You have earned extra potato in your rations this month Comrade. That plus you pay to post reimbursements and you are having a good month.