For a supposedly “socialist” government, they sure are doing quite a lot regulating food, by “a lot” I mean jack shit.
I’m reading “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future”, which I think is a great book, and one of its themes, that probably seems strange to Americans, is that China is more capitalist than the United States right now.
For instance, from what I read, the CCP is extremely reluctant to provide any kind of social welfare, in the belief welfare will make its citizens lazy, and the little that exists is not only incredibly corrupt but requires a degrading means testing process that even the worst American conservative would think goes too far.
But I’ve never lived in China so you may know better about that.
that China is more capitalist than the United States right now
Exactly lol, this is what I’ve been saying.
CCP is extremely reluctant to provide any kind of social welfare, in the belief welfare will make its citizens lazy
That’s my parent’s view on welfare. These views carried over to the US too. Its why they see a headline about “illegal immigrants” to the US and they start blaming welfare and think that “illegal” immigrants are somehow getting welfare and they think its taking away resources from legal immigrants. Its why they think me having depression is “weakness”. My mother told me she hates autistic people because she thinks they are “dangerous”. Like people with disabilities get would disowned by a lot of parents. If you have any disabilities, you don’t get viewd as a person, but a 廢柴 (I’d say it’s equivalent to “useless eater”). Its so messed up.
.ml user and cherrypicking, name a more common duo
Edit: btw, they specifically stated China does less social welfare. Maybe if you actually read instead of just being a differently colored MAGA, maybe you’d have caught that.
China has universal healthcare and universal public housing, lol. China spends less per capita on social welfare, but that’s because things are cheaper and more efficient in China (a shot of insulin doesn’t cost $1000 for example).
I was born in mainland China. My parents grew up in Guangdong Province. Its actually not that much different from the US. And everything is paid out-of-pocket. I don’t think there’s even a “Medicare” for older people, that along with most older people from many places having no retirement income (other than their own savings), and even children / young people with disabilities don’t get any “Medicare”, not SNAP, for that matter, its not a fun place to be in.
I mean at one point I was reading all these supposed “free healthcare” comments about PRC, and I asked myself did I remember it wrong?, I asked my mother about the “free” healthcare thing, and she told me no, that’s not a thing.
Very interesting, what period of time was this? Because universal healthcare has rapidly developed in just the last 5-10 years. According to the WHO 95% of China now has basic health coverage, free of charge.
(And yes there are going to be gaps in the system, there will be gaps in any rapidly-developing universal program)
So I just asked my dad, the current system is basically like the US. Most people get insurance from their employers. Older people have a very bare-bones “medicare”/insurance that they pay one a year for access to it. Health insurance barely covers anything, like no dental coverage for example.
As for retirement, most people didn’t have them before, now, more and more people have it. Its like ¥100-¥200 a month or something. Some people still don’t have it. All depends on the job. Like a teacher/professor would probably have these, others might not.
As for unemployment benefits, again, it depends, its job-by-job basis, many won’t have it.
Basically its like the US’s healthcare system from what I can understand. (English is my primary language so I might not have been understanding the full conversation in Cantonese)
That’s good to know! So it’s there, but very spotty and inadequate in areas. Still better than nothing like in the US.
I live in Canada where we have the “best” universal healthcare system in the world by some estimates (single payer, free universal healthcare as a right for all citizens), but we only got dental and pharmacy care added to our program last year. Since the 1960s until 2024 our universal healthcare system was the same “basics only” coverage for hospital and physician visits, and everything else was tied to private insurance. Vision care still isn’t covered.
We immigrated to the US around 2010, I still have aunts in China, so I could ask my parents to ask them about the current situation.
According to the WHO 95% of China now has basic health coverage, free of charge.
Note it says “basic health coverage”, the wording implies that those that are not considered “basic”/essentialgets excluded. Think of the US and the ACA thing. How good really is ACA? Certainly very far off from Norway.
No, it doesn’t — if you’re about to try and say there isn’t a homeless problem in China I’m going to laugh at you and tag you with ‘.ml user alt account’.
Actually, I think I’m going to do it anyway — most of what you’ve said here is just wrong, can’t speak on insulin prices because I don’t typically waste my time for long on throwaway ‘debates’.
What’s up with the obsession with “.ml”? I’ve literally never heard of or used this site except from annoying people who are get triggered and accuse people for saying facts they don’t like.
Here’s the WHO (not exactly a communist organization) on Chinese universal healthcare:
Universal health coverage (UHC) is a vision where all people and communities have access to quality health services where and when they need them, without suffering financial hardship. It includes the full spectrum of services needed throughout life—from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care—and is best based on a strong primary health care system.
The concept of UHC is much in line with the goal of China’s Health Reform since 2009, which aims to provide establish a universal basic health care system providing safe, effective, convenient and affordable health services to all by 2020.
You don’t have to like China, but underestimate your enemy at your own peril.
Yes - if you look at the PCR history you’ll notice that China pivoted hard to capitalism and extorting the proletariat in the late 80’s and 90’s, to the point where there were communist intellectuals and workers protesting against it - Tianmen Square protests were (also) against pivot from communism, see e.g. https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/china-1989-workers-in-revolt/
I’m reading “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future”, which I think is a great book, and one of its themes, that probably seems strange to Americans, is that China is more capitalist than the United States right now.
For instance, from what I read, the CCP is extremely reluctant to provide any kind of social welfare, in the belief welfare will make its citizens lazy, and the little that exists is not only incredibly corrupt but requires a degrading means testing process that even the worst American conservative would think goes too far.
But I’ve never lived in China so you may know better about that.
Exactly lol, this is what I’ve been saying.
That’s my parent’s view on welfare. These views carried over to the US too. Its why they see a headline about “illegal immigrants” to the US and they start blaming welfare and think that “illegal” immigrants are somehow getting welfare and they think its taking away resources from legal immigrants. Its why they think me having depression is “weakness”. My mother told me she hates autistic people because she thinks they are “dangerous”. Like people with disabilities get would disowned by a lot of parents. If you have any disabilities, you don’t get viewd as a person, but a 廢柴 (I’d say it’s equivalent to “useless eater”). Its so messed up.
China is more capitalist than the US?
Is this the new liberal line: capitalism is bad but China is doing it more than us, so we’re good?
Read some god damn Marxist theory, holy shit.
.ml user and cherrypicking, name a more common duo
Edit: btw, they specifically stated China does less social welfare. Maybe if you actually read instead of just being a differently colored MAGA, maybe you’d have caught that.
China has universal healthcare and universal public housing, lol. China spends less per capita on social welfare, but that’s because things are cheaper and more efficient in China (a shot of insulin doesn’t cost $1000 for example).
“Universal Healthcare” =/= “Free Healthcare”
I was born in mainland China. My parents grew up in Guangdong Province. Its actually not that much different from the US. And everything is paid out-of-pocket. I don’t think there’s even a “Medicare” for older people, that along with most older people from many places having no retirement income (other than their own savings), and even children / young people with disabilities don’t get any “Medicare”, not SNAP, for that matter, its not a fun place to be in.
I mean at one point I was reading all these supposed “free healthcare” comments about PRC, and I asked myself did I remember it wrong?, I asked my mother about the “free” healthcare thing, and she told me no, that’s not a thing.
Very interesting, what period of time was this? Because universal healthcare has rapidly developed in just the last 5-10 years. According to the WHO 95% of China now has basic health coverage, free of charge.
(And yes there are going to be gaps in the system, there will be gaps in any rapidly-developing universal program)
So I just asked my dad, the current system is basically like the US. Most people get insurance from their employers. Older people have a very bare-bones “medicare”/insurance that they pay one a year for access to it. Health insurance barely covers anything, like no dental coverage for example.
As for retirement, most people didn’t have them before, now, more and more people have it. Its like ¥100-¥200 a month or something. Some people still don’t have it. All depends on the job. Like a teacher/professor would probably have these, others might not.
As for unemployment benefits, again, it depends, its job-by-job basis, many won’t have it.
Basically its like the US’s healthcare system from what I can understand. (English is my primary language so I might not have been understanding the full conversation in Cantonese)
Its very far from Norway’s utopia.
That’s good to know! So it’s there, but very spotty and inadequate in areas. Still better than nothing like in the US.
I live in Canada where we have the “best” universal healthcare system in the world by some estimates (single payer, free universal healthcare as a right for all citizens), but we only got dental and pharmacy care added to our program last year. Since the 1960s until 2024 our universal healthcare system was the same “basics only” coverage for hospital and physician visits, and everything else was tied to private insurance. Vision care still isn’t covered.
But it is literally like the US’s ACA.
We immigrated to the US around 2010, I still have aunts in China, so I could ask my parents to ask them about the current situation.
Note it says “basic health coverage”, the wording implies that those that are not considered “basic”/essentialgets excluded. Think of the US and the ACA thing. How good really is ACA? Certainly very far off from Norway.
Lol no, it isn’t free and it sucks.
No, it doesn’t — if you’re about to try and say there isn’t a homeless problem in China I’m going to laugh at you and tag you with ‘.ml user alt account’.
Actually, I think I’m going to do it anyway — most of what you’ve said here is just wrong, can’t speak on insulin prices because I don’t typically waste my time for long on throwaway ‘debates’.
What’s up with the obsession with “.ml”? I’ve literally never heard of or used this site except from annoying people who are get triggered and accuse people for saying facts they don’t like.
Here’s the WHO (not exactly a communist organization) on Chinese universal healthcare:
https://www.who.int/china/health-topics/universal-health-coverage
You don’t have to like China, but underestimate your enemy at your own peril.
Yes - if you look at the PCR history you’ll notice that China pivoted hard to capitalism and extorting the proletariat in the late 80’s and 90’s, to the point where there were communist intellectuals and workers protesting against it - Tianmen Square protests were (also) against pivot from communism, see e.g. https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/china-1989-workers-in-revolt/
China has been capitalist like crazy for a loooong time now