To clarify, I don't believe in the surface level propaganda thrown in China's way about "1984 dystopian society," "Mao killed 60 million people," "Xinjiang concentration camps" or things like that.
I'm curious about a few negative factors of China that have become widespread knowledge over the past decade or so by even the politically literate audience, and I want to learn how accurate these things are, how prevalent they are in today's society in China, and how much it would impact the day to day life of someone living in China.
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Quality control, I have read stories about Chinese factories producing guns, steel, industrial goods, consumer goods, food products, far below acceptable or safe standards, leading to construction/infrastructure failure and severe health complications. There are also claims that smaller restaurants in China today still sometimes use very low quality ingredients that can result in serious health issues. How much of an issue is this?
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Population issue. The Chinese population trend is going in a unfavorable direction right now, and there are reports of young people not wanting to have children because of cultural and cost reasons. How much of an issue is this, and will China end up like Korea and Japan in another decade or two?
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Unemployment, it is a fact right now that Chinese people have a 20% unemployment issue due to an abundance of university graduates without sufficient jobs to match this supply. And this has caused internal competition to swell to unreasonable standards leading some people to straight up give up on their careers and become full time neets. Are there any positive trends or actions to resolve this issue?
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Education. The education system sounds terrifying in China right now, children as young as elementary schoolers having to sleep only 6 hours a night to finish their homework from school and tutoring services. I have also read that after the government banned tutoring of core classroom subjects, illegal tutoring services have become a thing. I would laugh at how this would be the most asian issue ever if I wasn't so horrified by the situation. Is there any government effort to resolve this right now?
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Nepotism. From what I have heard and read, using connections to obtain positions and resources in China is still very common. How bad is this, and are there any reforms or policies tackling it?
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Mannerisms and emotional intelligence of the average person. There are frequent complaints about Chinese people being horrible tourists, being extremely rude, having the emotional maturity of a donut until at least the age of 30, and also taking advantage of anything free to disgusting levels (I have personally seen old Chinese ladies take out a container and fill it with ketchup from a restaurant where the condiments are self served). I understand the reasoning behind this, China in it's current iteration is a relatively new country, and the education received by different generations varies massively in quality, with only really Gen Z on average obtaining a level of education that is on par with western populations. I just want to ask how bad this is in day to day life, and if it is tolerable.
Thanks for reading my somewhat long post, I'd appreciate any response, you don't have to respond to all of my points, any point would be fine. I want to have a positive impression of China but these points are really bugging me right now.
For point 1, knowing a bit about QC and manufacturing with regard to China and history, I can provide a little anecdotal info. Yes, China has had issues with alleged "poor quality" products, but this is a problem in every country that newly industrializes. At first, countries that are new to the game provide a competitive price in labor compared to countries that industrialized earlier. Hell, you can go back over 100 years to Britain and you can read about complaints of British people that goods (textiles, etc) made in Germany are poor quality. Germany has since shook that reputation, and generally among the West is seen as a country with a high level of QC. Same thing with Japan. After WWII, Japanese goods were seen as poor quality, and it wasn't until the 80s/90s that Japan (specifically electronics) was seen as high quality and now still do quite well in that industry despite their years of economic stagnation. Even the USSR had issues with QC for various reasons throughout its existence.
My point is, that yes, China had a reputation of poor quality due to its late entry into mass industrial manufacturing, but it's a range and is shaking off that reputation it had in the 90s/early 2000s. Of course there are tons of cheap quality goods available online to consumers, but you get what you pay for. Many manufacturers have to worry about the bottom line. There are many high quality products coming out of China, electronics, trains, furnishings, you name it. It's all about specification and getting what one pays for, essentially. So next time you hear someone talking about 'poor quality Chinese goods', get them to show proof or else it's just Sinophobic bullshit lol.
Here's an article: https://insight-quality.com/quality-of-products-made-in-china/
Thanks for the explanation and article, it explains a lot. I understand more high quality goods in China are coming out, this in undeniable. I do want to ask, is it still the case today that China makes both very high and low quality goods? Or is the quality floor moving upwards?
No sources outside of being chinese myself (although I grew up and live in a western country), but i feel that it's about the same as most countries right now.
A lot of what you see as poor quality chinese products on the internet are, of course, budget options, which also appear in other countries with equally low levels of quality I'd say.
In specialised fields such as mechanical keyboards, chinese products can often be equal to contemporaries, if not slightly higher quality.
All in all, i think the quality floor can be quite low, BUT the ceiling has risen much higher than before, especially in technological areas. And the floor probably isnt much lower than in other countries, mostly affected by really bad copycat products, which i think are being phased out anyway by huge companies such as xiaomi which can offer decent qulaity but cheap phones. There are some areas where they (xiaomi, that is) can beat out other flagship models for cheaper prices, although i think thats quite rare tbh. The privacy issues and selling of data to the chinese government (and also the other things mentioned in your post) is a separate issue to what's being asked, so i won't consider it for now, but of course, it's always a factor. Up to the consumer how much weight they put into it ig.
Tbh, i dont have any evidence, but this is my personal opinion. I hope this helps you a little regardless of the lack of actual solid data, sources etc.
As a warning, i haven't been back to china in ages, and most of what i do know is second-hand from relatives, so a bit of bias is probably in there (except the mechanical keyboards but thats mostly known inside those communities also). But still, ig it can represent how a very very small portion of the residents feel :).
E: Addidng on for some other points mentioned.
Nepotism im not too sure about, but my family does indeed put quite a high value in making connections to move up in businesses. To be fair, i assume the same is true for most of the Western world, including the uk where i grew up, but i might just be a bit cynical.
Point 6 feels unfair, as a few others have mentioned. I feel there may be a few more rude tourists from china than average but not by much, its probably more to do with those weird psychological biases people have where they are told to look out for sth (e.g. oh, be careful of chinese tourists, i hear they are shitty) and then tend to notice it more. Although, as a personal anecdote, since i have grown up in the uk and go to uni there, i do tend to jotice that the chinese foreign students do stick with each other more than other foreign students. As in they will walk together in a group and tend not to talk to other british or other students, whereas students from other countries tend to socialise more with other groups. Could be biased, but that is my personal experience. Its always a bit funny when i can understand them chatting shit about other people using chinese, although I'd assume most people would do that anyway as i sure as hell do in english regardless lmao.
Sorry if my formatting and grammar are shit and if my mostly second-hand and anecdotal evidence didn't really help. I just thought I'd add my ideas in while i saw this on my phone.
That makes sense, I guess rising the skill floor is a lot harder than rising the ceiling as it is tied to the transition of China's workforce to a more high skilled one. But anyways thanks for the input, even anecdotal examples can be interesting to expand perspectives.