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CNN wrote that China has an employment problem because the jobless rate for 16 to 24 year olds in urban areas hit 21.3% last month, a record high.
When read uncritically this sounds pretty bad, and CNN relies on the fact that the readers will not analyze this statement further. Let’s take a look at how absurd the argument in the article actually is.
First, why are they counting from 16 years old. I realize that child labour is being normalized in US right now, but in civilized countries kids don’t work and they go to school. A serious unemployment statistic wouldn’t include children.
Second, the article presents this as an abnormal situation, but is it actually.What is the situation like in Europe for example?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/613670/youth-unemployment-rates-in-europe/
Turns out that it’s pretty comparable, yet we don’t see CNN writing sensational articles about a youth unemployment crisis in Europe.
To sum up, CNN created a story out of whole cloth that relies on the readers not being curious enough to read it critically.
This is what much of reporting in western media looks like. Yet, a lot of people genuinely think that the media they consume is factual and unbiased allowing it to shape their views of the world.
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"Mentally and psychologically, people in mainland China are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Fang Xu, a continuing lecturer at the University of California Berkeley.
“I believe the desire to spend quality [time] with your loved ones, the contemplation about the meaning of life or what is the most important things in life still lingers,” she said.
I’m sorry are we so traumatized that we think spending time with loved ones is bad now?
pretty incredible when you think about it from that angle isn’t it
I hope all the propaganda money is worth it for Fang Xu, I wonder if he’ll regret his actions when his American friends string him up and lynch him for being a “Chinese spy” despite decades of anti-China work.
When liberal tolerance runs out and “I’m one of the good ones” doesn’t work anymore, it depends on the level of derangement they have.
There was a Chinese liberal living in the US who was infected with Covid, but even til his deathbed he was still exclaiming shit like “where are the mass deaths? These hospital rooms are nice, clean and empty”. The room was empty because they literally threw him into a room there to die, they were already at capacity with all the other patients.
Other diaspora may be a bit more apathetic but in the back of their minds they must know that if anything does ever kick off, we will be shipped off to camps or killed in the streets much like they did to the Japanese back then.
When liberal tolerance runs out and “I’m one of the good ones” doesn’t work anymore
This always makes me wonder about people from USSR who emigrated to the west. Especially those who emigrated from modern Russian federation not for economic, but for political reasons. What do they think will happen? Do they think they’ll be exempt from the lynch mobs and purges, because of some magical “liberal democracy”? Do they honestly believe repressions “only happen in barbaric countries”?
I used to know this guy, went to the same school, one year my senior. Emigrated to USA awhile ago, got a coding job. Supposedly well paid too. When SMO hit, he was out there on the streets of Seattle with a “I’m ashamed to be Russian” banner. Doubly amusing (in a sad way) since the guy is of Jewish ancestry and was likely not even considered “Russian” while he lived here. Wonder if he’ll get a lightbulb moment when the mob comes
Most likely when the mobs come many might blame their ancestry, “if only I was born as as one of the civilised” or something like that
that’s pretty much the script of a bunch of colonist collaborators. They internalized the racism to the point of self hated and will rather go down lamenting that they are not born the “right” race.
“Growing legions”? C’mon man. They could have used “population” or “number” but they had to use “legion” to make them sound scary or bad. Word choice is important.
Asiatic hordes.
that picture too… look at this mass of Chinese people heads… the implication seems to be there’s just so many of them that there can’t possibly be enough resources for everyone… also maybe it feeds into that old line of “you’re going to have to compete with the Chinese for a job with you get older” – a line i heard more than a few times during high school
My main takeaways were, if this is true that: China values necessary caretaking jobs more than us; China is prosperous enough regular people can afford to let their children not work in between studying; and there might be enough labor productivity to start decreasing labor hours while decreasing unemployment on their path toward socialism.
I like how the only stat they throw, as you said, is basically a made up problem, but the rest of the article is just a clear attack piece on kids that “don’t want to work”. Even if you think they are being lazy, cherry picking like this can go either way. It’s anecdotal, but how many articles talk about how lazy kids are (Only every generation for the last 100+ years).
And in the 3ns, isn’t it a good thing kids don’t work? They can get an education, spend time with family, you know, live life while they are young. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Right, like when you parse all that bullshit, what the article really says is that Chinese families are financially secure enough to allow kids to take time to figure out what they want to do, get higher education, etc. instead of being rushed to work. They try to present it like some ominous thing, but it’s clearly the opposite in practice.
Decades ago when not everyone could afford to send their kids to study, many would drop out early to work and support their family.
Nowadays there are so many university students as more families can afford to, the competition for jobs amongst them is fierce.
So by this article’s standards, being poor and destitute, and working multiple low wage jobs to scrape by is the way to go. Of course if this were still the situation we’d get an article on how education is only a privelege for the elite and the poor plebs have to scrape away in a failed gommie state.
Basically this quote from Parenti
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
First, why are they counting from 16 years old.
How else would reactionary CNN make it a China Bad article?
I was about to say, what a weird statistic. First including children, second including young people at student ages. Now, in the capitalist hellhole system, working a job to afford being able to study is seen as normal. I would find it a great step forward if we were to pay young people to develop themselves at that age, getting education etc. without having to worry about paying the bills. A higher percentage of unemployment at these ages can be beneficial if things like education or self development are being promoted, instead of doing minimum wage labor.
But, like you said, people read a statistic, don’t think any further than ‘China bad, statistic bad’ and call it a day.
The unemployment statistic is not counting children who are students, that itself is a misrepresentation.
Full time students are excluded from unemployment metrics. This is counting people 16 and up who are not in school or college.
That makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, there’s reason enough to critically look at a 21% unemployment rate and if things are going wrong in this specific age group.
That being said, it is indeed similar in Western European countries for all kind of reasons. It’s just the problematic framing of CNN that makes people go ‘China bad, youth lazy’ once again.
Unemployment is counted from 16, but full time students are not counted in unemployment statistics, both high school and college. No unemployment statistic is counting 17 year old high school students.
That seems reasonable to do.
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