Even setting aside issues of overcapacity and crowding out the competition, simply praising China for its renewable energy capacity while ignoring the country's huge carbon emissions makes no sense.

Even with Trump's U-turn, the fact is that China remains by far the biggest emitter on the planet, and while China's emissions seem to finally have peaked, they need to start decreasing fast if there is to be any chance of staying within 1.5 or even 2 degrees of warming.

Ah right sorry, didn't mean to make you feel old 😜

I would also disagree about the "good cheap restaurants". In Beijing, most cheap restaurants are sloppy, unhealthy and not even much good. Good cheap places exist, but they're not that abundant, and you have to know where to go.

Except for the pollution I agree, but the things I mentioned about Beijing are still true. Especially in the centre, much of the population lives in old apartment blocks with dark, filthy corridors that look like something out of a slum. The traffic is also still bad, and the subway awfully crowded.

Pollution in Chinese cities is not, by any means, gone. It's improved, but it's still bad by global standards. For instance the AQI in Tianjin right now is 150. Here in Bangkok that would be considered really bad, and Bangkok is notoriously polluted.

I think they want to impress their own people even more than they want to impress foreigners, it's true.

True, but you lived there 20 years ago I believe (or was it less?). Things have changed a lot since then.

Kaiser lived in Beijing, as far as I know. I really wouldn't say Beijing's quality of life is that amazing, especially when you don't have plenty of money. The pollution, the traffic and the ugliness of much of the city can't be overlooked. Not to mention the decrepit state of many tower blocks.

Noah Smith is someone who makes a living by spouting his opinions. He says some sensible and interesting stuff and some nonsense, in almost equal measure I would say.

In the end, it seems to be about the fact that people can interpret the same events in very different ways, especially in China. Everyone has some bad experiences in China in the long run, but some will blame the "system" and the government, while others will blame supposed cultural factors.

This is not really true. There are people who spend years in China living with ordinary people in ordinary neighbourhoods, and they still end up with vastly discordant attitudes. There really seems to be no certain way to predict how someone's attitudes towards the CCP will evolve.

Also an interesting point. Everyone has biases and has only seen one part of the story. Living in China is meaningful, as is knowing the language, but it's not everything. Nor does being ethnically Chinese automatically give you more insight. Gatekeeping is pointless.

What is this referring to? What's the controversy?