There was a real human cost to how China industrialized that isn’t “muh freedoms”.
China overproduced STEM grads so that their industries could hire them for pennies on the dollar. They had to withstand insane competition starting in elementary school, only to end up unemployed or doordashing.
This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
> having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies
I don't know why people keep bringing this up as though it is surprising.
In almost any field other than AI PhDs are underpaid on average.
There are many, many bio PhDs working as lab technicians.
> This isn’t a PRC specific thing either, TSMC is infamous for having PhDs doing night shift lab tech work for pennies (comparatively).
Engineers from Taiwan go to mainland China these days to earn more money. Taiwan was pretty brutal with personal sacrifice in its development as much or if more than the mainland. We could say similar about Korea, Japan, and Singapore as well. This is why Asia seems to be taking over the world now, but the people are about as happy as you’d expect.
In general, I do think the East Asian nations have over-prioritized work for export and industrial policy at the expense of the well-being of their citizens.
It feels to me more like, East Asian nations tend to have robust domestic sets of expectations that tend to be more stringent, reinforced by geological and cultural barriers, and comparatively lower international castes. Anyone born in EA have no choice but to constantly beat the average and to make contributions to the street cred jar for the nation. And that produce such things as TSMC chips and DJI drones and 7-11 egg salad sandwiches.