The news (and pundits) frequently speak about how China is “eating the US’s lunch” when it comes to infrastructure builds, AI development, economic growth, manufacturing, military strength, cybersecurity, cyber hacking, quality of living and more. China’s progress is often used as a foil to critique US economic, business and social issues.
Why isn’t anyone other than me stating the obvious here?:
We can’t rely on the ”facts” being provided by China.
We know that China is governed by an authoritarian dictatorship that maintains tight control over its media, communications, speech of individuals and businesses.
We have numerous examples of this:
- Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
- Clampdown on Hong Kong since it was handed back to China in 1997
- The Great Firewall
- Censorship of media, internet, social media, apps
- The imprisonment, silencing, disappearance and re-education of dissidents including politicians, businessmen, professors and journalists
- Forced labor, enslavement and punishment of Uyghurs
- Purposeful deception surrounding Covid origins, data and statistics
- Spying and propaganda efforts made throughout the world
At best, when someone is using China as a superior example they might say, “Notwithstanding China’s use of forced labor…” or “.Take it with a grain of salt that China maintains strict controls over its citizens…”
I’m not saying that China isn’t outperforming the US in these areas. In fact, I’m pretty confident they dominate manufacturing, logistics, worldwide consumer goods and related services based on my personal shopping and consumption .
It’s reported that China dominates in rare earth mineral mining/processing, EVs manufacturing, energy production and building infrastructure. This seems likely given the US’s pathetic progress (regress?) in these domains.
But how much? And why? And how do we know?
We don’t know the facts.
So unless we have actual hands on reliable data sources let’s not pretend that we do.
It would be refreshing, for once, to hear someone report, “China says ABC. We don’t know if this is true. What we do know is XYZ based on this evidence.”
But this doesn’t generate outrage as much as hyperbolic positioning and specious catastrophizing.
I expect nothing to change. Instead of worrying about China based on news reports, I’ll read books written by people who have actually been there.