https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/world/asia/china-beijing-migrants-eviction.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/china-beijing-migrants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/world/asia/china-beijing-migrants-tech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/world/asia/beijing-china-reconstruction-hutong.html One of the Rationalists (Kaplan?) observed that China isn't a country of over a billion people. It's a thriving Western utopia of 300 million coastal cosmopolitans with all of sub-Saharan Africa attached to the inland side.
I wouldn't look at it that way - I mean, there's 1.4 billion people over there (give or take a couple-three hundred million because estimates vary) in the world's second-largest economy. 100 years ago they were effectively feudal; 50 years ago they were effectively communist. There's a lot to grapple with. And the Chinese do not fuck around when they do big social projects. The Great Leap Forward was barely 50 years ago and it killed like 10 million people; the Cultural Revolution was less than 50 years ago and it was pretty hardcore in and of itself.
Well, it's given me something to think about and I know that both The Guardian article and the NY Times articles you shared are two different issues. Now I worry if the relocating of the rural poor is being treated with the amount of sensitivity and compassion that I would like to hope it is. After all, we're talking about people's homes and communities, and even with the best execution and best of intentions there are gonna be mis steps. If not done carefully, a lot of people could be hurt. When China tackles projects, they tend to go balls to the wall in getting things done and they don't mess around. Which is impressive, but sometimes doesn't get the desired result. Sometimes you get massive cities and no one to live in them, other times you get a famine. Relocating over nine million people in a short amount of time is a big ass project, even if it is spread out among multiple provinces and communities. I hope the country doesn't lose sight of the human element here. I'm hopeful though, because over the past decade it does seem like China as a whole is starting to be concerned with running a fairer and fairer government. But then again, it feels like for every example that I can think of as a positive, I can find a negative too. So, I dunno. Re-reading that Guardian article though, now, it feels kind of like a propaganda piece and I feel foolish for getting excited about it without giving it more thought.
