this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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https://www.economist.com/china/2025/01/16/an-initiative-so-feared-that-china-has-stopped-saying-its-name

agony-mescaline

Article text

An initiative so feared that China has stopped saying its name

The Economist

China | The Voldemort of economic plans

“Made in China 2025” has been a success, but at what cost?

LIKE LORD VOLDEMORT from Harry Potter, “Made in China 2025” is an initiative which induces so much fear and loathing abroad that Chinese officials dare not speak its name. The plan, introduced a decade ago, called for pouring money and resources into dozens of industries. The goal was to turn China into a green and innovative “manufacturing power”, one that relied less on labour and Western supply chains, and more on automation and new home-grown technologies. This was Xi Jinping’s vision for the Chinese economy.

[PAYWALL]

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[–] stigsbandit34z@hexbear.net 21 points 6 hours ago

The Voldemort of economic plans

Holy shit lmao get the fuck outta here

[–] HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 5 hours ago

I'm so sick of these articles. They never deliver. The cost is $14.99, plus shipping ubless you spend $45. Why can't their expert researchers find it out thenselves?

Don't even get me started on "how many roads must a man walk down?"

[–] BoxedFenders@hexbear.net 22 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

This reads like something that was generated by an AI trained solely on satirical Hexbear posts.

[–] sooper_dooper_roofer@hexbear.net 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

You've heard buttery males
now introducing

butta wocus

[–] newacctidk@hexbear.net 24 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 18 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Reactionaries really are children. It should have been obvious ever since they decided human extinction from climate change is worth it for the treats.

[–] William_Nilliam@hexbear.net 20 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

susie-laugh haaaa couldn't even get past the first sentence

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 12 points 7 hours ago

Millenials can't get past the first sentence without doing a harry potterism.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 12 points 7 hours ago

Okay who got a job churning out China bad articles at the economist as a bit?

[–] KoboldKomrade@hexbear.net 11 points 7 hours ago

When America pushes to buy "Made in America" and from "American" companies, its patriotic.

When China (or literally anyone else), its foreign nationalists trying to undermine our economic power.

(Please ignore examples like NAFTA allowing GM/Ford to make 99% of a car in Mexico and shipping it for assembly in the US so we can put a flag sticker on it. And ignore us being so treat brained that 80%+ of every product I've ever seen a tag on, that isn't food, is NOT made in America and that's ok until it suddenly isn't. And ignore that we've so thoroughly destroyed domestic manufacturing that its impossible for USA consumers to even try to willingly buy American.)

[–] Utter_Karate@hexbear.net 25 points 8 hours ago

A lesser lib would have put "green and innovative" in quotation marks because they believe China is not actually green and innovative. Putting "manufacturing power" in quotation marks is a level of liberalism that is physically unsafe for the human brain.

[–] Future_Honkey@hexbear.net 36 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Even tho op prefaced this in title, I still did not believe LIKE LORD VOLDEMORT was article text. My brain slid over that, assumed it was a little joke by op. Never. NEV-ER woulda believed. It's just... too on the nose.

[–] casskaydee@hexbear.net 7 points 5 hours ago

And it's literally the first three words LMAO

[–] dkr567@hexbear.net 17 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

"Like Lord Voldemort..." and this is where I stopped reading that fecal matter written by billionaire bootlickers.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 46 points 10 hours ago

This is just what happens you ask ChatGPT to generate an economist article.

[–] LeninsBeard@hexbear.net 30 points 10 hours ago

Americans still haven't shut the fuck up about going to the moon so they can't conceive of a government doing something successfully and then not talking about it

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 62 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

I literally laughed out loud, like a harsh sort of howling laugh, when I read "LIKE LORD VOLDEMORT"

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 42 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Literally right off the bat, too, lmao

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 37 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

And right after "But at what cost?"

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 4 points 5 hours ago

China: Suffering from Success

[–] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 15 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 14 points 9 hours ago

AK Yearling > JK Rowling

[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 51 points 11 hours ago (2 children)
[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 47 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

There's no way they still use the "but at what cost?" not ironically. That has to be an internal joke by now.

[–] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 36 points 10 hours ago

China was mentioned in a meeting at my tech bro job the other day and some guy that I'm cordial with messaged me privately "BUT AT WHAT COST". So I think oh this guy is dog whistling at me that he is actually a China enjoyer, so I test that out by being like "yeah it would be great to work with China" and he immediately launches into a serious tirade about how they're fascists destroying the world.

So uh...no I think they actually do say this seriously. I couldn't believe it

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 10 hours ago

for real, there even was one mexican NGO ghoul saying it in Spanish during an interview, it's like these people have a script.

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 21 points 10 hours ago

"But at what cost" is the West's trigger phrase for having their citizens imagine horrible things, get mad at their imagination, skim the article which confirms their imagination, and then go about their day like nothing happened.

[–] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 36 points 10 hours ago
[–] SovietBeerTruckOperator@hexbear.net 29 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm convinced the Libs are being cheeky with the Harry Potter references now, they saw us making fun of them for it and now they're "owning it".

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 20 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Fine. I will edit a chapter of my magic college novel today

[–] Future_Honkey@hexbear.net 11 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Oh my God please let me believe you're fr working on a fanfic "hogwarts but college" spinoff. With Ron as a secret death eater (of course)

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 16 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I'm afraid not. It's an OC project. "Guy goes to magic community college and struggles to afford tuition." So he and his friends go on misadventures to try and scrape enough money together all the while he becomes increasingly upset with the capitalist society they inhabit.

[–] Enjoyer_of_Games@hexbear.net 1 points 9 minutes ago

is there some explanation for why wizards need money at all

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 32 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Quick, someone roll out the Lenin quote about the Economist

[–] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 38 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Nah, I'd be specific.

The position of the aristocracy of finance is most strikingly depicted in a passage from its European organ, the London Economist.

Marx, the 18th brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 33 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes I forget just how old these institutions really are.

[–] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 21 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Speaking out of how old it is (birthed in the mid 19th century), would it surprise you to know

This tendency reached its absurd apotheosis in the magazine’s infamous 2014 review of Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The magazine objected to Baptist’s brutal depiction of the slave trade, saying the book did not qualify as “an objective history of slavery” because “almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains.” When outraged readers pointed out that this is because, well, the victims of slavery tended to be black, The Economist retracted the review. But as Baptist observed in response, there was a reason why the magazine felt the need to mitigate the evils of slavery. Baptist’s book portrayed slavery as an integral part of the history of capitalism. As he wrote: “If slavery was profitable—and it was—then it creates an unforgiving paradox for the moral authority of markets—and market fundamentalists. What else, today, might be immoral and yet profitable?” The implications of Baptist’s work would have unsettling implications for The Economist. They would damn the foundations of the very Western free enterprise system that the magazine is devoted to championing. Thus The Economist needed to find a way to soften its verdict on slavery. (It was not the first time they had done so, either. In a tepid review of Greg Grandin’s The Empire of Necessity with the hilariously offensive title of “Slavery: Not Black or White,” the magazine lamented that “the horrors in Mr Grandin’s history are unrelenting.” And the magazine’ long tradition of defending misery stretches back to the 19th century, when it blamed the Irish potato famine on irresponsible decisions made by destitute peasants.)

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 16 points 10 hours ago

I'm not surprised, but that's certainly new trivia for me. Absolutely deplorable, morally bankrupt, thoroughly liberal in all the inhumane ways imaginable.

[–] Future_Honkey@hexbear.net 10 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

sometimes I do wonder whether the sentiment goes a bit too far, whether it would be more fair to wish something like “a minor drop in circulation” or “a financially burdensome libel suit” on our London competitor.

But then I remember what The Economist actually is, and what it stands for, and what it writes. And I realize that death is the only option.

Oh my, it's like this piece was written just for me imma grab a cuppa and dig the fuck in. Thank you

[–] FnordPrefect@hexbear.net 18 points 10 hours ago

lol, I can only assume the text following the paywall block is something like:

And WOW did they succeed! Like, damn, they are completely eating our lunch and they aren't even engaging in terrorism and proxy wars!

Also, forgive my LIBness, but the "good guys" were the ones afraid to say Voldemort...does that mean that the people abroad which feel the fear and loathing when 'Made in China 2025' is said would be the Death Eaters?

I really hope this article is just AI slop, cause otherwise edward-wtf

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 17 points 11 hours ago

I assume economist feels the same way about made in great britain initiatives edgeworth-shrug