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China's got pretty-strong affirmative action for minorities in present. They're definitely less well-off on average than the Han population, but on the other hand the Han population is essentially concentrated in the areas that are easier to develop and the infrastructure build is increasingly rolling out. You can also make historical arguments that frequently what allowed a Chinese minority to stay a distinct minority population tended to be some form of 'will live in/was forced out to areas that even the Han didn't particularly want to live in' which then has significant impacts on their average welfare in modernity.
It's also further complicated by other situations. I spent a year in Darwin with 'the locals', and I do think the Chinese system would probably be better equipped to 'fix' the Indigenous situation of Australia since they'd have little-to-no qualms with making short, sharp interventions to try and shift them back into shape. The Uighurs also somewhat similar, where I believe that the longterm median life conditions of the Uighurs are probably better than they'd be if the same issue were handled with the typical Western ineffectual fumbling at Islamic society, but also the period of pacification was intolerably brutal by Western standards. The West, through an abundance of empathy, frequently makes decisions around minorities that don't really benefit anybody long (or even short) term but they aren't being 'mean'.
I'd much rather live in a France right now where the Chinese state were in charge of ethnic issues than live in one where well-intentioned bureaucrats just kind of allowed things to snowball endlessly.
I don't think anybody will argue that Australia's approach to indigenous peoples is anything but broken, but the number of Australians in any way affected by our approach to indigenous peoples is very low. I'm Victorian and I encounter approximately zero Aboriginal people on a regular basis. If you don't live in the Northern Territory, you're just not going to run into the issue.
I am by no means defending our Aboriginal policy to say that firstly, even assuming hypothetically that a Chinese fascist government would handle Aboriginal policy better, that is such a minor, insignificant issue that it does not factor into my judgement of whether Chinese fascists would be better for me than the present system; and secondly, I do not think Chinese fascists would handle Aboriginal policy better, neither for Aboriginal people themselves nor for the majority.
My take is basically that today the People's Republic of China is a state run for the benefit of the Han majority, and a hypothetical fascist China would only intensify that. If fascist China conquered Australia, I think that would, in the long term, be worse for people like me than sticking with liberal democracy.
None of that means that I think the present establishment is flawless, or even good. I do, however, think it is less bad than it would be if the Chinese took over. Hell, if nothing else, I prefer a relatively free market to socialism with Chinese characteristics!
True. Was actually funny to me after moving back to Melbourne and I didn't see an Indigenous person again for 3 months until I boarded the 109 and there was one going about his business.
I do think you've got a bunch of vast misunderstandings of what modern China is and how it operates. You're living in Socialism with Australian characteristics and there's an abundant relatively free market over in China that's going about its own business. China having a layer of fascism allows a lot of absurdities to be managed with less insane pointless slogs that pop up in the Western system as of present.
Are you thinking of any examples?
To be clear, I don't think that modern China is fascist. I'm imagining a fascist China that exaggerates and intensifies some of China's existing pathologies. My understanding of the state of modern China, absorbed mostly from talking to Chinese people, is that everyday life is a lot like everyday life in the West, only everything is a little bit nastier or more corrupt. Cities are a bit dirtier. Officials are slightly more on the take. Little everyday things are just a bit more frustrating. Still, it is perfectly liveable.
Japan’s a better analog for their political comparison. Most of what westerners hear about that part of the world comes to them highly distorted, through the filter of the media. Just because China is authoritarian doesn’t make it fascist.
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I've lived in China and in Australia. At this point I'd say experiencing Australia is the dirtier, nastier version at this point than most T1 Chinese cities. There's more out-and-out corruption, though also far more pressure around making sure things stay clean and presentable. When I'm in China I don't have to deal with half of Melbourne CBD shutting at 9PM sharp due to the drug zombies. Don't have to deal with the Tram system becoming a live transport network for drug users etcetera.
Shanghai is vastly cleaner, tidier, more modern and more orderly than Melbourne these days.
I've lived in Melbourne all my life, though I only know of Shanghai through word of mouth. What I've experienced and heard would suggest to me that it's the other way around, though I admit that I'm 10-15 years out of date on Shanghai.
I spend about a month in each each year. China's general vibe has improved immensely since COVID, albeit at the expense of property prices and a lot of the overseas Chinese who shuffled off to Australia pre-COVID aren't being replenished particularly quickly. They tend to either be the top 10-5th percentile who had significant exposure to the property market and are now complaining endlessly due to their paper gains going, or those who shuttled out in the 80s as soon as the first gaps appeared.
2025 Shanghai is incredibly livable, very worth a trip even if there's a lot of better cities for tourism.
How’s the smog? Can you guys actually see the moon over there?
China these days? It's fine. Still a bit higher than equivalent Western cities but electric vehicles taking over, the government actually cracking down a lot post-COVID and the factories moving further out have made it pretty rare you get major smog in T1 China cities. First time I went to Beijing 20 years ago it was horrible but now it's not really notable eitherway.
Only major smog issues I've run into in Asia have been SEA burning season stuff.
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