Much of the growth in China is entirely artificial and is basically a glorified jobs program. China builds tons of cities throughout the country to generate construction contracts and keep people employed. This trend has sort of recently reached a head, and China is now suffering from a pretty large youth unemployment rate (something like 15% of young adults in China cannot find work).
Additionally, many of the public transportation routes in China were designed as vanity projects and have never become profitable. A lot of the high speed rail in China cuts through large swathes of uninhabited land and goes out to ghost cities where nobody lives because they were only built to create construction contracts. These rail lines are expensive to maintain and are bleeding money.
Now, of course you’d probably say that public transportation is a public good; they dont need to profit to benefit the country. That may be true, but it also means that the government needs to borrow money in order to subsidize these largely pointless rail lines (think of those maps where people propose a HSR line that goes from New York to California- a largely pointless route that almost nobody would take because it would be a lot faster to just take a plane).
This is not to say that the United States beats China in every category. In my view the United States has become a barely functioning legal fiction on the precipice of disintegration. My point is just that a lot of these things in China are artificially propped up by their relatively centrally planned economy and are designed to feed the egos of politicians. China is coming up on multiple fiscal, economic, and demographic cliffs that will most likely result in the shuttering of lots of these public works projects similar to how Argentina has been forced to shut down large amounts of public services because of decades of poor economic management.
And finally, to be fair, the United States is ALSO coming up on many economic cliffs, and in many ways has already flung itself far off of some of them, resulting in deteriorating fundamental public services such as education, healthcare, housing, public transportation, and regulatory agencies, not to mention the corruption which has also infested all of those
rustydomino@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It helps that in China you can’t own land. All the land is owned by the government. You only have “use rights” and for a limited time (something like 80 years - I forget the exact number). So when it comes time to build infrastructure the government just tells you to gtfo.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 day ago
America is no different. Try not paying your land tax.
The only difference is that, in America, someone needs to shout “eminent domain!” first and slip you $500 for your house.
deddit@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Isn’t this post about Canada?
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 21 hours ago
China has stronger property laws than the US, look up stuck nail houses. If the US ants your property, they can eminent domain your shit. In China, developers have literally had to swerve highways around property or build shopping centers around that one person who wont sell
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Lies. My family had a factory in Wuxi, China. 2 buildings that were dedicated to dormitories. 4 buildings dedicated to manufacturing promotional products.
We were able to lease the land for 50 years with a 50-year option at the end of the term.
Around year 5, the government decided to turn the main dirt road into a proper road. They took back 1/4 of the land. They just used our area for staging.
About a year after the road was made, they decided to expand the road. They took back now 1/2 of the original land and buildings.
Less than a year after the expansion, they turned the 4 lane road i to a highway. They took the entire land back. My family invested millions of dollars in buildings and infrastructure. We got back pennies on the dollar spent on the investment on compensation.
My family never fully recovered financially.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 14 hours ago
Huh, if the government has that power, why don’t they use it for stuck nail houses? I talked to a few people in shenzhen who made significant sums selling land to developers.
Different type of ownership due to your family purchasing the land vs inheriting it? Different provinces?
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I’m sure that’s the whole story.
rustydomino@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Look to public transit development in Taiwan as an example of how to do it right in a democratic nation. There are still loads of problems but the Taiwanese government can’t just take your land outright. Taipei especially has seen phenomenal growth in its metro development in the last 20 years.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
The government of Taiwan is the Chinese government
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
LOL
ALiteralCabbage@feddit.uk 16 hours ago
Wait until you hear about the UK! I own the freehold to my land, but technically it’s gramted by the crown, so I could in theory at any moment have my home taken from me.
gurnu@lemmy.world 1 day ago
And China has slave labor
zbyte64@awful.systems 22 hours ago
I mean so does the United States thanks to the 13th amendment but we don’t have anywhere near the same infrastructure to show for it
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
American slave labor isn’t used for anything interesting - it’s just letting companies pay less for labor for their own benefit.
greywolf0x1@lemmy.ml 19 hours ago
Proof or I don’t believe.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Wrong, the state owns the land but you can own the house, and not just for your 70y BS period.
There are plenty of articles like of instances where homeowners don’t want to sell for infrastructure like this: twistedsifter.com/…/china-builds-highway-around-h…
I know for a fact here in EU or the US they will indeed " just tells you to gtfo"
BTW, in China a high 90% of people OWN their house and aren’t rentslaves.
So there’s that China bad man.
protist@mander.xyz 13 hours ago
It’s hard to overstate how much safer and more ethical it is to use eminent domain and fairly compensate someone monetarily for their property than to leave their house in the middle of a highway
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
That’s besides the point wether you think it’s better or not, it should be the OWNER’s decision as is the case in China.
And not what this rustydomino is pulling out of his ass.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 13 hours ago
I’m sure the developers offered “fair compensation”, you need to demand lot before fucking up the highway design is more economical.