Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
- Start date
Nooo, you can't get a soft landing, Chyna was supposed to have "LeHmAn MoMeNt" and collapse
The free and unbiased™ Western media cannot have lied!!! Reuters must have been bought by SeSePee! Gordon Chang, please release a new article on why China will collapse next second to reaffirm this.
Broccoli
Senior Member
I'm surprised they didn't think doing this earlier as it's good for business.
Because there are other considerations besides something being "good for business."
Huawei is still dependent on Commerce Department licenses.
" Full access" in the title may be misleading, depending on what's the scope and interpretation of these words are. It doesn't fundamentally change anything in essence from China's point of view. China has put in data security law last year, to clearly message the bottom line on what should be expected and where the boundaries are in case anybody got confused or got their hopes high. Authorities put the floor in first and now they are taking next move. Audited documents are all public in China, so there are no secrets SEC would further need to check, and auditors are usually the local versions of global and American ones. If they require anything that is not out there already, these guys would have to run by Chinese authorities to sign off those items. Anything Chinese authorities consider a matter of national security, good luck. So basically, these listed companies would have to pay auditing firms big fat fees to consolidate and translate reporting currencies and draw a few more org charts and stuff. So it sounds like they are giving in, but SEC don't really get anything special more than what are already out there. That's the beauty of asymmetrical upside, a perfect Chinese strategy and thinking - it's not the glass is half full, but twice as large. Just keeping the powder dry where they can. This drama would keep on going, it's still not the end of it though.
It seems that countries with friendly political and economic ties to China, the good relations is more or less limited to the political level.
Simple example is street interviews of everyday Russians who say they recognize China as an important business partner but it's limited to that, namely not a cultural partner. Some even say they think Russia is selling out the country to China, a view that's more common in African countries that are unhappy about jobs during infra projects going to temporary Chinese workers.
This is perhaps the issue of soft power. The average Russian is more likely to have a view that they're Europeans who only deal with Chinese as customers or suppliers.
It's also probably the biggest disparity with the US, which is great at it. Much of this is just the way it is; white people will always look toward other whites and most of the smaller white countries speak English near-natively. Due to past colonialism, most places are culturally closer to the Anglosphere. English will be the 2nd language and along with it music and movie consumption. China's efforts with the Confucian institutes seem to have only garnered negative publicity.
One thing I remember being surprised by was Argentinians protesting the '08 Olympic torch run due to US propaganda about Tibet. A few years later, my random English-speaking tour guide in Brazil, perfectly friendly and normal in person, posts concerns about Xinjiang on social media. I had no idea South Americans held such views but if English is their 2nd language, exposure to such news is inevitable.
Do you think soft power is a lost cause generally?
What would be practical soft power goals for China?
Simple example is street interviews of everyday Russians who say they recognize China as an important business partner but it's limited to that, namely not a cultural partner. Some even say they think Russia is selling out the country to China, a view that's more common in African countries that are unhappy about jobs during infra projects going to temporary Chinese workers.
This is perhaps the issue of soft power. The average Russian is more likely to have a view that they're Europeans who only deal with Chinese as customers or suppliers.
It's also probably the biggest disparity with the US, which is great at it. Much of this is just the way it is; white people will always look toward other whites and most of the smaller white countries speak English near-natively. Due to past colonialism, most places are culturally closer to the Anglosphere. English will be the 2nd language and along with it music and movie consumption. China's efforts with the Confucian institutes seem to have only garnered negative publicity.
One thing I remember being surprised by was Argentinians protesting the '08 Olympic torch run due to US propaganda about Tibet. A few years later, my random English-speaking tour guide in Brazil, perfectly friendly and normal in person, posts concerns about Xinjiang on social media. I had no idea South Americans held such views but if English is their 2nd language, exposure to such news is inevitable.
Do you think soft power is a lost cause generally?
What would be practical soft power goals for China?
Soft power is like fart, if you're very rich and powerful, all the underlings think it smells nice.
When China is very rich and powerful, her farts would smell like jasmine as well. So no biggie.
You fell into the trap of believing that soft "power" actually matters materially for China at this stage.
What matters now is hard power. And since hard power is a zero-sum game, we got to wait until China beats US or become extremely strong to withstand Western pressure, before soft power really starts working.
In any case, soft power propaganda cannot fool a country's elites when the hard power is not strong enough
One thing is that they don't seem interested in internatinoal tourism. It's not a simple process to visit there, unlike most countries. You have to apply for a visa and you have to get in from the embassy or consulate near your home. So if you happen to be visiting Thailand or something and think, oh wouldn't it be nice to hop on a train... well that's not going to happen.
Other countries like Japan and South Korea for years promoted their country via advertising campaigns with commercials that showed their country in a good light: the natural beauty, the culture and historical sites. But the only image Americans have of China, besides the Great Wall, is a dystopian landscape of smokestacks and factories. Other Americans (or global citizens in general), think only of endless bicycles and the Tiananmen Square "incident".
Soft power does matter if you understand how things work, in particular in Western democracies. The government is able to do what it does by first controlling public opinion. If public opinion is against a country, then it's easy to go to war against it, put sanctions on it, and so on. If public opinion is against a country, then any politician who voices support for it would be voted out of office, any cooperation would be politically toxic. This is why the US is investing so heavily in media against China throughout the world. Even obscure websites in certain surrounding countries are funded by agencies of the US government and all their articles cast everything that China does in a bad light. This makes it very difficult politically for the local government to cooperate or expand cooperation with China.