China: Power and Prosperity

China: Power and Prosperity

2019, Economics  -   14 Comments
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Ratings: 6.63/10 from 99 users.

From PBS NewsHour comes China: Power and Prosperity, an immersive feature-length exploration of the country's internal progress and growing sphere of power and influence across the globe.

Featuring insights from more than 70 interview subjects, the film examines the values promoted by President Xi Jinping, and how his embrace of Communist ideals is shaping the future of the country. Do his efforts represent a prosperous diagnosis for the Chinese people, or a compromised system that squanders personal freedoms?

In some parts of the country, the president enjoys a reputation as a leader of near mythic status. Evidence of the "cult of Xi" can be seen across the countryside. Billboards and films are produced in his honor and school curriculums are designed to promote his infallibility. Meanwhile, in cities like Hong Kong, protestors have taken to the streets to oppose the president's oppressive power plays and abolishment of essential human rights. They cite his extensive use of prisoner camps, surveillance cameras and other paranoia-based abuses of power.

With the Belt and Road initiative, the most expensive infrastructure development plan in history, Jinping has promised a lucrative opening to the rest of the world that will positively impact all Chinese people. Critics view it as a global beltway to unparalleled corruption.

The film also delves into China's technology stronghold, particularly as it relates to the trade wars being waged by American President Donald Trump. The filmmakers charge that China has stolen many of the most consequential products and technologies designed by the U.S. and adopted them as their own, including high-quality cameras, tennis shoes, and military hardware.

Almost every investigative segment in the film reveals the uneasy balance between the power and prosperity of its title. The country is rightfully pushing for electric cars on its roads, but greatly restricts the driving privileges of millions by distributing license plates only to select few through a lottery system. Surveillance companies claim their efforts are creating a safer environment for all, but others insist they are indulging in nefarious intelligence gathering.

China: Power and Prosperity is a comprehensive look at many aspects of modern Chinese life and industry, and how they impact the country's identity in the remainder of the world.

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cod fish
cod fish
3 years ago

Britain flooded china with opium to make drug addicts out of the chinese, so that Britain and her european thief friends could go on raping China until the boxer rebellion known as
the Yihequan ("Righteous and Harmonious Fists") of 1899 put an end to it.
the chinese dumped the opium (cannon ball shaped chunks of opium) in wooden
crates into the harbor. Then in retaliation Great Britain annexed Hong Kong and stole approximately $10 billion of silver (at 2020 silver prices) from china to be paid as indemnity over the course of the next 39 years to the eight european nations involved. India was forbiden from making their own textiles of higher quality than the British empire's to give their own the lion's share of the textile market, guess where the opium came from; That's right, India, wich was by then a british colony. In the mean time in US business "was a boomming" thanks to the euphemism known as the slave trade (really a kidnaping ring) and the exterminaton of the first nations the US was by the turn of the century one of the richest counties on earth.
In 1895 Japan invades and annexed ilha Formosa (beautiful island) todays Taiwan.In 1937 Japan invades mainland China.
History does not lie, it tells us about the past and points towards the future which is really a work in progress.
Welcome to that future!

Bobo
Bobo
3 years ago

A documentary is not have enough time to explain everything in a good depth, but that's really showed US the China Communist Party is an evil and cancer of the modern society.
Especially start from the 2nd term of Xi, the CCP is turning backwards to the Mao's age, stay away from Deng's Open and reform, instead enforce its dictatorship, and removed the Term limit. That's the tipping point that Xi accelerated the backwards process. The people in China who express different opinions , pursuing personal right against the Party or Government, all got Suppressed badly, lots of them even erased silently.

And not mention this year, what the CCP done with the Wuhan Virus spreading across the world, and HongKong, XInjiang, and Inner Mongolia etc.

And all the Chinese Medias are very strictly controlled by the Central Government, and top level propaganda.
US's level of media control is way too simple and naive compare to China's one. The one who thinks Chinese Media is cool, I recommend you go thru a full course, and practise your right of Free Speech there for the good of the suppressed and silenced people.

Andrew
Andrew
3 years ago

Excellent documentary though to short to dive deep enough. The US and China are two large countries with very different political systems. The US can never work equally with China since the judiciary, government, business and press are all beholden to the party. The one and only party. The party's timetable is not on a two year election cycle giving it planning and negotiating capacity. What the US needs to do is treat China as a competitor, not an enemy, but still limit dependency and out compete where we can.

krishna
krishna
3 years ago

This video is fully prejudiced! Selective blindness! Support violenc!

Cubicle32
Cubicle32
3 years ago

Pence is lying about the...about everything that comes out of his mouth. Also, how are Chinese bribes any different than lobbyists' bribes with Congress? Or even with Trump's presidential bribes. The present administration is about as corrupt as any president before. Maybe Nixon's VP, Spiro Agnew, is a close contender to Da Trump's corruption.

iwanttobreakfree
iwanttobreakfree
3 years ago

Common guys a publicly (i.e. partially American government) funded network released a documentary trashing the Chinese government on how the Chinese government brainwashes its people through propaganda and false messages. That's too much irony!!!! The movie was an endless list of examples of the most creepy things China does but the examples were totally cherry picked and there was nearly nothing positive said about China. How can you claim that to be a fair approach to doing a documentary called power and prosperity? where was the mention of the massive poverty alleviation or the life saving technology being developed in China? What a totally dishonest piece of reporting. Come on do better PBS!!!

nirvana
nirvana
3 years ago

i feel that the beginning of the documentary struck me as a very similar platform to what Trump has been doing in the U.S.- branding wise...perhaps not as extreme ( yet) as presented here but there are undertones. It amazed me then how it transitioned into people talking about how difficult Trump is being regarding trade issues. Yeah, it does seem a bit biased , but mostly just scary as far as how power can spiral quickly....wow..changing the laws regarding presidential terms? yikes!

Serene
Serene
3 years ago

Some good points raised but generally very biased representation; didn't manage to finish the whole documentary due to the hypocrisy.

Voluntarist
Voluntarist
4 years ago

Non-violent resistance by withdrawal of political, economic, and moral support for China is enough to win freedom. Violence will lose friends and weaken the protestors goal of local governance.

RG
RG
4 years ago

Propaganda arm of USA is at work again, spreading one sided negative information about its rivals.