Chinese Economics Thread

[manqiangrexue]

Economic success and technological superiority depends on trade, gaining markets, and cooperation in R&D and sharing of technology. The willingness of other countries to trade with you, open their markets to you and to cooperate in R&D and share technology with you depends on soft power. This is especially true for China which still lags in many technology areas, and is still a middle income country, not yet a high income country. And it will take decades to become high income. Therefore, it needs more soft power to ease its path.

The United States even though by your standards has the most hard power in the world, they still try to cultivate their soft power via Hollywood movies, propaganda, talk of 'human rights' and democracy, so on. This is in fact very successful and it even brainwashes many Chinese people in Hong Kong and Taiwan. They go around rioting and waving US flags. You don't see people in Hawaii rioting and waving PRC flags. Because the PRC lags in soft power, and this is a weakness.

Other countries trade with you for their own benefit, not because they wanna help out a nice guy like you. That's why India can gurgle democratic scrotum but companies all over the world still prefer China by a long mile.

What America does is what is naturally done in every country, but its effects are more prominent because America has greater hard power. People in Hong Kong and Taiwan are obviously not comparable to those in Hawaii. One is brainwashed by a rabid Western democracy and the other hates the CCP because it was beaten in a war where it thought it had as a slam dunk due to American technology. If Hawaii was under the CCP for 50 years, we'll see what happens.

Not true, many people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, etc. have very little hard power but lots of soft power and achieved major revolutions. Soft power is completely independent of hard power, it's about propaganda and making people believe you are on the side of justice.

Everything I say is true and everything you say is not. It's a rule here. You're grasping at straws. Those are political figures in their own countries. Some of those people aren't even successful but just famous for their approach, oftentimes post-mortem when the issue is already over. Individual people don't have hard power. I said stage figuratively so you literally imagined people talking on a stage. What a facepalm moment. This comparison is nonsense just like all of your posts.

PS. Getting kinda bold talking to me directly cus you've got 2 little buddies around, eh? Sorry, not enough; I'll debate you all under the table while signing out medical reports on the other window LOLOL

THIS!!!!!!

Is wrong just like your posts but better written.

 

[localizer]

Problem is the West constantly tries to ruin the image of Chinese to make it more costly for Chinese to do business.
But I guess we will only get stronger?

 

[jshw31]

I think the idea of increasing soft power is predicated on whether the cost is worth the benefit. I think many people underestimate the amount of effort it would take to count-effect the ingrained anti-china bias in the western world. In the end of the day China is a non democratic country with different societal values and while many of us here obviously see that this is not a bad thing, it's an extremely uphill climb to fundamentally change the western view thats so fundamental to their psyche.

 

[Petrolicious88]

Bingo, you get it now

A lot of people here are confusing soft power with hard power. Hong Kong is like this because the British robbed it with hard power and brainwashed the people like any power could do to citizens under its own control.

Not all these politicians and mega companies in China are stupider than you. They know they could debunk everything and poke holes in all of America's lies but doesn't matter because the soft power stage since WWII has been America's stage. Trying hard to win the narrative here is wasting all your energy on a rigged contest. Even Western scientists that say COVID was in Europe long before it was detected in Wuhan can't get their voice out because America doesn't want people to hear it. The only way to get soft power is to build your stage through hard power, make it a larger and more powerful stage than that of your rival, and use that to project your "soft power." Hence, all meaningful soft power is only a projection of hard power.

There’s an entire area of study on the difference between soft and hard power. The two are separate and yet mutually reinforcing. Yet the two are not the same thing. You can obtain a lot of soft power without having hard power.

China doesn’t yet have the comprehensive strength you are talking about to transition that raw strength into soft power. Improving its ability to influence people/consumers, especially those in Asia, will speed up that process. It matters.

 

[manqiangrexue]

There’s an entire area of study on the difference between soft and hard power. The two are separate and yet mutually reinforcing. Yet the two are not the same thing. You can obtain a lot of soft power without having hard power.

China doesn’t yet have the comprehensive strength you are talking about to transition that raw strength into soft power. Improving its ability to influence people/consumers, especially those in Asia, will speed up that process. It matters.

You cannot obtain any meaningful soft power without reinforcements from hard power. You can repeat your erroneous claim all you want but it will still be false. There is no example in history of a weaker country talking a stronger country into betraying its own interests and trading places with it. If you think you have an example of triumph of soft power, there is no doubt that you have confused soft power with hard power... again.

China needs to build that comprehensive strength by increasing its hard power and soft power will naturally follow. Chasing soft power that your hard power doesn't naturally bring you is a fool's errand and will always be overturned by greater hard power. Focus on your hard power; it matters.

 

[quantumlight]

Incorrect as usual on both accounts. Economics is also hard power. It is the engine and fuel for your hard power machine. If your economy is in shambles, you will collapse. War machines aren't the only hard power.

The UK never allowed anything, including American independence. The UK fought to keep the US a colony and lost. And then realized they have no way to keep the US from overtaking them. Going to war is futile. They could do nothing except watch themselves be overtaken. They'd swallow the US whole today if they could.

You've erroneously confined hard power to going to war. Forcing someone to back down by sanctions or tech embargo is hard power.

Also being overtaken by your child is better than being overtaken by a race that you resent...

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[Petrolicious88]

You cannot obtain any meaningful soft power without reinforcements from hard power. You can repeat your erroneous claim all you want but it will still be false. There is no example in history of a weaker country talking a stronger country into betraying its own interests and trading places with it. If you think you have an example of triumph of soft power, there is no doubt that you have confused soft power with hard power... again.

China needs to build that comprehensive strength by increasing its hard power and soft power will naturally follow. Chasing soft power that your hard power doesn't naturally bring you is a fool's errand and will always be overturned by greater hard power. Focus on your hard power; it matters.

China is already on track to achieve significant hard power in economy and military. It hasn’t been able to transition that into soft power though.

 

[Deleted member 15887]

China is already on track to achieve significant hard power in economy and military. It hasn’t been able to transition that into soft power though.

Is Genshin Impact not soft power? Reddit loves that stuff, and they hate China

 

[localizer]

I think above all it's important that Chinese do not lose confidence in themselves.

COVID and Trump helped to boost the important of Chinese identity.


We must not give in to Western bullying. Or any bullying for that matter.

It's not like appeasing bullies have ever worked.

 

[2handedswordsman]

Sorry for the interruption...Dear political scientists out there, US soft power ( as the founder of this quality ) means the formation of NATO, the Marshall bribing plan to form the infamous Western Bloc ( that failed to denounce nazism recently ) , organising color revolutions, or providing assistance to countries of former USSR to continue the pressure over an enemy that ceased to exist ? Except this "soft" power, US dropped hard power to over 30 countries from all over the world, most of them underdeveloped, countries that needed help not looters. The discussion is about China developing the comprehension to do what exactly? Is CCP retarted? Setting goals like carbon neutrality is not only soft power, it's also flexing to western counterparts the lack of will, and the failure of the western style plutocracy baptized as democracy. Giving a helping hand to the poor ones inside the country and helping other countries to develop as equals are already huge things. And this is only the begining of the new era