Comment by stickfigure

China is superlative in every way possible and many people don't really seem to get it.

It has several of the tallest mountains in the world—dozens over 7 km, and many of the eight-thousanders, given it borders the Himalayas and contains part of the Hindu Kush and most of the Tibetan Plateau. Given such immense mountains it also makes sense that there's a huge rain shadow behind them, and therefore China also contains both the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts.

It also has historic old cities that form the core of their modern glass and steel cities, with plenty of Chinese architecture to go around.

It also has 50 000 km of newly-built high speed rail with rolling stock that rips through all of those mountains and deserts at 350 km/h.

I wasn't really focusing much on the tourism part.

I was more pointing to the fact that asiatic countries seem much more focused on the present and future in a way we are culturally not. How and what they build is just an aspect of it.