Miscellaneous News

[W20]

Colonel PMC is, so to speak, a key figure in the AngloEmpire 2.0

An Indian ... that with verbosity and phantasies (how strange, lol) give us open the crazy Mental Confusion forged between Zionists in Moscow, Arab satraps, the bloody Zionist regime, and the puppets in London, Brussels, and Washington.

I am grateful that, amidst Indian verbosity, colonel PMC gives us the keys to understand why Vladimir P., in his argument with his cousin Vladimir Z., preferred to sacrifice thousands of Russians rather than disturb his cousins in their private hunting ground.

 

[pmc]

Would you consider this interaction between Colonel Gaddafi and such an attractive Italian audience a visible manifestation of Libyan and/or Arabic soft power?

While I appreciate the efforts you've undertaken to help us better grasp Arabic soft power, I'm concerned that we may have rather different definitions of what is and isn't soft power. So some clarity would be appreciated!

As a general rule there is no Arabic Soft Power outside Royal families of Arabian Peninsula. A detail answer will be too long and half backed short answer will further confuse you.

In all seriousness, what is blatantly visible to you in terms of soft power may not be particularly visible to those of us who are unfamiliar with your definition of soft power, never mind Arabic soft power.

From where I stand, there's nothing particularly special about a ministerial level official from a G20 country drawing a crowd at an overseas event. That's normal for a VVIP, so long as they come from a reasonably developed and/or sizable country with something to offer.

The person came for four days and did numerous interviews like Rock Star. Even Moscow City government wanted to sign agreement in front of him. Just because you havent studied the extent of visit it does not mean you understand all the things.
A month before another Saudi Minister visited Russia and Russian Deputy FM asked for investment in Far East as a Strategic destinations. his team has longstanding relationship with Saudis thats why he can make public statement.

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Soft power exports generally incorporate or represent something cultural or otherwise intangible that its consumers wish to absorb, imitate and/or otherwise embrace.

While you're correct to highlight the rapid growth that certain GCC airlines have achieved, I'm not sure if that's an especially compelling example of soft power, so much as an illustration of massive amounts of CAPEX conscripted from sovereign coffers into buying/leasing airliners, constructing airports, and paying off foreign aviation officials to commence business on favorable terms.

Any large GDP country can invest money in Airline but it does not mean they will get one sided access to other large markets. and airline has to show competency of quality and reliability dealing with such heat on tarmac.

While money definitely contributes to soft power, it's hard to rate Arabic soft power (unless you consider religion to be a manifestation of soft power) to be particularly strong or salient, if at all impressive in relative terms given the per capita incomes of GCC member states.

GCC has to manage large countries like India, Pakistan, Iran all the way to Turkey and African continent is right next door to them. without this Soft Power they could not manage it considering very small population base they started and denial of citizenship to foreigners untill now that make strategic planning very hard that is depended on foreign skills.

The amount of engagement on display here does not scream soft power whatsoever:

View attachment 156114

It was Industrial and Mining exhibition. I dont think Russians understand it as they havent studied
this Arabic Soft Power. only some future state that Putin is creating.

However, how does that relate to or impact Russia? Just how much influence does the UAE have on the Russian government in general, and Russian foreign and security policy in particular?

The Emiratis and Russians have obviously cooperated to advance common interests in places like Libya, but for a number of years, they supported opposing sides in Syria. There's a degree of alignment, but far from total.

Syrian President holding UAE PM pics. that is the level. UAE essentially run Afghanistan .They have the wealth and technology to go much much further in many countries. left Iran in dysfunctional state. thats your answer.

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More broadly speaking, the Emiratis appear to be more interested in doing business with everyone, including parties that are at odds like Russia and the US, rather than staying committed to any single great power.

Business and shaping the world are two different things.

I take it you're Saudi or deeply tied to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?


Soft power is inherently persuasive. It doesn't necessarily need to be understood with depth or nuance. However, soft power exports do need to engage its consumers with something compelling and as such easily, if not almost universally recognizable, even if it isn't something particularly tangible or easily describable. (Sorry, but the Golden Age of Islam is too obscure to be recognizable at a mainstream level, at least outside of the Muslim world. So not particularly useful for soft power messaging.)

To put it crudely: national soft power communicates something appealing, desirable or otherwise positive about a nation state. Messaging is central to soft power!

Esoteric or poorly understood messaging doesn't usually work well for manifesting soft power, unless you're perhaps intentionally looking to sell mystique, if not magic or fiction like the Dalai Lama, Rasputin or Lafayette Ron Hubbard. However even then, the ambiguities and deceptions employed are usually carefully calibrated to maximize efficacy.

i cannot write long paragraphs here to make you understand why such soft power unlike any other soft power.

Does China or does the GCC possess more soft power in Russia in general and over Putin in particular?



Growing isolation from the West since 2014 has certainly made Russia more appreciative of, if not dependent on its relatively resilient economic relationships with certain Gulf countries, in particular the UAE, but that alone is not a particularly strong measure of Arabic soft power so much as Arabic economic relevance in the face of Russian desperation.

Think real demographics of Russia and they are way powerful than any thing. Putin almost daily talks about demographics and it shows up in RT Arabic. it is not quantity but quality of demographics he actually means and there is implicit threat inside it for people not exhibiting traditional values and transferring those to next generation which should be much larger in size.

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08 July 2025

Vladimir Putin: Family in Russia was and remains the highest value, the cornerstone of society​

Neither the American economy, nor America's global image is particularly, if at all dependent on its domestic oil and gas industry, unlike most, if not all of the GCC.

Exports like these are more relevant to American soft power:

What analogous or dissimilar exports contribute to Arabic soft power in Russia in particular, and across the globe in general?

Without Oil/Gas US will be alot worse situation. It is far more dependend on hard Power of Oil/Gas. You are looking at trade deficit more than double as US size market will be competing globally and most people will not be able to pay energy bills.
GCC makes alot more money from sovereign wealth funds and there physical assets across the world and now real estate is getting more dominant. AI and automation will reduce there dependence on labor. that will make there cities less congested.

 

[GulfLander]

India proposes 20C lower limit for air conditioners to save energy
Air conditioners are fast becoming some of South Asian country’s biggest energy guzzlers

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[FairAndUnbiased]

I may be old fashioned, but the way I learned it from the history books, was that China was conquered, but in the end the Mongols and Manchu were sinicized.

China was the only place on earth in history who was able to conquer their conquerors in that way.

That says a lot, but to not be a chauvinist, that is all ancient history.

As for modern history and those detractors ...

Mongols weren't sinicized when they ruled. They were partially sinicized after they got overthrown and then lost to Ming and Qing armies.

Manchus were always part of the Chinese sphere since 900 AD.

 

[zyklon]

As a general rule there is no Arabic Soft Power outside Royal families of Arabian Peninsula. A detail answer will be too long and half backed short answer will further confuse you.

I'm genuinely curious about Arabic soft power, in part because of your visible and immense conviction in it!

Not here to be disrespectful, but if you're unable or unwilling to so much as even define Arabic soft power, your faith in and further utterance of it will inevitably do little except invite skepticism and ridicule.

The person came for four days and did numerous interviews like Rock Star. Even Moscow City government wanted to sign agreement in front of him. Just because you havent studied the extent of visit it does not mean you understand all the things.
A month before another Saudi Minister visited Russia and Russian Deputy FM asked for investment in Far East as a Strategic destinations. his team has longstanding relationship with Saudis thats why he can make public statement.

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View attachment 156118

This sort of treatment and such itineraries are fairly normal for ministerial level officials of 'big countries' or even high profile asset managers and C-suiters, especially someone looking to invest large sums of money locally.

What's so special about the House of Saud to Russia, beyond their checkbook, or is that in fact your working definition of soft power: sufficient capital for purchasing influence and favor at a high or high enough level?

GCC has to manage large countries like India, Pakistan, Iran all the way to Turkey and African continent is right next door to them.

What do you mean by 'manage?'

Are you saying countries like India, Pakistan and/or Iran are or were effectively ruled, governed and/or controlled by the GCC in general, and/or senior Arabic princes and kings from the Gulf in particular?

It was Industrial and Mining exhibition. I dont think Russians understand it as they havent studied
this Arabic Soft Power.

How would Russians be aware of, never mind be able to consistently and publicly acknowledge Arabic soft power with effectively no understanding of it?

UAE essentially run Afghanistan .They have the wealth and technology to go much much further in many countries.

GCC makes alot more money from sovereign wealth funds and there physical assets across the world and now real estate is getting more dominant.

So if some of my old drinking buddies currently serving in government somehow convince their bosses holding higher office to launch another war against terrorism in Afghanistan, will

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to the UAE be essential to rooting out terrorism facilitated by and through Afghanistan?

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Business and shaping the world are two different things.

If business and "shaping the world" are separate matters, as you claim, then why are you even talking about Saudi ministers wheeling and dealing in Russia, or Emirati port interests in Syria in the context of soft power?

That's all business, friend!

Think real demographics of Russia and they are way powerful than any thing.

Who are they?

Putin almost daily talks about demographics and it shows up in RT Arabic.

Are you sure RT ain't just manipulating Arabic audiences with disingenuous flattery and dishonest adulations?

 

[Temstar]

Agreed. I have heard about the arguments by those China haters that the Yuan and Qing dynasties were "proof" that China had not been a continuous civilization. That it had been "conquered" by foreigners.

This is one of those crap arguments by those British pseudo historians, as well as HK and Taiwan separatists. It's one of their arguments as to why China had no historical claims over HK, Taiwan, and Tibet.

Wrong. The Mongolians and Manchus were part of Chinese civilization. They may have started out as foreigners to Han-ruled imperial China, but their dynasties have added Mongolia and Manchuria into the greater Chinese civilization state. Today, ethnic Mongolians or Manchus are full Chinese citizens. Many had been proud citizens of China.

Fun fact: Mr Wolf Warrior Wu Jing himself is a Manchu
Anyone wants to accuse him of not being a Chinese?

 

[tygyg1111]

My own comments on the current state of anti-chinese propaganda:

I've recently noticed that (especially on reddit) there is now a rising trend of anti-china people that are now trying to propagate their anti-chinese agenda via a different way, at least a much different way from the traditional route. And this is slightly harder for some people to detect, think of this as similar to the ever-evolving ways of social engineering used for scamming.

That is, by trying to completely revision Chinese history by pretending to be a subject expert or historian, but they are in fact bad faith actors. These people are active on history related subreddits and sometimes are even moderators of said subreddits. But in actual fact what they said have absolutely no substance or factual backing if one were to scrutinise their words closely and do a basic level of research. Despite them trying really hard to phrase their comments in a scholarly way, the bad faith component of their comments are quite obvious to see.

One such example of this is the blatant denial that the Manchus were Chinese people, the denial of sinicization, the claim of the existence of "Manchuria" in Chinese history, the intentional interchangeable use of the terms "Chinese" and "Han" (which are a complete erroneous use of semantics, similar to how pro-green frogs love to conflate the semantics between "China" and "PRC" to get their nonsensical points across) and claiming that Han people are the ones that colonised their conquerors. Their intentions of making these points are to explain why Manchus, and by extension "Manchuria", should be fighting for "freedom" just like what they think the other autonomous regions are doing. And then to make up a cover story to explain why the Manchus are currently not doing so (to their disappointment). And in their view, the separation of Qing from China as a whole, while nonsensical, is also helpful for them to reinforce their argument about the separatism of the other Chinese ethnics as well.
Please note that none of their claims were backed by facts and they always like to selectively quote writings from academics (with omission of context that is unhelpful to them) to make themselves seem legitimate, and they always reference to a western author/ historian without fail. And ironically, it is always from the same few western historian that is known in the circle to be very biased and full of shit too.

These kinds of comments are really easy to spot if you read enough. The moderator of r/chinesehistory is one such example, and he is not even trying to hide his very strong anti-china bias in some of the comments where he accidently let his true colours slipped. The amount of bad faith arguments made by these people, from seemly small details such as purposely using the wrong semantics, to outright spreading misinformation and lying by omission is quite immense. And the sad thing is there are always a number of people out there with zero critical thinking skills that are buying their shit up without much thought, and a lot of it is owed to their pretense of authority on the subject matter. I actually think the effort they spend doing this kind of despicable things are quite commendable to be honest, if only they spend it on actual jobs or doing something positive for society.

Just my personal thoughts based on the things I came across.

China will keep developing its tourism and entertainment industry, which incidentally, is the best counter against this type of narrative

 

[tygyg1111]

Chinese spy ship "joins" the Talisman Sabre exercises
View attachment 156091

Albanese said we could come when he was visiting

 

[Jamie28]

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Who in sane mind would set the temperature at or even below 20C?

 

[Randomuser]

Mongols weren't sinicized when they ruled. They were partially sinicized after they got overthrown and then lost to Ming and Qing armies.

Manchus were always part of the Chinese sphere since 900 AD.

Jurchens were already implementing many Chinese things including language hundreds of years before Qing. In fact as far as people who only deal with Northern China are concerned, to them the Jin dynasty is just another Chinese dynasty especially given most people in it were also Chinese. All those officials that the Mongols got their advice from on how to do things were from the Jin dynasty.

Whenever you hear outsiders talk about how Qing wasn't Chinese, by default assume they have an ulterior motive. Qing rule crushes a lot of crap like independent Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia etc. As long as Qing exists, these claims will be jokes. That why they have to pretend Qing wasn't Chinese coz they have no other option. The fact Japan tried to do it over 100 years ago, shows it's not an original thought. Funny enough when China was actually split, many of these so called independent areas such as Manchuria still were ruled by Chinese warlords whos dream was to unite China. Where was all this independent movements when China was actually fragmented?