American here. I spent a couple of months in China and have Chinese friends, so here are a few things off the top of my head (take with a grain of salt and consider talking with Chinese people for a more authentic perspective):
- Reliable high-speed railway.
- Night markets -- lots of people socializing in the street into the early hours of the morning, enjoying street food, beer, etc.
- A sense of shared experience that's difficult to find in hyper-individualistic societies.
The Chinese perspective, AFAICT, is that individual liberties are worth trading for prosperity and so-called "economic" liberties. I'm told that this is something that's difficult to understand unless you've experienced the sort of progress that China has observed firsthand.
There's nothing I am more jealous of than the night markets you see around the world. I'm sure there are downsides to them, and what I see on various travel shows are mainly the upside, but man the idea of being able to step out at 1 or 2 in the morning and get a beer and some tasty food seems pretty awesome.
They are a bit unregulated, and people warned me not to eat there too often. For example, I was told that people have died of rat poison after eating rat meat (for rats apparently captured from the street). Another issue is that the vendors would sometimes reuse their cooking oil (so-called "gutter oil"). That said, I got the impression that it was OK to indulge on the occasion, and it is true that the atmosphere is really great.
Ironically, these night markets are disappearing a bit as prosperity goes up. For example, in Shenzhen, a lot more roads were built to accommodate the huge increase in the number of automobiles, and it seems that many of these markets have succumbed to the concrete jungle.
I think that's a false dilemma. The Nordic states have roughly the same personal liberties as the US, but the welfare system means people are much more financially secure.
I probably should have phrased it differently. I think the attitude in China is that, if somehow forced to choose between individual liberties and economic prosperity, many will choose the latter -- because they see it as enabling the former more capably than any sort of constitutional rights.
Btw I'm intentionally trying to stay take a neutral stance on this topic when discussing my understanding of attitudes in China. In fact my personal viewpoint is that economic prosperity without a strong and healthy respect for human rights will have bounded lifetime, but that's a different discussion. Regardless I think it's important to understand all the viewpoints.
- Reliable high-speed railway.
- Night markets -- lots of people socializing in the street into the early hours of the morning, enjoying street food, beer, etc.
- A sense of shared experience that's difficult to find in hyper-individualistic societies.
The Chinese perspective, AFAICT, is that individual liberties are worth trading for prosperity and so-called "economic" liberties. I'm told that this is something that's difficult to understand unless you've experienced the sort of progress that China has observed firsthand.