[native_samples]

"China" didn't do that. The Chinese people did that after Deng Xiaoping got into a position where he could stop the government actively destroying all progress in the country.

And whilst I used to be impressed by this "lifted a billion people" take, the reality is that lots of countries industrialized, modernized and huge numbers of people left behind agrarian poverty. This isn't unique or special and in fact when ranked against other countries like Taiwan, Korea, Japan - let alone countries like the USA or UK - China has turned in one of the worst performances. China still has widespread poverty and in many ways is still a developing country, 80 years after Europe utterly destroyed itself in WW2 and Japan had two of its major cities leveled by atomic bombs.

There's really nothing impressive about China beyond the sheer number of people the government has managed to hold back. If your foot is constantly on the brake of a very large vehicle, lifting your foot even half way will cause a lot of mass to start moving. That doesn't mean you get credit for it.

[alephnan]

> Taiwan, Korea, Japan

Japan has less than 1/10th China’s population. Taiwan has less than 20% of Taiwan.

Japan was far richer than China per capita before WWII. Japan was the superpower that believed it could take on the West. Until recent, did China ever try to expand and attack the West?

Japan was never occupied by a resource colonizer, while China had the opium war.

Right now, both Japan and Taiwan’s economy are at stagnating. How do I know? I’m a permanent resident of one, and have a passport from the other. The argument that democracy exists, and let people do whatever they want will lead to prosperous is false. Otherwise America wouldn’t be at risk of slowing growth, potentially civilization decline.

Also, what are your thoughts on Singapore which is a one family dictatorship ?

> Japan had two of its major cities leveled by atomic bombs.

Have you been or is this armchair philosophizing from intro to WWII? I’ve been to the monuments at both, but the fact of the matter is those were military cities. Those cities by themselves are not what crippled the Japanese economy post WWII.

> There's really nothing impressive about China beyond the sheer number of people the government has managed to hold back.

Is that why India and Africa with a billion people are in poverty still?

[FredPret]

Being from Africa and now living in the first world, my experiences align with what native_samples is saying. We had colonialism and then most countries in Africa had governments with understandably anti-Western ideas - for decades.

Even today a very serious issue holding back progress there is thousands of little regulations that are designed to lead to bribes.

If Africa’s national borders and governments could be redrawn from scratch, it would organize itself into a much happier, richer place.

[please-reread]

> Taiwan has less than 20% of Taiwan.

You are mistaken. Taiwan is 100% of Taiwan.