During WW2 the U.S. had an engineering brigade here and they offered to build the Auckland harbour bridge and infrastructural roads here and there. Sadly we turned it down because an Amercian debt trap had crossed our politicians minds.I don't recall any .....
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
- Start date
There is an overt dismissal of the influence of soft power here because China lacks soft power.
Soft power can get a lot done. And it costs you almost nothing.
Let's look at it another way.
When a guy says to a girl, that he loves her, that is a narrative.
When a guy starts to give money to the girl for expenses, housing, reverse-dowry, and stuff like that, that is not a narrative, that is far more important. Words are cheap. Narrative is cheap. Money is important.
If those Chinese companies are making money, and are number #1 in their markets, then that is the most important reality there is, as the narrative cannot compete with that.
Nah. America is going to do everything possible to contain China. We need to talk about what China can do to patch some of its weaknesses.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
That is only your guess and an empty statement. True soft power will always pale in comparison to hard power because when interests collide, only hard power prevails, and this is truly a time when massive interests are colliding. True soft power that is not an extension of hard power is simply begging. It costs nearly nothing because you get what you pay for.
Show me an instance in history in which a rising power soft-powered itself past an incumbent waning power?
Soft power as an analytical overlay or categorical perception does exists but it exists predicated upon the underlining hard power... in and of itself in a vacuum is useless... Yes, China is comparatively weak at soft power and has room to grow, but in the end the difference that makes a difference will be in hard power... nukes, technology, military, etc etc
Could soft power have saved the Native American's fate? What about the Qing dynasty against the English during the Opium era?
Having soft power will benefit China but look at India... In the end, soft power is a lagging indicator and chases the tail of hard power... its not going to be a deciding factor in the grand scheme of things in terms of how the China Century turns out... if China wins, soft power will naturally follow up eventually.... just like as a man gets very successful the women will chase him, he doesn't need to do the chasing.
This is the difference between a poor guy working on his "game" to try and score hot girls and a guy that works on his fundamentals in terms of getting fit, earning more money, developing himself in terms of skillset, pesonality, habit, lifestyle, rather than focus only on cheap parlor tricks and "game" to get women...
Because at the end of the day soft power serves hegemony, not the other way around, just like 'friendship' is a tool of hegemony, and hegemony cannot be bent by 'making friends'.. Recall everyone bought the WMD lie that US used to attack Saddam for Iraq going off the petrodollar. If it wasn't WMD it would be another excuse... doesn't matter... then they use the same lie to say Iran must be sanctioned... then they use the fact that they sanctioned Iran illegally and based on a fraud/lie to kidnap Huawei CFO. Then they use the lie that Huawei broke US sanctions to blacklist Huawei and put Huawei on entity list... Then they don't even bother anymore with even the semblance of an excuse and now directly sanction SMIC because "China Bad"... what you don't understand is that the decision was predetermined, and they work backwards for the excuse... soft-power means nothing here... in this case no amount of softpower was ever going to change the outcome, which was always predetermined by the US....
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Trying to do is one thing but have they succeded sofar? Hmm Let see WEapon embargo after TAM yet China produced most of their weapon domestically today. Now the amount of import is negligible. Ban on Chinese satellite, Yet China now launch more satellite than any other countries and again self sufficient. Space and GPS system participation denied, Yet Baidou is now operational and China space advances reach close to US now
Ban on Israeli Phalcon AWAC, China now has legions of KJ500 and KJ200, KQ200 and assortment of Sensor in the air. The example goes on and one and Nope they haven't succeded sofar to prevent China from getting access to the contraband
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In the Information Age, soft power matters.
I mention how China needs to improve its ability to shape the narrative and grow its soft power, and you guys tell me how the only thing that matters is hard power.
That ain't soft power, its called information warfare, propaganda etc etc
Soft power exists way before digital computers or the so called information age, its an extension of geopolitics since before the roman days
In much the same way China got blinded sided a bit due to focusing on AI but lacking the full supply chain base to make its own chips, fabs etc... the so called soft-power you are illuding to exists only as a substrate on top of existing hardpower... just like AI exists predicated upon the physical processors that it uses to run on.... soft power means nothing if you don't have the military and economy to back it up... just look at India... can it soft-power itself to number one? Not a chance....
China is right to focus on its hardpower first, otherwise China can win the soft power war but the US just pulls rug underneath China's feet if its hardpower isn't stable... see the events of the Huawei 5G saga, Huawei got a bunch of 5G contracts, but UK had to renege because US used its hardpower to deprive Huawei of TSMC fabs... this is clear cut case of how softpower exists riding on top of hardpower.... and hardpower always override softpower when push comes to shove...
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antiterror13
Brigadier
well, Trump has a lot of sensitive information with him even he is no longer the POTUS from 20 Jan, so Chinese and Russian and others countries would be interested to get some of it ..... so a strong bargaining chips for Trump .. and I have no doubt he would do that for the right price, like what his ex lawyer said