[tz18]

No, this is just about keeping people from defecting and taking secrets / cash with them. Many Chinese people working for state controlled companies or similar (schoolteachers were one ridiculous example I think) in super mundane jobs have their passports taken away or exit bans for "national security" reasons.

[tokioyoyo]

One note, if you’re working for a top AI company in China, your quality of life other than work hours is already good enough to not to want to leave. It’s not 1990s/2000s anymore. Urban life in China, excluding pandemic times, is better than urban life in the states.

The same applies to other sectors as well. Top talent is genuinely valued in China.

[tw1984]

Are you kidding?

Guess why most those recently emerged Chinese high tech companies (DeepSeek, Game Science, Unitree etc) are all located in Hangzhou? Because property prices are insane in tier-1 Chinese cities like Shanghai which is just 200km away from Hangzhou. You know it is a huge ponzi scheme when even those well paid high tech engineers couldn't afford a modest apartment in those major cities.

$3m USD buys you a 3 bedroom apartment in Shanghai next to a noisy main road, you have unlimited free supply of all types of pollutions. PM2.5 pollution was about 100 yesterday, any self respecting medical professional would suggest you to wear a mask when going outdoors in such environment well known for causing lung cancer. By moving to Hangzhou, you ONLY need to pay $1.5-$2m for the same shit.

Oh, btw, prices above are after the 30% drop. Just imagine how stupid it was before the crash. Of course you can jump up and lecture me how affordable it is to just spend like $1m to secure a nice family apartment of 40square meters built 60 years ago with disgusting everything inside of it.

[tokioyoyo]

I’m not sure there’s any point in arguing, because everyone’s priorities are subjective. Public safety, convenience, unlimited amount of options for basically anything are stuff that people pay premiums for. I still consider Tokyo superior to T1 Chinese cities, but Shanghai is really not that far behind.

[tw1984]

> Public safety, convenience, unlimited amount of options for basically anything are stuff that people pay premiums for.

by paying 100 years of local average salary for a modest apartment in a not that desirable location? that is not "pay premiums", that is modem slavery.

stop spreading your misinformation, life in China is like the Nightmare mode of DOOM2.

[tokioyoyo]

Do you live in China or Asia? Again we’re talking about top talent.

[tw1984]

dude, being able to order takeaway junk food 24/7 to your significantly over priced high rise apartment completed 3 years ago with a designed life span of 30 years is not quality of life.

[the_af]

> stop spreading your misinformation, life in China is like the Nightmare mode of DOOM2.

You're deluded. Hyperbole doesn't help either. When you resort to lying or exaggeration, it shows China must be starting to get even, if not ahead in the race.

[maxglute]

TIL hangzhou/new tier1 is a "modest" city. It's a sick world class city.

Yeah, PRC RE in T1/2 cities stupid expensive, but highly compensated PRC talent always have option to rent for dirt cheap in T1 and buy something nice in T2/T3 city with a few years wage. Many highly paid Hangzhou tech workers renting in nice districts while buying equally nice in less expensive cities close by, i.e. renting nice condos in Binjiang for $2000 USD and buying 150sqm apartments for 400k USD in Yanghzou on single salary. Let's be real shitty T2 and nice T3 cities that puts most north American cities to shame, factor in cost of living relative to wage and it's much better QoL than most tier1 north American cities if you prefer urban life. Living really well in PRC on high end tech salary (i.e."AI leaders") is babymode if you're not a retard insisting on living in tapped out T1. Granted tech wage cucks in some western cities get to live in large houses which isn't available in PRC, which has it's appeal.

[tw1984]

I don't know what you are smoking but that thing must be pretty strong.

Hangzhou is horrible place to live, if you check the PM2.5 of Jan and Feb 2025, a total of 5 days had PM2.5 readings below 75. That causes China to have the highest rate of lung cancer in the entire world. Interestingly, this is suddenly not even considered as "QoL".

Your entire argument that people on wages 10x to 20x times of the local average are still being priced out of the city should just buy into places further 400km out is the exact proof that there is no QoL whatsoever. Why should any "AI leader" be forced to buy in a city 400km away from his workplace if the whole propaganda is about QoL.

[maxglute]

>highest lung cancer

Smoking less good stuff than you - there's countries with way higher per capita lung cancer rates. PRC ASR higher than US, but skewed only because men smoke like chimney. Female lung cancer ASR is same as US. Not to mention life expectancy recently passed US... interestingly, this suddently not even considered as indicator for "QoL" blah blah.

Hangzhous a great place to live. Most PRC T1 cities are (well BJ boring)... if you have money. AQI is fine, it's like ~100 average... which is moderate, aka barely perceptible vs 20 years ago when urban AQI was like 200-500, i.e. actual struggle to breathe tier bad. ~100 is like bad day in Toronto, AKA it's fucking nothing.

Who gives a shit about locals average. Let's not pretend average bay area tech workers can afford nice local property. This thread is on elite earners, i.e. >2M RMB / ~300k USD per year . Of course they can afford obscene T1 property if they want to grind. But they have many great options if they chose not to. I'm merely illustrating high earners have obscenely high QoL urban easy mode if they wanted it. Like you're not going to find many countries in this world where 400k USD buys you a nice 150sqm / 3br / 2bath apartment in a nice district of a ~10m+ large modern city with world class infra and stupid cheap daily costs that one can likely retire after a few years. Oh while being surrounded in home cultural and not be treated as 2nd class citizen (if anything treated as elite).

Family friend at has this setup working at one of the giants, had nice housing allowance as part of total compensation (~3000 usd per month) where he lived downtown in nice T1 city for free, bought a sweet villa in a T2 city with ~2 years of savings (got a few million RMB of interest free housing loan from company)... it's what he chose instead of the T1 RE, which was attainable but a grind. In the meantime he's basically living for free. Like what's his comparable option in the states? Spend $6000 USD per month on rent around SF and then fuck off to pittsburgh, cleveland, buffalo, kansas etc with their 300k homes, and 2 million population that's worse than a T3 city where he's treated like a foreigner and have to deal with shit tier urban decay on the regular. Maybe if he likes SUVs and big yards. Austin also nice too.

TLDR it's batshit insane to think a high earner don't have a lot of very nice options in PRC especially once you throw in cost of living where that 300k stretches to 600-900k depending on where you go.

[tokioyoyo]

I honestly think many Americans have not updated their perceptions of T1/T2 Chinese cities since like 2005.

[maxglute]

Feels like too many mid westerners expat from 2000s-2010s who never got taste of premium expat life don't realize how a well compensated PRC employee can live real fancy, more so since they're not trapped in expat bubble.

[tokioyoyo]

I don’t even think most of the commentators are even expats. It’s just a lot of people are hell-bent on the idea that outside of the US everything else is crumbling, is on fire, and will blow up the next month.

When I was bumming around US, I kept telling people how my best time in NA was living in a 800sq ft. apartment, in the best neighbourhood in the continent (also subjective), and I never upsized because it was subjectively the best choice for my lifestyle. Most of the responses were something like “you made yourself to believe in that”. Or “if you moved lived in X state you would have a better life”. But those were just not true for me, and will never will be. And from my personal circles, the same applies. People are just having a hard time to understand that if you make decent income, the life for some people is just better in other countries than US.

[DiogenesKynikos]

Your comment reminds me of the Yogi Berra quote, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

Prices are high in Shanghai because everyone wants to live there.

[sorenjan]

> your quality of life other than work hours is already good enough

This reminds me of something I read recently...

https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/02/sergey-brin-says-agi-...

[throwawayq3423]

> Urban life in China, excluding pandemic times, is better than urban life in the states.

What data do you have for this conclusion?

[klipt]

Great public transit. Affordable housing. Huge variety of delicious food. Low crime. People who care enough about the social good to wear masks in crowded places during a pandemic.

[wordofx]

600m people in China live in poverty despite claims of the CPC eliminating it. Traveling around China you see this. Showing off main cities is not proof that people don’t live in poverty.

Low crime is simply not true. Most crimes are not reported or swept under the rug as local statistics are reported back to the central government and no one wants to look bad. But wow if you have Weibo you can see some pretty horrible stuff daily before it’s deleted. Nothing worse than seeing 2 woman hacked to death with an axe because of road rage. Cheap food in China comes with a lot of trade offs such as quality. Many shops recycle left over hotpot for the following day. Gutter oil is a real thing. Fake meats or meats from other animals is a real thing.

[JimDabell]

> Showing off main cities is not proof that people don’t live in poverty.

The claim was:

> Urban life in China, excluding pandemic times, is better than urban life in the states.

“Showing off main cities” is a perfectly reasonable thing to do to support this claim.

[throwawayq3423]

So it's the Dubai argument. "The city life is great, especially for ex-pats, don't mind what's being swept under the rug over there".

[maxglute]

Irrelevant argument because how rich people (subjects we're talking about) live in rich areas (i.e. main cities) =/= how poor people live in poor areas. Frankly average Chinese poverty in T4+ villages is pretty quaint compared to seeing junkies everywhere. It's more humbling, not disturbing. Of course you can find statistical outlier crimes on social media, but daily life is not filled with the levels of social decay and shithole experiences in western urban areas that PRC diasphora frequently makes comparisons to on social media. It maybe a bubble, but it's a cozy bubble that rarely gets pierced in daily life for the well off.

[wordofx]

One of the benefits to China is the low drug use. But you’re blind if you can’t find insane amount of homeless people in Beijing or shanghai. Or that most people there are struggling. If you want to live with tunnel vision then it’s an amazing place to live. (Shanghai cos I didn’t live in any other city. Only travelled)

[throwawayq3423]

Could say the same about Vietnam, or Thailand, or anywhere in SE Asia.

[hustwindmaple1]

Housing is definitely not easily affordable. But the other points are valid.

[janalsncm]

For top talent it might be.

[throwawayq3423]

"if you are rich, life is good" can be said about anywhere

[Spivak]

I think a good chunk of America had their "Soviets seeing an American supermarket" moment on Red Note when they got to see what city life is actually like in China from the perspective of regular people.

[throwawayq3423]

Red Note is Instagram for rich kids. If China managed to frame their upper class as ordinary, good for them. Propaganda win for their regime.

Not sure why we are making that mistake here.

[Spivak]

Instagram is Instagram for rich kids, I know. But like I am ostensibly also a rich kid (probably) by your metric. And I have a very nice looking aesthetic social profile, I know how it translates to what real life is. At this point, that's just basic media literacy.

[throwawayq3423]

You are missing my point. The average Red Note influencer is not the average Chinese citizen. I guess you could say the same for IG, but not one is holding up rich kids on IG as the typical American.

[riehwvfbk]

Try actually traveling outside the US. It's eye opening. The rest of the world has been developing and the US has been backsliding. It's impossible not to notice.

[throwawayq3423]

Kind of seems like you are avoiding my point, or throwing up a straw man to argue against instead (with a dig at US for good measure).

Of course there are more rich people in China today than there were in decades past. That doesn't mean a rich kid of Red Note is good representation of the average Chinese, who is still poorer than the average Mexican, and trending in the wrong direction.

[chrischen]

Apart from public bathrooms being much dirtier on average, they’ve modernized quite a bit. So, you can take me as 1st hand anecdotal evidence.

[DiogenesKynikos]

Public bathrooms are getting much better in China. There's been a very noticeable improvement recently, I think tied to a government inspection program.

[chrischen]

Granted I was mostly outside of the urban core of tier 1 cities, but most places I went people were constantly smoking in bathrooms, had to BYOTP, and floors were often covered in urine. In some second tier cities like Harbin it was basically squat toilets everywhere, even in the airport lounges.

[DiogenesKynikos]

When did you last visit? I have seen a very big change in just the last year. Most bathrooms have soap and toilet paper now, at least in my random sampling of tier-1 and tier-2 cities.

Smoking is still ubiquitous, though. "禁止吸烟" signs are just completely ignored.

[the_af]

Public bathrooms can be disgusting in many first world countries.

I wonder if the true mark of civilization will eventually be clean public bathrooms. It cannot be that hard because some select countries have managed to do it. Too few though.

[tokioyoyo]

Cultural, if I’ll be honest. Until kids are taught and indoctrinated in school that public cleanliness is net good for everyone, hard to see it change.

[chrischen]

Vietnam is arguably less developed than China, but their bathrooms are way cleaner on average.

[the_af]

Good to know. I've heard bad things about public restrooms (from travelers I know) about both China and India, though this information may be outdated.

I was worried about Vietnam, but this is encouraging. I always wanted to visit.

(Don't worry, I understand what "on average" means, and I also understand it varies from location to location).

[tokioyoyo]

Honestly, no real data just working with a lot of Chinese on a daily basis. It’s not like they don’t talk about their daily economical or political struggles. Everyone weighs pros/cons, and less and less people have been moving out. Pandemic broke their spirit, but from what I’ve heard, the benefits of living in the US are getting slimmer and slimmer every other day.

[mandmandam]

Try YouTube. Just use your eyes.

[throwawayq3423]

I did. When I went to China and left the major cities all I saw was rows of high rises next to train stations with nothing around them.

Funny, that's never on YouTube.

[tokioyoyo]

Top talent, whom the government advices to not to go to the states aren’t living in the slums, or areas where there’s nothingness. They don’t live like in Ordos or something.

Meta, OpenAI employees aren’t living in Bakersfield. Google NY employees aren’t living in Clifton or something. Very dumb comparisons, obviously, but when you have a good comp in China, your quality of life is just great. There just isn’t that much of a reason to move.

Another note, it's correct that some people want to live in the states. But there's a nuance. From my personal observations, a good chunk of them don't want to live anywhere in the US, but they want the American passport/green card. It's just a hedge for the worst case scenario and to have an escape route if something bad happens. Like life in Tokyo is pretty decent if you're in top percentiles. But most people understand problems (like demographics), however until it becomes an actual issue, it's still preferable to live here.

[riehwvfbk]

If you leave major cities in California you see a lot of empty space that's mostly brown-grey dust, with occasional small towns where everyone is very poor and came from Mexico. Your point?

[throwawayq3423]

Yes and I see a lot of YouTube videos about all the poverty in California, I see exactly none about the extensive and overwhelming poverty of rural China (and when I mean rural I mean 20 min outside Shanghai).

That's the point. And who trying to lie about eliminating poverty in China (or making the US look much worse), and why are people repeating that lie?

[wordofx]

I did. When I lived in China and traveled outside of Shanghai it was eye opening. People living in slums with no running water or toilets. No trains. No buses. No taxis. The nicest people ever but makes you realise that the whole eliminating poverty claim is utter BS.

[the_af]

They were talking about people with good paying jobs living in big cities, not China in general. There are people living in extreme poverty in first world countries, and rural areas are always different to big cities.

[makeitdouble]

This would be the only answer, if it wasn't for the all ICE's history, official threats against non US individuals and how reliable the current US gov is.

This year China's advice just sounds reasonable TBH.

[powerapple]

Can US arrest the head of Chinese startups who have bought banned NVidia chips from the black market? Is buying a crime?

[throwaway48476]

This was commonplace in the Soviet Union.

[russli1993]

[flagged]

[dang]

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? Swipes like "Lol, keep dreaming man" are against the site guidelines, and getting into nationalistic spats is not what HN is for. When you post like this, you're just inviting even worse from others (unintentionally of course). That's how we end up with degraded responses like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43226552.

Worse, you've been repeatedly posting nationalistic flamewar comments in recent weeks. This is bad. I understand the frustrations, but this is no way to make your case.

There's an extra burden on commenters who are representing a minority view, especially when the topic is divisive. That's arguably unfair, but it doesn't make it ok to break the rules, and it's not in your interest to do that.

I've written a lot about this over the years (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), including this just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213858.

[Gathering6678]

Maybe visit your nearest US consulate to see how many are trying to get into the States, despite all the ** things in recent years.

[dluan]

You will be surprised to learn then that it's fallen dramatically. Like in just the last 5 years the perception is completely different, especially among young people.

[cscurmudgeon]

The green card queues for employment based green cards for China born applicants tell another story

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/green-car...

[tokioyoyo]

There are 1.4B Chinese. Like obviously some will want to move away. The question is, per capita, what is the rate of locals fleeing away from each country.

[cscurmudgeon]

Even per capita more Chinese are leaving the country for US than the other way round.

[onemoresoop]

Compare past to present and you’ll see a large drop.

[hollerith]

Sure, but this is a statistic Beijing is not even trying to improve: at least during the last 10 years, Beijing sees Westerners as a threat and rarely offers them citizenship or permanent residency.

[markus_zhang]

I doubt people who work in cutting edge areas want to leave, not because of national security but because China is now pumping a lot of money into the areas. Those are the people who are willing to work on a 997 schedule anyway.

And yes there are still a lot of Chinese who do want to go to US, but from other areas.

[captainwot]

[flagged]

[dang]

Please let's not make such assumptions about other users, and certainly not as ammunition in an argument.

[somelamer567]

[flagged]

[Fricken]

Here, read it on Wikipedia:

'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative

[dang]

Attacking another user like this, no matter how badly they broke the site guidelines themselves, is absolutely not ok on Hacker News. Please don't do it again, and please stop posting flamewar comments to HN generally.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[cscurmudgeon]

[flagged]

[dang]

You've been using HN primarily (even exclusively) for nationalistic battle. You've also been breaking the site guidelines in all sorts of other ways. Since we've asked you repeatedly not to do this and you've ignored those requests, I've banned the account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[hungryhobo]

I mean every country has their epstein. western media likes to pick the chinese ones cause they make a good china bad story. Hundreds of chinese like myself travel from and to china each year, I'm surprised it's hard for you to imagine regular chinese people can enjoy life in china.