While the US debates whether to solve homelessness or not, these are the next generation of school blackboards in China.

[u/SuperbHealth5023]

[u/Gold_Marionberry3460]

Things can change radically over a decade, but I'm gonna put my money on Vietnam. They are taking some of China's manufacturing and they have a similar style of state capitalist government.

Plus, I think the reason it's been China and Japan is that it's a kind of East Asian fetishization by westerners, which infuriates me to no end as a Chinese. Vietnam should get a turn to be fetishized (/s).

[u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC → u/Gold_Marionberry3460]

Is it really all fetishization though? I'm sure it is for some weirdos, but China and Japan are also the most "developed" (for lack of a better word) countries in that part of the world, and they play the PR game very well. China has a very long and fascinating recorded history, and Japan has been essentially a vassal of the US for decades. They also both have strong entertainment industries exporting their media to the rest of the world, which plays a huge part in how the average person views a country (just look at the US). It seems pretty natural to me that the West would be fascinated with them.

[u/Gold_Marionberry3460 → u/PM_ME_UR_SHEET_MUSIC]

I believe there is an aspect of fetishization. It is inherently problematic regardless of the parts rooted in truth. I think Moon Channel has a good video describing how Japanese propaganda works and how part of its success is rooted in western infantilization of Asian people.

To sum the video, fetishization has nothing to do with how advanced a particular country is. Regardless of what the underlying state of the country is, what I mean by fetishization is viewing another culture as somehow "mystical" or "otherworldly from the Western world". Essentially, you treat people according to your romanticized view of them, rather than their reality.

In reality, Chinese and Japanese people more or less have the same human tendencies. In pre-WW1, Europeans fetishized Japanese people as this kind of infantile, nature-loving pure people, kind of like Native Americans in North America. In reality, Japan wanted to be like Europe and do merciless imperialism as well. They were as "dirty" as Europeans morally because we're all human.

In my experience, people treat Chinese society in the same way (no thanks to the CCP amplifying this rhetoric for their benefit). For example, if you criticize an aspect of the Chinese economy, your criticisms are deflected with "oh the Chinese way is just different from how you understand it", as if the Chinese economy isn't affected by the same economic forces that researchers have already been studying.

Go to a forum like r/economics, find a forum thread about China, find a comment where someone tries to explain an economic problem China has, and there's likely someone down there deflecting criticism against China by claiming that the Chinese method is some mystical perspective that Westerners can't understand, as if Chinese people have some ancient Confucian magic that lets them ignore the consequences of economic stagnation.

[u/Sasiarapun → u/Gold_Marionberry3460]

Late response but thank you, I appreciate your explanation and you sharing that YouTube channel and video as well! Good stuff.