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According to the most recent report (2024), people in China have overwhelmingly positive views of their political system. 92% of people say that democracy is important to them, 79% say that their country is democratic, 91% say that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a small group), and 85% say all people have equal rights before the law. Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world. The figure below compares China’s results to those from the US, France and Britain. These results may help explain the high levels of satisfaction with government reported by the Ash Center.
Yeah that must be it, couldn’t possibly be that people who see their government work in their interests and whose lives improved more than at any time in history would genuinely support their government. You are very intelligent!
I mean why would anyone think they live in a democratic country where the government represents them when this sort of things are happening right?
Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8SvK0E5dI
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
None of these things happen in capitalist states, and we can make a direct comparison with India which follows capitalist path of development. In fact, without China there practically would be no poverty reduction happening in the world.
If we take just one country, China, out of the global poverty equation, then even under the $1.90 poverty standard we find that the extreme poverty headcount is the exact same as it was in 1981.
The $1.90/day (2011 PPP) line is not an adequate or in any way satisfactory level of consumption; it is explicitly an extreme measure. Some analysts suggest that around $7.40/day is the minimum necessary to achieve good nutrition and normal life expectancy, while others propose we use the US poverty line, which is $15.
I don’t deny that China has made, and continues to makd, many impressive advances that have really helped its people. I acknowledge that it achieves many things capitalist countries don’t even try to achieve. But its government is also harsh towards its critics, and that can be expected to have an effect on surveys.
But its government is also harsh towards its critics, and that can be expected to have an effect on surveys.
First of all, you clearly have no clue how Chinese government actually works. I can recommend this article as a primer. The whole notion that people in China are afraid to criticize the government isn’t based in reality. In fact, if that was the case then the government wouldn’t have any incentive to improve the lives of the people. Finally, the fact that you think people at Harvard aren’t smart enough to do a proper survey is also incredible.
“What are we, a bunch of asians?”
— Man surprised his country is full of racists
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Meanwhile, in the real world
https://jasonhickel.substack.com/p/studies-show-strong-public-support
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Yeah that must be it, couldn’t possibly be that people who see their government work in their interests and whose lives improved more than at any time in history would genuinely support their government. You are very intelligent!
I mean why would anyone think they live in a democratic country where the government represents them when this sort of things are happening right?
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
Chinese household savings hit another record high in 2024 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-bank-earnings-01-12-2024/card/chinese-household-savings-hit-another-record-high-xqyky00IsIe357rtJb4j
People in China enjoy high levels of social mobility https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html
The typical Chinese adult is now richer than the typical European adult https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-chinese-adult-now-richer-than-europeans-wealth-report-finds-2022-9
Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8SvK0E5dI
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&%3Blocations=CN&%3Bstart=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
Over the past 40 years, the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty– has fallen by close to 800 million. With this, China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
None of these things happen in capitalist states, and we can make a direct comparison with India which follows capitalist path of development. In fact, without China there practically would be no poverty reduction happening in the world.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/5-myths-about-global-poverty
https://www.cgdev.org/blog/12-things-we-can-agree-about-global-poverty
I don’t deny that China has made, and continues to makd, many impressive advances that have really helped its people. I acknowledge that it achieves many things capitalist countries don’t even try to achieve. But its government is also harsh towards its critics, and that can be expected to have an effect on surveys.
First of all, you clearly have no clue how Chinese government actually works. I can recommend this article as a primer. The whole notion that people in China are afraid to criticize the government isn’t based in reality. In fact, if that was the case then the government wouldn’t have any incentive to improve the lives of the people. Finally, the fact that you think people at Harvard aren’t smart enough to do a proper survey is also incredible.