China vs. America: Which Country is More Developed?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the comparative development of China and America, exploring various dimensions such as economic growth, human rights, environmental issues, and technological advancements. Participants express differing views on what constitutes "development" and how each country measures up in various aspects.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants question the definition of "developed," suggesting it typically refers to economic development.
  • Others argue that while the USA is generally considered developed, China is still classified as developing due to issues like poverty and industrialization.
  • Concerns are raised about China's environmental challenges, including pollution and food safety, which some believe could undermine its competitive advantage.
  • Some participants note that China's rapid development mirrors that of the USA but emphasize that it still has significant gaps to close.
  • There are claims that America's development is more transparent compared to China's, which is perceived as less open due to government restrictions.
  • Participants express differing views on the trajectory of both countries, with some suggesting that America is on a "descending" path while China is "rising." Others challenge this notion based on various economic indicators.
  • Discussions include the historical context of America's resilience and innovation, contrasting it with China's current developmental strategies.
  • Some participants highlight the importance of free markets and free thinking in America's development, while others caution about the potential consequences of China's current practices.
  • There is a debate over the origins of the internet, with some asserting American claims while others question them, indicating a lack of consensus on historical contributions.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on which country is more developed, with multiple competing views remaining on the definitions and implications of development. The discussion reflects a range of opinions on the trajectories of both nations.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty regarding the long-term implications of current economic cycles and the definitions of development, indicating that the discussion is influenced by varying perspectives on economic indicators and historical context.

Which is more developed country?

  • China

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • America

    Votes: 24 85.7%
  • confused

    Votes: 3 10.7%

  • Total voters
    28
infomax
Hi freinds i am not from any of the above countries
but I have always wondered which one of them is developed(which answer I have not got so far)
I know its not good to strive for knowing so but I couldnot stop from doing that.
Thanks in advance
 
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If you mean USA, they indeed can not compete with China in terms of human right violations.
 
You're going to have to define what you mean by "developed."
 
China has developed a larger area..
 
China has the tallest building

It's likely that we can enjoy China's scenic spots esp its longest river soon.

I'm loving it!
 
"Developed" with no other context given typically means economically developed. China is typically considered a "developing" country due to its high poverty and incomplete industrialization while the USA is "developed".
 
I'd say that China has a long way to go on issues of pollution, food and product safety, and fair trade practices.

One personal source of frustration for me is that American companies are asked to compete with Chinese companies that don't have to answer to the USDA, or OSHA, or the EPA. By the same token, as futurist Alvin Toffler noted, China will eventually have to pay a huge price for disastrously polluted rivers, ground water, land, air, and contaminated food. One might say that while the US has been living on credit from China and other countries, China is living on borrowed time. They will be forced to address these issues as we were, and they will lose the tremendous competitive advantage that they now enjoy.
 
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lisab said:
You're going to have to define what you mean by "developed."

lets become specific, develop incase of economy
 
I really lack of economic Knowledge and I asked this because its favourite iscussion in our college breaks after " relativity'
 
  • #10
China's development is surprisingly like that of USA's, except they are moving at such a rapid pace. Still, I read (can't recall where, I think is was The Atlantic magazine, which is quite left-of-center yet still authentic journalism most of the time; I mean its facts are reliable, but they are without question interpreting them through blue-tinted goggles--still its nothing compared with the NewsCorp treatment of "facts". In The Atlantic, you wouldn't be reading an article that lambasts "Conservatives" for every bad thing the way NewsCorp outlets dribble the word "Liberal"...)...I forgot what I was saying...

Right, I read that ALL of China, put together, still does not use as much gasoline as the state of California. So China has a way to go before they "out-America" the Americans! Now, let's all go burn raw garbage for heat! We don't want China to out-do us as polluters, do we?
 
  • #11
And mostly I find the chinese scientific field is tending to achieve high except Space programmes which are very new project to them while America is father in father of all in space programmes
 
  • #12
Of course America now is more developed than china . But the direction of the arrow reefers to America now in a journey of 'descending' , and china now in a journey of 'rising'.
 
  • #13
I am sorry to state ,please I beg sorry if it hurts
The reality is also that America's development is open at the media level
And the china most work inside without showing outside much to the world
 
  • #14
infomax said:
I am sorry to state ,please I beg sorry if it hurts
The reality is also that America's development is open at the media level
And the china most work inside without showing outside much to the world

That's because of their own doing...it's the Chinese government that blocks transparency, leaving the rest of the world wondering what it is they need to hide.

I agree with others that China is still developing, and yes, it seems they have not bothered to take a lesson from other developed countries to avoid making the same mistakes. China undoubtedly has something akin to the US's superfund clean-up sites in their future, which is very unfortunate since the technology and knowledge to prevent it exists.
 
  • #15
Ordinarily, I would say that the US has it all over China. However, you never know where my wife may be lurking about. But you have to admit, we have one thing they don't. Chinatown.
 
  • #16
Moonbear said:
That's because of their own doing...it's the Chinese government that blocks transparency, leaving the rest of the world wondering what it is they need to hide.

I agree with others that China is still developing, and yes, it seems they have not bothered to take a lesson from other developed countries to avoid making the same mistakes. China undoubtedly has something akin to the US's superfund clean-up sites in their future, which is very unfortunate since the technology and knowledge to prevent it exists.

It's kind of difficult for a country trying to become developped to start funding such projects. Yes they are every important, but the USA has never had such funding in the past... even for a large part when they actually were developped.

I think China should just play it safe so they won't need such a fund in the future. Clearly, they are not choosing that route. We can't criticize too much since the US and Canada were much worse I bet.
 
  • #17
jimmysnyder said:
Ordinarily, I would say that the US has it all over China. However, you never know where my wife may be lurking about. But you have to admit, we have one thing they don't. Chinatown.

They have a very nice "Englandtown" (Hong Kong).
 
  • #18
mohd_adam said:
Of course America now is more developed than china . But the direction of the arrow reefers to America now in a journey of 'descending' , and china now in a journey of 'rising'.

People have been trying to write-off the US since we first came to be. In the beginning, the Brits thought us to be barbarians who needed a King. You can probably still find Brits who refer to us as "the colonies". Sixty years ago, the Soviet said that they would bury us. Of course the Soviet doesn't exist anymore. Back in the 1970s, it was going to be Japan. Then it was going to be India. Now it is supposed to be China.

What people consistently fail to understand is America's phenomenal ability to renew itself. It is an essential aspect of our culture - our free-thinking and innovative approach to problems, and free markets.

I would add special emphasis to the notion of "free thinking". One might also note that in a global economy, we will all rise and fall together. as we have seen.
 
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  • #19
Note for example that the US claims credit for the transistor, the integrated circuit, the PC [which was invented in a garage near my home back then], both the DOS and Windows operating systems, and the internet.
 
  • #20
The internet? I find nothing to support the internet was invented by the US. It claims to have as you put it, but I wasn't sure if you supported it or not so I just thought I would question it. According to everything I know and have found the internet could appear anywhere in the world where two computer networks are connected. Nobody truly knows where this first occurred officially.

Don't know how trustworthy this link is, but the response from a quick google gives links very similar to this.
http://www.nethistory.info/History of the Internet/origins.html
 
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  • #21
mohd_adam said:
Of course America now is more developed than china . But the direction of the arrow reefers to America now in a journey of 'descending' ...
Could you clarify what you mean by that? Based on economic growth, poverty, standard of living, etc., that certainly is not true, unless you look at the current economic cycle (ie, the past year) only. Or are you making the prediction that the current recession is the beginning of a long term trend?
 
  • #22
JasonRox said:
I think China should just play it safe so they won't need such a fund in the future. Clearly, they are not choosing that route. We can't criticize too much since the US and Canada were much worse I bet.
It's tough to know just how bad it is in China since it is a closed society, but the thing that we do hear a lot about - air pollution - far exceeds the worst we've ever had here. England had some really awful air pollution that was based largely on the weather not clearing it out, but nevertheless, air pollution laws cleared that up. But the worst LA air pollution of a decade ago (before the clean air act started to clean it up) never compared to what dozens of cities in China see on a normal basis. No one ever shoveled soot off the sidewalks in LA with a snowshovel.

If China is anything like the USSR, though, their pollution situation in general (the parts we don't know about yet) likely vastly exceeds the worst the US or Canada ever had.
 
  • #23
russ_watters said:
It's tough to know just how bad it is in China since it is a closed society, but the thing that we do hear a lot about - air pollution - far exceeds the worst we've ever had here. England had some really awful air pollution that was based largely on the weather not clearing it out, but nevertheless, air pollution laws cleared that up. But the worst LA air pollution of a decade ago (before the clean air act started to clean it up) never compared to what dozens of cities in China see on a normal basis. No one ever shoveled soot off the sidewalks in LA with a snowshovel.

If China is anything like the USSR, though, their pollution situation in general (the parts we don't know about yet) likely vastly exceeds the worst the US or Canada ever had.

Eventually I'm sure China will pass a clean air act just like England and LA did. What leads us to believe they won't?

China I'm sure has bad air pollution. Their population also far exceeds that of US and Canada combined. It might even have better air if we calculate per capita.

It's really hard to judge. I just don't think it's right that we jump the gun and make demands on a developping country. Considering we are still much more wasteful I'm sure.

Just by looking at the behaviour of my Chinese friends... I can tell they don't waste half as much as Canadian citizens.
 
  • #24
JasonRox said:
Eventually I'm sure China will pass a clean air act just like England and LA did. What leads us to believe they won't?

China I'm sure has bad air pollution. Their population also far exceeds that of US and Canada combined. It might even have better air if we calculate per capita.

It's really hard to judge. I just don't it's right that we jump the gun and make demands on a developping country.

Given the current demands on the UK, US and many other countries regarding emissions and global warming, why should China be any different? I read somewhere once they were having to build 2 coal fired power stations a week to keep up with demand.

Interesting however, read this article, it points out that there are 2 power plants a week, but also that their per person emissions are less than a 'rich' country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6769743.stm

It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more than the average Chinese person.
 
  • #25
jarednjames said:
The internet? I find nothing to support the internet was invented by the US. It claims to have as you put it, but I wasn't sure if you supported it or not so I just thought I would question it. According to everything I know and have found the internet could appear anywhere in the world where two computer networks are connected. Nobody truly knows where this first occurred officially.
"The Internet" isn't a single invention, so there are a lot of individual pieces to the puzzle, but the history is quite well documented and the vast majority of the inventions/innovations that led to it came from the US. In particular, the concept of a network of computer networks was a major project of the US defense department and the internet grew from that concept.
Don't know how trustworthy this link is, but the response from a quick google gives links very similar to this.
http://www.nethistory.info/History of the Internet/origins.html
That link reads like it is designed specifically to debunk the idea that the US originated the the internet, not like a site designed to discuss the origin of the internet. A key quote:
We are almost always told that the Internet began solely in America. This is not really true.
No, no one educated says that. Anyone with knowledge of the subject knows that at least some of the enabling technologies and research came from overseas. The point of using the absolute is to set up an easy strawman to knock down. But regardless of that motivation, the US has the dominant involvement in all of their "theories" about the origin of the internet ("theories" is in quotes because this isn't something you can theorize on: it is a simple matter of historical facts).

Furthermore, the ARPANET formed the physical basis for what became the internet. So all research that made contributions to the development of the internet eventually were implimented into this US creation and its offspring.

Since it says it is based largely on the PBS documentary Nerds 2.0.1, why not go to the source and get the whole picture? Here it is:
http://www.pbs.org/opb/nerds2.0.1/timeline/
 
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  • #26
JasonRox said:
Eventually I'm sure China will pass a clean air act just like England and LA did. What leads us to believe they won't?
"I speculate that in the future, a law will be passed" isn't exactly compelling evidence to support your assertion that the US and Canada are much worse. :-p At best, it's irrelevant...

Just by looking at the behaviour of my Chinese friends... I can tell they don't waste half as much as Canadian citizens.
Setting aside the fact I have no reason to trust your judgement on this matter -- are you seriously trying to extrapolate the behavior of China from a biased sample of two citizens living in an entirely different country?
 
  • #27
JasonRox said:
Eventually I'm sure China will pass a clean air act just like England and LA did. What leads us to believe they won't?
They are communist.
China I'm sure has bad air pollution. Their population also far exceeds that of US and Canada combined. It might even have better air if we calculate per capita.
I'm not sure what the point of a per capit air pollution calculation would be - it doesn't make it any easier to breathe in China if you calculate their air pollution to be lower because the population density is higher.
 
  • #28
jarednjames said:
Given the current demands on the UK, US and many other countries regarding emissions and global warming, why should China be any different? I read somewhere once they were having to build 2 coal fired power stations a week to keep up with demand.
You answered your own question: China is the largest producer of CO2 and their production growth is accelerating while the production growth of the US, UK and most other developed nations is slowing.
Interesting however, read this article, it points out that there are 2 power plants a week, but also that their per person emissions are less than a 'rich' country.
If we are to believe that global warming is real and needs to be stopped, that argument cannot be accepted. See the ozone hole for how it must work: China was given access to technology, but had to phase out CFCs just like everyone else.
 
  • #29
Hurkyl said:
"I speculate that in the future, a law will be passed" isn't exactly compelling evidence to support your assertion that the US and Canada are much worse. :-p At best, it's irrelevant...


Setting aside the fact I have no reason to trust your judgement on this matter -- are you seriously trying to extrapolate the behavior of China from a biased sample of two citizens living in an entirely different country?

Who said sample is only two citizens?

Seriously, Canadians are Americans are extremely wasteful. Even in a wasteful country, my Chinese friends waste very little.
 
  • #30
Hi Jason,
JasonRox said:
my Chinese friends
if I am not mistaken, all your chineese friends come from a biased sample of individuals who live in Canada and (I guess) pursue studies at the University level. I think you have not taken the full measure of Hurkyl's words.
 

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