What does China want? Is it really communist? How does it build so fast?
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Max tackles ten of your biggest questions, along the way debunking some of the biggest myths and misconceptions about this fascinating country.
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— VIDEO CHAPTERS —
0:00 Intro
2:36 What China wants
5:19 Day in the life
12:11 The Siberia question
16:57 Bigger threat: US or China?
19:48 Green China?
22:29 Really communist?
26:44 China copycats
30:17 China’s Western fans
33:45 How China builds
37:08 Replacing the dollar
40:10 Why adversaries?
About:
Max Fisher is a veteran journalist who has reported from over 20 countries. His show, The Bigger Picture, illuminates our world by exploring how it really works, from the sweep of geopolitics to the deepest recesses of our minds. Before going independent, Max was a staff writer at The Atlantic and The Washington Post, a founding editor of Vox, and a long-time foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times, where he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His book, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World, was an NPR and New Yorker best book of 2022.
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中国和西方集团在利益上有冲突，即使中国是资本主义制度也改变不了这一点。谈论制度的时候要考虑到制度所面临的现实压力，这和建筑的结构是一样的，中国的人口和复杂会让压力指数倍增长，让自己的国家更好的愿望全世界都是一样的。
The U.S. and China are like divorced parents: They have their disagreements, but they understand that they have a responsibility to get along when it's necessary.
Edit: They also used to be allies, so that works for the divorced parents metaphor.
more of these videos please
First 4 minutes and realized started with the wrong foot. The USA leading with free trade and democracy? U missed this shoot hard pal.
China is a wannabe superpower, but cannot match Russia's influence. Dreaming hard CCP doctrinated fantasies
Family support is a tremendously differnt thing between China and the US. For those rural poor people in China, they are usually more than 65 years old. Their grown-up children will take care of them finacially.
These answers are very valid in the current reality but lack substantially in "what if". The world is really shaky right now and established rules are broken every day. In the triplet Russia, US, China it is China that I would be least likely to predict any actions from in case of an appearing "opportunity".
Yes china wants to be number 1 and it calls into question all judgments made after this because you failed this one so spectacularly. And then conflated being Hegamon with being a post WW2 US style hegemon which is not a requirement. For most of world history China held hegemony, and it was not ever a US style one. They want to return to their previous style of vassal, and tributary hegemony. Being number 1 doesnt require you lift a finger in the manner the US has historically. The US method is just one among many. You dont even need to protect your vassals and tributaries you just need them to know you can always do worse to them.
20:26 why are you showing nuclear plants (very green/clean energy) while making a statement about burning fossil fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Nuclear does neither of those things! You're really not helping with the misconceptions surrounding nuclear energy. Watch a video about nuclear by Kyle Hill or Maxinomics or Cleo Abram or Smarter Every Day… I could go on.
Ive never understood what the point of nato and the UN is. Genocide? Write a letter. Crimes against humanity? Write a letter. Unnecessary war? Write a letter. They are Unnecessary because they dont do anything, they have no purpose unless they start being more aggressive
The answer at no.1 should have touched a bit more on the fact that China wants a multipolar world, where, yes, China wants to be the boss in their neighbourhood, but not only there (see investments in Africa and so on), and wants, in a way, to get rid of the US-based world order, even if they do not want to replace US and their almost self-imposed responsabilities.
As a Southeast Asian, I obviously cannot support China's big bully foreign policies
Just want to flag this: if you are talking about Three Gorges Dam and Jia Zhangke, the best movie to watch is actually his 2006 Still Life. Ash is Purest White simply took used footage and sequences from the old movie! But otherwise great video!
我无语了，从你第一个问题就出现了矛盾点，你说中国希望美国到处当世界警察维护秩序，却忽视中国一直在谴责美国的各种入侵他国，妨碍他国内政的言论，你把这看作是中国希望看到美国当第一和世界警察，我不知道你是从何而来的判断？因为这完全是你的臆测，你只是从目前两国互相依赖彼此发展经济就下论断，你不是一个好的推导辩论者，再见。
I don't understand why you separate middle class from working class.
I'll just say this in chinese, easier for me.
这个视频整体上没问题，但是有一些地方没说明白。
首先是经济制度。中国国有企业的规模和覆盖面远远超过西方国家，深入能源、交通、通信、农业、钢铁、银行、军工等各个领域，国有企业就是社会主义公有制在经济开放之后的表现形式。所以中国其实没有完全放弃社会主义的经济制度，政府借国有企把控着社会运转的基石。而且中国的其他企业实际上也无法不配合政府，如果政府想要某个企业甚至某个领域的所有企业配合做事，只要表达意愿，企业就会配合。
然后是底层生活。对比西方发达国家，工人待遇差、工作时间长是事实，也确实没有实质上的工会。工人有意见的话就直接和政府反映，政府评判企业是否做的过分，决定是否要惩罚企业。不过只要工人能正常生活（在中国意味着有接通基础设施的住处、有足量的日常生活物资、有医疗教育等基础公共服务），对于政府来说这就没什么问题。中国政府最为关心的民生问题只有脱贫，重要性仅次于国防，十分执着。社会资源持续不断的向贫困人口倾斜，每一间房屋都必须通水、通电、通路、通网，每一个偏僻山村都必须有办法前往城市，中国很大一部分基础建设就是为了这个目的，甚至有越过几座山供给仅仅几十户人家的情况，根本不可能有收益。然而贫困人口基数太多了，即便如此仍有一些地区还没脱贫。
事实上国防和脱贫就是底层工人待遇差的原因之一，这两件事真的需要很多钱，需要很多劳动力，这部分成本最终就只能由工人阶级买单。中国工人对待遇是有怨言的，但主要是对于企业的压榨和政府的默许，而不是对于国防和脱贫这两件事。民众认可国防是因为中国19世纪末20世纪初曾被多次侵略，认可脱贫是因为脱贫的目标人群就是这些工人在农村的亲属。
某种意义上来说，工人付出的额外劳动是在帮助他的贫困亲属，只不过这在中国是半强制的，不是工人多赚钱给各自的亲属花，而是工人多赚钱给国家，由国家统一实施脱贫。
在这个过程中资本家也赚得盆满钵满，这是一个问题，而且是民众和政府都看在眼里的问题。不过这个问题在市场经济的前提下几乎没有办法解决。
I think you’re doing your best to stay neutral and keep ideology out of your takes. That said, a lot of your points just come off as pretty uninformed to me. I wanted to chime in with my own thoughts, but there’s so much I disagree with that I honestly don’t even know where to start
So you learned nothing
Your analytical perspective is quite interesting. I'd like to ask if you have posted videos on Bilibili in China? Would you mind if I translated your video into Chinese and then uploaded it behind the scenes to a long video platform in China?谢谢❤
How many takes did it take to say the name "Felt Poopenfarten" without laughing 😂
For a country established on invading neighbourhood countries and loot natural resources , what do u expect Russia think ? It’s all projection ! The only way Russia seems to know is invade , invade , and invade . That’s the only way they know to become a ‘ successful ‘ country .
China numa juan
I love this format. In a way it was nice that it didn't feel like a Podcast because for some reason it feels like I have to commit to sitting through a whole podcast to understand whats going on. Versus just asking and answering questions to learn more about the world and current events.
Have ya read something by China expert Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik?
Kazakhstan would be awesome.
One thing not being discussed enough at the moment is Elon Musk's claim that we are approaching a world of plenty where Monetary handouts e.g. Universal Basic Income (UBI) would become the necessary path to a continued peaceful world what with LLM's, AI, Robots etc..
It's funny that when Elon Musk talks about it, many of those clamouring for debates on UBI suddenly seem to have slunk into the shadows. Politically speaking Elon is unsavoury? Or perhaps they believe he intends to abuse UBI to further enrich and empower himself?
Either way, a video on that topic would be cool.
ermmmm🤓👆 the Chinese coast guard spraying southeast Asian fishermen with water is actually worse than US extra judicial bombing of Venezuelan fisherman or literally kidnapping a neighboring country's president or placing a neighboring country under embargo for decades or having a prison on foreign soil known for torture or funneling weapons into a neighboring country and train the cartel
4:25 pretty sure it’s wrong that china does not want to be number one. they have no desire to spend money to be the benevolent leader sure, but they for sure want the world to see them as way superior as a country and as a race. it’s clearly written in CCP’s principles.
Once you go to china and see what it’s really like, you see why we’ve been drip-fed anti-china propaganda for years. It’s a wonderful place that’s bears little resemblance to what the western media portray. Once you go, you know.
I promise you, as a non-America and non- Chinese citizen, the country to fear more immediately is the United States. They’ve made a pretty strong case for themselves as a warmonger state rather than “protector”. China, especially in Africa, has a more subtle but similarly sinister reputation. Their land grabbing policies and debt trapping are just as bad. So I think both countries have their negative aspects. But to call America the protector is a very biased opinion.
As usual, on any video dealing with China (no matter who it's from), there are countless Chinese people here to assert that you are misrepresenting it in some way. Without ever saying how or directing us to a credible source.
So the format is cool but it would be good to know what the sources / material the answers are based on
Why is a video that is supposed answer questions misrepresent so much? I'm only about halfway, but communism is not defined by neither a strong party or a planned economy. Communism is an ideology not a form of governing. Yes all communist states have similar governing bodies that you described, but that is more of a flaw of the ideology than what Communism is. E.g. if you want a bunch of selfish humans to not be selfish you have to do it centrally. I guarantee you that people identifying as communist are not spouting about their strong party or planned economy. They are talking about the little guy and how the system is corrupt – but what did I expect? Americans have always misrepresented Communism worse than anywhere else. (I'm not a communist btw, but do sympathise with some of the ideology). And second, how can you say "China's middle class is not so big". Hmmm since I checked the middle class moves with the living standards of the country, not the other way around. What I got from you answer about living standards is that Chinas upper class is like the US middle class…
And your video about China and the Oil Crisis was so great, but now I'm starting to doubt that one as well…
When you use words such as "invade" and " occupying" etc., already saying that you are biased. I stopped to continue. You need to go back to the drawing board and study more before making any more videos about this topic.
The comment section is full of Chinese people correcting / supplementing the answers given in the video. This can be a real problem the veteran journalist turned independent news explainer and big question asker. Because their existence make him feels like mainstream media, arbiter of truth.
As Chinese I think you only know too little about China, I don't think you can read any Chinese materials, the best example is that you said China is aggressive against Taiwan? that's very Western narrative, So, when ROC Taiwan navy blocked PRC mainland coast 1950-1980, what would you say Taiwan? would you say Ukraine is more aggressive against Russian minority on Crimea, even brutal on Donbass? No, You would say Russia is the invader, Crimea and Donbass belongs to Ukraine according to UN charters, so stop being China Expert.
I found even from the first question, you already show you don’t really understand China as White House. This is truly phenomenal. The West always treats China as an competitor or enemy, yet they have never understood China at all. 😂 sigh…
at 20:25 why did you show a cooling tower when talking about chinas pollution, those towers only release water. That is quite misleading as these are not big industrial towers releasing loads of C02. It is just water.
10:50 本以为碰到真正了解中国的博主，很失望，不过是靠网络媒体拼凑信息，认知片面浅薄。你推崇的贾樟柯，他本人是中国人，拍摄团队也是中国人，但他的拍摄资金来自国外资金资助，类似美国国际开发署这种，这种机构不用我给你科普是做什么的吧？而且你推荐的《天注定》是2013年拍摄的，而他所拍摄的故事是发生在2010年前的，所以你用来了解中国的资料来自于16年前，该更新资料库了。2010年中国GDP是6.27万亿美元，而2025年中国GDP已经是19.63万亿美元，这样对比就比较清晰了吧？乘兴而来，败兴而去。
这个视频有些方面说得不错，但错误的观点也挺多……这里是来自中国人的评论，所以我就用中文来写了
This video has some good points, but it also contains quite a few incorrect views… Since this is a comment from a Chinese person, I'll write it in Chinese.
1.中国想成为第一吗？事实上，现在的中国并不真的在意自己成为或不成为第一——当然，成为世界第一大国会极大地增强民族自豪感，但是中国真正在意的是自己的发展。比如中美的登月计划，不像冷战时的美苏太空竞赛，中国并不关心在21世纪是美国再一次第一个登月还是中国第一个登月，中国只想登月进行科学考察，然后将成果转化为技术用于推进中国人乃至全人类的发展（邓小平说：“科学技术是第一生产力”，这句话现在也是中国经济发展的纲领之一）。甚至中国一直都欢迎美国和中国合作进行太空探索，包括登月、空间站、火星探测等等，但是美国自己用《沃尔夫法案》断绝了中美的太空合作。回到正题，中国的经济建设就像刚刚说的登月一样，不在乎第一第二而只在乎经济建设和自身发展。
2.关于中国人的生活。首先要说的是，你通过电影来认识一个社会，只会得到一个非常狭隘片面的认识。
关于资产阶级：中国的资产阶级在表面上与美国的资产阶级很像，但在政治上有很大差别。资产阶级可以影响政策但不能随心所欲地通过自己或代理人决定政策，可以和政府合作但无法真的掌握国家权力。像马斯克成为政府效率部部长那样的情况，在中国是不会发生的，因为中央政府的政治局集体虽然类似“内阁”，但所有成员都不是由主席自己决定，而是由人民代表大会（地位类似议会）决定，且他们都是在官僚体制中从基层开始作出成绩、逐步竞争选拔上来的，而这中间没有资产阶级进入的机会。
关于工人阶级：在上个世纪90年代经济体制改革之前，工人阶级是中国地位最高的阶级，社会福利也是最好的，当时许多人以成为工人为荣。每个国有企业包揽了自己的工人的所有衣食住行和医疗养老保险等福利，工人不用花钱，只要劳动达标就行，这被称为“企业办社会”。但是其背后是一套僵化的经济体制，企业并没有竞争力，实际上是靠着政府和计划“供养”的，本质上是不可持续的发展模式。经济体制改革的目的就是要转型成自由市场，让企业开始竞争，自主制造出优秀的产品来，且减轻政府的财政压力。但这么做的后果就是有一大批竞争力低下的企业倒闭了，大批工人下岗，社会地位也随之下跌，同时资产阶级和企业家开始重新站了起来。在改革的过程中，由于法律的缺失、执法不力、利益保障的新机制不完善和一些官员只在乎GDP，工人阶级的利益确实长期得不到保障，这个状态持续了20+年。但是这20+年并非一成不变，工人阶级的利益在逐渐转好，比如现在工人通过劳动局仲裁获胜的几率已经大于失败的几率了，而这在过去是几乎无法想象的。当然，中国在这一方面还有很长的路要走。
关于贫困人口：中国一直在做扶贫的工作。在今天，赤贫已经完全被消除了，全民都已经达到了温饱之上，现在扶贫工作的重点是防止返贫。而有一些看似还是住在偏远山区老旧房子里的老年人，其实是“不愿意抛去过去”的故土情结所导致的，而他们的后代都在城镇生活。后代们有的想把父母们接到自己身边生活，父母不一定愿意。而这种情况下，农村基层工作者会对接照顾这些老年人，而这是政策和制度要求他们的所做工作之一。
3.中国是共产主义（社会主义）还是资本主义？答案就在那里：中国特色社会主义。中国共产党的目标依然是共产主义，但是，一、实现共产主义，首先要经济高度发达、生产力水平极高，而那个高度发达的程度还很远（在中国人眼里世界上还没有国家达到），所以当下的纲领是“以经济建设为中心”。二、发展的路径是灵活的、要符合时代的、要符合国情的而不是僵化的、普世的。这也是中国不主动对外输出自己的模式与体制的原因，因为中国的发展路径是根据自己的情况、凭借自己的力量探索建立起来的。这就像你从一座城市去另一座城市，你可以通过开车、打车、火车、飞机等等方式，但你会根据自己的情况选择交通工具，而不是看见别人选择什么你就选择什么。三、从罗斯福开始，到邓小平、英国企业的国有化和私有化，“共产主义/资本主义”与“计划经济/市场经济”就不再是对应关系了。今天的中国是既有计划经济又有市场经济的“混合制经济”，甚至已经发展到微观层面：在一家国有企业内部，“计划”和“市场”会同时发生作用。而一家国有企业也不一定完全“国有”，也可能会有个人资本、私有企业、集体企业、投资机构对其进行投资。
如果你阅读中国共产党的历史、近现代中国发展的历史，你会发现整个过程其实没有脱离马克思列宁主义和共产主义的框架，始终是一脉相承的。
4.中国是绿色国家吗？这需要综合地看。首先，中国大力发展新能源、电力、核能，是为了摆脱石油能源风险，但并不拒绝石油，因为当前的人类工业无法离开石油。石油作为不可再生资源，将石油的能源功能比例降低，可以更多的用于其他工业制造。其次，在习近平的“绿水青山就是金山银山”的理念下，社会和政府已经认识到了保护环境的重要性，保护环境已经成为了考核官员的重要视角之一。中国的北方地区有一个“三北防护林”工程，地理范围包括东北到内蒙古（华北）再到西北，是一个庞大的植树造林计划。在中国中部的山西省和陕西省，是著名的黄土高原，在过去几乎看不见树（原因之一是几千年的砍伐树木用于建造房屋的历史），水土流失非常严重，但现在去旅游会发现到处都是植物。事实上通过约半个世纪的努力，中国的人工造林面积已经超过了世界其他国家造林面积之和。通过植物光合作用吸收固定二氧化碳，以补偿人类社会产生的二氧化碳，是中国正在进行的路径之一。综上，中国其实是左手拿着工业，右手拿着环保，哪个都没有放手。
5.关于“中国如何迅速地建造这一切？”的回答中，中央政府其实不是“我要在这里建个火电厂”就可以直接建的。中国其实有问责机制，也会开公众听证会、专家座谈会，发布可行性报告，或者被某个政府部门否决（比如文物保护部门）。前不久上海地铁想提高地铁票价，就召开了公众听证会。当然，这也是时代发展，在修建三峡水坝时的时代确实缺少公众意见的反馈，但是十年前就已经改变了。十年前在中国的另一条河流：怒江，中央政府曾经也计划修建水坝用于发电，但环境专家和当地民众对此表示反对，经过论证会议认为有工程伦理问题，于是这座水坝计划就被取消了。
You need to watch The China Show for a bit more realistic views. You're repeating a lot of CCP propaganda Im sorry
While it’s not necessarily wrong, the analysis in this video is pretty simplistic and weak.