To the extent that China subsidizes weightlifting through stolen money (taxes), they are impoverishing their entire population for the sake of worthless medals and "national glory." Its just a modern version of pyramid building.
I'm not advocating we become a communist juggernaut or selling our kids into slavery... i am personally HUGE on personal freedoms... that one is a BIG deal for me. What pisses me off is what people here have been doing with that freedom. To quote a line - 'Just like Rome, we fell asleep when we got spoiled...' This part ov the world, and my country in particular... what with its unfathomably vast natural resources, could be a world leader, but what do we do? we piss it away. Our countries could be sports powerhouses in EVERY sport imaginable... but dedication is ridiculed, loser-culture is embraced, and as a society in general we disdain testosterone. Where else do you find pretty much every sport in the book going the way ov 'retard T-ball'... anyone who even shows up gets a trophy! They are even now teaching that winning in school sports should be outlawed, because when someone wins someone else loses... and we wouldn't want a kid to feel left out... In China kids are rigorously competing with each other for something greater, and gain so much from that that is not even physical-related (and i'm not talking about money and fame). In North America we play sports but dont keep score...
YOU may like the pyramids, but the slaves that built them likely had different feelings.
In all this above, I saw some truth and a lot of exaggeration. Anywhere, things aren't what they could be from our own points of view. Dedication to what? When there is more reason and purpose in a young person's life, their own purpose, there will be more dedication. I don't want to live in a place like China. I have not been there, but coworkers have (I live in Asia) and most of them quickly had enough of it.