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Authoritarian governments have always been better at ordering top to underlings to get shit done, because if you don't get shit done your shit is getting undone. Which is to say erased from history and replaced by someone who will.

Basically, Chinese government wants a bigass factory and they will get a bigass factory because literally fuck you.

This is in contrast to liberal governments where governments can incentivize, plead and beg, and in certain extraordinary cases force the matter at court-point, but ultimately is at the mercy and pleasure of the people governed.

The flipside, of course, is that when authoritarian governments get it wrong they really get it wrong sometimes well past the point of recovery. Liberal governments getting it wrong have a lot more margin for error.

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codedokode 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Liberal governments also implement unpleasant decisions, for example: paying subsidies for solar panels, electric vehicles, banning good old cheap lightbulbs, banning cheap plastic bags, cheap cars etc.

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DiogenesKynikos 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This factory is being built by BYD, not the government, and not a state-owned enterprise.

It's being built because BYD anticipates massive growth in demand for electric vehicles, not because of some arbitrary mandate.

BYD is known for its ruthless price-cutting and drive for efficiency, so they're a very bad example to illustrate government bloat.

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ZeroGravitas 5 hours ago | parent [-]

There is a mandate, several interconnected mandates actually.

They're not arbitrary though, and many nations have them. China just seems to be translating that into action better.

https://www.globalpolicywatch.com/2021/06/chinas-14th-five-y...

	▲	DiogenesKynikos 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There's a mandate for the government to support the development of the EV industry, and there are targets, but this factory is being built because BYD decided it makes economic sense for them, based on anticipated demand. The Chinese government is doing many things that increase demand, make it easy to scale up production, etc. For example, many Chinese cities are making it difficult to register new internal-combustion-engine vehicles. I'm also sure the local government has rolled out the red carpet for BYD in terms of permits, tax incentives, and so on. That's different from the government issuing a command, "Build us the largest EV factory in the world, regardless of economic viability!" That's how the previous comment came across.

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meiraleal 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Basically, Chinese government wants a bigass factory and they will get a bigass factory because literally fuck you.

And what's the difference from the US government when it wants a bigass factory?

Isn't the difference that the US also wanted China to build bigass factories? They got too good at that.

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Dalewyn 14 hours ago | parent [-]

>And what's the difference from the US government when it wants a bigass factory?

A normal business transaction, with all the good and bad parts thereof. The government can't force the issue unless they do it themselves which is usually not the case.

	▲	chii 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		not just that, but the fact that the US gov't does hold elections means that what they do generally is in line with the people. At this moment, what the chinese gov't is doing is _also_ (presumably) in line with their people's wishes - after all, factories and exports means jobs and economic growth. It remains to be seen if this continues to be in the face of a potential war, tariffs, or some other external shock.

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XorNot 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, it's when an authoritarian government wants something they'll get it. And by get it I mean "they'll take your house, ignore any local environment concerns and possibly just demolish entire villages and generational livelihoods".

Everyone seems to have some "oh how great it is they just get things done" as though they haven't diligently turned up to complain about some development application of the local council.

Yeah, sunshine and rainbows I suppose provided you're thousands of miles away.

	▲	MaxPock 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		From my visits to China, lI've come to conclude that Chinese people have more property rights than Westerners . I saw roads built around houses because villagers refused to sell. Eminent domain doesn't seem to exist there
	▲	Dalewyn 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yes, actually. You repeated my argument only a bit more verbosely. >Basically, Chinese government wants a bigass factory and they will get a bigass factory because literally fuck you.