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To Get Rich Is Glorious: Difference between revisions
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Intensifying such changes, in [[The Nineties]], the Soviet Union fell, seeming to imply that more hardline communist nations were doomed, and Britain returned control of the rather capitalist Hong Kong to the mainland government, giving considerable influence to the course of greater Chinese affairs. By [[The New Tens]], things have taken off, big time. China is a massive economic powerhouse, considered to be a modern superpower, a space power, and generally, an amiable enough member of the international community. It's the second richest country in the world today (and steadily growing). Futuristic skylines rise from the cities, where a growing urban middle-class works and plays, just like their peers in Japan, Europe and America.
However, all is not fine and dandy. Even though the modern People's Republic is ultra-liberal by Maoist standards, it remains an authoritarian specter looming over the West. It's all the more troubling because those who lived through the [[Cold War]] were used to believing that communist dictatorships were doomed to fail. The end of the [[Cultural Revolution]] may have ceased the ''political'' attacks against Chinese heritage, but there's little anyone can do when gorgeous classical architecture is demolished to make way for freeways and apartment blocks needed to accommodate the growing urban population, or when the people dump traditional ways in favor of emulating the imported culture they pick up on TV. The [[Bicycle City]] is now full of cars, and hence, pollution and smog clouds. China has ten of the world's most polluted cities, and much of the inner countryside is under threat as natural environments are chopped down and turned into farmlands. There has been a growing [[Was It Really Worth It?]] sentiment among some of the Chinese citizenry who wonder if their society has lost something in their relentless pursuit for getting rich, especially in the aftermath of the [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15398332 Wang Yue] [[Apathetic Citizens|debacle]].
The government [[Banned in China|occasionally cracks down]] on the population again, disturbing to citizens of the "free world" who feel that it's their outsourced dollars that are allowing it to do so. With the current economic troubles in the West, many feel it's only a matter of time before [[China Takes Over the World]], for better or for worse. Though, at the moment, China still has a very bad wealth to population ratio (ranked 90th in the world, whereas the US is 6th) and it's economy is still well less than half the size of the [[United States]] or [[European Union]].
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