Posted On: Saturday - January 25th 2025 4:13PM MST
In Topics: Pundits China
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I wrote this post, everything below, yesterday. Just now I noticed that Steve Sailer has a post on his substack site - Forget it, Jake. China is Chinatown. - with an interesting question about China. He doesn't normally write about the place, so, since Peak Stupidity does, let me answer that he's on the right track, as one could read here:
Fireworks from China (about eminent domain)
A China story and Chinese vs. American police states.
Both have comparisons between our countries. The latter has a personal anecdote and also supports Mr. Sailer's conclusion that there's much local control in China.
However, what a lot of people don't get is that the CCP is more fundamental than the Chinese Central Government.
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No, not physically. I'm probably not going there again. We at Peak Stupidity are just wheeling around from the wonderful Trumpian Executive Order news toward China for just a post or 2, maybe 3.
See, since I've backslid into commenting on The Unz Review again, I got sucked in by this one title about China written by Mr.Ron Unz, the site proprietor. American Pravda: China vs. America • 1h54m ▶: A Comprehensive Review of the Economic, Technological, and Military Factors. Note that Mr. Unz kindly recorded himself so that one can listen to the post. I've heard him before, and he comes across well via voice, but reading is much faster. I didn't read the whole thing either though. I only read some of the stats, which I don't argue with, but when it comes to UNDERSTANDING China, Ron Unz is a complete dupe.
I get that America has fallen far in many ways, as China has risen in many, over half a century, but, for both, with an acceleration over the last quarter of one, meaning THIS 21st Century alone. What does Ron Unz know about China, and why is he writing about this?
Firstly, let me again state that Mr. Unz is a real stalwart for free speech - take a look at the writers on his site - and he has done some political good in the past regarding bi-lingual education in California. He's been digging into all manner of political shenanigans in American history. What he doesn't seem to get is that ALL Governments do all manner of shady things. America's very limited Federal government of a century back was the best the world had ever seen! Yet, Ron Unz gives no credit. He gives no credit for the Americans that understand what this country WAS and want it back. Right now, with Trump doing some amazing things, will he credit Trump? No way. (Steve Sailer is very hesitant himself on this, for a different reason. There'll be a post ...)
Ron Unz has never had anything good to say about America and Americans. It's clearly not in him. Therefore, if he can see the amazing shiny new Chinese infrastructure and stats that show China in a much better light, well, there's an American Pravda article. His contention is that American politicians are all warmongering against China and are economically against China for no reason. Regarding the former, not all are (take Trump, for example!), and, yes, we ARE in an economic war, one we've been fighting with hands tied behind our backs for 30 years.
By the sarcastic "Pravda", here, we are to believe Mr. Unz has discovered this beautiful wonderful country that Americans have been trying to hide the news of. That we're all badmouthing the place due to nothing but jealousy or ignorance, seems to be his contention.
We've shown lots more pictures in the "trains, planes, automobiles" posts.
Ron Unz has never been to China. Your PS blogger has been there either 11 or 12 times.* Our "Dispatches from the Middle Kingdom" are all here, with the China topic key. I counted 19 of them just now. Most of them show that I AM impressed by some of the shiny new amazing stuff. It doesn't mean I think the place is wonderful, and that's partly because I have trustworthy Chinese people who can inform me of more than what meets the eye. This results in my having a better picture of economics and social life, and a little more about the politics.
In the meantime, Ron Unz has been watching youtube videos by young Western women! Do you see why I say that he's a dupe? We're talking young women, first of all. We've written about this before (as has the great commenter AnotherDad, who writes much in the Steve Sailer threads on Mr. Unz's own blog). Young women should be concerned with nurturing babies much more than politics. Their emotional state and complete lack of perspective on the world does not lend itself to good work as politicians, even as voters most of the time, and as experts on Chinese society. Yeah, Ron Unz is impressed with China from young ladies' youtube channels. OK....
Regarding the post then, because I had this morbid curiosity, I couldn't help but go through the 500-odd comment thread. By "go through", this time I was not about to read them all. The usual "10-centers"**, one LittleRedDot and one Mulga Mumblebrain***, commented 50 and 36 times, respectively. I don't mind some good arguments, but I can tell when I'm reading from a propagandist when there is never ever any admission of an agreement on anything against his benefactors.. IOW, if I were defending Americans, and the subject of "The People of Wal-Mart" came up, I'd have to admit that, yes, generally, you don't see Chinese people in that terrible shape. These commenters don't admit anything, even something trivial, so I know who they are.
I skipped those guys.**** I do get obsessive about finishing, and in doing so, happily I ran across a well-written and very realistic long anecdotal comment by a guy with the handle The Seventh Shape. He's lived in China for 7 years so far. It's way too late to even ask permission, so I'll just paste the whole thing in, unedited. The comment was not intended to refute everything Ron Unz thinks erroneously about China, but just about "all that glitter".
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I have lived in China for the last 7 years and will give my 2 cents. I think that Ron and others here, including some who claim to live in China, have presented a overly rosey-eyed picture of China and a more nuanced view is called for.
Architecture and urban design is an interest of mine and I have explored numerous Chinese cities. Things can look impressive from a distance in those drone videos but there is an element of Ptomkin village here: when you get up close you see that in many cases, buildings are built to a low quality compared to other countries and workmanship is lacking in a lot of cases. You’d see a building that seems to be made of stone or brick but when you get close you realise it’s just a facade, with thin slices of stone put on steel frames or over plaster. Or you’d see a flowerbed and you’d get close and realise they are plastic flowers. Or you’d see a fancy skyscraper but getting closer you’d see it’s unoccupied (some of these eventually get occupied). Footpaths are generally of a very low quality in Chinese cities. They typically don’t cement down the stone tiles they make the footpaths with, and then because ebikes routinely drive on the footpaths the tiles get easily broken.
In Europe it is normal to see stone and brick buildings that are over 100 years old, but it’s very rare to find buildings of that age and stature in China. They rarely build with lasting materials like stone and brick. Almost the only stone buildings that one sees in China are ones built by Europeans over a century ago, like on the Bund in Shanghai or those built by the Russians in Dalian and Harbin, even though China has plenty of stone mines. They just prefer to build things cheaply and quickly. Chinese, and many Asians more generally, have a different attitude and less scruples about fakery, for instance, Chinese women routinely use beauty filters on their dating app pictures and think there’s nothing wrong with it, while Chinese men routinely dye their grey hair.
In Chinese cities they often do not maintain their buildings well and do not build them to last. I will give an example. When I first came to China I was wondering why the paint seems to peel off the buildings so often, even buildings that are new. Even in my apartment I noticed that the paint would flake off the walls with slight impact. Then I found out why: they don’t use primer before they paint!! Or perhaps they use inferior paint-and-primer. And this is typical of the Chinese attitude: get the job done as quickly and cheaply as possible; why use primer when it will cost more money and time and by the time the paint starts flaking off the apartments we’ll have the money in the bank.
There are a lot of very nice cities in China and also a lot of industrial hellholes, but I wouldn’t say China’s best cities outshine other countries’. They are not better or worse but just different. Ron’s article hyped up the urban planning but there is good and bad here. Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province for instance, is the worst planned city I’ve ever seen: in the city centre at every intersection there was railings preventing you from crossing the roads. You are forced to go either under a tunnel or over a footbridge to cross. Imagine doing that every city block! It is a city planned for cars, not pedestrians, and this is a common bias in Chinese city planning. There are cities in China with some wondrously designed areas, impressive skyscrapers, and things built on a massive scale. It should be noted though that most of these are designed by the big Western architecture firms like SOM and Zaha Hadid.
Also, though crime is relatively low in China, there are very high rates of PARKING crime, as I would call it, with people routinely parking their cars along the curb at zebra crossings and the authorities doing nothing about it.
You get the full range of stuff here from tasteful classical Chinese elegance to the tackiness of buildings covered with blinking, incoherent lighting displays. It’s rarely boring. The transportation infrastructure is often impressive but there are negatives too. For instance there are onerous security protocols that create bottlenecks in metro systems and train stations, for instance, all passengers must put their bags through a scanner and then walk through a scanner. Further, the high population density leads to very crowded buses and trains, and people can be loud on public transport. Luckily taxis are cheap.
Contrary to what the article suggested, Chinese university campuses and schools are not so attractive looking for the most part. There are no grand old university campuses like one finds in Europe or the US. There’s almost nothing that can be dated back beyond a century. There are some beautiful campuses and the best I’ve seen is Xiamen University.
Ron’s article also suggests that Chinese cities seem really futuristic. I’m not sure what people mean when they say this; maybe they are referring to how you do everything through your smart phone over here. I don’t necessarily see this as a good thing however. If you happen to lose your phone you can’t function and are in big trouble. I heard of one man who lost his phone and then committed suicide. I can relate, as I left my phone behind in a taxi once and felt seized by panic, though luckily I got it back later that day. I don’t necessarily see this ‘futurism’ as progress. It’s overdependence on technology. People here look at their phones way too much and about 50% of people who you will see here in parks or at urban lakes stare at their phones WHILE WALKING, often watching a drama or silly tiktok videos instead of enjoying the often beautiful surroundings.
Let me say a little about Xingjiang. I agree with Ron that the stories of genocide are most likely total rubbish. That said, things are not fine and dandy in Xingjiang and it’s clear that there is a serious security operation going on there. I know one American who is an adventurous traveller who went exploring there. He said there are certain places where foreigners cannot go. He tried to travel to a traditional Uyghur town in the far West and he had to pass 4 police checkpoints. He got through 3 but on the 4th was driven back by police to the train station. He saw hundreds of PLA men at one train station. He also said he took a bus trip that got stopped at checkpoints 14 times. At these checkpoints, all the Uyghurs on board were checked for their ID, but not the Han Chinese. As a foreigner he was questioned at these checkpoints and at one was kept for over an hour, as the bus waited. The bus journey took over 40 hours because of these delays. I don’t say this in judgment and I’m sure the CIA would just love to stir up trouble there given the slightest opening, like they did in Chechnya for the Russians.
Life in China is getting better in many ways. 7 years ago when I arrived in my city it had one metro line under construction. Now it has a fourth line opening in a few months time. Many new recreation facilities have opened, new malls and shining office towers, and old temples and buildings have been renovated. Some of the old-timers however-foreigners who have been living here for 20 years plus-miss the old days. They reminisce fondly about the Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin era when China was more wild and fun, albeit more corrupt, and you could ‘do whatever you damn well pleased.’
Mr. Unz, if you read this, I recommend you visit China to see things for yourself. I’d by happy to show you around my city, Xiamen, which is one of the nicer ones here.
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I suggested Ron Unz go to China back in '19 sometime to see the place for himself. He's got the money and the time. Alas, the PanicFest "happened".
I have a few comments on Mr. Shape's long comment, but this post is long enough. A little bit more on China will be coming in 2 posts or so.
* I'd thought it had been 11 already, before I went in Summer of '23. However, I can't seem to recall more than 11 right now. I don't know if I can dig up the records or not.
** No, I don't know if they really get paid by the CCP 10 cents per comment, but it ought to be up to about 5 RMB now, about 70 cents, what with inflation and all.
*** This guy takes the cake. He's a Chinese guy who lives in Australia, yet he badmouths Australia and Australians incessantly. I don't know why it is he won't move back to China then, other than that they don't want him back. (Hey, they aren't stupid!) Mr. Mangledbrain is also a Climate Calamity™ fool.
**** One more, going by d dan, must have left his pager somewhere for a couple of days - he came aboard really late. I don't know if he is the same as another 10-center, one "D.B. Cooper" who, when asked by me about hijackings and such, had no clue what I meant. See, it was the old "Who won the 1939 World Series?" trick.
Comments:
Moderator
Tuesday - January 28th 2025 11:39AM MST
PS: I never thanked you for the book suggestion, SafeNow. I'm at the library due to printing problems at home, so I put this link in and see that I should be able to just read this one as a .pdf.
SafeNow
Monday - January 27th 2025 3:15AM MST
PS
Thank you for your interest, and the invitation to elaborate, Mr. Moderator. Below is a link to a lengthy, scholarly, comprehensive book chapter. Despite its nerdiness, it is quite accessible to non-social psychologists. It is skim-able, as subject headings allow one to focus on subparts of special interest. Ron will find it handy if perchance he ever needs to cram for a “meet the parents” with that (imagined) Chinese girlfriend. Seriously, Blinken would have benefitted from an hour with this, before the Anchorage insult.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285714175_The_thinking_styles_of_Chinese_people
Thank you for your interest, and the invitation to elaborate, Mr. Moderator. Below is a link to a lengthy, scholarly, comprehensive book chapter. Despite its nerdiness, it is quite accessible to non-social psychologists. It is skim-able, as subject headings allow one to focus on subparts of special interest. Ron will find it handy if perchance he ever needs to cram for a “meet the parents” with that (imagined) Chinese girlfriend. Seriously, Blinken would have benefitted from an hour with this, before the Anchorage insult.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285714175_The_thinking_styles_of_Chinese_people
Moderator
Sunday - January 26th 2025 7:29AM MST
PS: Maybe Ron Unz could find a girlfriend in China and learn a whole lot of things. ;-}
I think you should expand on your comparison of differences in ways of thinking, SafeNow. If you write something longer, or have some good links, I can post it here.
I think you should expand on your comparison of differences in ways of thinking, SafeNow. If you write something longer, or have some good links, I can post it here.
SafeNow
Sunday - January 26th 2025 1:29AM MST
PS
Ron’s analysis of “Economic, Technological, and Military Factors” misses an important and quite fascinating factor that deserves to be covered when trying to understand China. Peeling-paint-oriented commenters likewise ignore it. Mr. Moderator, to his credit, gives it attention in his writing. It has been observed and analyzed that Chinese people tend to think holistically, whereas western people tend to think specifically and linearly. Ain’t this interesting, and, a big deal!? Maybe I am just prejudiced because I was a psychology major, but I think the answers are yes and yes. Even if Ron were to go to China, he would really have to go out of his way to try to see this. Some years ago, I got to know socially a few Chinese-born U.S. women, and seeing the world through their brain was quite an eye-opener for me. Ironically, if I had gone to China, I would not have had the opportunity to do that!
Ron’s analysis of “Economic, Technological, and Military Factors” misses an important and quite fascinating factor that deserves to be covered when trying to understand China. Peeling-paint-oriented commenters likewise ignore it. Mr. Moderator, to his credit, gives it attention in his writing. It has been observed and analyzed that Chinese people tend to think holistically, whereas western people tend to think specifically and linearly. Ain’t this interesting, and, a big deal!? Maybe I am just prejudiced because I was a psychology major, but I think the answers are yes and yes. Even if Ron were to go to China, he would really have to go out of his way to try to see this. Some years ago, I got to know socially a few Chinese-born U.S. women, and seeing the world through their brain was quite an eye-opener for me. Ironically, if I had gone to China, I would not have had the opportunity to do that!