Conversation (142)
You're a tool and you're holding up a strawman argument, and you've even changed your own story now.
You started out with:
This comment is so frustrating 😅
Which I am sure it is for you. It doesn't really say anything negative or concrete about china, AT ALL. It makes no claims about china. And you even acknowledge it... but try to stir up some shit without actually finding anything to stir up. It's like you're just a propagandist trying to say america bad, which they are for a myriad of reasons, but it's not because people can't be admitted to hospitals or they are dying from overwork - which is what I replied to originally.
😅 one of the only concrete statements you make about Chinese policy is “i cant imagine them handing out free food to anybody”. Literally political criticism based on vibes.
I didn't make a "concrete statement" about anything. And you conveniently omitted the first part of the sentence that literally said "I don't know the food situation in china" didn't you? Because you're holding up the imaginary argument of "china doesn't have even a single food bank" as your strawman argument, and you had no clue either way, because you had to google it, idiot.
China's median wage is close to 6k/year. Chile and Uruguay is close to 12k/year. The dominican republic is ~7400/year, and they absolutely do not have any kind of real food assistance program outside of the smallest scope. Chile does have something a lot more substantial, but they make wayyyy more. Given that china is poorer in terms of median wage than any of these, that's going to be the case for a lot of workers away from wealthy median areas.
The fact that China is even on the Global Hunger Index site shows that hunger is still a challenge. They are near the top of the chart with many of the latin american countries i've listed. Globally hunger has been much less of a problem in the past 10 years than ever before, only in truly troubled countries do you find horrific levels, like in Haiti or Somalia - and nobody is saying china is anything like those in the overwhelming majority of the country. Not having food banks is way less than mass food insecurity... it's the missing gap between healthy income levels and
China does have a dibao system for an extremely area by area "basic income" where they give people a pittance per month that can partially subsidize what they have, but there's no real federal style food assistance beyond that. China spends more money on food than any other category in rural areas by a huge margin, and you don't need to take my word for it. You can check the PRC's own statistics instead of "googling it" like an ignorant moron.
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Overall Median income is ~41k yuan or ~5,900. About 1.4 billion people in total.
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Urban Median income is ~54k yuan or ~$7,800. This is about 952 million people.
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Rural Median Income is only ~23k yuan or ~$3,300 or so. This is about 452 million people.
That rural amount is despairingly low and since it's median half of the people in rural areas make less...this is unbelievably below poverty level in so many countries around the world. Food insecurity must be a major challenge in rural areas since with that kind of income food costs become paramount to all others.
The statistics I linked from the CCCP also call out rural spending on "food, tobacco and liquor" because clearly food is in the same category as getting lung cancer sticks and fucking your body up with booze (priorities right) and that comes out to 6226 yuan, or just shy of $900 a year. When ~32% of your income is going to just food, smokes and booze, losing a job puts you in dire straits. In poorer rural areas the "basic income" from dibao is only 200($28) to 300($43) yuan a month, and you still need to have clothes, a place to live, etc. 3600 yuan ($519/year) - I think everyone knows this isn't going to be nearly enough.
There's no way food banks originating from extremely wealthy urban areas ten years ago are suddenly reaching the majority of Chinese. It's not even a state sponsored thing (yay communism, helping the people!) I still have substantial doubt as to how much food assistance there is even in many urban areas, because I know how tough food tends to be when money is tight in countries that are generally poor (but not troubled like Haiti.) Food assistance programs can only subsidize a small portion, as we see with SNAP in the US. Wait.. snap is the american government food assistance program? Who are the communists again?
You said "I feel like China wouldn't give out free food." in the context of food banks. I made no claims about America. I made no claims about anything other than your statement "I feel like China wouldnt give out free food." I was frustrated because you are making a feelings based statement about verifiable factual information that is accessible online.
You go to great lengths in this comment to say that China has had issues with citizens not having enough food, which makes sense, why else would they make food banks if no one needed the food???
I also stated exactly how recent these developments are in my previous comment. These are ongoing changes based on the literature I found and read on the subject. Nowhere in my comment did I suggest that no one in China is dealing with nutritional problems and nowhere did I suggest that China was doing everything in its power to solve those problems.
I only responded to your feelings based statement with verifiable information I was easily able to find online. You said something that suggested that there are no food relief programs in China, that suggestion was wrong. I clarified it for you when you refused to clarify it yourself. I am entirely uninterested in engaging with you on any other point here. Frankly a lot of your language betrays a very strong emotional bias in this discussion and I do not think you are interested in a legitimate discussion about food relief problems and existing programs in China.
As a side note it's so typical for people in any discussion about China to just label random people propagandists. Yes for sure I'm a propagandist on a social media forum that sees less throughput than an average Facebook group. Tankies call me western interference and American liberals say I'm a paid propagandist. Imagine that there could be any nuance in discussing a nation comprising over a billion people, crazy I know right.
A simple search om Mainichi Shimbun
A 'No More Karoshi' protest held in Shimbashi in 2018
National Center for Promoting Measures to Prevent Death from Overwork
There is no way the billionaires are calling the shots, ever, while Xi is in power
Much like Putin and the Russian oligarchy, who they either play with him or be shown the window.
Wasn't that deemed illegal back in 2021 by the Chinese Courts?
And didn't it kick off a wave of labor protests? The lie flat movement?
China is not communist in any form anymore
Just a planned economy governed by it's native population with a public policy centered on general social welfare.
Nothing Communist about this at all, no sir.
And before someone says “but they execute billionaires”, they only execute billionaires that get in the way of other billionaires’ profits
That's certainly the American spin. It's actually double-plus capitalism when you prosecute plutocrats. Because a rules based national order promoted domestic growth. And that's... bad?
Anyway, don't ask about their social housing, public education, public health care, and public mass transit. That's Not Real Communism!
Wumao
today I learned....