this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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There is a lot of Anti-US posts.
Some are EU-flavored (which I'm fine with).
But then you have a lot of pro-PRC flavored types which is just cringe. Like "I'd rather trust China" or "I'm rooting for China against the US" some BS, like.... ?!? 🧐
The EU is right there! Why choose China when you literally have a functional democracy elsewhere?
There's just a covert (not that covert actually) operation trying to promote China as this some sort of beacon of prosperity, and some even start to belive that China has "free healthcare" like what lmao
Like... Anti-US post are fine, just don't promote China as a replacement, its not any better.
i bet these people never actually live in china, or want to MOVE there, they just love to say it behind the screen. same goes with pro-russia tankies, probably living in places like the EU, canada,,,etc.
They're primarily from the US, yeah.
Tankie ideology is very simple -- US bad. That's it.
EU is like "hooray we banned curved cucumbers!", and china is like "we built 48,000 km of high speed rail in 2 decades"
I mean that's because they didn't have those before? Most of the EU already has had functioning rail systems since the introduction of trains. Also China is one country, while the EU is 27 separate entities. Ofc it can't just wholesale upgrade the continent's rail systems.
Like, I wish tankies would actually visit China instead of stating development statistics about the place. It's a beautiful country with an amazing diversity of culture, language, and delicious food, but everything tankies repeat on here is sooooo clear in it's Han/Mandarin/Beijing supremacy. Like literally they are spreading Han-Chinese propaganda as "communist" talking points.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to troll you, and I should've been more verbose in my reply, I was just pointing out that comparing EU and China is a bit funny to me (as someone that lives in an EU country). Generally I'm not pro-authoritarian, but I can see things from a tankie perspective that they get shit done. Horrible society for free thinkers of course, no doubt about that.
"Shit get done"
I mean, I do acknowledge they have an impressive subway system that looks modern (at least that's how I remembered Guangzhou. But everything else tho?
My mother told me she was worried about food safety (cuz the government doesn't do shit abouy it), and apparantly there were a lot of child abductions in China (as a consequence of both the One Child Policy and that some people were infertile), building safety concerns 豆腐渣工程 (tofu dreg), income security, 地沟油 (people digging up oil from the sewers and used it as cooking oil on street venders). And also worker rights suck. Long hours, minimal pay, most people didn't have any "union contract" with a lot of protections and benefits like many in the US does. Non-existent social safety net, even when compared to the US's own lackluster welfare system, its still worse. Stupid "Hukou" system which mean my parents had to pay for school. Also, free school lunch doesn't exist, I usually just walked home for 1st and 2nd grade (yes, I was that young lol, laws didn't give a shit about unattended children lmao, I mean, its not like parents would have any time since they needed to be making money) to have lunch that my grandmother cooked. Then I walked backed to school again. I had to down and up the stairs like 3 times every day, and also you can accidentallly fall out the building if you climb over the concrete/cement barrier that's like an adult's waist heigh (it was probably 7 year old me's shoulder height I think, I remember looking down from like the 5th floor and have intrusive thoughts / "call of the void" about jumping down).
My grandmother didn't really have any "retirement" income like in the us, its basially just my parent supporting the grandparents. Like some money goes to the paternal family, some money goes to the maternal family. Yep that's it. You don't get a "SSI" or "Retirement Income". Probably the main reason why my parents decided to violate the one child policy and gave birth to me; my mother always says she loves me or “世上只有妈妈好” (some lullaby thing that means "your mother (and they mean biological mother) is the only person in the world that is good") and like idk wtf that's supposed to mean... like does abusive mothers no exist? Sound like some filial piety indoctrination to make you be obedient, but the way I see it she only gave birth to me is because she has twice the income when she grows older and need me and my brother to support them (and also if one of us dies, she still has someone to provide their "retirement income")
That tiny apartment unit was also the place where I had my first "adverse childhood event". My older brother was trying to fight me and I got scared and I ran away from home, and the reason I got so scared is because my brother has already tied me up with fucking zipties once before; and after my mom found me, she told me that "I could've been kidnapped" and she blames me for it. BITCH I was a kid and scared and my brother was trying to beat me, WTF did you expect me do to? Still terrifying to think about, I hate thinking about China, bring up bad memories.
And also I have random existential crisis about the one child policy thing. There is a timeline where the government caught my mother and forced and abortion. So yea I just keep ruminating on the "what if" sceanrio. Like how the fuck am I alive, I wasn't even supposed to exist. Idk what to think about that, maybe if I didn't get born, I didn't have to endure all this abuse.
TLDR: Never entering mainland China again. I dispise that place.
But that's just it, it wasn't "getting shit done". A lot of the statistics released by the Chinese government are just uses of funds during their economic boom to appear productive by ministry heads for The Party's favour. Of course the train lines were built, was it as expansive as reported? Who knows.
There have been several scandals within China over the last decade of CPC regional leadership getting executed or jailed over this exact issue. It doesn't get reported outside of the country's media widely because it gets suppressed even within the country except for the region the official was from. I was there during one such incident, that's how I found out they still shoot people there for their death penalty 😀
Imperialism, late-stage capitalism, slave labour and cost-cutting certainly make construction fast.
Check out the 2007 Chinese slave scandal
Chinese infrastructure isn't particularly built to last.
It's called Tofu Buildings, and the Chinese government regularly suppresses media and the populace from finding out about the lacklustre building standards throughout China. Whenever there's a building collapse China is quick to censor it, even posts calling for help to look for survivors.
Was the infamous "covid hospital" they built in like a day one of those tofu buildings?
ooo, what's that?
Ah, it was 8 days not one, but definitely some propaganda fluff piece.