By 1979, Chinese people were poorer, on average, than North Koreans. I mean, your average per-capita income in China that year was one third of sub-Saharan Africa's.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
China adopted a capitalist system in the 1980s, and they went from a 60% poverty rate to 10%.
China is more prosperous than before. The people have better lives but they are not happy and confident because the scars are still there.
Contrary to what you might think, China's economy is relatively less efficient, and more polluting, than those of rich countries.
Deng Xiaoping made a calculation. He bet on demographics. What he knew was that China had this enormous population of young, underemployed people, people who he could move from the farms to the coast and put them to work in factories, and that would be the lifeblood of China's economy.
We should not underestimate that: the Chinese people's ignorance. Thousands of years of despotism had been such a poison that their understanding of modern politics is even inferior to that of the black slaves and other immigrants.
There's a belief that since Africa got a raw deal from the colonial West, then the Chinese must be Africa's best friend. But the evidence doesn't show that, and the main criticism is that they are building infrastructure in exchange for Africa's resources in deals that are structured to favor China.
Physical hunger and physical poverty is something I could only imagine. I've been poor when I was in China... As kids we never had to starve, but just didn't have enough meat, enough rice.
China has a bigger middle class than the entire population of Europe.
Fortunately there is more wealth in the world than there was at the time of the global economic crisis of 1929 - Chinese, Indian, Arab and Russian.
Chinese economic development has cost many American workers their jobs. That's the price of progress.
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