A hiker posted a video showing the water flow of the fall was coming from a pipe built into the rock face.
A controversy over a waterfall has cascaded into a social media storm in China, even prompting an explanation from the water body itself.
A hiker posted a video that showed the flow of water from Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - billed as China's tallest uninterrupted waterfall - was coming from a pipe built high into the rock face.
The clip has been liked more than 70,000 times since it was first posted on Monday.
Operators of the Yuntai tourism park said that they made the "small enhancement" during the dry season so visitors would feel that their trip had been worthwhile.
"The one about how I went through all the hardship to the source of Yuntai Waterfall only to see a pipe," the caption of the video posted by user "Farisvov" reads.
People will really jump on any random thing to bash China. I'll give kudos to British state media that this constant deluge of insignificant nonsense makes it really hard to have any discussion about China that's based on like, broad trends in history or economics.
Parks do water management. At Niagra Falls, for example, much of the water is used for power generation at night, but during the day more of it goes over the falls for the benefit of tourists. You've probably never heard about it, because it doesn't matter. At all.
But make it about another tribe, about the outgroup, and suddenly it's the most important thing in the world and proves everything we always suspected and blah blah blah. Go volunteer at your local park.
I guess I'm just confused then. When China enacted economic reforms in the 80's, there were people who opposed them and felt that these reforms entailed a right-wing deviation from communism. Those people were/are known as Maoist hardliners. You can see where I thought you might be one.
If you're not that, then does that mean you do approve of those economic reforms? Perhaps I misunderstood, when you said China abandoned communism, did you mean it as a good thing, and you support China's direction from a pro-capitalist standpoint?
If that's not it, I give up. I'm afraid I'm at a loss what your ideology is or what you think about Chinese history or the country's economic reforms. If you could explain it to me, I'd be quite grateful, I see a lot of people around here who appear to me to be Maoists, but when I ask if they are, they don't answer or elaborate. It's very confusing to me.
Why do you need to know the other commenters ideology, their stance on China's direction, history, and economic reforms, as well as on capitalism?
All they said was that China's economy isn't currently communist, which is true whether you like it or not.
Because I'm trying to understand their perspective. I consider China to be communist in the sense that the people in charge are communists, the same sense that it was communist under Mao. They call themselves communists, they explain their reasons for doing things from the perspective of communist ideology, they teach Marxism in schools, etc.
To say that they are specifically no longer communist, when they claim to be, seems to be weighing in on what communism is and isn't. Specifically, it seems to be taking the perspective that Mao's leadership constituted "real" communism while Deng's leadership constituted "fake" communism. As I am not a Maoist, I disagree with that perspective.
It's strange to me that you think understanding someone's stance on China's economic reforms, the point in history where they allegedly abandoned communism, would be irrelevant to understanding the standard by which they consider China to have abandoned communism. What could be more relevant?
They don't know anything about China's government or its history, they're simply combining their hate of capitalism with their hate of China - they've picked up a few wesponized talking points to allow them to talk like they know everything because admitting the whole thing is super complex and confusing makes them feel scared and lost in this big old world.
It's also racism, communism and capitalism are western ideologies so they consider them valid, Chinese principles and reforms are foreign and worthless in their eyes - they simply can't accept that they're not playing the western way, the idea of a third thing is incomprehensible to them. It's the same with Chinese tech, people want to belive all they can do is copy the west, I think partly it just feels weird trying to accept that even in some small way people are ahead of us.
Their electric cars for example are presented as a rudimentary version of American ev but the reality is they're a product very well suited to China's integrated transport network which allows easy and affordable train travel for long distance and commuter transit. Small last-mile and runaround focused EV works in China because that's how they planned for their transit system to work, they're flowing a series of five year plans which lay out the shape and direction of their economy with the goal of benefitting the people. It's a centrally planned economy working through a complex series of committees and congresses. Of course that's communism, anyone that says it isn't is just being weird.
Thank you, yes. It's pure chauvanism and falls apart easily under examination, which seems to be why they always disappear so quickly.
1.4 billion people live in China and I'd venture to say that a large chunk of them consider themselves to be communist and the party to be communist. That is easily the majority view of self-indentifying communists worldwide. But surely, they think, as a Westerner, I'm the authority on what communism is and not these backwards Chinese.
That doesn't seem to describe me very well. Seems like a strange take. I would think that studying history and basing beliefs on evidence would lead one to arrive at a more nuanced understanding than going, "idk seems bad."
The video was posted on Weibo by a hiker, which suggests the hiker is Chinese. So blame the Chinese for making this known since they then viewed and shared it thousands of times.
You say "thousands" as if that's a lot. If some Chinese people want to talk about a park's water management, I don't mind. But when Westerners take some random trivial thing like this and use it to fuel a narrative that "China is a country full of lies," or whatever, that's an entirely different animal. This is a local issue, not an excuse for chauvanists to be chauvanist.
Really? Because what I'm seeing is an article from the British Broadcasting Channel and a thread full of people using this story to make sweeping generalizations about China, in English. I suppose it's possible, but I gotta say I find it a little hard to believe that this thread is full of Chinese nationals, as you're claiming.
And it’s still the Chinese people making a big deal about this.
I'm talking about what people in this thread are saying, and in response they said it's Chinese people making a big deal about it, so naturally that would imply that this thread is full of primarily Chinese people.
And I'm fine with that. What I'm less fine with are people in this thread, about a BBC article, exploiting a local issue about water management to paint an entire country as being full of liars. If Chinese people want to make a big deal out of it, that's their business.
Nobody in this thread cares about it for the story itself. They care about it because it gives them an excuse to push their agenda.
I don't see how this point matters. Yes, Chinese people shared the story, because they cared about it. I still think it's a non-issue personally, but people care about all sorts of things, and I'm sure I could find some celebrity gossip with a wider spread. Perfectly fine with all of that.
Then the BBC reports on it internationally, and people on here use it to spread a narrative that China is a nation full of liars. Am I repeating myself? I think I said that part already. That's the only thing I've taken issue with. I fail to see how what you're saying, that Chinese people originally shared the story, has anything to do with that.
Contrary to popular belief, there's actually nothing wrong with calling out bad arguments and illegitimate or irrelevant criticism of anything or anyone, regardless of what you think about the thing or person. I'll apologize for whoever I please, in other words.
Last I checked, Buffalo wasn’t pumping water up the falls just to make it roll down through the turbines, but if you have legit sources showing otherwise I’d be most happy to see them comrade
Bit of a difference between a weir/hydroelectric dam and a pump that would take all the water from the turbines and send it right back up to the canucks, using the turbine energy.
Then again, maybe it would spur a new round of waterfall barrel daredevils if they knew their keys would just be churned up top like a bowling ball at a “natural wonder”
Where did I claim they were? I believe what I said is "Parks do water management." And beauty and tourism are concerns that they take into account. This is a non-story.
You attempted to equate the Chinese water pump forcing water upstream to the weir that diverts the natural Niagra flow. This is ignorant at best, actively disingenuous more likely. “Water management” doesn’t typically include forcing a waterfall to keep water falling but please explain more about how they’ve solved it