this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Many Chinese are venting their frustration at the slowing economy and the weak stock market in an unconventional place: the social media account of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

A post on Friday on protecting wild giraffes by the U.S. embassy on Weibo, a Chinese platform similar to X, has attracted 130,000 comments and 15,000 reposts as of Sunday, many of them unrelated to wildlife conservation.

"Could you spare us some missiles to bomb away the Shanghai Stock Exchange?" one user wrote in an repost of the article.

The Weibo account of the U.S. embassy in China "has become the Wailing Wall of Chinese retail equity investors", another user wrote.

The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 7 months ago (3 children)

China built an economy that's like 50% based on bullshitting to your superiors about how much infrastructure you built.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They also overbuilt infrastructure and entire housing complexes sit empty. So is it both?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Housing which is shit and often unsuitable for habitation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu-dreg_project

And to be clear, they've built a lot of infrastructure, but it's often underbuilt. Eg. they'll build huge projects or even residential districts, but save money by not ensuring there's sufficient drainage. Result: fancy stadium, looks better than many a western stadium, cost less to build, fancier, looks higher quality, what you see may even be better quality, built in record time, but when it rains everyone's walking in poo water.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Southern and central China are drowning. Since June 18, the regions have suffered their worst bout of flooding in a decade, furthered by a category 4 typhoon that hit the mainland after sweeping through Taiwan Friday morning, local time.

[–] pelespirit 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Your article is for Taiwan and they had a typhoon come through. Do you have anything for mainland China?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

furthered by a category 4 typhoon that hit the mainland after sweeping through Taiwan

That article is about mainland China. It just says that the typhoon hit Taiwan first. However it is still about a typhoon, and while infrastructure should be built to handle the worst storms that come through it's definitely less shocking when it fails to that than to regular rain

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Both articles that parent post linked to are about mainland China.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

So much both

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

At a micro level, theres a lot of low quality products. Things that look okay on their face, but fall apart with any minor inspection.

I wonder if that's deep down the problem for China, beyond products.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

It's what happens when you build a culture around "saving face" rather than competence. And then kill 10% of the population, targeting the productive and educated.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

the Chinese stock market has LOST 13% of its value over the past 10-11 years, while the US market has doubled.. more context

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Not that it is a net good thing, as that has done next to nothing for the general population. The US way has the manipulation coming from the inside, the Chinese way has it coming from government entities. Both are damaging. Both are not good for the most vulnerable. I feel the US way is a bit more correctable without extreme upheaval, though.