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Pirate Radar posted:Or, better idea: Fantasy Competent Mao gives China ten years of competent communist leadership without cracking down on intellectual freedoms and then keeps doing that and doesn’t open up the country to capitalist exploitation. As a social democrat who is sympathetic to various left-libertarian visions for a post-capitalist world, I nonetheless think that some sort of limited and temporary NEP-style phase of neoliberal reforms for capital accumulation would be useful for accelerating economic development in extremely poor countries. Properly managed foreign investment simply provides much more economic growth than what most centralized planners working with extremely outdated technology could accomplish on their own. And yes, China was that extremely poor and that extremely technologically backwards. I simply don’t know how China could have secured all of those important technology transfers from much more developed countries without opening itself up to foreign investment from Western capitalists. The Soviet Union certainly wasn’t a reliable ally during the Cold War. Besides, it is not as if China had surrendered much sovereignty in doing so. The CCP still retains tremendous influence in the economy, and although I don’t think that they have any genuine interest in building a socialist utopia, the party could definitely engineer a reversal back into a less capitalist system if they so wished.
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Aug 30, 2018 11:56
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Practical communism is probably possible to implement in a small religious commune. There is no evidence it can be done large scale. Why are we talking about Communism?
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Aug 30, 2018 11:58
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If we are going on the fantasy benevolent competent government route in China can we try one or two governments back and try Constitutional Monarchy Qing Dynasty? Don’t get me wrong, having a top layer of nobles looking down on the masses is terrible. I just came back from UK and it’s interesting to see as a tourist continuous line of institutions and heritage. The British monarchy has no real power but it sure as hell neat to go to Windsor castle, House of Parliament and other historical institutions transform and adapt to modern times. While France and Paris still have the biggest heavyweights like the Louvre and Versailles and is the fashion/art/vogue capital of the world, the connection with older palaces and and churches feels much weaker than the living institutions of Great Britain. Meh, maybe China would still go on a militarist rampage like Japan but it’s just alt history so who cares! Mao should have died in the long march or sank in some river with Zhou En Lai taking charge. Fucker does gently caress all anyway and relied on others to run the country. Or better yet, RoC win the war and open up to the rest of the world like Taiwan
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Aug 30, 2018 19:46
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caberham posted:If we are going on the fantasy benevolent competent government route in China can we try one or two governments back and try Constitutional Monarchy Qing Dynasty? Come on, just go whole hog and have the Taiping win.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:05
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Well, you got to tell me why a pseudo science cult should win. They practice weird marshal arts and claim to be Christians. What else? I don’t know too much about them
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Aug 30, 2018 20:20
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caberham posted:Well, you got to tell me why a pseudo science cult should win. They practice weird marshal arts and claim to be Christians. What else? I don’t know too much about them Weird pseudo scientific martial arts was more the Boxers' thing, who were thirty years later and anti-Christian. Taiping were more about full communism, overthrowing the Manchu, and plans to redistribute land equally to all peasant households. They wanted technological and cultural modernization (things like written vernacular as opposed to Classical Chinese) and as part of that opening up to foreign contact. But it was a one sided love affair as the British and French preferred dealing with the devil they knew in the Qing, especially once they had unequal treaties in place. Their leader believed himself to be Christ's younger brother but hey every revolutionary movement has its quirks.
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Aug 30, 2018 20:46
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A successful Taiping Rebellion where Hong Rengan was in charge and Hong Xiuquan like, dropped dead or was relegated to spiritual figurehead, would have been more successful at modernizing than the Qing were imo.
Mantis42 fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Aug 30, 2018 |
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Aug 30, 2018 21:26
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Mantis42 posted:A successful Taiping Rebellion where Hong Rengan was in charge and Hong Xiuquan like, dropped dead or was relegated to spiritual figurehead, would have been more successful at modernizing than the Qing were imo. He was pretty much a figurehead from the start, Feng Yunshan and then Yang Xiuqing ran the show in the first half of the movement and Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengan in the second. And yeah, Rengan's platform might have been the best chance for a Chinese Meiji. Which isn't to sell the actual Qing reformers in the Tongzhi period short, they knew there was a desperate need for reform and modernization, but the headwinds were too strong and they were carrying too much baggage to go all the way with it. People sometimes buy into the narrative of the navel gazing sleeping giant but leadership in the late Qing was aware of the problems and the need for reform it just kept falling apart when it came to implementation.
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Aug 30, 2018 21:42
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caberham posted:If we are going on the fantasy benevolent competent government route in China can we try one or two governments back and try Constitutional Monarchy Qing Dynasty? John King Fairbanks' history of China basically has that as its thesis, that Chinese Nationalism Was A Mistake, and the Qing should have modernized from above like Japan and Germany. That was also the official Cold War liberal line on Russia, that the Romanov monarchy was on the right path before illegal coup by evil Bolsheviks
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Aug 31, 2018 05:05
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just wanted to apologize for my shitposting last week, I thought it would be fun to kinda muck it up on an internet comedy forum but I realize this is Debate & Discussion and this is actually for serious intellectual conversation, kind of like (reads the last week of posts) *rubs bridge of nose* ah, ok, so calling people racial slurs like "banana" and spouting off about crackpot conspiracy theories (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 1, 2018 01:54
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fart simpson posted:I don’t report you I’m not a snitch thank u
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Sep 1, 2018 01:58
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The Great Autismo! posted:just wanted to apologize for my shitposting last week All well and good, but where’s our apology for the other 11 years??
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Sep 1, 2018 03:41
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quote:Xi Jinping’s pledge of $60bn in new loans to Africa has triggered a wave of grumbling in China, the latest sign of popular hostility to the president’s international ambitions and to the tightening of political controls at home. https://www.ft.com/content/fb7436d6-b006-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c Out of curiousity, does anyone else here listen to the “China in Africa” podcast? The hosts Eric Olander (an American journalist currently living in Beijing) and Cobus van Staden (a South African professor who studies East Asia and media issues) are soft on China relative to most Western media outlets, but I think that the podcast simply offers usually more generous interpretations of China’s actions versus being outright propaganda or fake news. Episodes regularly come out every week. The hosts are knowledgeable about this somewhat niche subject, and they sometimes bring on interesting guests as well. Their last four episodes were all about FOCAC.
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Sep 4, 2018 18:38
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Snipee posted:https://www.ft.com/content/fb7436d6-b006-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c I just started listening on your recommendation. drat, good find. Anyone have any other China related podcast or book recommendations? I’ll throw out : Sinica, The China History Podcast Books I read recently: The discourse of race in modern China China’s cosmopolitan empire, the Tang Dynasty China’s second continent, how a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
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Sep 5, 2018 16:30
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Pro PRC Laowai posted:Books I read recently:
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Sep 5, 2018 17:32
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Hilarious.
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Sep 5, 2018 17:49
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Dunno much about this author or this particular paper but this article contests the idea that China's trying to snare third world countries in some kind of nefarious debt trap: http://www.atimes.com/article/its-africas-choice-africom-or-the-new-silk-roads They even seem to have forgiven debt from some of the poorest countries they lent to.
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Sep 5, 2018 18:14
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Pro PRC Laowai posted:I just started listening on your recommendation. It's an old book but I really enjoy China Road by Rob Gifford. Also the Harvard Chinese mega lectures on edX. Also Asian Waters by Humphrey Hawksley
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Sep 5, 2018 18:28
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mila kunis posted:Dunno much about this author or this particular paper but this article contests the idea that China's trying to snare third world countries in some kind of nefarious debt trap: I'm sure they are but then so is the IMF. Edit: any lending to 3rd world countries is gonna wind up being bad for them. Build infrastructure, provide direct aid, or feed people instead. therobit fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 18:38
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mila kunis posted:Dunno much about this author or this particular paper but this article contests the idea that China's trying to snare third world countries in some kind of nefarious debt trap: If you want to hear more about the debt issue, I cannot recommend this episode enough: https://chinaafricaproject.com/audio-an-insiders-view-of-the-china-africa-debt-trap-debate/ It’s an interview with W. Gyude Moore, Liberia’s former Minister of Public Works. He was involved in those sort of project negotiations for years, and he emphasizes that while not all infrastructure projects are worthwhile, the quality of these deals can tremendously improve when the African governments have prepared for these negotiations. Environmental protections, the use of labor, the cost of these deals, sustainable development priorities, and so on can be negotiated. Obviously, not every African government is going to have as much leverage or capability for negotiating better and harder. All parties have some responsibility on these issues. A large part of the problem is that Chinese companies and state actors oftentimes don’t do the same amount of preparation and vetting on these infrastructure projects as many Western actors. Consequently, the Chinese have authorized a number of deals that many Westerners might not have given the green light for. However, the Chinese have supposedly been slowly improving on that front. Furthermore, it’s not like the West is similarly willing to spend as much money on infrastructural investments in Africa, so it’s unfortunately a situation where although it’s fair for the West to complain, they’re not always willing to offer any alternative. Snipee fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 18:56
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tino posted:Also Asian Waters by Humphrey Hawksley Hell yes, reading this now. Thanks for the recommendations.
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Sep 5, 2018 18:57
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Hi china thread. I am a brit and am considering applying for a postdoc in Shanghai next year. Exciting stuff! Only issue is I'm insulin dependent diabetic requiring two specific types of medication (lantus and novorapid). In the UK this is covered by the NHS and I pay nothing, but while I can bring a fair amount with me it won't be enough to live for a year. From what I have read these should be fairly easy to buy in China, but does anyone have any experience sourcing them (or other imported medicines)? I'm also worried about cost as I'm not certain I'll get health insurance covered. Are they affordable? I'll be working with a budget of just over 5000yuan/month after rent. Should that be workable? Also huge lol that in the world's largest 'communist' state healthcare isn't even free, jfc.
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Sep 5, 2018 23:51
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ThomasPaine posted:Hi china thread. I am a brit and am considering applying for a postdoc in Shanghai next year. Exciting stuff! Only issue is I'm insulin dependent diabetic requiring two specific types of medication (lantus and novorapid). In the UK this is covered by the NHS and I pay nothing, but while I can bring a fair amount with me it won't be enough to live for a year. From what I have read these should be fairly easy to buy in China, but does anyone have any experience sourcing them (or other imported medicines)? I'm also worried about cost as I'm not certain I'll get health insurance covered. Are they affordable? I'll be working with a budget of just over 5000yuan/month after rent. Should that be workable? Lantus is just a preparation of insulin that can be safely interchanged with several other kinds and you shouldn't worry about being able to get a safe insulin in China and affording it with that kind of money. You may need to adjust your habits to avoid the need for the rapid-insulin-analog type that Novorapid is if that ends up costing too much on top but that shouldn't be a big deal.
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Sep 5, 2018 23:58
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fishmech posted:Lantus is just a preparation of insulin that can be safely interchanged with several other kinds and you shouldn't worry about being able to get a safe insulin in China and affording it with that kind of money. You may need to adjust your habits to avoid the need for the rapid-insulin-analog type that Novorapid is if that ends up costing too much on top but that shouldn't be a big deal. I can't adjust my habits because that's not how treatment works. On lantus alone I'd be experiencing dangerously high blood glucose levels all the time. Really do need the rapid acting type as well. Also while there are analogues that have similar action to lantus the ones I have tried have never really worked consistently for me, so if at all possible I'd like to keep a supply of these two types.* I'm glad to hear that availability is there though. Is the Chinese healthcare system reasonably easy to navigate for a non-speaker? I'm taking classes but I'm under no illusion I'll be anything approaching proficient within the year (though I hope to have enough to get by very simple interactions). I suppose a follow-on from this, but is it relatively simple to get set up in general on arrival with only a rudimentary knowledge of the language? I'm guessing Shanghai is one of the more foreigner friendly cities, but the amount of things to think about w/r registration, getting internet connection, etc etc is boggling my mind and I'm not looking forward to navigating it. Also, getting some sort of VPN/Tor setup going so I can use half the internet. E: * that sounded super snippy, sorry. I didn't intend it to. I do appreciate the info. I deal with diabetes literally every day and it's also my object of study, so I get pretty defensive. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Sep 6, 2018 |
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Sep 6, 2018 00:23
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I am going back for a few months too, jumping on the recommend me a VPN bandwagon.
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Sep 6, 2018 00:26
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You might also check out the China threads in YCS or T&T; this one’s for
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Sep 6, 2018 01:37
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ThomasPaine posted:Is the Chinese healthcare system reasonably easy to navigate for a non-speaker? Unless you go to a hospital that specifically caters to foreigners they will just tell you to get out, doesn't matter if you're dying or not. You might have a chance to get some treatment if you have a Chinese friend with you, but then again, if you go to Number 888 Nongmin Hospital the doctor will say that diabetes doesn't exist, you just need to get your qi in order and give you a huge bag of random medicine, some of which might contain actual medicine instead of asbestos and tiger penis. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 6, 2018 03:40
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Darkest Auer posted:Unless you go to a hospital that specifically caters to foreigners they will just tell you to get out, doesn't matter if you're dying or not. You might have a chance to get some treatment if you have a Chinese friend with you, but then again, if you go to Number 888 Nongmin Hospital the doctor will say that diabetes doesn't exist, you just need to get your qi in order and give you a huge bag of random medicine, some of which might contain actual medicine instead of asbestos and tiger penis. No. ThomasPaine posted:Hi china thread. I am a brit and am considering applying for a postdoc in Shanghai next year. Exciting stuff! Only issue is I'm insulin dependent diabetic requiring two specific types of medication (lantus and novorapid). In the UK this is covered by the NHS and I pay nothing, but while I can bring a fair amount with me it won't be enough to live for a year. From what I have read these should be fairly easy to buy in China, but does anyone have any experience sourcing them (or other imported medicines)? I'm also worried about cost as I'm not certain I'll get health insurance covered. Are they affordable? I'll be working with a budget of just over 5000yuan/month after rent. Should that be workable? I have friends who don’t speak any Chinese and have navigated hospitals in Shanghai fairly well. Healthcare can be difficult and complicated here even if you’re Chinese, so it really depends on your luck and on the doctor. Actually, not speaking Chinese might be beneficial in Shanghai in a weird way, since they’ll give you a doctor who speaks English and because you’re already a “special patient” who demands more time, the doctor isn’t likely to try to push you out the door as fast as possible. Healthcare isn’t free, but is heavily subsidized and prices are controlled by the government. I have no clue what the prices for your medication will be, but generally just seeing a doctor and getting medication is very affordable. Seeing a doctor with no insurance is in Shanghai costs maybe 20-30 RMB, and the big bag of random medication they give you rarely costs more than 200 RMB. That part of Darkest Auer’s post is true, by the way, hospitals are here are always starved for funding, so one way they meet costs is by always prescribing overpriced Chinese medicine to go along with the stuff you actually need.
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Sep 6, 2018 04:09
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Darkest Auer posted:Unless you go to a hospital that specifically caters to foreigners they will just tell you to get out, doesn't matter if you're dying or not. You might have a chance to get some treatment if you have a Chinese friend with you, but then again, if you go to Number 888 Nongmin Hospital the doctor will say that diabetes doesn't exist, you just need to get your qi in order and give you a huge bag of random medicine, some of which might contain actual medicine instead of asbestos and tiger penis. I've heard this but it cant be always true. I get a prescription that's totally not for some life or death thing and not too common. I just go to the bigger hospital in this city, I showed them my bottle from America at the front desk, said "I need this" and they filled it without asking me questions or actually talking to a doctor about it. Now I go back every few weeks with the old box, ask for more and they do it. Maybe if I said I actually needed an appointment with a doctor I would have been turned away but "please give me this drug I already take it" isn't always a problem and doesn't need more than very basic Chinese.
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Sep 6, 2018 04:43
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Darkest Auer posted:Unless you go to a hospital that specifically caters to foreigners they will just tell you to get out, doesn't matter if you're dying or not. You might have a chance to get some treatment if you have a Chinese friend with you, but then again, if you go to Number 888 Nongmin Hospital the doctor will say that diabetes doesn't exist, you just need to get your qi in order and give you a huge bag of random medicine, some of which might contain actual medicine instead of asbestos and tiger penis. Lol. This is definitely not true even in the smaller county level cities, let alone Shanghai. I cannot personally attest to the quality of healthcare in the extremely poor and rural parts of China, but seriously, lol. I had a good laugh at this post.
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Sep 6, 2018 05:19
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In shanghai my friend suddenly got really sick and vomiting everywhere and couldn’t walk. He was really pale and I had to carry him on my back and down the stairs and into his cousin’s car. Luckily the hospital was really close but it was only for treating lung related illness. The emergency room didn’t accept him and I had to carry him again into the car to the next closest hospital which was a PLA hospital. The whole process is giant clown show of line up, pay, line up again, pay repeat. The doctor’s room was a cubicle of 4 doctors with all sorts of people randomly butting in and all and there was no privacy. Everyone’s data and details was plainly displayed on the computer screen and I could over hear other people’s diagnosis. To draw blood my friend’s blood the nurse gave me a qtip to hold onto the wound and she rather twirl and spin her pen around than to administrate care. Doctors diagnosis was good poisoning and recommended an IV antibiotic drip but we all had breakfast and only my friend got sick from food poisoning. At least he has drugs to stop dizziness and the sense of imbalance. Turns out i was right, there must have been something going on in his ears and after seeing a specialist one week later he had a ear canal infection.
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Sep 6, 2018 06:08
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Chinese healthcare is generally not highly regarded and the next wealth flight is in insurance products with global (minus US) coverage
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Sep 6, 2018 06:09
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sincx fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Sep 6, 2018 06:18
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tino posted:I am going back for a few months too, jumping on the recommend me a VPN bandwagon. I used ExpressVPN when I was there earlier this year. It worked fine.
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Sep 6, 2018 06:37
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Chinese doctors in most hospitals are undertrained, underpaid and badly overworked. The absence of primary care providers and the guahao system contributes to a revolving door style of diagnosis and treatment, where each doctor tries to get you out of his or her office as quickly as possible and if it’s not immediately clear what’s wrong with you, you’re extremely likely to be given the run around between multiple doctors or hospitals until someone bothers to actually sit down and figure it out. Prescription of Chinese medicine is basically required at some hospitals, and if you’re particularly unlucky, that’s all you’ll get, along with instructions straight out of the 19th century about how it’s important to avoid strongly flavored foods that could excite the wrong humors. What’s more, there are a number of small hospitals that don’t even have proper qualifications and exist basically as scams. This was a major scandal with Baidu, that their top search results for hospitals very often directed people to for-profit scam hospitals where they were charged 5-10 times the standard cost for treatment by unqualified doctors. As suggested above, getting in touch with your consulate to figure out which hospitals are recommended is a good idea. If you’re doing a postdoc, people at your institution will also be able to tell you where to go, and will probably volunteer to take you. But there are good doctors too, the cost of basic care and medication is very affordable and as long as you are willing to put up with some hassle and make sure you go to a reputable hospital, you will eventually get the care you need. Kassad posted:I used ExpressVPN when I was there earlier this year. It worked fine.
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Sep 6, 2018 06:39
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Chinese healthcare has a lot of problems but it looks ok compared to other non first world countries (which I realise is not saying much) I don't have first hand experience of the practicalities of using the system but I read some research recently where the quality of diabetes treatment holds up quite well. Hilariously it performs significantly better than the USA - which is more of an indictment of the USA than anything but there you go. (Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: a systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016) China came 48th overall, but for diabetes scored 85 on a 0-100 scale - most western countries scored around 90, the UK scored 93 and the US a miserable 62. Just avoid getting skin cancer or having a stroke in China. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)30994-2/fulltext ModernMajorGeneral fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Sep 6, 2018 |
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Sep 6, 2018 14:22
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Thank you for all this advice! I should clarify, I do not anticipate needing active healthcare from a doctor at all. I know exactly which medication I need, and I'm looking for confirmation that I will be able to access that. I don't know the process though. In the UK insulin is a regulated medicine so you need a prescription to have it dispensed. Would I need to see a Chinese doctor to have them sign off on this, or are things less restricted there? If it's a simple case of walking into a pharmacy and saying 'I need this' and paying a few yuan for it that's perfectly fine. I was mostly worried about 1) basic availability/cost of medication and 2) maybe having to navigate a byzantine bureaucracy to get a script. It's a source of some anxiety even though I'm sure it'll be fine, because of course insulin is a vital as water to me and I'll die extremely quickly without it. sincx posted:Alternatively, if you have health insurance in the US (whether through your job or your parents), you may have some level of international healthcare coverage. Look up the list of covered in-network overseas hospitals, and see if there are any for the Chinese city you're visiting. If there are, those should meet international care standards. From the UK, not the US, so I like most of the people here have no private healthcare even through employment. The universal NHS covers almost everything to a pretty drat good standard so very few people bother paying extra for private and it's unusual for all but the most elite jobs to offer it as a perk. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Sep 6, 2018 |
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Sep 6, 2018 17:05
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It's Shanghai, you can make friends with people who want to learn English in like 3 days. You also have a stash you can use while you search for similar medicine. Also check out Xiaolongbao in that tourist trap restaurant. When in China, do as the Chinese, make friends and ask friends pull the guanxi for you. Guanxi will override the regulations because China. tino fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Sep 6, 2018 |
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Sep 6, 2018 17:53
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When I was working in China we had a very very short list of hospitals we were allowed to use, and in Guangzhou the story was "if you can survive for at least 3 hours, go to Hong Kong." A kitchen accident left me losing a lot of blood and I went to a local hospital to get cleaned and dressed first and it was telling. I lived in the middle of the beautiful new central business skyscraper district and it took an ambulance almost an hour to show up, riding back to the hospital I saw why is because nobody in China pulls over for ambulances. Then the hospital itself had all the windows open, flies buzzing around, nothing was clean or sterilized. It was bad. For reference, the Guangzhou hospital that was approved was the VIP wing of the General Hospital. But again, Medical preferred us just to go to Hong Kong. Health care still has a long way to go. It was cheap though. I think the ambulance ride and the cleaning and dressing that was done in Guangzhou came to like US$40
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Sep 6, 2018 19:17
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Bloodnose posted:When I was working in China we had a very very short list of hospitals we were allowed to use, and in Guangzhou the story was "if you can survive for at least 3 hours, go to Hong Kong." Under Chinese law you don't have to pull over for ambulances so no one does. Also, big city traffic in China is impossible to get through half the time regardless of sirens or status.
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