chapotraphouse

I agree with you here.

But the focus of your comment and the focus of the article are different. The article is inherently comparative between China and the US, while your comment explicates the situation in China alone. The compares the US, but it is missing the state of play for the US half of the equation.

The US part is complex and there's not a comprehensive rundown (because nobody cares), but we can start with something like this.

The majority of college graduates are underemployed. Meaning they're taking jobs at McDonalds or running Uber Eats rather than using their degrees.

We have several crises simultaneously here:

1. a lack of expansion for knowledge based jobs.
2. elite over reproduction
3. a market demand for labor that is detached from the day to day needs of a job (e.g. demanding degrees for jobs that don't require them, laundry list of demands that feed elite over reproduction and end up with job seekers who are unfulfilled because of lies the system told them)

Starting January 1st, 2025, the retirement age of male worker has been increased from 60 years to 63 years, while female worker from 50 to 55, and 55 to 58. This is straight from the State Council of the PRC.

This is a great example of what I mean. This is happening all across the Western world as well, except those ages are rookie numbers for us. In the US full retirement age went up to 68 this year, and that was planned not a reaction to the current economic state. What we're hearing from the right wing is numbers like 72 some as high as 80. France was 62 now 64. Etc.

I think both systems are facing the same general problem of the bottom falling out of the economy in various ways. However even under the "blue guys" from my perspective the US has not been taking this problem as seriously from a cultural, political or governance standpoint as China. Thus it has no right to comparison. Like I said I agree that there is more that the CPC can do, and I'm not trying to reflexively defend the sainthood AES countries, but it's one of those American things where we just need to hear that other people are doing bad so we can feel good, regardless of the reality of our living situation. It's culturally the way this country is ruled internally as well.

We're simply in different leagues, and comparisons that are for upper-middle class Western audiences cannot be honest about Westerners being in a worse league.