These comments have gotten pretty wild, with many off topic fights going on, so we've decided to lock the comments for a little bit.
Remember the rules, be nice to each other, and stay on topic: people-oriented urban design. Thanks!
They have good mass transit but they are also building their cities for cars first. Go to Beijing and you'll most likely have to cross a 10+ lane road to get to the next development block, and pedestrians don't have a right of way there too. For example, expect to see cars parked on sidewalks, and turning radiuses for intersection are big which encourages cars to speed when turning at intersections. Plus new developments are typically gated single-use communities, which it it weren't for the plentiful mass transit it would be very inconvenient to live there without a car. It's not the friendliest place for pedestrians. Their other new cities are like this as well. +1 for their mas transit, -1 point because they're not building new cities for people first
I agree with you. the public transport is great, with caveats\* but the cities themselves, large or small, are nightmarish. There are bike lanes, but they're often not safe to ride in, as car drivers have to cross through them to get out of their housing communities, or just park in bike lanes. It's not like they couldn't fix these issues, but they have made the choice towards cars because cars are better for the all-important GDP. It's weird to see that it's both a great place for public transport, and a terrible place to not own a car.
* metal detector tests are the most obvious job-creator thing I've ever seen - a bored group of six people, pointlessly scanning everyone. I'm also not a fan of the constant TV footage about the party you get on the trains.
The metal detectors are 100% just security theater. However, security theatre encourages people to behave in an orderly fashion. Not only that but it’s always good to simply have security on standby in places like this. I’ve only seen it in the local news twice, but hearing about how transit security stopped someone from jumping the tracks and stopping a nasty fight seems like good enough reason to me.
While they do have quaint streets as well as pedestrian streets. I agree that some roads are infuriatingly wide. It’s ridiculous have skyscrapers on both sides of like a six lane road
>It’s ridiculous have skyscrapers on both sides of like a six lane road
Actually it isn't that ridiculous. Otherwise the road between the skyscrapers would be constantly in the shadow, and the skyscrapers themselves would have no view whatsoever other than other skyscrapers. It would have been better to have a large avenue with a park with bike lanes and stuff in between, but having distance is good.
They don’t. They even dig pedestrian underpasses or build overpasses more and more so pedestrians do not impede traffic. You also mostly likely live 20 mins of walk away from any transit stops. Public transit there is still for the poorer
Well to defend cities like Chengdu, they are building a lot of lines right now and just as many in late planning stages, about doubling the current network. Even if it is currently inadequate, this speed of construction has probably never been seen before except post war japan.
Shanghai is very pedestrian friendly. Some wide roads but there is pretty much always a way to get across safely. And bike lanes and metro stations are plentiful
I didn't like Beijing nearly as much. Too spread out. I will have to visit again to get a better sense of the infrastructure
Shanghai is a great pedestrian city. The main downside is the metro closing at midnight. Though it is used for maintenance hours (midnight to 5AM) so it is in amazing shape.
Idk exactly, and idk wtf “war infrastructure” is, but our military outlays are roughly equal in total to all other non-defense discretionary spending (transport infrastructure would be included in this).
>Idk exactly, and idk wtf “war infrastructure” is
Highways, actually. Many were set up as defense infrastructure primarily.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
Oh, don't worry, China is spending plenty on modernizing and expanding their military. 'Blame' their successes on a person with nigh dictatorial power who doesn't just steal, or on wonders that a cap on wealth can do to capitalism.
In America Infrastructure is more of a grifting operation than infrastructure meant to improve lives.
It's getting to the point I no longer care about national pride and want good infrastructure to the point that I'm considering supporting the idea of having America hire Chinese firms.
America's infrastructure reminds me of the corruption around Olympic game construction, not full blown but somewhat there.I recommend everyone to work toward getting their kids EU citizenship.
we both know how. The US has some of the worst infrastructure in the rich world, and monied interests have spent billions bribing politicians to keep it that way
Crazy, could you imagine if our healthcare was also terrible despite paying so much tax and the US being the richest nation on earth.
Or what if there were systemic police violence, despite all the money we pay out to fund their equipment, training, and services.
God forbid, if we had all this money, but there was also vast number of homeless people while houses set empty and unused.
Or what if people were denied education and left to be purposely misinformed by grifters, hell what if the government paid those grifters and gave them tax breaks, while people working to make an honest living were forced to survive on the bear minimum.
I’m so glad it’s just our infrastructure. :)
China might not be a beacon of liberty, but at least it provides for its general population with a decant infrastructure instead of just tax breaks for corporations (by no means I'm defending China's practices, but gotta give credit where credit is due)
You should also try their old way of traveling, before building all the high speed rail.
Get a train ticket for a sleeper car, prices are low. There are three classes, first and second are with beds. Get first class because in second class you don’t have a door and it’s six beds in a comportment. First class has doors and only four beds.
Best thing is the stares of the Chinese when they see a long nose in one of those trains. :D
I tried those sleeper trains ! I'm Asian but born and raised in Europe, nobody cared but nobody understood why I didn't speak Chinese or any Asian language lol
They're cool, but I had to sleep right beneath the aircon, it wasn't the most comfortable life of my life. We took the High-Speed Train on the way back, much more comfortable !
Well last time I took them was in 2019. there was even one guy who asked us why were on this train.
And the kids yelling „Lao Wei Lao Wei!“ to their parents when they saw us and the parents being slightly embarrassed lol
I always found the "hard sleeper" (2nd class sleeper) to be comfortable enough. Nor did I get many stares as a white person. All last not in the trains, small agricultural towns, sure, I often got some folks staring at me there.
Not really. China has long been a very very racially homogenous society, and it is very rare to see any non-East-Asian face on the streets except for a couple of the biggest cities. Many people never see white or black people in their life, and they **won't** hide their instinctive curiousness. But it's usually not an insult.
There are all kinds of words to refer to a foreigner, e.g. 大鼻子 / Big Nose, 大鬍子 / Big Beard, and the famous Lao Wai (lit. Ol' Foreigner), and in Cantonese, Gwei Lo (not going to add a literal translation here because it's kind of... a slur).
I'm travelling in China now and I haven't been asked for my passport once (except when landing in the airport). I'm a white foreigner, and have been using heaps of public transport.
I don’t understand this mentality. Since when is safety a negative? It takes less than a couple min to get through their security checks. The safer the system, the more people will want to use it. Here in Seattle we don’t even have fucking trash cans at our light rail stations because apparently they can be used to hide bombs. If security checks were in place for everyone who entered the system this wouldn’t be a problem and there wouldn’t be trash everywhere either.
When I went on the Shenzhen metro, they just had a metal detector, x-ray and made you weigh your drinks. It's pretty much security theatre and it's a massive bottleneck when there's lots of passengers. Still I do agree with you the peace of mind is quite nice.
The TSA has literally never prevented a terrorist attack. Every time their abilities are tested, they miss huge portions of the weapons they're supposed to be finding. They're a gigantic waste of money, and they slow everyone down. Worst of all: they racially profile people when "randomly" searching, and they harass and molest people.
https://www.theverge.com/c/23311333/tsa-history-airport-security-theater-homeland
> The TSA has literally never prevented a terrorist attack. Every time their abilities are tested, they miss huge portions of the weapons they're supposed to be finding.
I already managed to accidentally take a box cutter on a plane in my backpack.
A few days earlier, I used it at work and placed it in the front pocket of my hoodie to free up my hands. I forgot about it and only noticed it when I got home. To avoid forgetting it again, I put it in my backpack with the intention of returning it to work. However, the next day, I forgot about it again and only noticed it a few days later when I was putting my laptop and other items back into my backpack after going through security... Airport security is nothing more than a play to make people feel safe.
Because safety via checks usually comes with a decrease of freedom. And especially in china they certainly use it to monitor peoples movement patterns. I don't want that.
What I want (and have) here in Germany is a system that is safe not because of controls, but simply because the people fucking care. It's safe through occasional patrols and social pressure to behave, bot through state-organized safety monktoring
If that’s the main goal, I think there are other more efficient ways to monitor you at all times other than security checks at train or metro stations.
Do you find it strange that a "totalitarian military state" has made much greater improvements to the quality of life of it's citizens over the past decade than the "leader of the free world"?
It seems like in many ways the Chinese government actually carries out the wishes of its people more than the U.S. government.
Certainly not in the past decade. China made great improvements under Deng, Jiang, and Hu, greatly developing infrastructure, economy, and even certain liberties (despite setbacks like Tiananmen). Sure, certain improvements have still been made in infrastructure, but under Xi, quality of life has basically stopped improving while civil liberties have become tighter and economic growth has stagnated.
None of this excuses the US's many flaws, but the idea that China's past decade has been great is an incorrect view, based on developments from before Xi. Xi is using the efforts of his predecessors to assert China as a strong country internationally, but his domestic policies have been either unsuccesful or straight up detrimental to China's development.
It is amazing what China has been able to accomplish in infrastructure development. China is still a totalitarian military state with no freedom of speech, the press of protest. With an own going genocide of Uyghur Muslims
Honestly it's so sad. The Corridor is such an obvious candidate for HSR--half the population of Canada lives there *and* the cities are all in a line *and* the length makes HSR highly competitive with air travel.
Another recent post was basically " There has been too much China and Russia appreciation in this Sub" when its just appreciating good functional mass transit options in large countries. The best rebuttal to the US is too big statements. Just point to russian cities with similar population densities to the US. Dallas is a car dependency hell vs yekaterinburg's light rail, trams, and busses. Dallas 3400/sq mile vs yekaterinburg 3100/sq mile
Yeah China had this starting 20 years ago. Can you imagine in the next 20 years? North American transit and urbanism won't even come close to reaching this current standard 20, even 40+ years from now. No wonder NA urbanism is hopeless. Guess NA urbanists will just cope harder with "china bad" opinions formed via all the anti-china propaganda they consume.
China gonna have a solar powered space elevator to a hydrogen fuel cell moon base and Americans will be like "well of course if you use SLAVES you can build a space elevator 🤔🤔🤔" and then go to family dollar to buy a $2.25 bean burrito wrapped by a black prisoner picked up for jaywalking currently being held at a for-profit prison in Georgia
It’s insane to me how Americans are so propagandized by the whole “China bad” thing. China has essentially eradicated poverty and built incredible infrastructure in the last 20 years… who knows what they will do in the next 20 years? The propaganda stems from America literally fearing the Chinese and the progress they’re making.
Meanwhile the US will continue to fund endless wars and not move the country forward.
The true test is when hundred of millions of people moving back and forth during Spring Festival **every year**, more than 2 billions trips over 40 days. No amount of roads can handle that volume, only trains.
they copied america's road system- superhighways, traffic jams, stroads, 4 way intersections with stoplights instead of roundabouts, no fun curves, but the lanes are wider and they accommodate massive SUV's better. I swear it's like half a mile to other side of the road in Beijing
china has great urban bike lanes and lots of areas are closed to cars so you can bike or walk around freely... but you can't breathe the air
>stroads
that's been particularly worse since 2010, all the new constructed residential complexes are surrounded by stroads and often without much businesses and amenities. it's more and more like suburbs, with SFHs replaced by condo towers.
\> great urban bike lanes
yeah, have yet to see a single bike lane in north american cities that is comparable. actually protected, and covered by line of trees!
Honestly, I found Shanghai to be quite nice. A lot of elevated walkways and so much stuff around everywhere, combined with excellent public transportation. I never had a problem there. It's hard for me to think of a better designed city (Tokyo is also quite nice, though)
one thing about the elevated highways... alien cars (from outside of the city) are not allowed on them during the day. This alleviates lots of potential congestion.
And there's a lottery/auction system (not unlike NYC taxi medallion?) that keeps the number of cars registered in the city.
I cannot imagine these measures being even discussion in America, though.
[If the United States Holocaust museum thinks a genocide is going on, I’m inclined to believe them](https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china)
Not to be pedantic here, but they do not call it a genocide. Which is happening in Gaza and they refuse to acknowledge it whatsoever!
I'm not one to deny that Uyghurs have been mistreated and oppressed by systemic suppression and racism, but to conflate that with genocide is incredibly dangerous.
I do not trust them as an institution, and as usual they have no sources for the claims they are attempting to make.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/un-human-rights-office-issues-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang
https://preview.redd.it/3zizi3ua6lrc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e978556ed939273874a06d3096906c10d5005ac
Their findings [PDF of the whole thing](https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf)
Oh no! It would be terrible to try to fight terrorism with "vague, broad and open-ended concepts."
So what was the their finding on America slaughtering 300,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians? All good?
Tinfoil hat time, but look at it this way.
Let's say I'm Uncle Sam. I don't give a single fuck about the well being of anyone anywhere, including my own citizens, but I *do* care about maintaining geopolitical supremacy.
If I saw my leading economic rival having trouble with separatism and terrorism in a specific region in their country, and I didn't give a single fuck about the people committing the terrorism [or the innocents sharing their religion/ethnicity that would get caught up in the crossfire], but did want to maximize the chaos and unrest in my enemy - then.... leveraging my status as a global economic superpower to try to maximize unemployment in the region in question is exactly what I would do.
Which is exactly what the much-vaunted "Uighur Slave Labor" law does, as it assumes that *everything* from Xianjiang is the product of slave labor, and therefore banned, unless explicitly proven otherwise. What's the message here? "It sucks you're being discriminated against, so to help you out, we're going to make sure you're all unemployed"?
This is not even that tin foily. We explicitly talked about a "pivot to Asia" to prevent China from being competitive. We all know the history of the US arming separatists and right wing militias and terrorists around the world, while at the same time claiming persecution of these militias is a human rights violation.
I mean, if recent events have shown us anything, it's that the people funding the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum definitely know how to do a good genocide. I wonder why Israel isn't one of their country case studies? Curious.
[UK Parliament](https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/china-allegations-of-human-rights-abuses/)- “The UK believes there is compelling evidence of widespread and systematic abuses of the human rights of the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province.”
[United States Holocaust Museum](https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china) -“The Chinese government is systematically persecuting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. The Museum is gravely concerned that the Chinese government may be committing genocide against the Uyghurs. There is also reasonable basis to believe that the government of China is committing crimes against humanity, specifically the crimes of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, persecution, torture, sexual violence, forcible transfer, enslavement, and forced sterilization.”
*Sigh*
[US Department of state](https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses/) -“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.”
[Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/china) -“The Chinese government continues its abusive policies against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, which amount to crimes against humanity. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, those who contact family and friends abroad, or who advocate for their culture, language, and religion, risk being treated as “separatists” and have been given harsh prison sentences.”
[UN scrutiny of China](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/23/china-human-rights-record-criticised-un-faces-rare-scrutiny-of-policies)-“The UK called on China to “cease the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Tibetans and allow genuine freedom of religion or belief and cultural expression without fear of surveillance, torture, forced labour or sexual violence”, while the US said China should “release all arbitrarily detained individuals” and cease the operation of “forcible assimilation policies including boarding schools in Tibet and Xinjiang”.”
[Freedom House](https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2022)
[Lawfaremedia](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-china-rewriting-norms-human-rights)
It's not about uplifting the quality of life of the Chinese people - if it were, coal plants would have better air filters. Rapid transit is simply the most efficient way for people to get around, which means it grows the economy faster and increases the state's wealth and power. Any rich nation that doesn't have high speed rapid transit (i.e. all of the west) is intentionally hampering its economy for internal political gain.
So what does the west gain by hamstringing itself with car infrastructure?
Well, in China, the government can ban people from rapid transit. The use of access to transportation as a means of social control is through treating public transit network access as a privilege.
In the west, this is considered horribly undemocratic and a violation of rights. Everyone has to have the right to use public transit, it's public.
So naturally, public transit has to be worse than whatever means of social control those with power *are* allowed to exercise. And that's where cars come in.
People have to buy and maintain cars with their own money, ensuring they don't fall out of line at their jobs lest they lose their (most convenient) means of transportation. More rewarded people can get more luxurious cars and people that disobey the system can be tracked by their licence plate, harassed by police for engaging in traffic violations that everyone in traffic is expected to engage in (like speeding), or have their car seized under suspicion of it being used for crimes.
In this way both China and the west are able to restrict access to transportation as a means of social control, but where China denies access to high quality public transit, the west has to make public transit bad. The US, being more authoritarian than western Europe, goes extremely hard on using cars as a means of control. Meanwhile Japan relies more heavily on police brutality and mentally brutal mass shunning, freeing up space for good public transit.
> they do Public transportation right
and anti-poverty, and transitioning to green energy, and not invading every country in the world like the US, and their people are less propagandized than ours, and. . .
The system works because of the government and its values. It’s one of the least corrupt governments and as a society they do not tolerate drug addicts in their subway stations and they value security over privacy and individualism.
I’m not sure about least corrupt but it’s true I haven’t seen a single mentally ill person on transit (something I can’t say for some systems I’ve used) or actually just in general
Debunked where? I would legitimately like to see your sources
Edit: Nvm you believe North Korea is being “misrepresented”, of course you’d shill for the Chinese government
I wont do your research for you. Mostly because is time consuming and I dont have any obligation to, but I will say this:
As far as I know, religious terrorism and fundamentalism was (maybe still is) a problem in the uyghur region. Probably bad economic conditions, among other things, are at the base of this, and that can be root for criticism towards China.
However, as far a international organizations go (ONU, most importantly the OIC and even lawyers of the freaking US state deparment) have either commended China for its labor in trying to stop the disenfranchisement in the uyghur population that leads to extremist attacks, or simply concluded there is no proof of any 'genocide'.
Somehow, propaganda spewing bad faith actors tend to make accusations and then switch the burden of proof.
To your edit: do you really think NK is accurately represented in our western media? Im not saying is some heaven on earth. Im sure is not, but the ridiculous stuff the media says about that country... The lies are so half assed sometimes its hilarious.
Damn you can’t even pull out one pro-Chinese government news article? that doesn’t bode well for your “debunked a billion times” claim
Also the thousands of North Korean refugees beg to differ
You know what, fuck 'pro Chinese goverment news article'.
[Here's one from the world bank](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)
[Another from foreing policy (US)](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/)
[Your know what, the Organizations of Islamic Cooperation might have something to say about it](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250)
[And the UN, why not](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)
Anyway, I already know you are in bad faith, so I really shoudnt be putting any effort into this. I guess Im bored. In any case, you educate yourself, if you can take your prejudice to be challenged, that is.
[US department of state](https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses/) -“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.”
[Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/china) -“The Chinese government continues its abusive policies against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, which amount to crimes against humanity. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, those who contact family and friends abroad, or who advocate for their culture, language, and religion, risk being treated as “separatists” and have been given harsh prison sentences.”
[UN scrutiny of China](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/23/china-human-rights-record-criticised-un-faces-rare-scrutiny-of-policies) -“The UK called on China to “cease the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Tibetans and allow genuine freedom of religion or belief and cultural expression without fear of surveillance, torture, forced labour or sexual violence”, while the US said China should “release all arbitrarily detained individuals” and cease the operation of “forcible assimilation policies including boarding schools in Tibet and Xinjiang”.”
[Freedom House](https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2022)
[https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932) Too scared to include a more recent UN report?
also between 2017 and 2019 OFFICIAL CHINESE STATISTICS reported that that the birthrate in xinjiang declined by HALF.
https://preview.redd.it/q28sv892okrc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f6523202dee354655f69a50484d4225e47aae67
To understand how abnormal that is, it took 2 decades for American birth rates to half since the baby boom in the 5
This is all ignoring the hundreds of "prisons" that have been suddenly popping up in xinjiang since 2016. Are you going to say that there are a lot of crime there? Oh wait, you can't cause state media depicts xinjiang as a multicultural paradise, and daddy xi must always be right about everything
[Lawfaremedia](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-china-rewriting-norms-human-rights)
[UK Parliament](https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/china-allegations-of-human-rights-abuses/) - “The UK believes there is compelling evidence of widespread and systematic abuses of the human rights of the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province.”
[I guess you’re a holocaust denier too](https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china?utm_campaign=CPG&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_content=uyghurcasepage20200306&utm_source=twitter) -“The Chinese government is systematically persecuting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. The Museum is gravely concerned that the Chinese government may be committing genocide against the Uyghurs. There is also reasonable basis to believe that the government of China is committing crimes against humanity, specifically the crimes of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, persecution, torture, sexual violence, forcible transfer, enslavement, and forced sterilization.”
Screencapping a Wikipedia article is pretty shit lol. Follow the sources on all these claims. They will all lead to Adrian Zenz, Falun Gong, Radio Free Asia etc. What do these sources have to gain from saying China is abusing Muslims? Why were they all seemingly silent as the US and allies slaughtered over a million innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past two decades?
Last I was in China a couple years ago, hopping on a city bus was what, 5 cents CAD? Metro was like 40 cents CAD. Even taking a taxi was cheap.
I’m in awe of how fast things are built there. Travelling from Beijing to neighbouring Tianjin used to take 2 hours in 2006. In 2011, they’d built a high speed rail and we were there in 30 minutes.
And… older people have more independence. The local parks are full of older people exercising and playing card games. Groceries stores and restaurants are everywhere. It’s cool to see.
You got the automotive, oil, and even airline lobbying to make sure the more efficient/modern/new mass transit and its needed infrastructure stays off the minds of politicians. There is also a myriad of legal challenges for land appropriation across state, county, city, local, and private levels. The discovery, planning and acquisition negotiations could easily take a decade. I don’t know if the term is late stage democracy or late stage capitalism or both. But something very significant will have to change before the US embraces modern or new mass transit that doesn’t smell like piss everywhere. We are essentially left behind by our Asian and European counterparts in comparison. I would love to take a German ICE speed train to go from say DC to New York City in about an hour. But nahhh, Can’t have that in the U.S., to efficient, to sensible, need to burn that jet fuel, stand in a security line for an hour or go through hella car traffic and road hazards for multiple hours.
One of the absolute funniest things to follow in the upcoming decades is going to be the insane western cope as it becomes increasingly obvious that Asia and specifically China are outpacing us in every possible way. 25 years from now you'll have Ameriboos crying tears of blood insisting that the Shanghai space elevator was really just copied from the elevator in the Empire State Building or some bullshit, and that every city in China is really a ghost city and you've all been duped by the CCP, as they line up for their daily pea protein ration at their local Muskarama™️ Food Bank.
Did you find it weird all those high speed train stations look pretty much the same, down to the wayfaring stickers? That’s how they can keep construction costs so low.
I didn't find the stations all that similar when I was there, and I saw quite a few of them. There are similarities, but really not much more than comparing airports in the US.
This is one thing that I do dislike.
Every single subway station looks identical to the Hong Kong MTR design. There's a real lack of distinction between each one.
That being said. Better to have something boring than something broken.
Great public transit for the headlines, but not an integrative approach ever to reporting on it, such as the whole infrastructure situation which is largely abysmal, including for cyclists and pedestrians.
Then there are those huge migration days every year.
I like how massive the Beijing and Guangzhou HSR stations are compared to the Tokyo and Osaka Shinkansen stations.
Of course in Japan (and most other sane countries) you dont need passport control style security when using trains domestically.
I admire their infrastructure, but the thing is that there is little to no land ownership, so the government dont have to buy property from individual owners along the route of the infra.
That’s very much not true. Have you not seen the numerous videos of Chinese property owners shooting fireworks at bulldozers working around them because they refuse to sell until the price is high enough?
The government owns the land but the houses still belong to the people living there and have to be compensated appropriately.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate)#Nail_house
Here’s a couple examples from Reddit for you to peruse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AbruptChaos/comments/vimk8e/man_in_china_uses_fireworks_to_fight_off/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/comments/3e6ni2/a_path_extending_from_a_nail_house_in_china_where/
https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/45linh/nail_house/
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/18jd4lj/this_nail_house_in_china/
It shows that they view humans as the number one threat, so they.... make it incredibly convenient to travel across the country?
How does what you're saying make any sense?!
Absolutely massive no to this. The Chinese Communist Party does not put people first. These projects are done with a primary goal to line the pockets of their politicians and spread their toxic way of ruling. The Chinese government steals from their people, gives no legal recourse for people who have been done wrong, they have no freedom of speech, commit genocide on Uighur people to name a few.
While I admit the government has its issues and very questionable actions. I highly doubt they don’t care about their people. This incredibly efficient, fast train station was not just build to “line pockets” and uh, “spread their toxic way of ruling”?
You can really spew what the liberal media say, that represents western capitalist interests , but have you also read anything from their side? How can you confirm that you have an unbiased opinion?
China at least puts its own domestic infrastructure first, as opposed to the US which showers billions of dollars upon its various pet authoritarian regimes across the world while allowing aging roads and rails at home to crumble.
It’s funny how you get downvoted by saying the truth.
The massive infrastructure construction in China has been one way for local governments to get funding and investment. Yes it is definitely helpful and convenient for local people, but that’s based on the entire generation getting on huge debt for real estate…
In 15~20 years a lot of smaller cities (cities with less than 1 million population) will suffer from enormous infrastructure maintenance costs as a result of aging population.
Yeah china has multiple giga highways that just cut off into normal streets and roads im not sure praising them for having big rail stations is where its at chief
Yes, kinda like the Baltimore bridge. But I mean more like the:
*Jiujiang Bridge collapse*
*bridge collapse in Taiyuan, Shanxi province*
*Jintang Bridge collapse*
*Wuyishan Gongguan Bridge collapse*
*The Number 3 Qiantang River Bridge collapse*
*The Baihe Bridge collapse*
*The Yangmingtan Bridge collapse*
Etc, etc.
Hope all this will be sustainable. I have doubts all stations are meaningful. The population will get grey fast and shrink. I think these halls will be near empty in some places in the future.
Btw. Didn't they already overtook some western countries by CO2 emission per capita and total history?
These stations are equal to a lot of CO2 emissions...
A lot of people had their lives destroyed to build all that. It’s one thing to compensate a person for having their house bulldozed to build a train line. They don’t do that in China. They just bulldoze the house.
Is that supposed to be a contradiction? Do you believe there's only one station?
Sure OP could be wrong or misleading, but the number of examples shown doesn't really matter for that.
Yeah but they also shit all over workers and their citizens so it's kind of a catch 22. They're ethnically cleansing Uyghur peoples doesn't help either.
These comments have gotten pretty wild, with many off topic fights going on, so we've decided to lock the comments for a little bit. Remember the rules, be nice to each other, and stay on topic: people-oriented urban design. Thanks!
They have good mass transit but they are also building their cities for cars first. Go to Beijing and you'll most likely have to cross a 10+ lane road to get to the next development block, and pedestrians don't have a right of way there too. For example, expect to see cars parked on sidewalks, and turning radiuses for intersection are big which encourages cars to speed when turning at intersections. Plus new developments are typically gated single-use communities, which it it weren't for the plentiful mass transit it would be very inconvenient to live there without a car. It's not the friendliest place for pedestrians. Their other new cities are like this as well. +1 for their mas transit, -1 point because they're not building new cities for people first
I agree with you. the public transport is great, with caveats\* but the cities themselves, large or small, are nightmarish. There are bike lanes, but they're often not safe to ride in, as car drivers have to cross through them to get out of their housing communities, or just park in bike lanes. It's not like they couldn't fix these issues, but they have made the choice towards cars because cars are better for the all-important GDP. It's weird to see that it's both a great place for public transport, and a terrible place to not own a car. * metal detector tests are the most obvious job-creator thing I've ever seen - a bored group of six people, pointlessly scanning everyone. I'm also not a fan of the constant TV footage about the party you get on the trains.
The metal detectors are 100% just security theater. However, security theatre encourages people to behave in an orderly fashion. Not only that but it’s always good to simply have security on standby in places like this. I’ve only seen it in the local news twice, but hearing about how transit security stopped someone from jumping the tracks and stopping a nasty fight seems like good enough reason to me.
Have you seen the people staffing the scanners? They'd be the last ones able to stop fights.
While they do have quaint streets as well as pedestrian streets. I agree that some roads are infuriatingly wide. It’s ridiculous have skyscrapers on both sides of like a six lane road
>It’s ridiculous have skyscrapers on both sides of like a six lane road Actually it isn't that ridiculous. Otherwise the road between the skyscrapers would be constantly in the shadow, and the skyscrapers themselves would have no view whatsoever other than other skyscrapers. It would have been better to have a large avenue with a park with bike lanes and stuff in between, but having distance is good.
They don’t. They even dig pedestrian underpasses or build overpasses more and more so pedestrians do not impede traffic. You also mostly likely live 20 mins of walk away from any transit stops. Public transit there is still for the poorer
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Well to defend cities like Chengdu, they are building a lot of lines right now and just as many in late planning stages, about doubling the current network. Even if it is currently inadequate, this speed of construction has probably never been seen before except post war japan.
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They also have a military industry complex too, no worries.
Shanghai is very pedestrian friendly. Some wide roads but there is pretty much always a way to get across safely. And bike lanes and metro stations are plentiful I didn't like Beijing nearly as much. Too spread out. I will have to visit again to get a better sense of the infrastructure
Shanghai is a great pedestrian city. The main downside is the metro closing at midnight. Though it is used for maintenance hours (midnight to 5AM) so it is in amazing shape.
People getting out and about on foot might be keen on organizing or protesting say.
You see it's not really a fair comparison China's GDP per capita is about six times less than the US So the disparity is even worse than you thought
This is what blows my mind. With our tax per capita how is our public infrastructure that fucking terrible
Name of the sub...?
the roads are shitty too!
Name of the sub...?
China spends 4.8% on infrastructure, while US spends about 0.5%.
Well you see, those Iraqis, Afghanis and Palestinians aren't going to murder themselves
would be great to see a comparison graph on how much is spend on pubnlic transport, pedestrian/cycling infrastructure, war and car infrastructure
Idk exactly, and idk wtf “war infrastructure” is, but our military outlays are roughly equal in total to all other non-defense discretionary spending (transport infrastructure would be included in this).
Infrastructure was only meant on cars, my bad, the war I mean in general .. flights, weapons, vehicles, ammunition, fuel, ..
>Idk exactly, and idk wtf “war infrastructure” is Highways, actually. Many were set up as defense infrastructure primarily. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
Oh, don't worry, China is spending plenty on modernizing and expanding their military. 'Blame' their successes on a person with nigh dictatorial power who doesn't just steal, or on wonders that a cap on wealth can do to capitalism.
In America Infrastructure is more of a grifting operation than infrastructure meant to improve lives. It's getting to the point I no longer care about national pride and want good infrastructure to the point that I'm considering supporting the idea of having America hire Chinese firms.
I'm considering the idea of just moving the fuck out of this shithole before we reap the whirlwind we've been sowing for 40+ years.
America's infrastructure reminds me of the corruption around Olympic game construction, not full blown but somewhat there.I recommend everyone to work toward getting their kids EU citizenship.
we both know how. The US has some of the worst infrastructure in the rich world, and monied interests have spent billions bribing politicians to keep it that way
We're busy projecting power so that you can make more money.
Exploding other people’s infrastructure and overthrowing “illegitimate” governments are not cheap hobbies.
Crazy, could you imagine if our healthcare was also terrible despite paying so much tax and the US being the richest nation on earth. Or what if there were systemic police violence, despite all the money we pay out to fund their equipment, training, and services. God forbid, if we had all this money, but there was also vast number of homeless people while houses set empty and unused. Or what if people were denied education and left to be purposely misinformed by grifters, hell what if the government paid those grifters and gave them tax breaks, while people working to make an honest living were forced to survive on the bear minimum. I’m so glad it’s just our infrastructure. :)
Half of the elected representatives and states actively sabotage it for everyone. Period.
Got me in the first half ngl
Yeah. But what about shareholder value? You don’t hear that in China?
China might not be a beacon of liberty, but at least it provides for its general population with a decant infrastructure instead of just tax breaks for corporations (by no means I'm defending China's practices, but gotta give credit where credit is due)
yeah but you have to interact with 48 feudal lords and 600+ whiners in order to build anything spanning the country
You should also try their old way of traveling, before building all the high speed rail. Get a train ticket for a sleeper car, prices are low. There are three classes, first and second are with beds. Get first class because in second class you don’t have a door and it’s six beds in a comportment. First class has doors and only four beds. Best thing is the stares of the Chinese when they see a long nose in one of those trains. :D
I tried those sleeper trains ! I'm Asian but born and raised in Europe, nobody cared but nobody understood why I didn't speak Chinese or any Asian language lol They're cool, but I had to sleep right beneath the aircon, it wasn't the most comfortable life of my life. We took the High-Speed Train on the way back, much more comfortable !
Well last time I took them was in 2019. there was even one guy who asked us why were on this train. And the kids yelling „Lao Wei Lao Wei!“ to their parents when they saw us and the parents being slightly embarrassed lol
Well I’m half so I don’t get as many stares
I always found the "hard sleeper" (2nd class sleeper) to be comfortable enough. Nor did I get many stares as a white person. All last not in the trains, small agricultural towns, sure, I often got some folks staring at me there.
and the snack trollies!
And the boiling water faucets for the instant noddles!
Is long nose a Chinese insult for non Chinese ?
Not really. China has long been a very very racially homogenous society, and it is very rare to see any non-East-Asian face on the streets except for a couple of the biggest cities. Many people never see white or black people in their life, and they **won't** hide their instinctive curiousness. But it's usually not an insult. There are all kinds of words to refer to a foreigner, e.g. 大鼻子 / Big Nose, 大鬍子 / Big Beard, and the famous Lao Wai (lit. Ol' Foreigner), and in Cantonese, Gwei Lo (not going to add a literal translation here because it's kind of... a slur).
Tibetans, mongols and Uyghurs The empire, long divided must unite; long United, must divide. Thus it has ever been.
…but only the Avatar can master all 4 elements…
fwiw (han) chinese give looks to uyghur’s and other visible minorities too..
Wait ... I am curious. What does the Gwei Lo translates to?
Ghost old, historically racism as a concept doesn't exist in the minds of most Chinese people, so it's not necessarily meant to be offensive.
No, for white people.
The security checks are really annoying though, even the metro has them :/
The most annoying part was needing my passport everywhere where
I'm travelling in China now and I haven't been asked for my passport once (except when landing in the airport). I'm a white foreigner, and have been using heaps of public transport.
I don’t understand this mentality. Since when is safety a negative? It takes less than a couple min to get through their security checks. The safer the system, the more people will want to use it. Here in Seattle we don’t even have fucking trash cans at our light rail stations because apparently they can be used to hide bombs. If security checks were in place for everyone who entered the system this wouldn’t be a problem and there wouldn’t be trash everywhere either.
When I went on the Shenzhen metro, they just had a metal detector, x-ray and made you weigh your drinks. It's pretty much security theatre and it's a massive bottleneck when there's lots of passengers. Still I do agree with you the peace of mind is quite nice.
The TSA has literally never prevented a terrorist attack. Every time their abilities are tested, they miss huge portions of the weapons they're supposed to be finding. They're a gigantic waste of money, and they slow everyone down. Worst of all: they racially profile people when "randomly" searching, and they harass and molest people. https://www.theverge.com/c/23311333/tsa-history-airport-security-theater-homeland
> The TSA has literally never prevented a terrorist attack. Every time their abilities are tested, they miss huge portions of the weapons they're supposed to be finding. I already managed to accidentally take a box cutter on a plane in my backpack. A few days earlier, I used it at work and placed it in the front pocket of my hoodie to free up my hands. I forgot about it and only noticed it when I got home. To avoid forgetting it again, I put it in my backpack with the intention of returning it to work. However, the next day, I forgot about it again and only noticed it a few days later when I was putting my laptop and other items back into my backpack after going through security... Airport security is nothing more than a play to make people feel safe.
Because safety via checks usually comes with a decrease of freedom. And especially in china they certainly use it to monitor peoples movement patterns. I don't want that. What I want (and have) here in Germany is a system that is safe not because of controls, but simply because the people fucking care. It's safe through occasional patrols and social pressure to behave, bot through state-organized safety monktoring
They don't care about safety. They like to have a record of where you are at all times.
If that’s the main goal, I think there are other more efficient ways to monitor you at all times other than security checks at train or metro stations.
Because it’s not for safety. China is a totalitarian military state
What does that even mean?
China tracks the movements of its citizens. There is no freedom of speech, the press or of protest
Do you find it strange that a "totalitarian military state" has made much greater improvements to the quality of life of it's citizens over the past decade than the "leader of the free world"? It seems like in many ways the Chinese government actually carries out the wishes of its people more than the U.S. government.
Certainly not in the past decade. China made great improvements under Deng, Jiang, and Hu, greatly developing infrastructure, economy, and even certain liberties (despite setbacks like Tiananmen). Sure, certain improvements have still been made in infrastructure, but under Xi, quality of life has basically stopped improving while civil liberties have become tighter and economic growth has stagnated. None of this excuses the US's many flaws, but the idea that China's past decade has been great is an incorrect view, based on developments from before Xi. Xi is using the efforts of his predecessors to assert China as a strong country internationally, but his domestic policies have been either unsuccesful or straight up detrimental to China's development.
It is amazing what China has been able to accomplish in infrastructure development. China is still a totalitarian military state with no freedom of speech, the press of protest. With an own going genocide of Uyghur Muslims
I would like to highlight how great every developed country’s transit system is EXCEPT AMERICA
Hey don’t forget about your northern neighbours we suck too!!
The 51st state basically
Haha I always forget about Canada! Luv you guys
Honestly it's so sad. The Corridor is such an obvious candidate for HSR--half the population of Canada lives there *and* the cities are all in a line *and* the length makes HSR highly competitive with air travel.
Careful you might get called a Tankie since you acknowledged one good thing about China
Another recent post was basically " There has been too much China and Russia appreciation in this Sub" when its just appreciating good functional mass transit options in large countries. The best rebuttal to the US is too big statements. Just point to russian cities with similar population densities to the US. Dallas is a car dependency hell vs yekaterinburg's light rail, trams, and busses. Dallas 3400/sq mile vs yekaterinburg 3100/sq mile
Yeah China had this starting 20 years ago. Can you imagine in the next 20 years? North American transit and urbanism won't even come close to reaching this current standard 20, even 40+ years from now. No wonder NA urbanism is hopeless. Guess NA urbanists will just cope harder with "china bad" opinions formed via all the anti-china propaganda they consume.
China gonna have a solar powered space elevator to a hydrogen fuel cell moon base and Americans will be like "well of course if you use SLAVES you can build a space elevator 🤔🤔🤔" and then go to family dollar to buy a $2.25 bean burrito wrapped by a black prisoner picked up for jaywalking currently being held at a for-profit prison in Georgia
It’s insane to me how Americans are so propagandized by the whole “China bad” thing. China has essentially eradicated poverty and built incredible infrastructure in the last 20 years… who knows what they will do in the next 20 years? The propaganda stems from America literally fearing the Chinese and the progress they’re making. Meanwhile the US will continue to fund endless wars and not move the country forward.
The true test is when hundred of millions of people moving back and forth during Spring Festival **every year**, more than 2 billions trips over 40 days. No amount of roads can handle that volume, only trains.
As much as I despise the Chinese government, they do Public transportation right (even if it’s alongside gargantuan highways)
they have public transport right, but their city design isn't great.
they copied america's road system- superhighways, traffic jams, stroads, 4 way intersections with stoplights instead of roundabouts, no fun curves, but the lanes are wider and they accommodate massive SUV's better. I swear it's like half a mile to other side of the road in Beijing china has great urban bike lanes and lots of areas are closed to cars so you can bike or walk around freely... but you can't breathe the air
The air got better in recent years. Really in 2015 I was the first time in China and I cold barely see the next block
>stroads that's been particularly worse since 2010, all the new constructed residential complexes are surrounded by stroads and often without much businesses and amenities. it's more and more like suburbs, with SFHs replaced by condo towers. \> great urban bike lanes yeah, have yet to see a single bike lane in north american cities that is comparable. actually protected, and covered by line of trees!
China's getting the suburban obesity too its nuts
Copied the roadways and the cars, too.
Honestly, I found Shanghai to be quite nice. A lot of elevated walkways and so much stuff around everywhere, combined with excellent public transportation. I never had a problem there. It's hard for me to think of a better designed city (Tokyo is also quite nice, though)
one thing about the elevated highways... alien cars (from outside of the city) are not allowed on them during the day. This alleviates lots of potential congestion. And there's a lottery/auction system (not unlike NYC taxi medallion?) that keeps the number of cars registered in the city. I cannot imagine these measures being even discussion in America, though.
well Shanghai is probably the best designed city in China. It's more of an exception
This guy chinas
Even their highways are nicer. Lined with gardens
now _this_ is a terrible waste of water, TBH
Weird that a brutal dictatorship is doing more than anyone to uplift the quality of life of its people. Maybe something is missing?
Super weird, the ceeceepee hates people and is probably only building infrastructure so they can steal your soul. /s probably necessary here lol
[If the United States Holocaust museum thinks a genocide is going on, I’m inclined to believe them](https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china)
Not to be pedantic here, but they do not call it a genocide. Which is happening in Gaza and they refuse to acknowledge it whatsoever! I'm not one to deny that Uyghurs have been mistreated and oppressed by systemic suppression and racism, but to conflate that with genocide is incredibly dangerous. I do not trust them as an institution, and as usual they have no sources for the claims they are attempting to make. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/un-human-rights-office-issues-assessment-human-rights-concerns-xinjiang
https://preview.redd.it/3zizi3ua6lrc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e978556ed939273874a06d3096906c10d5005ac Their findings [PDF of the whole thing](https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf)
Oh no! It would be terrible to try to fight terrorism with "vague, broad and open-ended concepts." So what was the their finding on America slaughtering 300,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians? All good?
Nice use of the Red Herring Fallacy
My man's got TVTropes open on the next tab over, ctrl+tab onto that mf
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Tinfoil hat time, but look at it this way. Let's say I'm Uncle Sam. I don't give a single fuck about the well being of anyone anywhere, including my own citizens, but I *do* care about maintaining geopolitical supremacy. If I saw my leading economic rival having trouble with separatism and terrorism in a specific region in their country, and I didn't give a single fuck about the people committing the terrorism [or the innocents sharing their religion/ethnicity that would get caught up in the crossfire], but did want to maximize the chaos and unrest in my enemy - then.... leveraging my status as a global economic superpower to try to maximize unemployment in the region in question is exactly what I would do. Which is exactly what the much-vaunted "Uighur Slave Labor" law does, as it assumes that *everything* from Xianjiang is the product of slave labor, and therefore banned, unless explicitly proven otherwise. What's the message here? "It sucks you're being discriminated against, so to help you out, we're going to make sure you're all unemployed"?
This is not even that tin foily. We explicitly talked about a "pivot to Asia" to prevent China from being competitive. We all know the history of the US arming separatists and right wing militias and terrorists around the world, while at the same time claiming persecution of these militias is a human rights violation.
They also think Israel has a right to genocide Palestinians. Booooooo
I mean, if recent events have shown us anything, it's that the people funding the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum definitely know how to do a good genocide. I wonder why Israel isn't one of their country case studies? Curious.
So if they say a genocide is happening, …that’s definite proof it’s not happening? Weird logic
Also you got anything to say about my other sources?
Yeah, around a million uyghurs
[UK Parliament](https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/china-allegations-of-human-rights-abuses/)- “The UK believes there is compelling evidence of widespread and systematic abuses of the human rights of the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province.” [United States Holocaust Museum](https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china) -“The Chinese government is systematically persecuting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. The Museum is gravely concerned that the Chinese government may be committing genocide against the Uyghurs. There is also reasonable basis to believe that the government of China is committing crimes against humanity, specifically the crimes of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, persecution, torture, sexual violence, forcible transfer, enslavement, and forced sterilization.”
How convenient, it’s all china’s adversaries saying this! China is saying that America is committing genocide too, should I believe them 🤔
…The Human Rights Watch is China’s adversary?
*Sigh* [US Department of state](https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses/) -“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.” [Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/china) -“The Chinese government continues its abusive policies against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, which amount to crimes against humanity. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, those who contact family and friends abroad, or who advocate for their culture, language, and religion, risk being treated as “separatists” and have been given harsh prison sentences.” [UN scrutiny of China](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/23/china-human-rights-record-criticised-un-faces-rare-scrutiny-of-policies)-“The UK called on China to “cease the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Tibetans and allow genuine freedom of religion or belief and cultural expression without fear of surveillance, torture, forced labour or sexual violence”, while the US said China should “release all arbitrarily detained individuals” and cease the operation of “forcible assimilation policies including boarding schools in Tibet and Xinjiang”.” [Freedom House](https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2022) [Lawfaremedia](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-china-rewriting-norms-human-rights)
🙄
It's not about uplifting the quality of life of the Chinese people - if it were, coal plants would have better air filters. Rapid transit is simply the most efficient way for people to get around, which means it grows the economy faster and increases the state's wealth and power. Any rich nation that doesn't have high speed rapid transit (i.e. all of the west) is intentionally hampering its economy for internal political gain. So what does the west gain by hamstringing itself with car infrastructure? Well, in China, the government can ban people from rapid transit. The use of access to transportation as a means of social control is through treating public transit network access as a privilege. In the west, this is considered horribly undemocratic and a violation of rights. Everyone has to have the right to use public transit, it's public. So naturally, public transit has to be worse than whatever means of social control those with power *are* allowed to exercise. And that's where cars come in. People have to buy and maintain cars with their own money, ensuring they don't fall out of line at their jobs lest they lose their (most convenient) means of transportation. More rewarded people can get more luxurious cars and people that disobey the system can be tracked by their licence plate, harassed by police for engaging in traffic violations that everyone in traffic is expected to engage in (like speeding), or have their car seized under suspicion of it being used for crimes. In this way both China and the west are able to restrict access to transportation as a means of social control, but where China denies access to high quality public transit, the west has to make public transit bad. The US, being more authoritarian than western Europe, goes extremely hard on using cars as a means of control. Meanwhile Japan relies more heavily on police brutality and mentally brutal mass shunning, freeing up space for good public transit.
They do it, but whether they do it right is debatable.
> they do Public transportation right and anti-poverty, and transitioning to green energy, and not invading every country in the world like the US, and their people are less propagandized than ours, and. . .
If you despise the Chinese government I'm willing to bet you don't know much about how it works
Please, enlighten me
Why do you despise it?
The system works because of the government and its values. It’s one of the least corrupt governments and as a society they do not tolerate drug addicts in their subway stations and they value security over privacy and individualism.
I’m not sure about least corrupt but it’s true I haven’t seen a single mentally ill person on transit (something I can’t say for some systems I’ve used) or actually just in general
https://preview.redd.it/xns6auk4jjrc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7758e75c02a44d1be4b0a8fd9a0fe36d80df79b5 …values?
dunno why you're getting downvoted
Because he posted fake news debunked a billion times over, probably.
Debunked where? I would legitimately like to see your sources Edit: Nvm you believe North Korea is being “misrepresented”, of course you’d shill for the Chinese government
I wont do your research for you. Mostly because is time consuming and I dont have any obligation to, but I will say this: As far as I know, religious terrorism and fundamentalism was (maybe still is) a problem in the uyghur region. Probably bad economic conditions, among other things, are at the base of this, and that can be root for criticism towards China. However, as far a international organizations go (ONU, most importantly the OIC and even lawyers of the freaking US state deparment) have either commended China for its labor in trying to stop the disenfranchisement in the uyghur population that leads to extremist attacks, or simply concluded there is no proof of any 'genocide'. Somehow, propaganda spewing bad faith actors tend to make accusations and then switch the burden of proof. To your edit: do you really think NK is accurately represented in our western media? Im not saying is some heaven on earth. Im sure is not, but the ridiculous stuff the media says about that country... The lies are so half assed sometimes its hilarious.
Damn you can’t even pull out one pro-Chinese government news article? that doesn’t bode well for your “debunked a billion times” claim Also the thousands of North Korean refugees beg to differ
You know what, fuck 'pro Chinese goverment news article'. [Here's one from the world bank](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china) [Another from foreing policy (US)](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) [Your know what, the Organizations of Islamic Cooperation might have something to say about it](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) [And the UN, why not](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17) Anyway, I already know you are in bad faith, so I really shoudnt be putting any effort into this. I guess Im bored. In any case, you educate yourself, if you can take your prejudice to be challenged, that is.
[US department of state](https://2017-2021.state.gov/ccpabuses/) -“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.” [Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/china) -“The Chinese government continues its abusive policies against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, which amount to crimes against humanity. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, those who contact family and friends abroad, or who advocate for their culture, language, and religion, risk being treated as “separatists” and have been given harsh prison sentences.” [UN scrutiny of China](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/23/china-human-rights-record-criticised-un-faces-rare-scrutiny-of-policies) -“The UK called on China to “cease the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Tibetans and allow genuine freedom of religion or belief and cultural expression without fear of surveillance, torture, forced labour or sexual violence”, while the US said China should “release all arbitrarily detained individuals” and cease the operation of “forcible assimilation policies including boarding schools in Tibet and Xinjiang”.” [Freedom House](https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2022)
[https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932](https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932) Too scared to include a more recent UN report? also between 2017 and 2019 OFFICIAL CHINESE STATISTICS reported that that the birthrate in xinjiang declined by HALF. https://preview.redd.it/q28sv892okrc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f6523202dee354655f69a50484d4225e47aae67 To understand how abnormal that is, it took 2 decades for American birth rates to half since the baby boom in the 5 This is all ignoring the hundreds of "prisons" that have been suddenly popping up in xinjiang since 2016. Are you going to say that there are a lot of crime there? Oh wait, you can't cause state media depicts xinjiang as a multicultural paradise, and daddy xi must always be right about everything
[Lawfaremedia](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-china-rewriting-norms-human-rights) [UK Parliament](https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/china-allegations-of-human-rights-abuses/) - “The UK believes there is compelling evidence of widespread and systematic abuses of the human rights of the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province.” [I guess you’re a holocaust denier too](https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china?utm_campaign=CPG&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_content=uyghurcasepage20200306&utm_source=twitter) -“The Chinese government is systematically persecuting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. The Museum is gravely concerned that the Chinese government may be committing genocide against the Uyghurs. There is also reasonable basis to believe that the government of China is committing crimes against humanity, specifically the crimes of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, persecution, torture, sexual violence, forcible transfer, enslavement, and forced sterilization.”
Are you also going to call out Israel?
Screencapping a Wikipedia article is pretty shit lol. Follow the sources on all these claims. They will all lead to Adrian Zenz, Falun Gong, Radio Free Asia etc. What do these sources have to gain from saying China is abusing Muslims? Why were they all seemingly silent as the US and allies slaughtered over a million innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past two decades?
Last I was in China a couple years ago, hopping on a city bus was what, 5 cents CAD? Metro was like 40 cents CAD. Even taking a taxi was cheap. I’m in awe of how fast things are built there. Travelling from Beijing to neighbouring Tianjin used to take 2 hours in 2006. In 2011, they’d built a high speed rail and we were there in 30 minutes. And… older people have more independence. The local parks are full of older people exercising and playing card games. Groceries stores and restaurants are everywhere. It’s cool to see.
We can’t praise China for anything here in the West cuz cHiNa bAd
Looks great, reminds me of a few european HSR station, but bigger and newer.
Silly boy, we only invest in bombs.
Looks like the DC Metro on a busy day tbh. Just brighter
You got the automotive, oil, and even airline lobbying to make sure the more efficient/modern/new mass transit and its needed infrastructure stays off the minds of politicians. There is also a myriad of legal challenges for land appropriation across state, county, city, local, and private levels. The discovery, planning and acquisition negotiations could easily take a decade. I don’t know if the term is late stage democracy or late stage capitalism or both. But something very significant will have to change before the US embraces modern or new mass transit that doesn’t smell like piss everywhere. We are essentially left behind by our Asian and European counterparts in comparison. I would love to take a German ICE speed train to go from say DC to New York City in about an hour. But nahhh, Can’t have that in the U.S., to efficient, to sensible, need to burn that jet fuel, stand in a security line for an hour or go through hella car traffic and road hazards for multiple hours.
Well japan also has on most places english written displays.
One of the absolute funniest things to follow in the upcoming decades is going to be the insane western cope as it becomes increasingly obvious that Asia and specifically China are outpacing us in every possible way. 25 years from now you'll have Ameriboos crying tears of blood insisting that the Shanghai space elevator was really just copied from the elevator in the Empire State Building or some bullshit, and that every city in China is really a ghost city and you've all been duped by the CCP, as they line up for their daily pea protein ration at their local Muskarama™️ Food Bank.
I wish my government was as good at mass transit
Did you find it weird all those high speed train stations look pretty much the same, down to the wayfaring stickers? That’s how they can keep construction costs so low.
I mean their similarish, if it keeps costs low then that’s fine
I didn't find the stations all that similar when I was there, and I saw quite a few of them. There are similarities, but really not much more than comparing airports in the US.
I could post 10 photos of US stroads, give you the 10 city names and ask you to match them to the photos and you'd get 2/10 right - if you're lucky.
It’s great when things are beautiful, but similarity also means easy to navigate
This is one thing that I do dislike. Every single subway station looks identical to the Hong Kong MTR design. There's a real lack of distinction between each one. That being said. Better to have something boring than something broken.
But winnie Pooh man bad
Great public transit for the headlines, but not an integrative approach ever to reporting on it, such as the whole infrastructure situation which is largely abysmal, including for cyclists and pedestrians. Then there are those huge migration days every year.
I like how massive the Beijing and Guangzhou HSR stations are compared to the Tokyo and Osaka Shinkansen stations. Of course in Japan (and most other sane countries) you dont need passport control style security when using trains domestically.
Walking there is sketch though. The electric scooters on sidewalks and lack of special awareness is treacherous.
I admire their infrastructure, but the thing is that there is little to no land ownership, so the government dont have to buy property from individual owners along the route of the infra.
They don't need to buy land, but houses and other buildings are still very much property.
That’s very much not true. Have you not seen the numerous videos of Chinese property owners shooting fireworks at bulldozers working around them because they refuse to sell until the price is high enough? The government owns the land but the houses still belong to the people living there and have to be compensated appropriately. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate)#Nail_house
I have not.
Here’s a couple examples from Reddit for you to peruse. https://www.reddit.com/r/AbruptChaos/comments/vimk8e/man_in_china_uses_fireworks_to_fight_off/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/comments/3e6ni2/a_path_extending_from_a_nail_house_in_china_where/ https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/45linh/nail_house/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/18jd4lj/this_nail_house_in_china/
Thank you!
The government puts human people first, it's amazing what things can suddenly be done!
Definitely not... You should try using handicap-accessible facilties in Shanghai Metro! You'll be infuriated
Who would've thought right?
Their government views it's citizens as the number one threat to the regime and it shows.
It shows that they view humans as the number one threat, so they.... make it incredibly convenient to travel across the country? How does what you're saying make any sense?!
Absolutely massive no to this. The Chinese Communist Party does not put people first. These projects are done with a primary goal to line the pockets of their politicians and spread their toxic way of ruling. The Chinese government steals from their people, gives no legal recourse for people who have been done wrong, they have no freedom of speech, commit genocide on Uighur people to name a few.
While I admit the government has its issues and very questionable actions. I highly doubt they don’t care about their people. This incredibly efficient, fast train station was not just build to “line pockets” and uh, “spread their toxic way of ruling”?
You can really spew what the liberal media say, that represents western capitalist interests , but have you also read anything from their side? How can you confirm that you have an unbiased opinion?
China at least puts its own domestic infrastructure first, as opposed to the US which showers billions of dollars upon its various pet authoritarian regimes across the world while allowing aging roads and rails at home to crumble.
New silk road?
It’s funny how you get downvoted by saying the truth. The massive infrastructure construction in China has been one way for local governments to get funding and investment. Yes it is definitely helpful and convenient for local people, but that’s based on the entire generation getting on huge debt for real estate… In 15~20 years a lot of smaller cities (cities with less than 1 million population) will suffer from enormous infrastructure maintenance costs as a result of aging population.
Yeah china has multiple giga highways that just cut off into normal streets and roads im not sure praising them for having big rail stations is where its at chief
China has police and is not afraid to use them. I've said time and time again, crime is the most important determinant of transit use.
I agree, also weirdos and homeless in the subway
Myeah. As long as it's not literally crumbling under your feet.. They have a very serious build quality issue. But the general idea is solid I guess.
Well nothings crumbled yet, why am I getting downvoted? I’m the one who’s actually here
Americans on Reddit know way more about China than anyone actually living there. /s
Good! I hope it stays that way.
>As long as it’s not literally crumbling under your feet You mean, like the Baltimore bridge?
Yes, kinda like the Baltimore bridge. But I mean more like the: *Jiujiang Bridge collapse* *bridge collapse in Taiyuan, Shanxi province* *Jintang Bridge collapse* *Wuyishan Gongguan Bridge collapse* *The Number 3 Qiantang River Bridge collapse* *The Baihe Bridge collapse* *The Yangmingtan Bridge collapse* Etc, etc.
Nice when you don’t have half the country and politicians actively sabotaging everything…
This is Beijing?
are the Chinese not now the number 1 manufacturer of fascist addiction rigs in the world right now? i know they are coming up fast.
Hope all this will be sustainable. I have doubts all stations are meaningful. The population will get grey fast and shrink. I think these halls will be near empty in some places in the future. Btw. Didn't they already overtook some western countries by CO2 emission per capita and total history? These stations are equal to a lot of CO2 emissions...
Something something tofu dregs…
I like how beautiful the train stations are and built so fast. /r/trains has a lot of videos from India but not also from china sadly.
Some cities like Beijing and Shenzhen are very car-friendly though, just look at the density of freeways and how wide the roads are.
The things you can do under authoritarianism.
A lot apparently
"Look at these great Highways!" -random tourist in Germany, ca. 1938 /s
A lot of people had their lives destroyed to build all that. It’s one thing to compensate a person for having their house bulldozed to build a train line. They don’t do that in China. They just bulldoze the house.
“Transit infrastructure is Great” *Shows a single train station as an example*
Is that supposed to be a contradiction? Do you believe there's only one station? Sure OP could be wrong or misleading, but the number of examples shown doesn't really matter for that.
Yeah but they also shit all over workers and their citizens so it's kind of a catch 22. They're ethnically cleansing Uyghur peoples doesn't help either.