China Builds A Temporary Bridge In Seven Days: Baltimore Will Take Years To Rebuild Theirs

 

Seven days to build a temporary bridge, after the Lixinsha Bridge in Guangzhou was broken by a ship. The temporary bridge was opened this morning. pic.twitter.com/mUThVKNB9E

— Sharing Travel (@TripInChina) March 3, 2024

 From Ian Welsh:

I know I’m a broken record on this, but it’s important. China is dynamic. They’re higher tech in general than America or Europe and they have an engineering culture and a belief in technology which we have lost.

The ability to do this sort of thing just doesn’t exist outside of China, to the best of my knowledge. They’re not just better than everyone else, they’re miles better.

The Chinese have automated delivery vehicles all over the place. Robots in retail outlets and restaurants. The world’s largest high speed rail network.

The future doesn’t happen in America any more, it happens in China. According to people who visit, there’s also essentially no homelessness.

More than that China is willing to regulate: when delivery workers were abused, China stepped in and mandated better treatment. They also, publicly, built recreation and rest stations for them. During the pandemic they put up temporary hospitals in a week.

And more and more they design at home. This is similar to the switch from Britain to America in the 19th century: at first the Brits kept the design jobs, but increasingly they moved to the US. Of course in that case it was helped by the immigration of engineers and scientists, especially Scottish ones, but the Chinese are doing just fine, now, without a lot of Europeans and Americans. (Though there’s still an idealization of whites, if you’re an engineer or a scientist who wants a job in China and can speak Mandarin, you’ll have a job fast.)

It’s not our world any more. It’s the Chinese.