Top talent, whom the government advices to not to go to the states aren’t living in the slums, or areas where there’s nothingness. They don’t live like in Ordos or something.

Meta, OpenAI employees aren’t living in Bakersfield. Google NY employees aren’t living in Clifton or something. Very dumb comparisons, obviously, but when you have a good comp in China, your quality of life is just great. There just isn’t that much of a reason to move.

Another note, it's correct that some people want to live in the states. But there's a nuance. From my personal observations, a good chunk of them don't want to live anywhere in the US, but they want the American passport/green card. It's just a hedge for the worst case scenario and to have an escape route if something bad happens. Like life in Tokyo is pretty decent if you're in top percentiles. But most people understand problems (like demographics), however until it becomes an actual issue, it's still preferable to live here.

If you leave major cities in California you see a lot of empty space that's mostly brown-grey dust, with occasional small towns where everyone is very poor and came from Mexico. Your point?

Yes and I see a lot of YouTube videos about all the poverty in California, I see exactly none about the extensive and overwhelming poverty of rural China (and when I mean rural I mean 20 min outside Shanghai).

That's the point. And who trying to lie about eliminating poverty in China (or making the US look much worse), and why are people repeating that lie?

I did. When I lived in China and traveled outside of Shanghai it was eye opening. People living in slums with no running water or toilets. No trains. No buses. No taxis. The nicest people ever but makes you realise that the whole eliminating poverty claim is utter BS.

They were talking about people with good paying jobs living in big cities, not China in general. There are people living in extreme poverty in first world countries, and rural areas are always different to big cities.