Comment on Public transit in Chengdu, China versus Toronto, Canada
Logical@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What’s up with all the China hype on Lemmy? These projects are impressive, no doubt, but their cost in terms of human rights violations are pretty high. I’m speaking generally, I don’t have the specifics with regards to this subway system. Either way it’s not really comparable to a project like this in a country like Canada imo.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
flango@lemmy.eco.br 3 weeks ago
Some countries want to sell the image of “China is the absolute evil”, thus from this logic everything “good” must equal something very evil.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Some of those are valid, some are stupid as hell.
For the covid ones - the cost was complete lockdown, with some people’s doors being welded shut (not official government policy, but common enough to make news, as lower level authorities get some decision making power in these cases). Imagine having an emergency and your door being welded shut. And of course we later found out that even multi-dose vaccines don’t stop covid 100%, so instead of stopping the pandemic forever, nothing of value was actually achieved. Covid is the new seasonal flu. For a while we didn’t even get vaccines for Covid here in Estonia anymore, though now they’re back on the table, free if you’re in a high risk group.
Electric cars - the cost is mass government subsidies for BYD and a couple of others. BYD doesn’t make money if they sell you a car I believe, they make money from the Chinese government if they sell you a car. Even if you’re in another country. China wants their EVs to dominate the market and that’s a strategy. This is why the EU had to raise tariffs on Chinese cars. Otherwise the European auto industry would simply die.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Electric cars - the cost is mass government subsidies for BYD and a couple of others. BYD doesn’t make money if they sell you a car I believe, they make money from the Chinese government if they sell you a car. Even if you’re in another country. China wants their EVs to dominate the market and that’s a strategy. This is why the EU had to raise tariffs on Chinese cars. Otherwise the European auto industry would simply die.
Why doesn’t the EU simply also subsidize their EVs?
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
They’re for-profit companies and so far pretty successful without direct subsidies. EU countries usually have subsidies for purchasing EVs (regardless of manufacturer) rather than subsidizing the manufacturers directly - this leaves the consumers more choice and has a similar or maybe even better effect on EV adoption. On the climate side of things as well as public health and equal opportunities for people, transit investments would be better than outright paying BMW and Mercedes to make their EVs cheaper. China, however, doesn’t just want EV adoption on their own roads, China wants THEIR EVs specifically to dominate the world. Usually this is seen as unfair, regardless of industry, and is one of the few valid reasons for tariffs in an otherwise free global market.
The funny thing is, if the Chinese subsidize their EVs and the EU tariffs them, the tariff money could then be spent on EV subsidies - bringing all the different manufacturers to equal ground again.
AA5B@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We don’t have to agree with China’s politics to appreciate that they did a positive thing. And we shouldn’t have to emulate their politics to get a thing done. We should be able to do it
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Something about a street being made that leads into hades.
zeca@lemmy.eco.br 3 weeks ago
What helps is that the aumomotive/gas industry lobby there isnt so effective.
mlg@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Pentagon wasted tax money on facebook bots to convince people in East Asia that the chinese covid vaccine was poison, so no one is really buying the “China human rights abuses are what allow China to succeed” idea anymore.
Especially since you can just as easily point to Japan’s infrastructure projects which achieved the same thing under US supervision post WWII, meaning said human rights violations aren’t even a supposed cost if there’s less evidence of it that of UAE literally pirating in immigrants to build their lavish towers and stadiums.
Of which the US fully supports, so this just goes back to the blame game of who is worse.
Yes, China has some shady ideas of what is considered acceptable behavior and work output from citizens, but the point is that they are using it to rapidly grow their infrastructure, unlike NA which take a decade for a single transit system to get approved all while car OEMs are pumping out dumpsterfire vehicles of whose parts are overwhelmingly made in China.
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Lemmy is more international than Reddit, so you’ll see more diverse perspectives
Dasus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The speed and size is impressive, yes.
But I doubt the quality.
“Tofu-dreg project” (Chinese: 豆腐渣工程) is a phrase used in the Chinese-speaking world to describe a very poorly constructed building, sometimes called just “Tofu buildings”. The phrase is notably used referring to buildings that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake disaster,[1][2][3][4][5][6] and the Bangkok Audit Office skyscraper collapse initiated by aftershocks from the March 2025 Myanmar earthquake over 1000km away, which was constructed with poor construction techniques and materials
zbyte64@awful.systems 3 weeks ago
I don’t know about Canada but the USA has been pro-child factory work lately. China’s wages have been rising faster than expected so they have gone all-in on automation. So when I see people claim their stuff is cheap because of “slavery” or human rights, it reads like projection.
Logical@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m from neither the US nor Canada, and in my case it certainly isn’t a matter of projection. I’m sure things have been getting a lot better for many people in China. However, it is still the case that China has a lot of human rights issues which are simply not as widespread in a lot of Western countries, the US included. And due to nation wide systems, such as hukou, it is very difficult for the population in poorer, rural areas to work legally in more affluent areas where the pay is higher. My understanding is that this has led to large scale “illegal migration” within the country’s borders, where workers are paid far less (sometimes not getting paid at all), work under poor conditions, and suffer abuses at the hands of their employers with little to no legal recourse due to their illegal status. China is a very inequitable society, and a lot of the misery that its less rich and powerful citizens have to deal with goes unnoticed by the rest of the world (and indeed the rest of its population), because we see stuff like this and are impressed by China’s progress. And no doubt that there’s actually been progress in a lot of areas, but the somewhat tired “at what cost?” question is still as pertinent as ever.
None of this is a defense of the US or Canada. Just saying that for the average person, China is probably a worse place to live and to work in.
zbyte64@awful.systems 3 weeks ago
Hukuo in modern China could be perceived as prioritizing the right to have a home over choosing to have none. “At what cost” includes homelessness and higher unemployment rates. We are quick to highlight where there is a lack of right in China but not how it reflects on our own lack of rights.
napkin2020@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
!meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
Lemmy has tankie problem.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
you are the problem