Reply #4: I've seen this "China takes a long term view" meme repeatedly

[GliderGuider]

I am skeptical, however. Chinese managers and mid-level politicians, the ones who plan and implement the actual industrial program instead of just writing strategic policy, have consistently shown themselves to be more in favour of meeting quarterly economic quotas than taking any kind of a long-term perspective. The environmental results speak for themselves.

Some of China's senior leaders may have a multi-decadal strategic perspective, but even they have immediate fish to fry (such as providing material goods for a population that has slipped its consumerist leash) as well as being subverted at every turn by the implementors. The Chinese are every bit as much victims of the growth paradigm as Americans, and are just as trapped by its remorseless catabolic requirements.