I want to add something that will not be popular among many members. China is not third world country in the sense of Burundi. China has always been technically superior to Africa with the exception of white-ruled apartheid South Africa. Contemporary China is in many ways similar to the United Kingdom during Victorian era (1837-1901). A small and rich industrial and government elite that rule the people through a class of modestly wealthy and well-paid cohort of civil servants and professionals in the private industry.
Victorian Era England had far higher degree of wealth inequality,
while it is currently
Below the managerial class you find the working class. A class that to large extent consists of semi-skilled workers that work unsafe and dangerous factories for little money. China has also a growing class of poor urban workers. They sell what they find along the streets or in small shops. Many of them also work in the bottom of the service sector - driving food to the aloof managerial class. These workers live in slums with diseases, crime and poverty between the skyscrapers and modern high-rise buildings. Rural China is still intact and 7.5% of Chinese GDP stem from a agriculture. The lives of Chinese rural peasants lives has not changed much and they contribute little per capita to the economy.
For healthcare, China pays approximately
(with US GDP per capita being around 7 times larger, so outstripping the nominal GDP difference), while having a
and lower degree of
. China has a better HAQ (Healthcare Access and Quality index)
. (Lithuania has an HAQ of 0.679 vs China's 0.709).
If a majority of China's population can be considered to be living in slums riddled with disease, I would like to see what the conditions are in the US or Lithuania which is causing such a disparity in healthcare outcomes.
This trend will probably continue as China's overall educated workforce grows and they continue their industrial upgrading (
)
The average salary in the private industry is $770/month (2022). The average salary for a worker in government is $1340/month. These massive diffrences between an overpaid class of civil servants and everyone else are typical for developing countries. The median salary is no doubt much lower. This is how Chongqing look behind the finance, business and shopping districts.
Of course images like above is expected as Chinese workers make so little money. In June 2023 the youth unemployment in China hit 21%. By the end of 2023 it had dropped to 15% more in line with 2022. China, like so many other countries, think that (mass)production of college students will solve this issue. This has been tried and failed all over the world., in Sweden, India, South Africa, Brazil, Canada and the United States. With automatization, increased corporate efficiency and lack of opportunity other than menial work many college educated Chinese youth will stay poor.
Having an educated workforce is key in increasing worker productivity, which is what China is doing currently. The EU also has a comparable rate of youth unemployment,
. Really, China's rate of youth unemployment rate isn't really irregular compared to certain other economies.
You can find images of many countries or regions of the world with some degree of material inequality to see scenes of poorly built housing, e.g. Taiwan has around 3x the GDP per capita of mainland China, but has to contend
and hazardous rooftop construction due to their housing crisis (
). Presenting a video like this basically just amounts to anecdotally cherry-picking evidence to support your thesis that China is failing in its economic development.
Only a few countries have been able to reach a developed social and economic level. These are the Eastern European EU-members that were lifted by the European Union and Israel. Israel was lifted by the United States and the Jewish diaspora. The others are Singapore, South Korea and Japan. The only countries in Asia that show potential are China and Vietnam. China seem to fail it´s mission.
, such as Hungary or the Czech Republic, and comparable to the per capita wealth level of Europe (at around $27,273 per capita vs Europe's $28,611). This is already 3x larger than the world average.
