Which countries would you say have improved the most over the last twenty years?

[Sebastianus Rex]

China by far, from a maoist shithole into a superpower.

[Finnish Swede]

USA ...

They have man like Trump voted as a president (as a human / person / personality) ... and their holy laws are still valid (=> streets full filled with free guns ... incl. criminals, drug addicts, menthal ill /unstable people).

[rero]

Economically yes. Politically, however, it is no freer than it was twenty years ago and in many ways has actually got worse - its social credit system, persecution of Uighyurs, attacks on Hong Kong, usage of AI and surveillance technology to micromanage and spy on its citizens...

I agree. I want to add ethical standards in regards to animals - only last week I saw an absolutely disgusting video how the Chinese treat other beings. Unbelievable.

Also, much of China's "progress" has been achieved by exploiting "foreign" territories. The 3 largest administrative units of China are occupied lands rich in mineral resources.

[sean]

Vietnam and Rwanda.

A mere 30 years ago, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world. The whole world (except the Eastern Bloc) sanctioned Vietnam for putting a stop to Pol Pot during Cambodian–Vietnamese War.

Vietnam switched to capitalism with Đổi Mới policy in the late 80s and lifted 30 million Vietnamese out of poverty. Even North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that he preferred the Vietnamese model of economic reform to that of China, because the model allowed Vietnam to embrace a close relationship with the US and open the domestic market to foreign investments, while keeping its socialist regime intact.

Rwanda had a pointless genocide but their economy is on fire now, although it's still under a fascist dictatorship with a slave economy, and we probably won't see any African country reach European GDP this decade.

Kagame is an obvious dictator with lots of war crimes on his name but because he sends soldiers to take resources away from DRC to ship them to China for production of our cheap Chinese smartphones, he's seen as an OK guy on world stage. This way, the guy can do whatever he wants and west keeps economy going as usual. Same for Uganda.

Rwanda, unlike other African countries, has been smart and spent a lot of good UN white guilt money on infrastructure that actually help the economy in the long run like widening congested roads, improving sanitation, and building more schools. Electricity access has more than doubled, poverty has decreased, and living standards have improved.

Compare to Kenya, where situation has deteriorated in the past decade, and is now spending their Chinese money on white elephant projects like multi-billion dollar, dual-track electrified railway to connect cities with not enough inter-city traffic volume using high-interest loan from China.

[michal3141]

China.

Shenzhen 30 years ago:



Shenzhen 2020:



Planet China:

[Cleitus]

Slovakia as a country improved alot, communism hit it hard but they have moved forward alot, especially Bratislava.

As for Albania, it didn’t really have influence from Kosovo conflict. Albania had literally worst communist regime in Europe with Romanians, those people didn’t even hear about bubble gums after they became democratic.

Enver was a Stalinist Hardliner, People in Albania couldn't even own cattle.

[Cleitus]

UNHCR told that about 500-750k refugees fled to Albania and Macedonia during the Kosovo war.

They all returned after the war.

[Cleitus]

China by far, from a maoist shithole into a superpower.

China is a regional power at most.

[Tooting Carmen]

China is a regional power at most.

It has supplanted the US and European countries as the principal trading partner of many African and even some Latin American countries, so no. It has the largest army in the world and its military technology capabilities are rapidly improving (for good and for ill).

[Tooting Carmen]

China is a regional power at most.

It has supplanted the US and European countries as the principal trading partner of many African and even some Latin American countries, so no. It has the largest army in the world and its military technology capabilities are rapidly improving (for good and for ill).