I've been working in, and out of South China since 2009, and have called it quit 2019, when it became clear the industry was done for, and CoVID mess only reinforced my decision.
I never held any fraternal feelings with the country, even though I am ethnic Chinese, nor I had any delusions about making long term plans there.
In my years there, I kept seeing rose coloured glasses wearing American expats. I met Tim Cook during his first travels to China as CEO at some random event in Shenzhen, only to see him regurgitate the official drivel.
Since around 2016, I kept seeing more and more Western high flyers coming to official events there, seemingly trying to network with locals, and only to see them freak out at that.
My regular conversation with them:
- it's a damn communist regime, do your business and get out
- no, it's different! there is no more communisms in China! no, it's state capitalism! no, things will change! no, I have a special plan from EY China expert!
Most of them lived there for 2-3 years, and got out just as I told when the truth hit them. In the end, I outlived all of them there.
China is a communist regime, though a very well doing for some years.
I see comment chains touching on this topic in nearly every post even tangentially related to China, and it's rarely ever that the main issue is mentioned. So I'll write this for the benefit of any passing reader with similar thoughts.
In a country of 1.x billions, it shouldn't be surprising that there would be at least a few tens of millions of hardcore, actual socialists, who genuinely believe in some distant future communist utopia.
Even if the entire rest of the population were the most perfect paragons of virtue imaginable, it's still likely going to be the hardcore folks willing to fight to the death en bloc that end up with the actual power. That's just how the cookie crumbles in every country.
Whether it's ultra-Maoists in China, or ultra-Hindus in India, or ultra-muslims in Islamic countries, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, etc..
The real question is whether or not the bulk of the hardcore group can be enticed with enough potential rewards to moderate their views.
Wealth works if there's a lot to go around, like in the U.S., EU, etc., but otherwise the hardcore group needs to be paid in some form of power, geopolitical, cultural, etc.
> My view from the outside was that it's really similar to climbing the ladder in a corporation, mouth all the platitudes but only suckers believe them.
Humans are not perfect deceivers, even the average Joe can usually tell if someone's fishy within a 10 minute face-to-face conversation.
There do exist really expert and cunning deceivers, but the folks higher up in the hierarchy will also commensurately be better equipped to see through it.
So for a large enough hierarchy, the practical impossibility of duping so many means that only genuine believers end up near the top.
You don't even need to go Beijing to see this dynamic play out, there's a company in Cupertino where many folks allege this is the case (though to be fair some allege the non-believers are also moving up the ladder).
The fallacy of "reformed communism" hopers is that with development came not their hoped reform, but even stronger regime, and harder life.
Way more, many times more rich Chinese are fleeing China now, when it reached some level of wealth, and industrialisation, than back 10-15 years ago, when China was incomparably poorer, and everyday life was incomparably harder.
All of that was easily predictable. You have a terrible regime, you give it money, and power. It only becomes stronger, and more terrible, not less.
I never held any fraternal feelings with the country, even though I am ethnic Chinese, nor I had any delusions about making long term plans there.
In my years there, I kept seeing rose coloured glasses wearing American expats. I met Tim Cook during his first travels to China as CEO at some random event in Shenzhen, only to see him regurgitate the official drivel.
Since around 2016, I kept seeing more and more Western high flyers coming to official events there, seemingly trying to network with locals, and only to see them freak out at that.
My regular conversation with them:
- it's a damn communist regime, do your business and get out
- no, it's different! there is no more communisms in China! no, it's state capitalism! no, things will change! no, I have a special plan from EY China expert!
Most of them lived there for 2-3 years, and got out just as I told when the truth hit them. In the end, I outlived all of them there.
China is a communist regime, though a very well doing for some years.