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For weather, DC is slightly better than Beijing. Tornado seldom gets as far as DC and it is not that cold since it is closer to mid-Atlantic. Beijing's winter can be really brutal. Pollution has somewhat improved as compared with 10 years ago.
Both cities are subject to certain height limit. DC buildings cannot be taller than Washington Monument. Buildings close to Zhongnanhai are subject to certain height limit.
Some areas in DC are really scary even in daytime. But not in Beijing.
Both cities offer a lot of things to see. National Mall, Capitol, Monuments, and way back in 80s you could even visit White House by just lining up. Beijing also offers a lot of things to see. Great Wall, Forbidden City, royal gardens, ...etc. But there is a huge difference. Almost every attraction is free in DC, but in Beijing they charge for every attraction and really really crowded. So I would say China is more capitalistic. People's Great Hall is usually off limit and there is no way you can even get close to Zhongnanhai.
Beijing has higher concentration of famous colleges, Beida and Tsinghua. DC just got Georgetown.
DC does not have good Chinese food and Beijing does not have good western food either (maybe I am wrong).
For weather, DC is slightly better than Beijing. Tornado seldom gets as far as DC and it is not that cold since it is closer to mid-Atlantic. Beijing's winter can be really brutal. Pollution has somewhat improved as compared with 10 years ago.
Both cities are subject to certain height limit. DC buildings cannot be taller than Washington Monument. Buildings close to Zhongnanhai are subject to certain height limit.
Some areas in DC are really scary even in daytime. But not in Beijing.
Both cities offer a lot of things to see. National Mall, Capitol, Monuments, and way back in 80s you could even visit White House by just lining up. Beijing also offers a lot of things to see. Great Wall, Forbidden City, royal gardens, ...etc. But there is a huge difference. Almost every attraction is free in DC, but in Beijing they charge for every attraction and really really crowded. So I would say China is more capitalistic. People's Great Hall is usually off limit and there is no way you can even get close to Zhongnanhai.
Beijing has higher concentration of famous colleges, Beida and Tsinghua. DC just got Georgetown.
DC does not have good Chinese food and Beijing does not have good western food either (maybe I am wrong).
I like this comparing of the two as cities better--much cleaner than trying to use them as proxies for comparing the power of their respective countries.
My take:
In terms of modern day city design, Beijing has a lot of modern architecture and is much larger, but I actually really dislike modern Beijing. The roads of modern Beijing between the superblocks are incredibly wide and just unpleasant to me. The air quality veers on awful a lot of times. There are some wonderful though small and scattered preserved historic parts that are nice though, and I really wish that much more of modern Beijing was an updated take on this in terms of being a more pleasant place to walk about. However, the city is massive and its mass transit system is quite large and allows a lot of small walkable nodes to be connected so that part is good. There is fairly decent "western" food though it can be quite pricey. What it actually has less are cuisines that are not the most popular western foods and not East Asian cuisine. Good luck finding yourself a decent jerk chicken spot, a nice Ethiopian place or some pupusas.
DC is downright quaint in comparison to much of Beijing. It never quite seems to be the metropolis Beijing is anywhere, but it's not lifeless either. I think if DC developed much more lively suburbs/edge cities than what it has now, which is something that it is doing, then it can probably be much more lively. One thing to keep in mind is that DC's official borders are far smaller than Beijing's official borders, but even with that, DC is effectively a much less populous metropolitan area even if you were going to include Baltimore into the mix. I agree about the huge crowds Beijing gets.
One thing is that DC is heavy on people working in government or with government to some extent. Beijing has that, but it's also very much a media center, including entertainment media, a tech center especially for software, and a higher education center. It's many more industries than DC is with a lot more private sector work despite it being the capital of a presumably Communist nation.
I like this comparing of the two as cities better--much cleaner than trying to use them as proxies for comparing the power of their respective countries.
My take:
In terms of modern day city design, Beijing has a lot of modern architecture and is much larger, but I actually really dislike modern Beijing. The roads of modern Beijing between the superblocks are incredibly wide and just unpleasant to me. The air quality veers on awful a lot of times. There are some wonderful though small and scattered preserved historic parts that are nice though, and I really wish that much more of modern Beijing was an updated take on this in terms of being a more pleasant place to walk about. However, the city is massive and its mass transit system is quite large and allows a lot of small walkable nodes to be connected so that part is good. There is fairly decent "western" food though it can be quite pricey. What it actually has less are cuisines that are not the most popular western foods and not East Asian cuisine. Good luck finding yourself a decent jerk chicken spot, a nice Ethiopian place or some pupusas.
DC is downright quaint in comparison to much of Beijing. It never quite seems to be the metropolis Beijing is anywhere, but it's not lifeless either. I think if DC developed much more lively suburbs/edge cities than what it has now, which is something that it is doing, then it can probably be much more lively. One thing to keep in mind is that DC's official borders are far smaller than Beijing's official borders, but even with that, DC is effectively a much less populous metropolitan area even if you were going to include Baltimore into the mix. I agree about the huge crowds Beijing gets.
One thing is that DC is heavy on people working in government or with government to some extent. Beijing has that, but it's also very much a media center, including entertainment media, a tech center especially for software, and a higher education center. It's many more industries than DC is with a lot more private sector work despite it being the capital of a presumably Communist nation.
For such a large country like China, I really doubt if one of the largest cities needs to be chosen as the capital. Similar size countries like Australia and Canada, both have chosen a less populated city, Canberra and Ottawa, as their capitals.
The problem with Beijing as capital as well as a hi-tech, industrial and educational center is that environmentally it cannot support such a large population. Water shortage is an acute problem. Unlike DC which draws water from the Potomac River, Beijing mainly depends on the underground water and hardly does it get any rainfall. It is also subject to the dust storm blown over seasonally from the Mongolia plateau. And it is quite far away from its financial center, Shanghai.
IMO China should relocate its capital and leave Beijing in the way Kyoto is to Japan -- a cultural and historical center with sustainable population.
Its hi-tech, 5G face-recognition economy suddenly devolves into a low-tech hawker economy. Go walk around China's cities. What you will see are those laid-off workers selling whatever as hawkers on the streets.
And Prime Minister Li revealed the grim reality. 600 million Chinese workers only get a meager pay of RMB1,000 (US$140) per month. Well, China just boasted last year their GDP per capita reached US$10,000. And of course there is no stimulus check to help the laid-off workers.
Better question: what should the world prefer - a country whose economy is in dire strait vs a country burning from riots and destroyed by a virus (America)? It's an obvious choice.
Beijing has a history stretching back to 3 millennia. Some years ago, Beijing government offices started moving out of Beijing and have reestablished in Tongzhou.
Washington DC, founded in 1790 July 16 and established by the Constitution of the United States, still serves as the nation's capital.
Thus, Washington DC is more important and influential to the world.
Better question: what should the world prefer - a country whose economy is in dire strait vs a country burning from riots and destroyed by a virus (America)? It's an obvious choice.
"burning from riots and destroyed by a virus"
Hilarious hyperbole.
Was Europe collapsing last year because of the yellow vests, the Brexit protests, the Catalonia protests, the Sardines Movement, the Caruana Galizia assassination protests? All of those happened last year alone and the first 3 were globally covered. So I guess all are in ruins now?
Protests are part of every democracy. They're a sign of strength, not weakness. I'm sure the Chinese people would love to have the freedom to protest. Yet here we are, people attacking the U.S. for having protests when they ignore the real enemy: that the CCP murders its innocents who are brave enough to do the same inside of China.
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