[tasuki]

> China is not very immigration friendly to non-han folks

What do you mean? I've never been to China, but know quite a few non-han white Europeans who lived there for both shorter and longer periods of time. Some studied, others worked there.

[Cthulhu_]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_China has a good summary (click through to its sources); as of 2020 there were about 1.5 million immigrants in China, just under 600K of which from Hong Kong/Macao/Taiwan; as of 2023 there's 12.000 people with permanent residency cards, which would be the expats that live and work there without nationalizing.

For comparsion, in the US as of 2023, nearly 48 million inhabitants (14.3% of total) are foreign-born (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...). Or the Netherlands, 4.4 million of its ~18 million inhabitants are from abroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Netherland...).

[Someone]

> For comparsion, in the US as of 2023, nearly 48 million inhabitants (14.3% of total) are foreign-born (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...). Or the Netherlands, 4.4 million of its ~18 million inhabitants are from abroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Netherland...).

The relative population size of those countries likely plays a role there. Split China into 4 countries, each with a population about equal to that of the USA, and I bet that number for China goes up significantly. Split it into 75 countries each the size of the Netherlands, and it would go up even further (some people moving home within Beijing would emigrate)

[John23832]

In total, China has roughly the same amount of immigrants as Ireland.

China is also objectively becoming more closed, not more open.

[thenthenthen]

100% becoming more closed. I have been trying to live in China for over 15 years… I finally managed the last 3 years, but its an forever struggle/gamble each year and each year the requirements get tougher (to get a work/residence permit). But yeah.. same goes for Europe

[coldtea]

The amount of skilled immigrants, researchers and engineers, matters for this comparison.

Not just the total amount including random people arriving at the coast.

[John23832]

No, total immigration matters. Human progress is always subject to the law large numbers.

Skilled polish engineers don't want to be the only polish person in the entire country. They want food, culture, community that reminds them of home. Even as they assimilate. That's why the American melting pot works well. It encourages enclaves that touch one another.

China is the opposite of that. You are hard hammered into the Han-ness, immediately. The language, the writing (which is a HUGE hurdle), the food, the way of life.

[losvedir]

> American melting pot

For what it's worth, this is the terminology I learned in school decades ago, but I don't think it's preferred anymore. My daughter has a book that calls it a "salad" instead (mixed but retaining their respective properties). I'm probably just old and crotchety but I like that way less.

[tialaramex]

Maybe. One thing to like about the "melting pot" analogy is that people from one culture exposed to a different dominant culture don't just retain their distinct character as if it was like the pieces of carrot in a salad, they are altered by this experience.

Chicken Tikka Masala didn't exist in India. And if you went to any British restaurant in 1900 they wouldn't serve this dish either. But in a British Indian restaurant today it's a staple because at some point (when and by who is debated) somebody in one of those restaurants was like "We should make a sauce to match local tastes" and it was created.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

I think the sweet spot is somewhere in between. You want enough of a melting pot that everyone gets plenty of exposure to the mainstream culture, but enough of a salad bowl that they can "take a break" and relax in the culture they are familiar with.

[coldtea]

>No, total immigration matters. Human progress is always subject to the law large numbers.

Human change can be subject to the law of large numbers, but nothing necessitates any particular change being towards progress.

>Skilled polish engineers don't want to be the only polish person in the entire country. They want food, culture, community that reminds them of home. Even as they assimilate. That's why the American melting pot works well. It encourages enclaves that touch one another.

The American melting pot works well (or worked well) because it was a nation made up from a blank canvas with no prior historically established dominant ethnicity or culture the kind other nations have had going for millenia.

And even at that was built on first disenfranchizing (to put it midly) the natives.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>The American melting pot works well (or worked well) because it was a nation made up from a blank canvas with no prior historically established dominant ethnicity

That's a bit of an oversimplification. They were British colonies for well over 100 years before declaring independence. The US Census website states:

"Not surprisingly, the first census reported that based on the names of heads of families, more than 90% of the White population in 1790 hailed from British stock: English (83.5%), Scottish (6.7%) and Irish (1.6%)."

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/12/boston-tea-pa...

>And even at that was built on first disenfranchizing (to put it midly) the natives.

Not many European colonial powers purchased land from natives the way the US did. For example, considering the Louisiana Purchase area, the US paid over 20x as much to natives living in that area as the US paid to France:

https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/201...

The US looks bad compared with a hypothetical (nonexistent) perfect country. But compared with European powers, it looks pretty good.

[John23832]

> Human change can be subject to the law of large numbers, but nothing necessitates any particular change being towards progress.

The same can be said of the "Great Man Theory" (or its adaptation by selecting immigrants based on some selected set of skills). You don't know that you're making society better, you're just selecting for a certain set of skills.

> The American melting pot works well (or worked well) because it was a nation made up from a blank canvas with no prior historically established dominant ethnicity or culture the kind other nations have had going for millenia.

This isn't true and it ignores the cultural differences amongst all of the original colonists (religious, language, political, and country of origin). That's before you even consider the stark differences in culture between the Native Americans and the European colonist.

[coldtea]

>This isn't true and it ignores the cultural differences amongst all of the original colonists (religious, language, political, and country of origin).

You got it backwards. This is BASED on the "cultural differences amongst all of the original colonists (religious, language, political, and country of origin)". That was what made the place have no "prior historically established dominant ethnicity or culture the kind other nations have had going for millenia".

>That's before you even consider the stark differences in culture between the Native Americans and the European colonist.

Those would be relevant for explaining the "American melting pot", if the latter wasn't established after erasing both their culture and, to a large degree, them.

[dataflow]

> Even as they assimilate. That's why the American melting pot works well.

I feel like a lot of Americans disagree on these nowadays though, no? Source: just look at recent campaigns and elections.

[hgoel]

In America there's a very sharp geographical distinction between which people oppose the melting pot and which see it as a core part of the American experience.

People from the big immigrant cities like NYC, SF, LA are more likely to hold the latter position.

[John23832]

People can feel how they want to feel, campaigns are run on feelings and not facts. Just because Trump says Haitians are eating cats and dogs doesn't make it true.

The Mormons of Utah, the Cajun/French of Louisiana, the Norwegians in the Dakotas, the Scotch Irish of everywhere, and the Amish are all (non-brown) examples of enclaves existing in the US. Nobody says that they are not assimilating well. We let them live their lives because personal liberty used to be a thing here.

[kevin_thibedeau]

A large number of those people are only a few generations removed from immigrant ancestors.

[Cthulhu_]

This is a hugely loaded statement, but that aside, China is not open to immigrants, that was the original thesis and that hasn't been disproven yet.

[coldtea]

That's fine, since nobody attempted to disprove that in the first place.

The idea that they're at a disadvantage to Ireland in that aspect because the latter has more numbers-wise was what was addressed.

They might very well not be open. Or they might be open in a selective and cautious way, which would be more prudent than merely being open for all.

[tasuki]

Likewise you haven't disproven my thesis that China is not closed to immigrants.

A good friend of mine (white European) was approached by a Chinese company and now works in China. I'll ask him how hard the paperwork was the next time I meet him, but I have a feeling his employer did the bulk of it.

[est31]

I've never been to China either. It's a huge country and it probably depends on where you are (hong kong probably friendlier than a random place in the mainland), but from what I heard/read:

* language issues. Many chinese don't speak english. Also a problem in many european countries (esp latin and slavic speaking ones), but at least the european languages are easier to learn. Compare this to Amsterdam, Goteborg, Berlin-Mitte or Kopenhagen where everyone speaks english.

* citizenship is one of the hardest to get in the world.

* I heard complaints about onboarding into the chinese app/digital ID ecosystem.

[thenthenthen]

On HK you can get permanent residence after I believe 5 years of working in there. That said… you will need a HIGH paying job to be able to achieve that. China mainland has a similar thing (‘green card’) but the requirements are kinda unobtainable for anyone below CEO of Starbucks level

[karagenit]

Tangent, but I’m really curious what country you’re from that uses the endonym for Göteborg but then also spells the capital of Denmark like Kopenhagen?

[est31]

I'm born and raised German, and above I mostly used the German ways of writing the town names (stripping the umlaut). Which as it turns out are not the same way you'd write it in english, interesting!

[tremon]

I'm pretty certain all languages do that. It's fairly common to bastardize/assimilate the names of important cities and/or trade hubs into the local language, but leave smaller names unchanged. That's why it's Milano/Milan, Venezia/Venice but Cagliari doesn't have an americanized name; that's why it's Moskva/Moscow but still Irkutsk; Warszawa/Warsaw, Gdansk/Danzig (in German), Katowice/Kattowitz (in German), etc.

[Zigurd]

Though it was years ago now, I did spend a couple of years frequently traveling to China for fairly long stays. I learned enough Mandarin to get by on my own. The "scariest" thing is realizing you might have to walk for an hour in a random direction to come across a landmark like a known metro station or a hotel where you can get a taxi and have the concierge translate your desired destination.

I was mostly in first tier cities, though I did travel through some more obscure places. The worst hostility I experienced was 5 foot tall grandma with sharp elbows determined to cut in line in front of the big stupid foreigner who is passive aggressively placing his wheelie bag in her way.

If you're curious, just go. The cities are amazing, the people are friendly. Even in Beijing you can easily avoid the tourist traps. While it's not as perfectly safe as Japan or Taiwan, I spent a lot of jet lag recovery time wandering the streets late at night. Once I spent half an hour in a taxi garage at 2am at some unknown location after a 45 minute misdirected taxi ride, arranging a ride to my intended hotel. I think that's about as lost as one can get and it was fine.

[WarmWash]

I think the concern is more along the lines of social integration than criminal hostility. Japan for instance has basically zero crime, and tons of tourists, but is notoriously impossible to ever become "Japanese" as an outsider.

[Zigurd]

I have to wonder who aspires to become Japanese or Chinese, or even the superficially plausible goal of me becoming German. It just wouldn't enter my mind.

As for social integration, the Chinese people I met seemed astonished and pleased that I could make any headway with the language or the food.