I'm not sure how much you know or don't know, so it might be hard to know where to start.
Over the past few years as China's economic growth has slowed for everyone (but less so for the upper middle class and the wealthy), there's a lot of growing discontent that's turning into outright hostility towards white and black foreigners who poorer Chinese people see as "hurting the Chinese economy" in some way.
This is exacerbated by local Chinese media outlets and party politicians that need a place to put the blame, and so immigrants are chosen. You can't blame the Party. For what ought to be obvious reasons (see: Jack Ma).
Westerners don't really see this because if you read The Economist, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and/or listen to Fox Business, CNBC, Bloomberg, etc., then according to them, China is the land of plenty - a veritable mine full of diamonds and platinum waiting to be extracted. These people aren't stupid by the way - they know that China's economy is a glass house that could be fairly easily cracked. They have the same information you have, they can see the enormous tracts of empty 20-50 story-tall apartment buildings. They just don't care, because they (falsely) think that economic interest is the sole motivator of Chinese policy. I mean, what else could it be, right?? Why would anyone care about anything but profit? So they discard any information that could lead them to different conclusions about the economic prospects of the nation. For the very few that haven't been brainwashed by business school, the promise of 1,000,000,000 future middle class customers is just too much to ignore, but they too are blinded by greed, but they're blind to how China operates. China wants to own it. They don't want their customers using Samsung and Apple phones and LG washing machines and driving Teslas. They want their customers using Huawei and Xiaomi phones, and using Chinese washing machines, and driving Chinese electric cars.
So anyway... because of poor central planning - because unfortunately all central planning is poor by its very nature, you need people to be able to be flexible based upon local circumstances and conditions - the effects are starting to be felt, by the poorest Chinese. And like all poor people, they tend to blame immigrants.
It isn't a critical problem - yet - but many foreign workers (mostly white, Western, educated one) are starting to leave because the climate is becoming hostile.
Agree with everything you said, and wha'ts left unsaid (uygours, the aging issue, the abandonned youths in central China, and many others). But this:
> because unfortunately all central planning is poor by its very nature
Is untrue for a very specific subset of issue: nation-wide infrastructure. W/o central planning, not nuclear plants, no French/Japanese/Italian/Chinese trains. Electricity: the bigger you network is, the easier it is to pilot said network. Central planning is a tool, like the free market is a tool. Hardcore Liberals and Communists will both disagree with me, but it is 2021, i think we're past Marx and can recognize Adam Smith was not always right (even if he was on point on a lot of thing).
You can also have a central-planning thingy along a river that multiple community use to better allocate a really needed ressource that is called water. Not nation central planning, but something in between.
cbozeman|5 years ago
Over the past few years as China's economic growth has slowed for everyone (but less so for the upper middle class and the wealthy), there's a lot of growing discontent that's turning into outright hostility towards white and black foreigners who poorer Chinese people see as "hurting the Chinese economy" in some way.
This is exacerbated by local Chinese media outlets and party politicians that need a place to put the blame, and so immigrants are chosen. You can't blame the Party. For what ought to be obvious reasons (see: Jack Ma).
Westerners don't really see this because if you read The Economist, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and/or listen to Fox Business, CNBC, Bloomberg, etc., then according to them, China is the land of plenty - a veritable mine full of diamonds and platinum waiting to be extracted. These people aren't stupid by the way - they know that China's economy is a glass house that could be fairly easily cracked. They have the same information you have, they can see the enormous tracts of empty 20-50 story-tall apartment buildings. They just don't care, because they (falsely) think that economic interest is the sole motivator of Chinese policy. I mean, what else could it be, right?? Why would anyone care about anything but profit? So they discard any information that could lead them to different conclusions about the economic prospects of the nation. For the very few that haven't been brainwashed by business school, the promise of 1,000,000,000 future middle class customers is just too much to ignore, but they too are blinded by greed, but they're blind to how China operates. China wants to own it. They don't want their customers using Samsung and Apple phones and LG washing machines and driving Teslas. They want their customers using Huawei and Xiaomi phones, and using Chinese washing machines, and driving Chinese electric cars.
So anyway... because of poor central planning - because unfortunately all central planning is poor by its very nature, you need people to be able to be flexible based upon local circumstances and conditions - the effects are starting to be felt, by the poorest Chinese. And like all poor people, they tend to blame immigrants.
It isn't a critical problem - yet - but many foreign workers (mostly white, Western, educated one) are starting to leave because the climate is becoming hostile.
orwin|5 years ago
> because unfortunately all central planning is poor by its very nature
Is untrue for a very specific subset of issue: nation-wide infrastructure. W/o central planning, not nuclear plants, no French/Japanese/Italian/Chinese trains. Electricity: the bigger you network is, the easier it is to pilot said network. Central planning is a tool, like the free market is a tool. Hardcore Liberals and Communists will both disagree with me, but it is 2021, i think we're past Marx and can recognize Adam Smith was not always right (even if he was on point on a lot of thing).
You can also have a central-planning thingy along a river that multiple community use to better allocate a really needed ressource that is called water. Not nation central planning, but something in between.
vmilner|5 years ago