I grew up questioning and quickly became aware of the many issues with United States politics and agendas. But for two years I lived in HK and during my time there I learned about a whole new world of politics that I was never before exposed to. I became more aware of the elevated and ignorant opinion of the United States the prevails in most Asian countries but also of the almost world wide acceptance of the horrors of corruption abounding in Mainland China. I had the chance to move to China and despite the many negative opinions I was excited to go and gain my own opinion.
After living in China for 5 months I realized a few things:
1: They are surprisingly more environmentally conscious than a lot of western countries. In the West we have this way over blown perspective that we are green countries with low Carbon footprints. Well if you were to take out the manufacturing of China which belongs more to the West than even themselves and compare the numbers it's quite interesting. China has a far less person to car ratio by huge numbers they also have the highest percentage of electric cars, and some cities almost have full electric public transportation(Shenzhen for example). They tax heavily the use of anything CO2 emitting and remove all barriers in obtaining electric cars. Then of course the average size of house.
Now don’t get me wrong when it comes to agricultural pollution they are as bad as any, being nicely marketed and taught to them by the good old guys in the States who aren't satisfied until they have poisoned every water source in the world. China getting so much heat from the world as far as CO2 emissions has lead them to be one of the new leaders in green technology although you wont hear too many people praise them for it.
2: China is a Social Republic while the states is a Democratic Republic(or so we think). The reason for this distinction is that I often hear the words China is Communist, America is Capitalist… when in reality China is Capitalist and America is Capitalist. We both have the same economic structure China is a very Capitalist country, they love their money, and they are competing very well with America for that title. But really socially most people see China as the 'communist revolution China' but that was for a short time and as soon as Chairman Deng stepped in a whole new China was born. But socially, it's basically the same, just as the States but a bit more honest. In the States we have a little thing called property taxes. People think they own their land but really it's just a long term lease from the government because if you don't pay, it's not going to remain yours. In China they have land use rights where the government can allocate you land for the agreed length of time usually 70 years for residential, which you can renew. Really the only difference between that policy and the States is the time length. This is one example of social laws but many examples abound.
3: America and China both live in a bubble. In America all of media and entertainment is basically owned by a small handful of companies. We use Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Yahoo… All of our TV shows and Movies come from Hollywood with a few from England. Very few international films really make it to the screen and all our major news stations are owned by one company. In America it's hard to even realise there is a world apart from our own. Well China, after fighting off western imperialism and realising that America has seized control of media in almost all the countries of the world, closed their borders to create a bubble of information that they could control. So now you have all the same apps just China's version. For censorship in China they all know about it and they don't care, for those who do they download a VPN and then if they wanna find truth they fight beyond the American censorship wall and bam they got it. Plus the language barrier prevents them from doing that unless they really have a grasp on English and the internet. But see it's different because they know this. While in America they control the flow of information by flooding the internet with BS media and labeling anything outside their story as a conspiracy. The worst part is most Americans don't sift through the flood and far too often get caught in the undertow.
4: China poses a large threat to the United States and it's because they are doing the US better than the US can right now. They are self reliant and very quickly developing beyond levels that are not found in American cities. Because of this the media picks fun at them like kids in the schoolyard, they point out things like the One child policy and pollution and say silly China and focus only on the superficial. I’m not trying to convert anyone to China But I want people to realize that they fundamentally are not much different than the States. Americans are a tough people to control and so it just takes a couple name switches some dogmatic culture and BAM!
Well I could say a lot more but let's just keep it short and sweet for now. Let me know what you think.
Jared Cordon