No, I know Trevor he isn't racist or anything, he might have just sounded like that. But anyway, a lot of people in India earn like 1 dollar a day. But you have to consider the possibility of prices, Inflation and purchasing power. For example, a guy earning 1000 dollars in India, will be able to buy the same stuff that a guy earning 4000 dollars in the US will be able to. I have some Indian friends back in the US working in the same team as I, but they earn in dollars. Some of them are in the same designation, yet they earn, four times as much as I do. But when it comes to lifestyle, both of ours is the same. We both have relatively the same sized apartments, same category of cars etc., So what people earn is one thing, but you have to consider that countries like China and India have far more purchasing power than most European countries for example. Yet standard of living on an average will still be low, because these are developing nations. A lot of people do not know how much these countries have come from what it was in the 1980s. Ive seen it and the progress is HUGE.

Couple of points I agree and disagree with you Duo. The western media is indeed full of propaganda, and yes from what we gather on most channels, China is shown to be very secretive, inhumane in terms of personal rights etc. For example I saw a program on discovery which showed a village of 10,000 people, who were evacuated in a matter of weeks, so that China could build the Olympic facilities. Not sure if that is true, but there were various engineers who worked on projects over there, that confirmed it.

Now the western media also shows how much China has progressed. I myself have watched a LOT of programs of late, atleast here in India about how much China has improved infrastructure in its major cities, about Shanghai and its skyscrappers, about its superfast trains and about its new airport and what not. All technological wonders indeed. Yeah when it comes to housing, the really poor, or the ones below poverty will obviously live in tiny spaces. Heck you have homeless people on the streets even in the US.

When it comes to communism, maybe you are right. There is no country that follows true communism. But what I was referring to, is complete state control of everything and use of force to supress any form of dissent against the government. Which is more communist, or rather autocratic for me. I have seen videos of Tienanmen and I saw soldiers firing against protesters shouting slogans, and were unarmed. That is hardly an even battle.

yeah ppi. You can buy a huge bowl of noodles for one dollar here. Like, im serious. Huge. Plus some veggies. Dont see that in US.

Going to go through that later, but dude, for the last time, stop talking about tiananmen. Taking into account modern chinas (prc) history, i might as well be talking about slavery in the US. You know when tiananmen happened, right?

Yeah 1989, that's not that way back.

Lol, most of chinese advancements happened last ten years. This country is moving fast. 22 years is a long time...at least in my opinion, China has matured a lot.

India wasn't the target of my outburst. But America is. American media is ridiculously biased...China this and China that...perhaps I haven't watched enough streams of BBC, but I'm not getting anything positive about China. They treat the environment like crap--well, China's a developing country! Yeah, sure US is now developed so they can play global police, but as with any developing country, China's growth shouldn't be restrained by guidelines that US doesn't even follow. Cough cough, KYOTO ANYONE?

But anyways, my point to trevor was that the people of China are not dirt poor, despite whatever 'unbiased' media he's been watching. Once again, I speak only for the middle class people, but our living conditions are pretty good.

As for India being the world's largest democracy...well, not trying to put India down, but looking at it economically, china's system has proven to be, at least for the time being, more effective in terms of growth. Yeah, this comes at a cost, that of people not having as much freedom of speech as in America, but like I think mfreak said, freedom of speech doesn't mean crap if it doesn't go from speech->action. Yeah, Chinese government is terrible at respecting rights, relocating people for projects, I'll give you that. however, I believe that those people were compensated, and in some cases, this was for the better because of the compensation. I'm not sure though.

The compensation is not for the better. You think governments are gonna pay you more than market value, or more than your losses? They will pay you enough to shut you up. Now, the thing to consider here is - economic growth vs personal rights. I choose personal rights. India might not be economically as strong as China, but its close behind it. One thing to also consider is that China started economic reforms back in the 1970s and India only started liberalizing its economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, simply because the political framework of the world had changed. Yes the Chinese government is fast acting, when compared to their counterpart here in India, but at what cost? If you ask the people that were forcefully relocated etc, I am sure they wouldn't care about how fast the government was acting.

Now, yes, America will always go on a propaganda about how everyone else is wrong and they are right. This is how the American Foreign affairs work. Dont sweat it. But America cannot pull down the growth of China. They haven't been able to. They are far too dependent on China's exports and imports, so simply hindering china's progress wont be in anyone's best interests.

When it comes to living conditions, yeah the middle classes and above will definitely have decent living conditions. But still poverty does exist. The HDI is still medium. Though that's one aspect any developing country has to learn from China though - Reduction of poverty. They reduced it from 65% in 1980 to 10% in 2004. Thats unprecedented.

See bottomline is this. Any country not in the good graces of the US will be bullied. If that country is as strong as China economically and militarily, the only thing that the US can use is propaganda. Secondly, china has made remarkable progress yes, but the cost its citizens have had to pay, is far more. Since it deals with human rights, personal rights and freedom, those matter more than making money.

I've lived in China, and many of the main towns ARE little apartments stacked up on each other. About 2/3 of the city are apartments that house 4/5 of the population. The bigger houses are like mansions that have huge courtyards. The small apartments have about a bathroom-sized kitchen and 3 rooms for living. The average american home land space could house 40 people instead of 3 or 4.

China has a huge population, and many more wild areas and farms, that they need to squeeze all the people into one little community. The big houses are very expensive because there is limited living space. That's why you see apartments rather than suburban houses in China.

well, like i said. apartments, not whatever cardboard boxes trevor was talking about.


Yeah, I get that, but it doesn't mean I can't be ticked off by it.
Yeah, and in this case, it means paying more than losses.
And as for this..., consider the starting conditions. China was *terrible* before reforms. I mean, civil war since 1920, got invaded by Japan, fought in NK right after declaring a new country, and then had to suffer Mao's "revolutions"...i think you said reducing poverty rate from 65 to 10? China had nothing to build on...which is why I'm talking about the success of the government atm. It's not just that where China is at right now, it's also where China came from, how far they had to come.
imho, the CCP probably did what they thought was best for them, but it also turned out to be the best for the country. It proved to be the most efficient way to run a country of 1.4bil, even bigger than India. After China's growth starts slowing, I think then is when we should start pushing for an increased awareness for human rights. Before...eh. Don't change feed on a winning horse.

You are talking about a country as a seperate entity. Its not the case. The country is its citizens. Whatever growth happens, its still not worth it for people to continue being under the rule of the CCP. Secondly, your view that democracy doesnt work is not right. India has made huge strides too economically. India started out very poor as well. And Both India and China both grow at the same %GDP every year. Forget India, look at the US other developed countries. They were poor too once. They have become rich, and have remained democratic for the last 200 or 300 years and it has worked for them.

If there is a choice, democracy is the way to go. Considering anything else as a winning horse, is just taking advantage of something that is actually not so advantageous when it comes to freedom and personal rights.

Me got bored of your boring political rambling.

Okay lets talk about Chinese girls