To clarify, I don’t believe in the surface level propaganda thrown in China’s way about “1984 dystopian society,” “Mao killed 60 million people,” “Xinjiang concentration camps” or things like that.

I’m curious about a few negative factors of China that have become widespread knowledge over the past decade or so by even the politically literate audience, and I want to learn how accurate these things are, how prevalent they are in today’s society in China, and how much it would impact the day to day life of someone living in China.

  1. Quality control, I have read stories about Chinese factories producing guns, steel, industrial goods, consumer goods, food products, far below acceptable or safe standards, leading to construction/infrastructure failure and severe health complications. There are also claims that smaller restaurants in China today still sometimes use very low quality ingredients that can result in serious health issues. How much of an issue is this?

  2. Population issue. The Chinese population trend is going in a unfavorable direction right now, and there are reports of young people not wanting to have children because of cultural and cost reasons. How much of an issue is this, and will China end up like Korea and Japan in another decade or two?

  3. Unemployment, it is a fact right now that Chinese people have a 20% unemployment issue due to an abundance of university graduates without sufficient jobs to match this supply. And this has caused internal competition to swell to unreasonable standards leading some people to straight up give up on their careers and become full time neets. Are there any positive trends or actions to resolve this issue?

  4. Education. The education system sounds terrifying in China right now, children as young as elementary schoolers having to sleep only 6 hours a night to finish their homework from school and tutoring services. I have also read that after the government banned tutoring of core classroom subjects, illegal tutoring services have become a thing. I would laugh at how this would be the most asian issue ever if I wasn’t so horrified by the situation. Is there any government effort to resolve this right now?

  5. Nepotism. From what I have heard and read, using connections to obtain positions and resources in China is still very common. How bad is this, and are there any reforms or policies tackling it?

  6. Mannerisms and emotional intelligence of the average person. There are frequent complaints about Chinese people being horrible tourists, being extremely rude, having the emotional maturity of a donut until at least the age of 30, and also taking advantage of anything free to disgusting levels (I have personally seen old Chinese ladies take out a container and fill it with ketchup from a restaurant where the condiments are self served). I understand the reasoning behind this, China in it’s current iteration is a relatively new country, and the education received by different generations varies massively in quality, with only really Gen Z on average obtaining a level of education that is on par with western populations. I just want to ask how bad this is in day to day life, and if it is tolerable.

Thanks for reading my somewhat long post, I’d appreciate any response, you don’t have to respond to all of my points, any point would be fine. I want to have a positive impression of China but these points are really bugging me right now.

  • qwename@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    Thanks for pinging me @GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml (sounds like what people on Zhihu, the Chinese Quora, would say).

    Points 1/5/6 about quality control, nepotism and mannerisms are about the same thing, that is whether you can generalize a few bad eggs to the entire group. My personal experience isn’t going to be the same as someone next door, let alone someone from a different province, so the right place to look for answers is in statistics. I’ve heard the things you mentioned in these three points at least a decade ago, things have definitely become better is what I can tell you.

    Point 2 about population, I’m part of the “young people who do not want to have kids”, I strikeout the want to because I don’t think people who don’t want kids really mean it. I’m not a population expert so I’ll pass on trying to estimate population numbers. Personally I think the cost of raising kids that some people mention mostly refers to the quality of education (which I’ll mention below in point 4), and cost of living.

    Point 3 about unemployment. “20% unemployment” is bogus talking point cooked up by Chinese liberal economists, here’s the actual statistic they conjured this “data” from: http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202307/t20230715_1941276.html

    Specifically, the surveyed unemployment rates of population aged from 16 to 24 and from 25 to 59 were 21.3 percent and 4.1 percent respectively

    To anyone who can read, 21.3% unemployment refers to a narrow range of people from ages 16 to 24, but some liberals intentionally generalized it into the entire working population. Some economists went further and found a way to turn this 21.3% into around 50% unemployment.

    Point 4 about education. Due to the large population of students and not enough resources to go around, there is definitely fierce competition among parents who want a better future for their kids. Note that I mention parents and not students, because I don’t think most kids have the mental capacity or experience to understand what a better future is. Some parents go the extra mile and pay for tutoring outside of school to try to improve their kids’ grades, this is understandable. But if all parents think like this, it’s just going to come down to who is rich enough to employ better tutors on the market. Families who are not as well-off won’t be able to compete if they also try to find tutors for their children. This is one of the reasons why tutoring for core subjects is banned, because the quality of education should not depend on how much capital a family can muster. There are also policies to reduce the amount of homework from school, can’t comment on the effects as I don’t have kids.

    You don’t need to have a positive impression of China, you can come here personally to see for yourself if you haven’t, then form your own conclusions.

    • Khabib@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      About points 1 and 5, are there any of the aforementioned statistics that could paint a quantitative response regarding the issue? I understand China is working to address these issues, I am interested in how effective these measures are and how much it has improved.

      I understand the unemployment issue better now from some other comments and gave my responses there.

      About point 2 and 4, correct me if I’m misinterpreting your response, but so far these issues are connected because although Chinese families might want kids, the educational costs attached make this impossible for some?

      I agree that banning the tutoring classes was a correct choice, however the emergence of illegal tutoring services and their popularity does paint a rather frustrating truth about the difficulty to resolve this issue, that is the inherent competitiveness of Chinese culture amongst the parents of this generation makes this issue very complicated, which is corroborated by your explanation of the issue.

      And if this is the case, wouldn’t this be a deadlock of parents not being able to afford raising children because of the educational costs, and the educational costs being so high because of the academic pressure parents put on their children? That sounds like a clusterfuck, does the CPC have any ideas on how to resolve this right now?

      • qwename@lemmygrad.ml
        0·
        2 years ago

        There are certainly statistics about overall quality of products from the manufacturing industry, but I think it’s too broad to be very useful. For example, from this year’s statistical communique (http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202302/t20230227_1918979.html):

        The qualification rate of manufactured products[64] reached 93.29 percent.

        [64] The qualification rate of manufactured products is the ratio of the samples that have passed the sampling quality test, the process of which follows certain methods, procedure and standard, to the total amount of the sampled products. The survey samples cover 29 sectors of the manufacturing industry.

        For more specific statistics you’d need a more specific question. About nepotism, the campaign against corruption has some statistics but I don’t think there’s a way to quantitatively reflect on the issue of nepotism.

        On educational costs, this is a manufactured need as public education from kindergarten to grade 12 is practically free in China, and university costs are almost practically free. Now private education is where things can become very expensive as you can imagine, this includes private schools and private tutoring.

        Some parents think that expensive private schools offer better quality of education, or think that they are better alternatives to some low-par public schools, but I think they just cost more. Private tutoring isn’t just about core subjects, some parents may also want to enroll their kids into arts/tech/sports/etc. training classes, that’s where some of that imaginary educational costs come from too. Unless private education is banned, this non-issue of educational costs will still be a problem for competitive parents.

        I didn’t go too much into the cost of living, but the cost of housing may be the main concern for parents who want to enroll kids into schools in the mega-cities (e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen), but this is also a nuanced topic.

  • Blinky_katt@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    It seems like your standard to have “a positive impression of China” is only if it’s somehow perfect and free from problems. Sure, the country has got issues. Like all countries do. And it’s got a ton of positive points too, more than many countries in the world in fact. The world is a harsh place full of problems.

    Item 6 is downright offensive. How “bad” are the rude people in any culture? Pretty bad. But do they represent the whole culture, even discounting the better-educated younger generation? No. There is high culture, the educated class, the warm hearted “real” people who may not have the most polished manners. There are normalized standard of politeness that everyone enjoys and upholds.

    Why not consider how well the the Ugly American Tourist trope reflect the US as a whole. The infamous drunken Brits on all-night bashes trope, the Australian bogans trope. All kinds of folks from poorer countries who are “cheap” out of habit trope. And so on.

  • Munrock ☭@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    1. “I have read stories about…” whose stories?

    2. “there are reports of…” whise reports?

    3. Who came up with the “20% unemployment” statistic?

    4. The government banning private tuition om core subjects is part of a huge platform of education reforms, but you only ever hear about ‘banning’ and negative consequences. Do you really think they just banned tuition centers and won’t do anything about attempts to evade the ban?

    5. “From what I have heard and read” come on now. From what I have heard and read China is one of the few places where this kind of corruption gets punished.

    6. Can you not see how this is just pure racism?

    Apologies if my tone comes across as a bit harsh, but I find all of these points being framed as credible talking points insulting. The way China is constantly being held up against these vacuous economic and cultural benchmarks that other people aren’t subjected to.

    It’s like “I’ve heard stories about how some people in China get really drunk in the evening and sing loudly and come to work with a hangover; what is the government doing about this?”

    Or “There are reports that many couples in China get divorced after having children, forcing the children to be raised by single-parent families. Is the government doing anything to prevent relationships from souring?”

    • Khabib@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      This is an internet message board, apologies if my choice of vocabulary doesn’t meet the standard of a research paper, but you seem to have glanced over half a sentence of every point I wrote and then attribute the worst version of that topic possible onto me.

      1. If you deny the matter of fact that Chinese goods have received an overall negative international reputation for being disproportionately low quality until at the least the last 20 years, then you would just be wrong. The posts below have done a good job responding to why this is a necessary transitioning step towards industrialization, and statistics do indeed show an improvement of this trend which is great.

      2. ??? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/ https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/population https://www.worlddata.info/asia/china/populationgrowth.php Are you denying that birth rate is an upcoming issue for China to face? Again the question of discussion here is whether this is a significant enough issue to harshly impact China’s economy and growth, or whether other factors such as China’s transition to a more skilled and educated workforce will be enough to offset this, not if this issue exists or not, which it most certainly does.

      3. According to links below, the Chinese national bureau of statistics. The age range they picked to measure from was the problem, not the number itself which is true.

      4. At this point I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, or if you are just trying to be as condescending as possible. If it wasn’t explicit enough, I am in favor of the bans over paid tutoring of core subjects because it gives an unfair advantage to richer families… As for illegal tutoring services, I don’t think the Chinese government will do nothing about them, that’s why I’m asking in one of the only pro-China english forums if anyone knows what specifically they are doing…

      5. Again I didn’t formally state this point in the style of a thesis because I didn’t think anyone would deny the matter of fact that China, or at least sinospheric countries, have historically suffered uniquely significant amounts of nepotism. Xi’s anti-corruption campaigns were a welcome start to addressing the issue. However anecdotes can prove at least the continued existence of corruption in China, my question was to try to quantify the extent of which it still existed at, if there are any ongoing current actions tackling it, and how the situation compares to western countries (which admittedly have been getting worse in this regard over the years).

      6. No?? Racism would be saying “Han people are inherently ugly because they have squinty eyes.” That’s not at all similar to what I said. What I did was I identified a behavioral pattern amongst a group of people from a shared cultural group, based on my own experiences, friends experiences, that match existing stereotypes about said group; which while not being sufficient to dictate an absolute conclusion, should at least justify having the desire to inquire about such behavior no? Especially since I am asking a community where said ethnic group has a positive reception, which should imply I am trying to learn instead of reinforcing prejudices in an echo chamber, I seriously don’t see how my question can be perceived as anything more than somewhat insensitive in delivery.

      I won’t respond to the end of your post which is just a splattering of non sequiturs.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    I can answer a couple of these. The whole population decline thing is largely overblown

    Meanwhile, the whole youth unemployment rate statistic is very deceptive as well because it counts from the age 16. While child labour is becoming normalized in US, kids are going to school in China. It’s also worth noting that this is comparable situation to most European countries https://www.statista.com/statistics/613670/youth-unemployment-rates-in-europe/

    • Khabib@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      Thank you for the articles, if this was reddit I would give you a delta on the population point lol. Looking at a less simplistic economic model does show that the west exaggerates China’s population issue.

      For the unemployment issue, that makes a lot more sense, so in actuality China has a “youth unemployment rate” (measured from 16-24) at ~20%, not overall unemployment. I’m really curious about this statistic, is there data to see what percentage of this comes from people below the age of typically receiving a bachelors degree (<=22) vs 22-24? And is there data comparing this to US or other western demographics? That would be very interesting.

  • Bloops@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    On my phone so I’m just going to briefly chime in.

    Population shrinking is indeed an issue but a few things are often ignored that should be noted. China is still urbanizing - 17% of the workforce are farmers compared to 2-3% in the advanced capitalist economies - so the urban workforce issue is less pronounced. Additionally, the newer workforce is much more educated than the earlier generations. China graduates something like 8x as many STEM students than the US, and will have nearly 2x the PhDs in a couple of years. Finally, there is a big push to automation.

    The overworking of students is being combated. China banned after-school tutoring somewhat recently and there was a big hubbub about it online when it happened.

    Corruption is also being combated. It’s kind of Xi’s whole deal and is why there’s so much support for the central government now.

    Manners question is kind of weird… From what I’ve heard on Twitter, Chinese citizens are much more trusting of each other now than a couple decades ago. I saw a graph showing the Chinese are some of the most trusting people in the world.

    Found the data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/self-reported-trust-attitudes?tab=map