That's a good idea! Can subsidies or state support be expanded to include all baby necessities that might be considered expensive money-wise and time-wise (including nanny/kindergarden services)?
China demographics thread.
- Thread starter gadgetcool5
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manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Cheap high quality diapers (and to a much lesser extent for traveling, baby wipes) as well; great diapers make diaper changes super clean and easy while skimping here can cause lots of headaches, messes, extra laundry. But actual services is trickier. They're trying to do that by banning afterschools and stuff but once person-to-person interactions take over, some sort of guanxi will kick in and people will start giving gifts hoping for favors, thinking the more you give the better they treat your kid, etc... Once again, it will tie back to the cultural aspect of wanting to pay a high price for diminishing returns or even the chance of some kind of return in search of the BEST. Chinese people just won't leave it alone and accept as standard practice to pay nothing extra and expect everyone to do their jobs as they should.
Chinese people have to understand that in certain aspects, good enough is just as good as the best. Kids who are coddled with the best of everything often end up soft and achieving less than kids who are given good enough, taught the values of teamwork, responsibility and consideration of others in a family of many siblings and told to go out and fight for the rest of what they hope to get out of life. China needs ways, media influence, etc... to steer people onto this culture and people will see that child-rearing is a lot cheaper and easier than they thought it would be before.
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The price food and diapers is honestly small potatoes compared to the real cost of china rearing in China which is education. Formula only cost a bit more than it should because lots of people still spend a ton of money importing from overseas.
Formula and diapers are only needed for the first 2 years of a child while education (even if "free" til grade 9) and those extracurriculars can cost tens of thousands+ easily, a year, per child. CPC tried to regulate it recently, but it's one of those things that just goes underground and still happening in plain sight, in fact it just became more expensive.
Parents are renting/buying extra apartments close to good school districts at sky high prices and picking up their child through traffic every day. Their kids study almost 12hr/day and basically need the parents and grandparents to take care of them almost full time. Even though China is safe, lots of parents are still thinking in terms of the 90s when there are allegedly, child kidnappers all over and will not let them walk by themselves even for 10 minutes. Not to mention the gift buying and guanxi to the teachers and school admin. It's a miracle that they can even get through all this for one child if both parents are working.
Nobody likes this system of cram schooling yet are forced to participate in it. I'm all for quality education (compared to the mass of American workers who are math illiterate) but this created a very strong interest group of people who are only good at taking tests and making money by teaching others how to take tests, instead of digesting the valuable knowledge and imparting the thirst of learning to the students, while taking parents' wallet hostage.
Formula and diapers are only needed for the first 2 years of a child while education (even if "free" til grade 9) and those extracurriculars can cost tens of thousands+ easily, a year, per child. CPC tried to regulate it recently, but it's one of those things that just goes underground and still happening in plain sight, in fact it just became more expensive.
Parents are renting/buying extra apartments close to good school districts at sky high prices and picking up their child through traffic every day. Their kids study almost 12hr/day and basically need the parents and grandparents to take care of them almost full time. Even though China is safe, lots of parents are still thinking in terms of the 90s when there are allegedly, child kidnappers all over and will not let them walk by themselves even for 10 minutes. Not to mention the gift buying and guanxi to the teachers and school admin. It's a miracle that they can even get through all this for one child if both parents are working.
Nobody likes this system of cram schooling yet are forced to participate in it. I'm all for quality education (compared to the mass of American workers who are math illiterate) but this created a very strong interest group of people who are only good at taking tests and making money by teaching others how to take tests, instead of digesting the valuable knowledge and imparting the thirst of learning to the students, while taking parents' wallet hostage.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Diapers are small but milk formula is a big big deal. It's not only a bit more expensive; foreign milk formula is scalped at several times the MSRP and the more premium the cost, the more Chinese people believe its quality. You have parents begging and thanking scalpers for charging them 10X the original cost, telling these scalpers to always sell to them with priority over other parents because they will outbid any rivals. Getting large volumes of this milk powder in China is a huge headache and expense to new parents and a boon for smugglers and price gougers.
Actually we discussed this here today. It's a cultural change that needs to happen or child-rearing will always be unaffordable no matter the income as long as parents tirelessly look for ways to spend more money trying to one-up each other.
Chinese Economics Thread
I don't expect BRI loans to ever grow back to their heyday. It was a bad deal for China and a good deal for irresponsible debtor nations who often defaulted on their loans anyway and then cried they were victims. Looking at your chart the BRI loans still beat buying US Treasury Bonds. Which...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Just adding some anecdotal evidence here that China can be capable of assimilating foreigners to address population growth, such as via adoption of abandoned/orphaned children from the Global South. As long as they are fully educated in China as a native speaker, supply their labor locally, marry locally, and have filial piety, that already makes them more Chinese than the hanjian scum abroad and domestic corrupt bastards selling out their country to foreign spies and predatory foreign businesses. If they love China and support China, that makes them more Chinese than many ethnic Han.
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manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Gonna play devil's advocate and post something people might feel uneasy about. It has nothing to do with the video, which I've not seen.
When a Chinese person betrays China and goes to a rival Western nation to badmouth it, we say this self-hating hanjian scum will never find acceptance or respect in that society but be viewed as a jester or dog huddling to please a master.
When a Western person or a person from another hostile nation to China moves to China applauding Chinese society and swearing allegiance to China over thier native country, what do we call them? Are they not the foreign counterpart to the hanjian we just discussed? Do we accept them as Chinese because their words and actions please us or do we look deep into the character of a traitor?
Personally, I don't respect anyone who doesn't show self-respect and self-love. A foreigner in any nation should maintain the dignity and honor of one's own native country at all times and at best, in the most friendly of situations, open a second place in one's heart for the culture of the adoptive nation while saving one's sacred place always for one's own culture. It is a matter of character and quality that no one betrays his nation for a hostile nation; I never trust or respect people who do, even if they run to China's side. Because if they betrayed their home country, how easy would it be for them to betray mine when the convenience arises? My motto is, "If you're not welcome in your own country, you're not welcome here either." It's placing the caliber of the individual over what is personally pleasing to hear.
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I don't think they were talking about expats and was talking about people who is educated in China and is fully culturally Chinese.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
So would a Chinese person by blood who was educated and grew up in the US not count as self-hating hanjian if s/he identified fully and only as an American with a hatred towards China? I know I expect better than that when I talk to a Chinese-American and I usually get better than that as well, the higher the education, the greater the likelihood. If not, this person counts to me as a low-life all the same.
I'm talking specifically about adopting orphans/abandoned children from the Global South. It's awfully unreasonable to expect that an orphan/abandoned child should have the kind of pride and dignity you are talking about... at best, they can form a pride and dignity based on their adoptive country.
In contrast, the majority of Hanjian are migrant workers (white and blue collar), white collar criminals (usually having fled to escape risk of conviction), or blue collar criminals (who may or may not have once escaped conviction), so I don't think you have done a great job as a devil's advocate here.
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No, since they are not Chinese, and they are westerner instead. You can't betray a country that you never swore allegiance to