Why "the West" gets China wrong

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solarz

solarz

Brigadier
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After reading the above article, it has become clear to me why western media is always so wrong when it comes to China.

A common trend in all western news articles about China is they all take a few exceptional characteristics and try to infer consequences as if the exceptionality was universal. In this case, the author of the article thinks just because middle-class Shanghai couples don't want a lot of children, it somehow applies to the rest of China.

The same thing goes for the famous "ghost cities" myth. They look at a few empty development areas and conclude that China has a massive real-estate bubble, while completely ignoring the huge housing demand in the rest of the country.

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The so-called "largest ghost city" in China is now full of people. People who keep harping about China's "real-estate bubble" simply don't understand that housing prices will *never* crash in China as long as potential Mother-in-laws demand houses for their daughters.

In short, these kinds of articles never bother to make more than a superficial report, without any understanding of how the rest of the country works.
 
F

Franklin

Captain
solarz said:
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After reading the above article, it has become clear to me why western media is always so wrong when it comes to China.

A common trend in all western news articles about China is they all take a few exceptional characteristics and try to infer consequences as if the exceptionality was universal. In this case, the author of the article thinks just because middle-class Shanghai couples don't want a lot of children, it somehow applies to the rest of China.

The same thing goes for the famous "ghost cities" myth. They look at a few empty development areas and conclude that China has a massive real-estate bubble, while completely ignoring the huge housing demand in the rest of the country.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


The so-called "largest ghost city" in China is now full of people. People who keep harping about China's "real-estate bubble" simply don't understand that housing prices will *never* crash in China as long as potential Mother-in-laws demand houses for their daughters.

In short, these kinds of articles never bother to make more than a superficial report, without any understanding of how the rest of the country works.
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I agree with you that the media coverage is very biased and they take a few extreme examples of what is happening in China and wants to portray that as the norm. However i would have to disagree with you that house prices in China will "never" fall. Empty real estate is a serious problem and so are the prices of houses in China. House prices in China i believe will eventually fall and alot of people will get burned by this. But i don't believe that this will cause the kind of catastrophe in China they want us to believe. The real worry for China at the moment and in the future will be the environment.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
Franklin said:
I agree with you that the media coverage is very biased and they take a few extreme examples of what is happening in China and wants to portray that as the norm. However i would have to disagree with you that house prices in China will "never" fall. Empty real estate is a serious problem and so are the prices of houses in China. House prices in China i believe will eventually fall and alot of people will get burned by this. But i don't believe that this will cause the kind of catastrophe in China they want us to believe. The real worry for China at the moment and in the future will be the environment.
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This statement gets repeated often, but is never backed up by any convincing evidence.

The fact is, the Chinese government is engaged in a massive urbanization effort. Millions upon millions of people have and will be moving out of rural villages and into cities. This alone means housing prices will not be falling anytime soon in China.
 
cn_habs

cn_habs

Junior Member
Once again, I am sure most of us expats have pretty much given up any hope of Westerners ever understanding China and the 3rd world. The typical "educated" pro-Tibetan activist here can't even picture Tibet on a world map let alone the average Joe to side with a theocratic monk.

It's just brainwashing the smart and subtle way yet most of us who actually lived outside of 1 narrow-minded world and who have more than 1 prospective are often labelled as brainwashed commies. Go figure! ;)
 
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advill

Junior Member
Cultural bias & Nationalistic feelings exist, and they effect home country & international politics, historical thinking etc. The media world-wide (East & West) have also contributed to bias reporting. It is up to the leaders and their citizens to take care and not be unduly influenced when reading such one-sided reports. Hostilities & wars have been caused by wrong assumptions made by leaders.This will never be a perfect world, and at times we need to "agree to disagree".



cn_habs said:
Once again, I am sure most of us expats have pretty much given up any hope of Westerners ever understanding China and the 3rd world. The typical "educated" pro-Tibetan activist here can't even picture Tibet on a world map let alone the average Joe to side with a theocratic monk.

It's just brainwashing the smart and subtle way yet most of us who actually lived outside of 1 narrow-minded world and who have more than 1 prospective are often labelled as brainwashed commies. Go figure! ;)
Click to expand...
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Well negative reporting is by design. Somewhere in this forum there was a link to an article by a Westerner who said it himself that all the negative reporting on China's economy despite statistics to the contrary was simply to scare money out of China and into the West. It's said that before when the West faced recessions and downturns, investment money would go somewhere but it was always in the West. Now because China is a player it's believed investment money that would normally stay in the West now can find an alternative outside the West. If China is seen as a safer bet, that money doesn't go helping the West recover as quickly which is what they say is the situation now. Whether this is completely true or not is irrelevant because they believe it. Anything having nothing to do with the economy is and has always been about making themselves feel good that they think they have it better. Let face the fact it's always going to be negative because in no way possible China could have anything better than they do. In another thread I mentioned about news editor Tina Brown and her women in power event she holds every year. And every year she comes out with a list showcasing powerful women "around the world." The thing is when it comes to Asian women most of them on her list are unknown women based in the West. She doesn't mention any of the half of the top twelve richest self-made women in the world who are in China alone including number one. Tina Brown is a notorious defender and promoter of the Western system. She's not going to promote any of these Chinese women who make up half of the twelve self-made richest because the West can't take credit. How did these women get there? There must be something in China that allows women to get to these positions better than the West hence why China alone has half of the twelve richest self-made women in the world more than any single Western country. But they're not not going to even touch that because they don't want it suggested anywhere that someone does anything better than them. All you have to do is look at some former members in here that were racist about China. They uttered human rights abuses. Now how can a racist care about the human rights of a people they hate? It's a cover and excuse to express their hate. Bringing up human rights isn't because they're calling for an end to abuses. It's a declaration that they have it better therefore are superior.
 
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Dolcevita

Major
AssassinsMace said:
Well negative reporting is by design. Somewhere in this forum there was a link to an article by a Westerner who said it himself that all the negative reporting on China's economy despite statistics to the contrary was simply to scare money out of China and into the West. It's said that before when the West faced recessions and downturns, investment money would go somewhere but it was always in the West. Now because China is a player it's believed investment money that would normally stay in the West now can find an alternative outside the West. If China is seen as a safer bet, that money doesn't go helping the West recover as quickly which is what they say is the situation now. Whether this is completely true or not is irrelevant because they believe it. Anything having nothing to do with the economy is and has always been about making themselves feel good that they think they have it better. Let face the fact it's always going to be negative because in no way possible China could have anything better than they do. In another thread I mentioned about news editor Tina Brown and her women in power event she holds every year. And every year she comes out with a list showcasing powerful women "around the world." The thing is when it comes to Asian women most of them on her list are unknown women based in the West. She doesn't mention any of the half of the top twelve richest self-made women in the world who are in China alone including number one. Tina Brown is a notorious defender and promoter of the Western system. She's not going to promote any of these Chinese women who make up half of the twelve self-made richest because the West can't take credit. How did these women get there? There must be something in China that allows women to get to these positions better than the West hence why China alone has half of the twelve richest self-made women in the world more than any single Western country. But they're not not going to even touch that because they don't want it suggested anywhere that someone does anything better than them. All you have to do is look at some former members in here that were racist about China. They uttered human rights abuses. Now how can a racist care about the human rights of a people they hate? It's a cover and excuse to express their hate. Bringing up human rights isn't because they're calling for an end to abuses. It's a declaration that they have it better therefore are superior.
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The media is just part of game like monopoly. Discrediting China is part of the game of Pivoting for strategic competitive advantage.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
I forgot to also mention that the reason why those in power engage in negative reporting on China is because they have to keep the masses from changing the system that serves them first. In other words a revolution against their power. Those in Beijing have economic growth as their priority because as long as the lives of the Chinese people get better that legitimizes their control of the government. The West goes through the same thing. But because they're already on top they have to make sure everyone else looks like they have it worse so to say they're doing their jobs.
 
cn_habs

cn_habs

Junior Member
AssassinsMace said:
Well negative reporting is by design. Somewhere in this forum there was a link to an article by a Westerner who said it himself that all the negative reporting on China's economy despite statistics to the contrary was simply to scare money out of China and into the West. It's said that before when the West faced recessions and downturns, investment money would go somewhere but it was always in the West. Now because China is a player it's believed investment money that would normally stay in the West now can find an alternative outside the West. If China is seen as a safer bet, that money doesn't go helping the West recover as quickly which is what they say is the situation now. Whether this is completely true or not is irrelevant because they believe it. Anything having nothing to do with the economy is and has always been about making themselves feel good that they think they have it better. Let face the fact it's always going to be negative because in no way possible China could have anything better than they do. In another thread I mentioned about news editor Tina Brown and her women in power event she holds every year. And every year she comes out with a list showcasing powerful women "around the world." The thing is when it comes to Asian women most of them on her list are unknown women based in the West. She doesn't mention any of the half of the top twelve richest self-made women in the world who are in China alone including number one. Tina Brown is a notorious defender and promoter of the Western system. She's not going to promote any of these Chinese women who make up half of the twelve self-made richest because the West can't take credit. How did these women get there? There must be something in China that allows women to get to these positions better than the West hence why China alone has half of the twelve richest self-made women in the world more than any single Western country. But they're not not going to even touch that because they don't want it suggested anywhere that someone does anything better than them. All you have to do is look at some former members in here that were racist about China. They uttered human rights abuses. Now how can a racist care about the human rights of a people they hate? It's a cover and excuse to express their hate. Bringing up human rights isn't because they're calling for an end to abuses. It's a declaration that they have it better therefore are superior.
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We are the new Jews of this century where everything gets blamed on China who can do nothing right!

It's hard for most Westerners to truly understand how the top 1% of the capitalists deploy propaganda to brainwash them until they've seen the BBC documentary "The Century of the Self".
 
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