8 of China's Top 9 Govt. Officials Are Engineers 403
kkleiner writes "Did you know that the president of China is a scientist? President Hu Jintao was trained as a hydraulic engineer. Likewise his Premier, Wen Jiabao, is a geomechanical engineer. In fact, 8 out of China's top 9 government officials are scientists or engineers."
And most western politicians (Score:2, Interesting)
Chinas economy is growing without having to steal oil
Americas economy is falling even after stealing oil.
i see a pattern.
Re:Slavery (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, the "no regulation" that leads to sweatshops and companies like Foxconn having their employees commit suicide due to shitty working conditions.
People daily propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
Firstly these are not scientists, they are politicians with engineering degrees.
Secondly, they are also all second and third generation Communist Party Members, their parents were all big CCP players, what makes you think they had to do any work to get their qualifications? Every one of them was virtually guaranteed to get a degree no matter what their ability.
Third, even if they did their work, have you even been to any Chinese universities? All but the very top two are shockingly terrible, and I teach at a Chinese university, the standard here is.....shocking, cheating is so rife that it makes nearly all tests worthless it doesnt even compare to the crappest community college back home.
Fourth, have any of these people actually worked as engineers or have they been politicians all their life?
Fifth, what makes you think an engineer would be better at running a country than anyone else?
This smells like something put out by the people daily.
Re:Slavery (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I'm getting ready to accept a three year assignment in China. My tax rate rate (due to my income) will be 50%. Fortunately for me my company equalizes all of my taxes (a burdensome process in itself, described below), so I won't see the effects, but that's versus a net rate of only 26% (federal only) after my itemized deductions.
Tax equalization (I've been through this before when on assignment in Mexico): I owe 50% to the host country, and (say) 26% to my home country (only over about 90,000 when not in the USA). But because my company pays my foreign taxes, the USA regards that as income to me. So the company pays that back, which both China and the USA recognize as income to me. So that tax that, too. So the company pays that back, too, which is taxed by both countries.
In effect, I come out okay, the Chinese take well, well over 50% of my true, earned income, and the fact that the United States gets anything is just stealing from my company (every other modern country in the world doesn't tax overseas personal income).
Of course we all know the Chinese are communist in name, and in order to continue professing such they're socially obligated to tax us rich (compared to their workers) bastards at exploitative rates.
Re:Slavery (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, the article you quote is written by a liberal arts major like yourself, and, like you, lacks basic understanding of statistics.
You can't really compare the average Chinese (who still lives in extreme poverty, is lacking education and prospects for the future) to the person, who is allowed to live in Shenzhen (where Foxconn's main facility is located). Shenzhen's population is very far from a representative sample of the Chinese population. People there are much, much better educated (1/5 of China's PhDs work there), paid substantially more than elsewhere and, generally, have much better lives than the norm in China.
But don't let your ignorance stop you from spewing the cliches that you hear on the conservative radio broadcasts while you drive to your cleaning job.
Re:In the US 8 out of 9 top government are lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not immediately clear why those things should have to go together. Maybe because analytical, honest people tell us things we don't want to hear? Carter was drummed out of office for telling us energy was finite, and that we needed to buckle down and tighten our belts a bit for a while. He got railroaded by an actor who told everybody whatever they wanted to hear and put us firmly on the path of financial irresponsibility.
Different expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen this story before, and my response is the same now as then: this is because of different expectations of the nations' leaders.
The Chinese government has full control over everything in its borders: laws, people, economic output. It's leaders can direct the entire nation however they see fit. That means the best leaders have to be able to cope with the things they can't control: the immutable limits of physics and economics. The job of any engineer (which, I might add, is not the same as scientist) is to solve problems in the best way possible with available tools under the available constraints. The Chinese toolbox is wide open, so the constraints are all physical, and an engineer's knowledge is directly applicable.
In the U.S., the people have chosen a different route: the government does what we specifically tell them they can. The constraints are primarily legal, because the government (relatively speaking) is allowed to do very little. A lawyer's ability to navigate the mine field of who is likely to be affected, who is likely to sue, and what is likely to be shot down in court is more useful to the high-level bureaucrat. Actual problems of a sort an engineer or other knowledge worker would face are the responsibility of others. There jobs are derived from a very small part of the very small leeway we give the government. (This abundance of lawyers in government is also why the American people put a premium on military experience, since it's the government department most steeped in harsh, broad-focus, real-world logistics.)
Both of these can be compared to, say, France, where the government is the nexus of the economic, legal, and even social circles. It controls industry more directly at times than the U.S. government, so businessman represent a larger share of leadership (about a third). The legal issues are similar to the U.S., but with the government fundamentally allowed more direct intervention. Hence lawyers and former lower-level bureaucrats each take about another third of the leadership roles.
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
An ex work mate of mine was a Chinese nationalist, he expressed his opinions on these matters.
He said china considers the Tibetan leaders to be exploiting its people, the tibetan people didnt have much, and they should have to give it to their leaders. China was trying to 'liberate' the people of tibet. Its the same excuse the US used to to invade iraq.
Falung-Gong is considered to be a font for the pro-democracy movement. Remember how the US persecuted communists and anyone associated with them, well, same thing.
Of course two wrongs dont make a right, and these reasons probably justify such actions in the eyes of most westerners, but its wise to at least consider the opinion of the other side rather than just listen to the biased media of one side.
Re:Slavery (Score:5, Interesting)