A Chinese earthquake rescue team deployed drones to light up the night and aid search and rescue operations after the devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar.

[u/Red_Lotus_Alchemist]

[u/jrm70210]

My cousin, a US Marine, just came back from vacation in China and told me that they're "100 years ahead of us."

This is what happens when you reinforce intelligence over ignorance.

[u/bion93 → u/jrm70210]

I have been in China last summer. I thought that China appears to my eyes just like the US appeared to my father in the ‘80-‘90s. Simply the future, amazing technology and social development. He was in the US very often at that time because he worked in the (small) Italian equivalent of NASA, so there were many shared job with NASA. He have always come back with stuffs that here in italy did not exist and it was always a WOW for me as a kid. Like the first mobile phone he bought in the US (here it was useless, there wasn’t a line still lol). Now, I have been in the same year in NYC and Shanghai. I don’t mean that NYC is a representation of the whole US, it’s just a city in a huge country. But I saw a decadent empire, a lot of social degradation (homeless, drugs, dirty, crazy traffic) versus the future: lights, cars showrooms, drone lights shows, absolute safety at every hour and efficiency.

It’s crazy that everyone marks chiana as a dictatorship and almost as a third world country. Yes, it’s not an example of democracy, but many people think that China is like Iran or North Korea. No way. People are happy there. Maybe our Eurocentric point of view of the history of the world makes us think that ours is the only possible form of government. It’s not. Is it the best? Maybe, but only future generations can tell. We should leave our idea that all world must be like the west!

EDIT: I can’t answer to every single comment, but I want to make clear that I’m not saying that China is perfect or everyone is happy there. I’m not saying that. I said that it’s different from our propaganda. People are free more than we think and regime is less oppressive than 30 years ago. For example the VPN ban is not strictly enforced and people can easily have instagram or google, but they simply don’t need our internet because they have better alternatives.

Also about the genocide of Uyghur: I don’t think that some genocides are better than others. A genocide is wrong, always. It’s a crime. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone“ I would say. It’s better if we stop our crimes (see Palestine and the countless wars the western world caused in the last century) before talking about others with our superiority judgment. I am sure that also the smallest European country dropped more bombs than China in the last 100 years.

[u/cmaj7chord → u/bion93]

You are not wrong but it's also not the happy place you paint it to be: Young people struggle to find jobs because the economy is slowing down, which leads to a LOT of uncertanties among them and they still have certain disparities between rural and city area. Also, there are a lot of people working in a very low-wage sector, while silmutanously not having a lot of working rights. My mom is from a "small" city in China (around 500K citizens) and there are HUGE differences compared to Shenzhen, Shanghai or Beijing when it comes to income, quality of life, infrastructure etc.

And by the way: The CCP claims to be a developing country themselves, it's not "western propaganda", it's part of the CCP's political strategy to keep any kind of opposition down.

[u/IamFanboy → u/cmaj7chord]

I think fundamentally both of your experiences are true and valid but when looking at it from a macro lens instead of micro, overall China has done well for its people. Yes there are definitely issues but most of them aren't isolated to China only.

For the youth, this is the same problem faced by all highly developed Asian countries, look at Korea Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore. They are all facing the same issues.

For the gap between rural and cities, that exists in every country that has them. It's only natural to work on things that benefit the majority rather than minority.

There are definitely major issues with China especially in Xinjiang and Tibet, the major scam cities and towns that the Chinese operate in SEA countries surrounding them.

But overall if you were to ask a Chinese citizen if they are satisfied with the country's development over the last 50 years you will be hard pressed to find someone who thinks it wasn't enough. Yes there are some people and ethnic groups who will be left behind (no im not talking about the muslims in Xinjiang thats a different topic) during the rapid development of the country and major issues like housing and Evergreen crisis but it is a mistake to think that China isn't doing right for it's people most of the time.

[u/Not_a_real_ghost → u/cmaj7chord]

Being a "developing country" is very different to when people's perception of the country is like Iran or NK.