Understanding China – Part 4
A Few Truths About China and the West
I have recently been watching the outpour of Americans flocking to Red Note (The Little Red Book), in their anticipation of Tik-Tok being banned in the US. Millions of Americans are turning to this other Chinese app in defiance of their government’s foolish attack on Tik-Tok, claiming the Chinese government is using it to harvest all the personal data of Americans. I was astonished to see the outpouring of friendship and affection between the Americans and the Chinese on this app, affection that was definitely a two-way street. That was one surprise, but there were two other larger surprises.
One was that all these Americans on Red Note are discovering that China is not their enemy, that the Chinese people are very welcoming and polite, and sympathetic, and harbor no animosity toward Americans. Further to this, their posts indicate a shocking discovery that China is actually a very modern country and that the Chinese people are in no way oppressed or brainwashed and are living lives that are very happy. Following from this is the second large surprise, a sudden realisation universally stated by virtually all the Americans on Red Note, that their government (the US) and their media have been lying to them about everything involving China.
It was also a surprise to me to see that so many young Americans are not so naive as I imagined them to be, certainly about the collection of private data. So many of these people made posts that scoffed at the US government claims that Tik-Tok was harvesting personal data on young Americans and sending it to the Chinese government. This was universally recognized as a huge lie, many posters mocking the claim that the Chinese government could have any interest in their personal data, and also clearly recognizing that all the US-based Internet platforms do in fact collect all the personal data from Americans on all the US-based social media apps – and this includes Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and all the others. These people seemed fully aware that the US government was accusing China of doing something that the US itself did, and on a far more intensive basis. I wrote an earlier article titled Huawei, Tik-Tok and WeChat. [1] You may find it interesting.
It was so pleasant – and comforting – to see that people in both countries treated these claims of data collection with derision and humor. Many Americans made posts saying, “I am happy to give all my personal data to the Chinese government. Please tell me what data you want, and where to send it.” From the other side, one Chinese made a post that quickly went viral; he wrote, “I am your Chinese spy. Please send me all your personal data – and a photo of your cat.” Another wrote in a post that every evening before going to sleep she would print out her entire Internet activity for that day, and deliver it to the Chinese Consulate on her way to work the next morning. It needs to be noted somewhere – in Capital letters – that US State Secretary Blinken said the real problem with Tik-Tok was that it was disrupting Israel’s narrative on the genocide in Gaza. So, it isn’t really about data collection after all . . .
Many of the Americans made posts commenting on the apparent vast differences between the China they were suddenly seeing for the first time, and the equally sudden understanding of the substandard comparable conditions in the US. They focused on food prices, the beauty and cleanliness of China’s cities, the transportation systems, the infrastructure, the fact that everyone in China seemed so friendly and happy – and free. Their overall assessment was that their US government had been lying to them for years about everything to do with China, denigrating everything Chinese, attempting to sow hatred and make China an enemy, and that all was a lie. Here is an article with a list of a few more lies. [2]
I wrote an earlier article on American Exceptionalism that I strongly recommend you read. If you are American, it won’t make you happy to read it but it will confirm your suspicions that your government has been lying to you about almost everything, and that the overall social situation in the US is even worse than you imagine. [3]
I also want to say that, watching some of the videos of young Americans almost in despair over the difficulties in just living a daily life, that it brought tears to my eyes. I knew conditions in the US were difficult for many people, but I didn’t realise just how bad it was and the extent to which so many people were suffering, and how large was the homeless population in the US.
Given all this, I thought it might be useful to introduce to these young Americans some facts comparing life in the US and China for the average person. For background, I am a North American-born foreigner who has lived in China (Shanghai) for about 20 years, and thus have some competency to make comparisons.
Communism, Socialism, and Other Lies
First, China is not “communist” in any sense that the average person would understand. The correct term is “socialist”, and this a very different animal from the original “communism” which was an entirely Jewish construct and was horrid in the extreme. Western governments were terrified of it, and with very good reason. For one example, it was the communists who orchestrated the so-called “Russian Revolution” and massacred more than 60 million people, fully one-third of the entire population of the country. The same people tried to foment a similar “revolution” in China, but Chairman Mao would have no part of it and kicked them out of the country. The Western governments today use the term disparagingly, attempting to create distrust and hate for China, but this is just an enormous lie.
China is a socialist country and, contrary to what all Westerners have been taught, socialism is NOT a bad thing. This is so true that no Western country will provide the truth of what socialism really is, because everyone would want it.
It surprisingly doesn’t appear widely understood that socialism is primarily just a concern for people, for society as a whole, instead of for the wealthy and corporate special interests, but socialism and capitalism are opposite sides of the same coin. If you are a Westerner, this next statement will surprise you: The US is the most socialist country in the world, the only difference being that the US is corporate-socialist while China is people-socialist. This means that in the US, the entire country is run for the benefit of the bankers and large corporations – the oligarchs and the top 1%, and if there is any dispute between the corporations and the people, the corporations win and the people lose.
China is precisely the opposite. In China, the overall benefit of the people takes precedence over the ambitions and greed of the bankers and corporations and, in any dispute affecting the two groups, the people will win and the corporations will lose. I wrote a brief article on the difference between Capitalism (The US and the West) and Socialism. If you are a Westerner, you may find it interesting (and a bit shocking). [4]
Xi’an is one of China’s loveliest historical cities (think Terracotta Warriors), where we find a school with one of the finest campuses in the world, hectares of green grass, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, flower gardens, lovely condominiums and townhouse residences for the faculty and students. The school was built with surplus profits of a local state-owned tobacco company that wanted to give something to the community. The firm not only built the school but pays the annual operating costs. Such an attitude from a corporation leaves Westerners speechless. A similar example is China’s State-owned enterprises using their excess profits to build low-cost residential housing. The Americans raise every manner of moral and philosophical condemnation of such practices, virtually claiming it is against the will of God for a corporation to provide social goods at cost when an American firm, if permitted into the arena, could reap billions in profits.
There is something else here, of extreme importance to every American: there was a brief period in American history, roughly in the 1950s and 1960s, when the American dream might have been real, when incomes were rising, unemployment was effectively zero, people suddenly could own homes and cars and appliances. A period when, for the first time, parents knew their children’s lives would be better than their own. This was America’s one and only period of Socialism. Too bad it didn’t last. I have written an article on this, and I urge you to read it. You will achieve an understanding of something very consequential about your country – and about China – that you cannot obtain in any other way. [5]
The Western governments and media worked very hard for decades to create a climate of ignorance about the topic of Socialism and they try to take advantage of the ignorance they created by attributing everything Chinese to “The Chinese Communist Party” instead of to the Chinese government. If you think, it should be obvious to you that these are two entirely different animals. Is the Republican Party the “government” the US? Of course not. Neither is the Democratic Party the government. The political parties are the political parties; the government is the government – the White House, Congress, and the civil service. China has one political party, the US has two, Canada has three, and Italy has about 237 the last time I counted. None of these parties are the “government” of any country, and conflating the two terms is a huge lie.
US free-market capitalists are pushing to dismantle the last remnants of all social programs in America, including pensions, unemployment insurance and education. When the capitalist government no longer provides those programs, Americans will then have to purchase them from the same 1% who provide their mobile phone system and healthcare. This transition is now nearly complete, a virtual takeover of the entire social and physical infrastructure of the country, leaving the government only two responsibilities – tax collection and population suppression. The entire world is being forcibly steered in this direction, the formerly proposed TPP being one indication of the viciousness of globalised capitalism.
Democracy
We were all taught in school, and have had it drummed into us incessantly for generations, that democracy is “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, this having obtained the sanctity of a biblical passage which cannot be questioned because it is by nature unquestionable. Sadly, it is also one of the biggest lies ever told. When we blow away the smoke, democracy is “government of the 99%, by the top 1% and for the benefit of the top 1%”. I have written a series of articles forming an E-book which is available for free download, titled, “Democracy –The Most Dangerous Religion”. [6] I strongly urge you to read it. It will shake you to your roots and I promise you will see your world very differently afterward.
Family, Friendships, Trust and Culture
In China, friendships and so-called ‘connections’ have a flavor of trust and responsibility that exists nowhere else in the world, at least not to my knowledge. A good friend was purchasing a new house for her parents and wanted to pay the full price in cash to benefit from an attractive discount. She was $200,000 short and called to ask if I would lend her the money to complete the payment. I agreed without even having to think about it, and transferred the money to her account the same day. If I recall correctly, she gave me an IOU at one point but I have no idea what I did with it, and the loan was repaid. In reverse, when I purchased my last house I wanted to pay the entire amount in cash with the purchase contract for the same reason, but most of my money was sequestered in bank GICs that didn’t mature for several months and I was $35,000 short. I was chatting about my house with another friend at lunch and asked if she would lend me the money. After lunch we walked across the street to her bank and she gave me the cash, no questions asked. [7]
There is an organic strawberry farm near my home, with the sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted (the most expensive, too). I sometimes would buy a basket as a gift for the girls in the property management office. One day, I locked myself out of my house, having neglected to leave a set of keys at the office. But a young girl at the office took great pains to find a locksmith to come and unlock my door. The man asked to be paid in cash, but I had none at that moment, so the young girl, maybe only 20 years old, negotiated the man’s price down by 40% and paid him from her own pocket.
Paying Your Bills
I once arrived home after dinner to discover my house had no electricity. It was merely a breaker that was quickly reset, but at the time I wondered aloud to a friend if perhaps the electricity had been cut off because I’d forgotten to pay my bill, and she gave me the weirdest look and said “I’ve never heard of such a thing”. Once, for reasons I cannot recall, I filed all my utility bills neatly together in a desk drawer and forgot about them. A month or two later, I found little white notices stuck onto the outside of my front door, which were requests for payment. The management office asked me to leave with them the bills and the cash, and they called the utility companies who sent a courier to pick up the payments. No penalty, no interest, no recriminations, no denial of service. The utility companies didn’t want to punish me; they didn’t want to start a war; they just wanted me to pay my bills.
For some years I had my mobile phone on a sort of “pay as you go” basis, with no real contract. I just topped up my account whenever it was low. Sometimes I would forget, and would eventually receive a polite text message from the phone company saying “Your account is now -120 RMB. Please make a payment when it’s convenient.” They didn’t cut off my phone service; they didn’t want to punish me; they didn’t want to start a war. They just wanted to remind me to pay my bill.
Let’s return for a moment to the unpaid utility bills. In the West, utility companies typically cut off electricity or gas immediately on the due date, then charge the homeowner a substantial re-connection fee, a financial penalty, and extra interest on the due amount. This harsh attitude is surprisingly derived from the West’s twisted Christianity where, according to the bankers, you have committed a sin – an offense against God – by failing to pay your bill on time and therefore “deserve” to be punished. The utility company doesn’t cut off your electricity because it needs the money but because it wants to punish you, to make you suffer for your transgression against the god of money.
The Chinese, not having been terminally infected with this sacrilegious version of religion, cannot fathom the existence of such an attitude. The West, in their eagerness to destroy China, cannot in turn fathom the concept that “freedom of religion” inherently includes the possibility of freedom FROM religion. But the Chinese do in fact have what we might term a religion (in addition to Buddhism), one that derives from Confucius, and teaches gentleness, forgiveness, and understanding. Confucius taught only reform and education, never punishment, at least not in a civil context. This brings us to the surprising but inescapable conclusion that the Chinese are far better Christians than are the Christians themselves.
This is one reason China, with more people than the US and Europe combined, has only 1/1,000th as many lawyers. The Chinese way is to settle disputes by discussion and negotiation, never by force. This is so true that in many police stations in China, the first room you see when you walk through the door is a ‘negotiation room’ or a ‘dispute settlement room’. The police will moderate many forms of disputes that can potentially be settled without the filing of criminal charges or civil lawsuits. The American way, and in fact the white man’s way is to call the police and hire a lawyer, which is why Americans spend more each year on lawyers than they do on the purchase of new automobiles. The Chinese way is better.
Food
Food in China is relatively inexpensive, and eating out is very common. I have friends who haven’t cooked at home for years; they take all their meals in restaurants because family time is valuable. By eating out, their family is always together during mealtimes and time is not wasted preparing meals, cleaning kitchens and washing dishes. The out-of-home food landscape in China is rather different than that of the US. China has millions of small restaurants that are not fancy but which serve good food at very reasonable prices. This is not junk food, but the same dishes the Chinese might cook at home. There is also what we refer to as “street food”, which has almost no equivalent in the US or the West, perhaps the hot dog stands at carnivals would be the closest relative. Italy has such shops that sell pizza by the slice, this tradition being very common in China but sorely lacking the West.
Even in the large cities like Shanghai, two people can live well enough with a spending of $300.00 or $400.00 per month for food, and this includes treats and some eating out.
The food in China, as in Europe, generally is much better than in the US or Canada, especially fruits and vegetables, bread and cheese, and much else. I would go so far as to say that almost no one in the US knows what really good fruit tastes like, and Canada is the same. The fruits, and increasingly the vegetables in the US, are grown for appearance rather than taste or nutrition. One US grower lamented that fruits in the US were grown only to “decorate stores”, and not to be edible.
Beggars and Homeless
There are no beggars anywhere in China. In Shanghai, with 25 or 30 million people, I might see one or two in a year. One reason of many is that Chinese are naturally entrepreneurial and independent. An old woman whose husband has died and maybe has an insufficient pension, will go to a wholesaler and buy some bunches of green onions, carrots and baby watermelons and place them on a nice white cloth somewhere on a sidewalk, and sell them. She is there most of the day, people are happy to support her, and she earns enough to live on. There are no homeless people in China, and certainly not on the streets. The reason is that the government looks after these people so they aren’t homeless.
Home Ownership
China’s national and city governments take action to moderate house prices on the “dictatorial communist premise” that houses are homes to live in, not “assets for speculation and profiteering”. In the very large centers homes are quite expensive, much less so in the suburbs and second and third-tier cities, but even so about 90% of all Chinese own their own homes and about 80% of these are fully paid.
Bank mortgages are uncommon in China although growing to some extent. The Chinese do not like “the feeling” of being in debt and a high savings rate is contained in Chinese DNA, leading to housing down payments of typically 40% to 50% with the balance being borrowed from the extended family and repaid interest-free over time. China is the only country to my knowledge where a young couple can easily borrow money for a house purchase from aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and pay cash for their first home. These loans are a “family affair”, are always interest-free, with the young couple repaying as and when they are able. Low-income couples are often able to purchase below-cost subsidised housing from the government or, surprisingly, from many State-owned corporations that build low-cost housing from their surplus profits. Socialism at its finest.
On this same note, I wrote in my article on Socialism that in Xi’An there is a school with one of the finest campuses in the world, hectares of green grass, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, flower gardens, lovely condominiums and townhouse residences for the faculty and students. The school was built with surplus profits of a local state-owned tobacco company that wanted to give something to the community. The firm not only built the school but pays the annual operating costs.
Further with housing (and other major purchases), the Chinese do not like the feeling of buying anything that is used, this applying to homes, automobiles, major appliances. If the Chinese purchase a used car, it will be a first car and a maximum of one or two years old, the remainder disappearing into the rural areas as temporary but affordable transportation. If a Chinese buys a used home, their first act is to completely gut the interior, stripping the entire dwelling to bare concrete, and reconstructing the entire home to make it ‘new’, this renovation simply taken for granted as part of the purchase cost.
Many people are already aware that China has no property taxes, so when a home is fully paid, living is free except for the utilities. Some areas have condominiums which assess annual management fees but these are usually modest and provide good value.
As you might expect, the cost of home rental can vary considerably, especially in the large cities. In Shanghai, if you want to live downtown in the central core, rents will range from US$2,000 to US$5,000 per month. But if you are willing to accept a commute of one or two hours, you can rent a fine new 2-bedroom apartment in a lovely area for as little as $300 per month.
Internet, Mobile Phones and Related
The first bad news for Americans is that you don’t have 5G Internet connections. What you have is a poorly-tweaked version of 4G. In China with true 5G, the speeds are five times faster than what you have in the US. Huawei is the only company making true 5G internet infrastructure and the US government banned Huawei to protect and maintain its “Five Eyes” espionage network. I discuss the details of this in the earlier-referenced article on Huawei and Tik-Tok.
My Huawei smart phone costs me around $15.00 to $20.00 per month, including the Internet connection. In a heavy month, I might spend $25.00. My home Internet connection costs 500 RMB for two years, which is about $40.00 per year, and with that I get about 300 free TV channels. [8]
Paying for Things
China has largely by-passed cash as a payment method. We generally use our phones with either WeChat Pay or Alipay for everything, just scanning the QR code for any kind of purchase including a single bunch of green onions at a sidewalk market. This is so true that I can travel anywhere in China, go anyplace and do anything, with only my phone and my passport. The second choice is a debit card. Cheques are never used, and credit cards are not so popular in China, being a sort of status symbol rather than having any real utility, and Chinese people don’t like owing money.
A few Other Lies
Here are two articles you will enjoy reading. The first is A Few Historical Frauds — Einstein, Bell & Edison, Coca-Cola and the Wright Brothers [9] and the second is titled What is China Really Like? Let’s Meet Some Real People [10]
Selected Comparisons Between the USA and China
I would like to use the rest of this essay to inform my American friends of some differences between life in China and life in the US or Canada, or most other Western countries, and in part to let you know what life is like for me in China. You can make your own comparisons and form your own conclusions.
First on this list would be “FREEDOM!”. You may be surprised to learn that I am more free living in China than I would be if living in the US or Canada, or the West generally. It is true that some things and attitudes are not welcome in China, but you should be aware that some things and attitudes are not welcome in other countries either. These things will be different because of the local culture, but every nation has things that are frowned upon or forbidden.
People in China are not afraid of the police. In Canada or the US nobody will pass a police car that is driving at the speed limit on a highway, but in China it happens all the time. I commented on that to a friend who said, “Why should I be afraid of him? He’s my servant, not my master.” In China, I can argue with a policeman and challenge his conclusions without fear of arrest for “disorderly conduct”, but in real life it goes much farther than this. I was once standing on the Maglev platform at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport, and watched while a man and his wife were having a heated discussion with a policeman that lasted for several minutes. I wasn’t close enough to learn the topic of their debate, but the argument ended with the man’s wife kicking the policeman in the shins. I can think of more than a few Western cities where that wouldn’t have been a good idea.
Pornography is a huge industry in the US and all Western-affiliated countries, especially Israel, and also Canada, Germany, and Japan. Pornography is prohibited in China. Hard drugs (illicit drugs) are prohibited in China, as are marijuana, cocaine, and the penalties for these are serious. In the US and the West generally, you can make a post on social media calling your President “a complete assh…”. In China, you don’t do that, any more than you would use that term to address your father. The Chinese culture is far more respectful than that of the West, and leaders and the elderly are especially treated with respect. One reason is that Chinese leaders are generally highly deserving of that respect, whereas politicians (including the President or Prime Minister) in the West rank lower than snakes, various worms, and used-car salesmen.
Western leaders and the Western media are very fond of telling you that so many topics in China are forbidden for discussion in public media. It’s true there are a few of these, but not for reasons you might imagine. This is not censorship, but a social construct based on culture that involves an avoidance of embarrassment. All you need to do is think: there are topics that are not open to free discussion in your own family, and the same is true of your country. Every family has some of this, and certainly in every nation there are historical events that cast a negative light and where public discussion is frowned upon or forbidden.
it is true that some Western news media and social media are banned in China, but again not for reasons you might imagine. Google Street View was banned in China because Google’s cars spent too much of their time recording the streets adjacent to China’s military bases and other sensitive areas, but the US government doesn’t tell you this; it just tells you China is bad because it is censoring Google the Vestal Virgin. Some Western media are blocked in China because of their constant diet of hateful articles and lies about China. These attacks are constant, and daily, and the Chinese government doesn’t want its people polluted with lies about China. When you have all the information as to the reasons for some of this blockage or censorship, you will not only understand but approve. As a simple analogy, you do not have the right to come to my home and tell my family despicable lies about me. And if you try, I should kick you out.
If you are an American, this will surprise you, but there are reasons why American social media apps are banned in China, reasons which might not immediately occur to you.
China now requires full ID to register for domestic social media. This is not because China is “authoritarian” and wants to collect all your personal data and social media history. The primary reason is that the CIA was registering thousands of accounts on Chinese social media, the agents pretending to be native Chinese, and spreading so much disinformation and lies, and constantly trying to stir up social unrest, that the government finally had to act. If you want evidence, do a search for “CIA sock puppets”. Also, the CIA was monitoring all Chinese social media and searching for phrases that might be indicative of rebellious youth, then trying to contact those people to create cells causing social unrest. There are actually very good reasons for China’s “Internet Firewall” and, while that firewall sometimes irritates me, I cannot disagree with it. And it is now happening in reverse with the projected ban of Tik-Tok; the US is trying to “protect itself”, not from data collection but from what it perceives as a political threat to its oligarchy (the top 1%) who don’t want you to know the truth about China.
One item that deserves special mention is Google. If I were to ask, you would tell me that Google is a search engine, but you would be wrong. Google is not a search engine; it is a gatekeeper with two main functions. One is to feed you only the information your government and top 1% want you to have, and the second is to ensure that you never find the information it doesn’t want you to have. Google is the most heavily censored of all Internet platforms; I don’t have space to enlarge on this here, but you couldn’t imagine in your dreams the extent to which Google censors everything of consequence. Wikipedia is the same; they are first cousins, controlled by the same small group.
Personal Safety
China is a country renowned for its low crime rates and very high levels of personal safety. I have travelled through almost every part of this country, from the largest cities to rural areas, in daylight and darkest night, alone and with companions, and in nearly 20 years I can honestly say I have never once had the slightest concern for my personal safety, and in fact the thought has never entered my mind. Read this: The World’s Safest Cities [11]
In any city in China we see on a daily basis people standing in line at an ATM, patiently waiting while one person is feeding huge wads of bills into the machine, 10,000 RMB at a time, the pile of cash often exceeding perhaps $US 30,000. This is such a common transaction as to be completely ignored by everyone. In any city in North America this is begging for a ‘snatch and grab’ robbery, but I have never heard of such a thing occurring in China.
The area surrounding People’s Square in Shanghai is one of the busiest places in the city, teeming with tourists, shoppers and pedestrians. On several intersections in this area are banks, and sitting on the steps of the banks you will see an elderly man with a cardboard box full of money, every kind of currency you could imagine – Chinese RMB, Japanese Yen, US dollar, Canadian dollar, Euros, Pesos, Thai Baht, Korean Won … People engage with these men constantly because their exchange rates are better than those of the nearby banks, and there is never a concern about counterfeit currency. But my point is that any young person could just pick up that box and run, and he could disappear instantly into the crowd and would never be caught. But this has never happened, not in any city in China. The proof is that those men were there 20 years ago when I first came to Shanghai, and are still there today, and not only in Shanghai.
I have a video where a tourist recently left a nice wristwatch and expensive sunglasses on a bench in downtown Shanghai, secretly set up a movie camera to record what might happen, and left. He went for a long walk, had lunch and returned maybe an hour later to find his watch and sunglasses where he left them. From the video, thousands of people walked by, but no one paid attention and no one stole the items. Everywhere in Chinese cities, shop-owners place boxes of their products out on the sidewalks so passers-by can see samples of what the shop sells. The shopkeepers are busy in the store, and people could easily steal everything, but it never happens. Sometimes a shop owner will put a box containing bottles of water on a chair in a totally unmonitored area, with the price posted and the QR code. Anyone wanting a bottle of water will scan the code to make the payment, and leave with his water bottle. Nobody steals them.
The Surveillance Society
Did you know that London, England has one CCTV camera for every six citizens, and that the US is quickly heading in the same direction? But the US media denigrate China for spying on their own people. China has surveillance cameras too, and nobody cares. Even more to the point, the Chinese government doesn’t care about you being in the picture. They are looking for criminals, auto accidents, dangerous drivers, health emergencies, water main breaks, and a lot of other mundane things unrelated to you jaywalking or holding hands with your girlfriend.
Medical Care
I am a foreigner living in China without medical insurance. I can go to a private, foreign-owned (for-profit) medical clinic (usually American), which has two distinctions: (1) everyone speaks English and (2) the prices charged are ten to twenty times those of the public hospitals. I avoid them.
If I need medical attention, this is the process:
I have registered at one of the larger public hospitals in the city. When I register, I receive a card and a little booklet I call my “hospital book”. It is about 4 by 6 inches in size, and contains many pages where the physicians make their notes about my visit, condition, diagnosis, prescriptions, etc.
If I have a medical concern I go to the hospital and present my card at a reception desk on whatever floor deals with my concern; eyes, joints, digestion, etc., and I pay a registration fee of about $5.00. I tell the attendant my general concern and she gives me a piece of paper (that fits nicely into my hospital book) telling me which floor to go to, and which waiting room to wait in. Each waiting room has 6 or 8 consultation rooms attached to it. There is a large monitor in the waiting room that lists the queue of patients and tells them which consultation room to enter. Depending on how busy the hospital is that day, I may have a wait of 0 to 20 or 30 minutes. When my name comes up, I go to the assigned room and discuss my problem with a General Practitioner (GP).
If the GP thinks I should see a specialist, he gives me a piece of paper telling me which waiting room to attend. If the specialist wants to see a blood test or an X-ray, he gives me a piece of paper (that fits nicely into my hospital book) telling me which floor and lab to go to. I get the test, pay a fee of $4.00 or $5.00, wait 5 minutes for the results, (which are printed on a piece of paper that fits nicely into my hospital book) and take them back to the specialist. If a prescription is necessary, either physician gives me a piece of paper that tells me where the pharmacy is, and which of maybe 15 window stations I should attend.
The entire system is wickedly efficient and functions flawlessly, able to process huge numbers of patients with a minimum of delay. It is truly impressive. Everything has been thought through in extreme detail, and the organization is absolutely superb. I am first sent to a GP because most medical complaints are simple and common, and don’t require a specialist; if a specialist is required, the system automatically assigns one, and the process is seamless. Also, since I registered with my English name, the system automatically assigns me to a GP or specialist who is fluent in English. When I arrive at the lab for a test, the system has already informed them that I am coming, and has told them what tests or X-rays to perform. No delay. When I go to the pharmacy, my prescription has already been sent to the staff at a particular window station, and is packaged and waiting for me when I arrive at the head of the queue. I simply pay and go home. Everything is seamless.
Note that, except for tests and medications, my only cost is the registration fee of about $5.00. Note also that my “hospital book” is mine. I keep it in my possession. It contains all the notes from physicians on any medical care I have ever received, and all the little pieces of paper documenting my registrations, tests, X-rays and other scans, prescription medications, everything, my entire medical history all in one place.
A stay in a public ward in a public hospital in China costs about $10 per day. You can choose to pay as much as $200 if you want a private room in a VIP ward. By comparison, a stay in a foreign-owned (usually American) private for-profit hospital in China will cost you about $1,200 per day and, unfortunately, greed compels them to extend your stay for as long as possible. The (non-Chinese) website chinaexpathealth.com tells us that the average cost of a stay in an international hospital in China is about USD 22,000. And that’s only for the room. I covered many aspects of the US Healthcare system in an article that may be of interest. [12]
Because of this extreme profit-orientation, health care in the US is almost prohibitively expensive, with medical procedures often costing five to ten times as much as in Canada or most European countries, and almost infinitely more than in China. One day in a US hospital costs a minimum of US$1,500, and can cost between $6,000 and $9,000 per day for complicated illnesses. Hospital stays in the US typically cost on average forty to fifty times more than in China, with medications and appliances being similar. An MRI costs $50 in Shanghai, but between $4,000 and $6,000 in much of the US. A CT scan in China is also around $50, but around $3,000 in the US. An ECG is a commodity, done with inexpensive equipment essentially the same all over the world. In Shanghai, an ECG costs about $3.50, while the average cost in the US is $1,500, with some hospitals charging as much as $3,000. A root canal that costs $40.00 in Shanghai will cost $1,800 in the US. Tooth fillings and extractions that cost around $20 in China will cost $300.00 or $400.00 in the US.
A personal experience: I had laser cataract surgery performed in Shanghai. I could have had it done in Canada where it would have been free, but my ophthalmologist strongly recommended I have the surgery done in China because the level of expertise was much higher than in Canada or the US, and told me his own colleagues travelled to Shanghai for the same procedure. And in the operating room, there were four American doctors watching and taking instruction – from a Chinese surgeon – on how to perform the process properly. And the cost? In the US, laser cataract surgery can easily cost between $5,000 and $7,000 per eye; the surgery in China, performed by Shanghai’s pre-eminent eye surgeon, was less than $2,000 for both eyes.
Education
China’s excellent universities charge tuition fees of about $1,000 per year, graduating ten million debt-free students each year, in contrast to $30,000 to $40,000 for an average college and $70,000 to $90,000 per year for the top schools. One individual posted on Red Note that his tuition fees for law school in Shanghai were $758 per year, while in the US the tuition was more than $40,000.
Because of the universal education and low tuition fees, there are no student loans in China, although families may have to borrow money to send a child to a foreign university. And of course, this means that in China there is no student debt on graduation, whereas in the US many students will be faced with essentially unrepayable amount of debt.
There is also the question of quality of education, the US government and Western media gleefully tell us that China’s entire education system is substandard, inadequate, nearly useless, and that Chinese schools and universities produce millions of graduates who are brainwashed, the product of a brutal authoritarian system, mindless robots who can’t think for themselves, who know only how to pass tests but not to reason or think creatively, and who cannot innovate but can only copy.
But that harsh judgment raises some questions. Who in China designed and launched the Chinese space station and the Chinese Beidou GPS system, and China’s Mars rover? Who in China developed hypersonic missiles when the US has failed every attempt at that? Who in China designed the rockets to carry all that stuff into space? Who in China developed the only true 5G Internet network in the world? Who in China developed the first real and functioning quantum communications networks, both from satellite to earth and on land between Beijing and Shanghai? Who in China developed China’s high-speed trains, China’s EV autos, China’s small drones, China’s wind power stations and solar energy installations? China is the world leader in all these and many other areas, including robotics, but who did all this?
Well, obviously all these things were accomplished by the brainwashed mindless robots after having been properly brutalised by the authoritarian and (probably) thoroughly evil “Chinese Communist Party”. It seems to me there are only two sensible conclusions to draw from this: (1) every country should try to import as many as possible of these brutalised mindless robots, and (2) the US government has maybe been lying about the quality of Chinese education. I wrote an article about the quality of education in the US. It’s worth reading. [13]
Transportation – China’s High-Speed Trains
One of China’s High-Speed trains
I wrote a lengthy article on China’s high-speed trains, with comparison and commentary on the US. I won’t quote much from this article because I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment in reading it – which I sincerely urge you to do. [14]
China’s 600 Km/hour Maglev now going into production. Source
Tickets for China’s High-Speed trains are not expensive. When I travel from Shanghai to Hong Kong (a plane trip of 2.5 hours) I often take the overnight sleeper train which is luxurious and costs around $200.00, roughly the same as a plane ticket but much better. China has more high-speed trains than the entire rest of the world combined, and trains between busy cities like Shanghai-Beijing often leave every 5 minutes. If you miss one, just grab the next one. Actually, the airlines are similar, seeming to have flights from everywhere to everywhere every 30 minutes.
China has the highest standards in the world for rail stability.This is so true that I have videos where I have placed a coin on its edge on the windowsill of the train, and the coin would remain there for five minutes or more before it fell over – at 350 Kms per hour. There are videos on YouTube of a coin standing on its edge for more than 8 minutes. My article above has a video where a woman placed a mobile phone on its edge, a coin on its edge, a ballpoint pen standing upright on its flat bottom, and a bottle of water inverted and standing on its cap. All of those remained there for more than 10 minutes, and this also at 350 Kms per hour.
Transportation – A Brief Note on Subways
Subways are not exactly high-speed rail, although China’s new trains are pushing the envelope in this area as well, at least up to 100 Km/h (almost as fast as American high-speed trains). However, another example of the Chinese not wasting time when they decide to do something. Shanghai and other major cities have set an objective that every place within the inner cities is within about 5 city blocks of a subway station, making private autos superfluous and more of a nuisance than a benefit. Here is a list of a few major cities with the current length of subway track and the time required to reach that level: [15]
London 131 years, 400 Kms.
Paris 122 years, 225 Kms.
Berlin 119 years, 148 Kms.
New York 113 years, 399 Kms.
Shanghai 28 years, 900 Kms.
Shanghai’s Metro is not only fast, but also inexpensive, costing from 1 RMB to a maximum of 6 RMB – roughly 15 cents to 80 cents, according to the distance. Shanghai has more than 20 Metro routes and is building more, making every place in the city accessible by subway. On the busiest routes, the trains run every two minutes and, with the amount of traffic on the roads in Shanghai and other large cities, the Metro is invaluable.
Transportation – China’s Automobiles
I will soon publish a separate article on China’s EVs, so I will make only a few comments here.
China’s leaders concluded 30 years ago that electric vehicles represented the future of private ground transportation. This decision may have seemed a gamble at the time, but all indications are that China read the signs correctly. China immediately began to invest major resources into R&D and to planning the supply chains that would be necessary to support what would become a true revolution in the private automobile industry. China simply abandoned gasoline-powered autos and turned all its attention to the next evolutionary step which was electric automobiles, and one where no nation had yet achieved any significant measure of development.
At the same time, there existed an enormous resistance among the Western auto manufacturers in the transition from gasoline to electricity. The publics in all nations were wildly in favor of electric automobiles, but the entrenched interests in manufacturing and in the oil industry were unmoved by public interest or social and environmental benefits. The move to electric automobiles represented an existential threat to both the manufacturing and petroleum industries, and these Western corporations vigorously, and to an altogether criminal extent, did everything possible to prevent the transition of private transportation from gasoline to electricity.
The result was predictable. China today is at the forefront of the global electric vehicle industry. Chinese manufacturers produce about 65% of the world’s EVs and more than 75% of EV batteries. China is the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, with millions of units sold annually, and more than half of all the electric vehicles worldwide are on China’s roads. None of China’s EV success was an accident; it was the result of decisions made 30 years ago, decisions that were acted upon and provided with all the resources necessary to bring the plans to fruition.
Chinese EVs are recognized worldwide as outstanding in terms of both design and quality, and Chinese prices are unmatched. At international auto shows in every country, visitors universally comment with surprise and admiration at the unexpectedly very high level of quality of Chinese EVs. They are far superior those produced by any other country, and easily surpass Tesla. It has always been possible to buy a good small car in China for less than $10,000, and very nice high-quality EVs can be had today for as little as $15,000.
Over the years, many individuals have attempted to design and sell a new brand of automobile, and almost all failed. It was thus a double surprise to me that two Chinese IT firms manufacturing mobile phones and computers – Huawei and Xiaomi, decided to enter the EV market. The second part of the surprise was the outstanding success they achieved, both cars wildly popular and selling in large numbers. Xiaomi in particular has a wide range of models and prices, as you can see from the photo below.
Xiaomi Models. Source
The interior of one of Huawei’s most popular models. Source
MG
MG was (is) a British brand that was notable for producing fine small sports cars since 75 years ago, along with Triumph and Austin-Healey. The brand grew stale and was on its way out when purchased by Chinese auto makers and revitalized. Here are photos of one of their new popular sports cars, the Cyberstar. Photo source
BYD
BYD has an excellent international reputation for innovation, engineering and quality. BYD makes a wide range of autos and has become a world leader, and the largest worldwide manufacturer of EVs. I will probably make some enemies for saying this, but Elon Musk is quite far removed from the oracle that some people consider him to be. Not very long ago, Musk arrogantly (and I thought, stupidly) denigrated BYD as being low-production, poor quality, and no match for Tesla. He woke up the next morning to learn that BYD had surpassed Tesla in sales and exports, and possessed a quality that put Tesla to shame. Musk has been silent on BYD ever since. The photos below are of BYD’s supercar that is very expensive, faster than many Ferraris, and is selling in high numbers.
BYD U-9. Source
BYD U-9. Source
China’s Low-Altitude Economy
This is the name given to the newest transportation revolution in China, that of pilotless air taxis. The idea of small aircraft providing personal transportation has been a dream in many countries for many decades, but this dream is now alive in China. These vehicles have been certified, are in production, and are actually flying today in some Chinese cities, but they will soon be ubiquitous. The government is making major efforts to establish air corridors, safety standards and operating regulations, because this is seen as clearly the wave of the future, and the use of these drones is expected to explode in the next decade. Here are photos of two popular vehicles now in production, sales and operation.
E-Hang
EHang’s EH216-S pilotless passenger-carrying vehicles perform commercial flight demonstration. HUANG YANGYANG/FOR CHINA DAILY. Source
EHang’s Certified EH216-S Pilotless Passenger-Carrying Aerial Vehicle. Source
X-Peng
The X-peng-01 making demonstration flights in Dubai. Source
The X-peng-01 making demonstration flights in Dubai. . Source
Transportation – Small Drones
The Chinese firm DJI is the world leader in small drones, having something like 75% of the total market. The reason is that these little drones are far superior to anything else on the market and the prices are affordable. These drones are used for everything from fast food delivery to crop spraying on farms, to remote examination of electrical lines. But it’s much more than this. If you are hiking on China’s Great Wall and want a coffee, just pick up your phone and order it, and within 5 minutes a little drone that reads your phone’s GPS signal is overhead with your coffee. Emergency medications can be delivered within 20 minutes no matter where you are in China. This is now all so common in China that no one takes notice of it.
DJI Delivery Drone Source:
China Copies and Steals Our IP
We hear from the US Government and the Western media so much about how “China” and the Chinese have never invented anything, have no imagination, and know only how to copy and steal. But the truth is 180° from this. It is reliably estimated that at least 60% of all the knowledge in the world today originated in China. Yes, that’s really true, and the estimate is not mine. We were all taught in school that the printing press with movable type was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany in around 1550, but China not only invented paper but had printing presses with movable type (on both top and bottom) 600 years before Gutenberg was born. Similarly, every schoolboy knows that the Scotsman James Watt invented the steam engine, but China had working steam engines 600 years before James Watt was born. The truth is that Chinese invention has always led the world, with most of these inventions having been copied or stolen by the West and China then just written out of the world’s history by the same people who stole the inventions and who own all the history book publishers. Here is the story of Chinese invention: If you don’t know about this, it’s a real eye-opener. [16]
The West chooses to ignore the fact that the 200-year hiatus in China’s innovation was due almost entirely to their own military invasions, when the West was ravaging and destroying the nation. China’s development, social progress, and invention, ceased only from the invasions by both the Americans and Europeans, and most especially with the Jews’ vast program of trafficking in opium in China.
Perhaps of more direct interest is that China’s lag in current technology is, more than anything else, an unfortunate accident of fate that occurred during a blip in time. After Mao evicted all the foreigners and China shook off the effects of 200 years of foreign interference and plundering to begin the transition to an industrialised economy, this was precisely when the world of electronics and communication exploded. It was during that brief period of a couple of decades that computers, the Internet, mobile phones and so much more, were conceived and patented by the West. Virtually the entire process passed China by, because during that brief period the nation was entirely enveloped in the fundamentals of its economic and social revolution, and in no position to participate. China’s lack of patents and IP in the field of electronics today is due neither to Western superiority nor Chinese lack of innovation, but to Western aggression. The accumulation of American and European patents was not due to Western supremacy in innovation but to the absence of the Chinese.
Nüshu
Here is something you might really enjoy reading: the story of Nüshu, one of the oldest and most beautiful, and certainly one of the more intriguing languages in the world, the only known example of a full-fledged language created by women and spoken and understood only by women. It is a part of the UNESCO Heritage. [17]
Giving things names
I wrote a short (and cute) article about giving things names in the US and China. You may enjoy reading it. [18]
Epilogue
We have a saying that after spending one month in China you could write a book; after a year in China, you could write a chapter; in five years you could write a paragraph, and after five years you could write a note on a postcard.
That saying has become almost an urban legend but it is essentially true. I can still recall the day when, walking down a street in downtown Shanghai after being in the country for about a month, I experienced an illusion of such extreme clarity that I actually said to myself, “I could write a book on this place”. I cannot explain the mental or sociological processes that combine to cause that initial illusion of understanding and clarity, nor the forces that so effectively and progressively dismantle it to a condition where the more time we spend in China the less we understand it.
My Chinese friends tell me I have a deep understanding of China, of its people and culture and, while the praise is flattering, it is also largely undeserved. Indeed, after nearly 20 years in the country, there are days when I am blindsided by something so basic that I am convinced I understand nothing, and I would have to say that if China cannot be understood by Westerners from the inside, it most assuredly cannot be understood by Westerners from the outside who have no useful contact with anything Chinese.
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Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
His full archive can be seen at
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at:
2186604556@qq.com
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NOTES
[1] Huawei, Tik-Tok and WeChat
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/4059/
[2] A Small Tapestry of Lies
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/8796/
[3] American Exceptionalism
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/en-larry-romanoff-american-exceptionalism/
[4] What is the Difference between Capitalism and Socialism?
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/3510/
[5] America’s Labor Movement and the Post-War Social Contract
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/8439/
[6] Democracy –The Most Dangerous Religion
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Democracy-The-Most-Dangerous-Religion-.pdf
[7] Understanding China
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/3307/
[8] Chinese and American Mobile Phone Systems
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/7153/
[9] A Few Historical Frauds — Einstein, Bell & Edison, Coca-Cola and the Wright Brothers
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/4917/
[10] What is China Really Like? Let’s Meet Some Real People
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/19483/
[11] The World’s Safest Cities
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/3569/
[12] The US Healthcare System
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/en-larry-romanoff-the-us-healthcare-system-october-20-2020/
[13] Substandard Education in America
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/466/
[14] China’s High-Speed Trains. America, Where are You?
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/7219/
[15] List of Metro Systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems
[16] History of Chinese Invention
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/history-of-chinese-inventions-the-present-and-the-future-recent-chinese-state-of-the-art-innovations-october-24-2019/
[17] Nüshu (女书)
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/2143/
[18] Giving things names in the West and in China
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/5016/
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Copyright © Larry Romanoff, Blue Moon of Shanghai, Moon of Shanghai, 2024
