this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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I don't have time to go through everything wrong with your post but I want to touch on Chinese vs American literacy rates for a moment
In America while the total population literacy rate is often cited at 99%, functional literacy (the ability to manage daily living and employment tasks) is lower, with estimates placing it between 65% and 85%.
China's literacy rate has grown from 79% in 1982 to 97% in 2020.
In 2018 PISA results,15-year-olds in China outperformed U.S. peers in reading, math, and science. Some analyses suggest about 20% of U.S. 15-year-olds do not read as well as they should by age 10.
In the 2018 PISA China ranked first globally in all subjects. The U.S. ranked roughly 13th in reading and 37th in math among 79 education systems
Youth literacy in the U.S. is facing a crisis, with 25% of 16-to-24-year-olds deemed functionally illiterate as of 2023, up from 16% in 2017. Roughly 60% of U.S. teens do not read at grade level, and 34% of fourth-graders perform below basic reading levels.
In 2020, youth (15–24) literacy in China reached 100%.
Nothing you said contradicts anything I wrote, so I'm struggling to understand why you started your comment this way. To say "everything wrong with my post" then address nothing I wrote... I'm not sure you should be quoting literacy at all.
You'll find I'm highly critical of both China and the US once we discuss further.
Lastly, there is no chance in hell China's literacy reached 97%, not will it as long as rural lifestyle continues with no need for it.
Whether you think they had need for it doesn’t matter. History shows that every socialist state has put enormous effort into universal literacy. This is not controversial; it’s a settled question among historians.
I just want to clarify, I'm saying there is no need for literacy in some of the rural areas in China. They are farmers, some without basic electricity and plumbing. It's completely third world, except not in a suffering kind of way. Those are some of the kindest and hospitable people I've ever met.
I'm not disagreeing with your idea that socialist states put effort into education. To me education is everything no matter what system you have. Education should be the highest priority of society at large. I'm ecstatic that we might agree on that point.
It was third world, thanks in part to a century of humiliation by the British empire, but everyone has plumbing, electricity, media, and communication now. There are some farmers using Chinese-made technology that already surpasses our own agricultural technology.
China’s Robot Tractors Are Replacing Farmers—Here’s How
Absolutely not true. I lived among these people not long ago. To say "everyone has electricity" is simply false. That's not true of any country.... sadly.
How long ago was this and where? China made a big push against extreme poverty in the years leading up to 2020 and a central element was making sure people had functional housing and plumbing where in some cases people literally lived in a big cave or in huts in remote villages. While poverty in general persists, conditions that bad were basically eliminated.
Edit: I see elsewhere you said 11 years ago, so yeah, I think it's perfectly likely you encountered something like that if you say you did, but I expect that if you look into how wherever you were is doing now, you'll see that it has changed because of the national initiative.
"Your claim is false because I'm an 1800s racist"