Hello! I would like to start off by apologizing because I know a thread like this gets posted every other day and it can border on (or actually be) concern-trolling, but I wanted to get a rough survey of opinions here on a topic.
Specifically, do you have any criticisms of China’s contemporary culture? Its government? What are they?
I’m of the opinion that there are a lot of low-hanging fruit in this regard, like the patriarchal social order that [whatever one might say about its status in other nations] is certainly an ongoing problem for the matter of women’s liberation. I also think it’s both socially backwards and bad for national security to not have gay marriage, because we’re all familiar with how the US loves infiltrating student movements.
I also rather regret how the CPC seems to be trending towards expanding the role of the profit motive rather than shrinking it. See these statements:
http://en.qstheory.cn/2023-05/04/c_882761.htm
http://en.qstheory.cn/2023-05/05/c_882998.htm
Do you agree with these points? Do you have your own criticisms? Am I totally off-base? Let me know!
(btw I’m also familiar with the idea of sharing criticism with comrades but finding public criticism to be counter-productive, but I don’t want to spend all day listing caveats)
It’s a bit difficult to criticize another country that isn’t your own. Any criticism should be qualified always with something to the effect of “I do not not live in China/am not Chinese/do not know the language/etc.”.
It also requires a vast knowledge of history and culture that I (and I assume most people here) do not really know about. Sure we can make some observations about the country, but I think the best way to even broach the subject of real scrutiny of China’s issues is to read about them from Chinese authors themselves, or at least from western Marxist Leninist sources. That way you can be more sure that “hey, this person has a vested interest in the betterment of China along with the knowledge about these things”.
As a native of a colonized land I can only look from the outside and admire what they have accomplished. And hope that they find Chinese Marxist solutions to their Chinese problems, many of which are caused by the contradictions of capitalism.
And I would hope that they return the same courtesy for my people.
Have certainly noticed nationalist/nazbol-like sentiment in response to LGBT issues, treating it as foreign infiltration to poison the minds of the youth. While part of it can be attributed to defending against the western version’s rainbow imperialism, those conservative/reactionary elements have always existed in some form.
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I wish there was a simple answer on this front, most of my research is based on trans needs and concerning that matter I would say China is working towards those needs. They have a long way to go and hopefully can take some inspo from the GDR and cuba. There was a pretty good discussion on the matter here
To quote @Giyuu: I do not not live in China/am not Chinese/do not know [much of] the language/etc. But from the outside, it seems that due to reform & opening up, Chinese go through much of the same shenanigans we do, whether it will be eventually solved through planned economy or not. They have bosses, landlords, and cops; they work too much and compete for stressful jobs and rigorous education, and there is sure to be some amount of corruption even with the victories of the Tigers & Flies campaign… a friend from Tieling, Liaoning province personally complained of his folks having to pay bribes but did not get into why.
Ok, so my thing is that I would say I’m a “soft” anti-Dengist, meaning that I think it has demonstrably worked and I think China is clearly still a DoP controlled by dedicated ML’s, but I’m not 100% convinced it couldn’t have developed along the lines of the USSR and gotten to this same point without the risk of redeveloping the bourgeois as a class. I’m sure someone who has studied China far more than me will swing by and call me a liberal or something though (and I’ll deserve it lol)
I also don’t quite understand why they’re not more quickly moving back towards a fully planned economy, the forces of production seem plenty developed to me, and the United States has shown that they’re going to move into full blown cold war (or god forbid even hot war) within the next few years, so I’m not sure how much foreign capital is even left to take in. Maybe they’re waiting to have a completely self sufficient semiconductor industry or something like that?
Is that considered an “anti-Deng” stance now? I thought that was the general consensus about his reforms. They have worked, but also weren’t without their own set of issues that did cause a lot of…I don’t know if “backsliding” is the right word, but more tolerance of capitalist behaviour. We could always wonder about “what if” but we could also wonder what if Mao invented the anti-capitalist laser that strategically targets every capitalist in the world instantly and frees everyone. It feels like pointless circlejerking to be honest. The China in the world today is the China we have, for better and worse. Thankfully, things do seem to just be getting better and better there, though obviously not at an ideal pace, but we aren’t idealists, we are materialists.
And in turn, I agree with your second paragraph. They do seem to be moving very slowly towards a planned economy. I’m not sure if this is due to them being concerned about western aggression, or just believing that their economy has too much inertia to shift quickly. Of course, this could also be because the Maoists are right and they’re all just evil capitalists pretending to be socialists for some reason.
I am not Chinese nor do I live in China. So my opinions are just my opinions and not based on any concrete understanding of these things.
idk, I’m not super into all the terminology surrounding everything, I thought the general consensus was that China wouldn’t have reached this height without his reforms. I agree it’s not worth talking about too much, although we should always analyze the past of course. I might make a post asking about their shift to a planned economy, I’d be curious for people who understand China better to explain it to me
Yeah, me too. I haven’t read much really up to date stuff on the matter, not since they before they started their most recent 5 year plan.
And the terminology obsession is for the terminally online anyway. Figuring out if something is more Althussertherian or Haywoodian or whatever doesn’t matter. If a person can’t explain their position simply, or another’s position as they understand it, they probably don’t understand the topic very well. (A person can explain something and still be wrong of course, but trying to “prove” yourself correct by referencing some obscure Marxist thinker is the hallmark of the pseudo-intellectual who is only concerned with “winning” pointless internet arguments.)
I think some of it is liberal propaganda and Deng’s reform was mainly useful for survival in capitalist encirclement, as it produced a massive degree of impoverishment for the common people early on.
I don’t really understand the economics, but I don’t think that switching to a centrally-planned economy overnight is possible. It’s not a matter of Xi Jinping restraining himself from pushing the button; it’s just that the contradictions that arise from China’s economic system haven’t given rise to the need for complete nationalization. Not like it’s a good thing; most of China’s growth and innovation is from the private sector.
I gotta heavily disagree with that last line. Most of China’s innovation is from state-owned or at least scientific state-supported funding, and the private economic activity is just raising funds.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=CN&name_desc=true
The PRC’s GDP was just a little over $190 billion in 1980; with a population of approximately a billion people, that translates to a GDP-per-capita of just a little bit less than $200. It’s clear that China’s developmental model wasn’t working, and that the implementations of state-guided market reforms were the primary factor responsible for China’s rapid prosperity.
could you give PPP gdp? also, I don’t think GDP is a great stat for this, it’s always going to underestimate planned economies, they don’t do all the financial mumbo jumbo shit.
I just thought too, we really need to look at what the trajectory of their economy from after they fixed all their shit from the great leap forward to when the reforms started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(PPP)
I’m not sure why, but I keep getting access denied every time I explore the source for the data (IMF)… Anyway, according to the link above, it was a little bit over $300 billion. Not much higher than the nominal GDP.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=CN
There’s also this link, but the data begins from 1990; but the point is clear - China’s rapid prosperity really only began well after the reforms and opening up began.
I should add that Mao-era China created a healthy and educated population, but the reforms and opening up massively increased the nation’s industrial capabilities.
but it didn’t truly take off until the 2000’s, I want to see the path that China’s economy was taking before the reforms, idk how we would find that
Take a look at the first link. The GDP PPP wasn’t much higher than the nominal GDP back then; as I have already shown you.
The data starts from 1960, 11 or so years after the founding of the PRC, but we can already see that the economy was incredibly small and only marginally increased until - like we have said - the reforms and opening up truly began to accelerate starting from the 1990s and 2000s.
Now, China’s nominal GDP is only about $18 trillion but the GDP PPP is about $34 trillion! This could not have been done if the socialist market economy was not introduced.
Why could the USSR do it but not China? I understand that China was not quite as resource rich in some ways but it wasn’t exactly a starved small nation like say Vietnam
Do what? The USSR was barely an economic threat to the US, and ultimately ceased to exist.
The PRC has not only survived the endless waves of imperialist sabotage, but also thrived. It is, without a doubt, the most prosperous country in the world, and those gains could not have been made without the socialist market economy.
Sorry but do what exactly?
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The CPC isn’t deciding these things based on ideology. They are following popular sentiment. Don’t start with a question about culture and just seamlessly transition to blaming the CPC
? Garbageshoot said “just give me anything that you can be persuaded to talk about” so I thought this would apply. And I’m not trying to “blame” the CPC, I don’t think they’re failing the country or anything that drastic, I just think there are alternative pathways that are less risky imo.
I was late in checking up on things but I appreciate what you shared
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That’s what I said
so is this a thread about culture or economics? the profit motive thing isn’t really a culture thing is it?
Perfectly fair, but I specify in the second paragraph:
Specifically, do you have any criticisms of China’s contemporary culture? Its government? What are they?
I was talking about the government in the economic case.
Basically just give me anything that you can be persuaded to talk about
I don’t live in China, but I’ve been there many times, and I am of Chinese descent and I speak a bit of the language. Here are my observations:
A lot of Chinese gen X-ers and older millennials have pretty low cultural self-confidence. They seem to think that Western and Japanese cultural exports, brands, and ideas are better. Even for Chinese music and such, they prefer Taiwanese and Hong Kong stuff over mainland. I’ve heard that this is reversing for younger millennials and gen Z-ers, so that’s pretty encouraging.
A lot of people seem to lack consideration and awareness of others in public settings. There are stereotypes of Chinese people being aggressive and inconsiderate drivers, cutting in line, spitting, rushing to grab seats in the metro, etc. and a lot of it is based on reality. I believe a lot of it is a holdover from times of scarcity, where if you didn’t fight for yourself, you’d be left behind. Things are slowly but surely changing with public education and fines - public spitting is much rarer now, and drivers in some cities like Shanghai actually follow the rules sometimes. But there is still a long way to go.
Chinese customer service isn’t the best. A lot of products don’t come with any sort of return policy or satisfaction guarantee. If there are issues that are difficult to solve, a lot of customer service people will just throw their hands up and say 没办法 (there’s no way). You really have to pester people to get issues taken care of.
Work culture, like in much of Asia, can be pretty brutal and inefficient. There is generally a rigid hierarchy, and lower-ranking workers are strongly encouraged to be quiet and listen to the boss, even if the boss is wrong. A lot of companies prioritize ass-in-chair time over actual productivity. You’ve heard about 996 culture at big tech companies, and many employees are not being productive for a lot of that time, but they still need to be at the office for God knows whatever reason.
There is a large amount of societal pressure for conspicuous consumption. Even people who are not rich will buy Gucci and BMWs to keep up with the Zhong-ses. European brands are preferred. People will drive to work even if it takes longer than taking the metro or biking because owning a car is a status symbol.
Which brings me to my next point, Chinese people loooove cars. Owning a car is a sign you’ve made it in life. Having good public transit is taken for granted, and everyone wants a shiny European luxury car. It’s gotten to the point where local officials will even prioritize cars in infrastructure, such as by building pedestrian over/underpasses, moving the lines closer to the intersection, reducing pedestrian crossing time, etc. Wide roads and parking lots in cities are seen as symbols of modernity. Although good public transit is plentiful, there is not so much am emphasis on pedestrians and bikers in a lot of cities.
There are a lot of positive parts of Chinese culture, but I’m just pointing out what I feel are the negatives since that’s what the question asked. I think a lot of these are directly a result of China’s status as a developing country (being almost destitute in living memory) and the drastic changes during the reform and opening up period.
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