Chinese Soft Power and Media Discussion and Updates

Bellum_Romanum said:

Man, shut up. How's that an L to China's soft power when it's the platform controlled by a nationalized American? Do you even read and analyze what you post dude?

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I think the proper way to respond to that post, is just state the facts.

One fact, that is omitted, is the Elon Musk bought Twitter with one intention of turning it into another WeChat, the app that has everything.

We do not even have to state where Elon Musk got that idea from.

Is that soft power, where an influential American wants to copy/borrow something from that other country?

I don't know, because I really do not pay attention to that stuff.

American soft power, and their proponents, seems like a neat way of patting themselves on the back.

Then when it goes awry, like when the Germans flatly refuse to limit Huawei gear in their networks in any meaningful way, then they do not speak about soft power failure, it is all about how the Germans have not learned their lessons.

Seems like soft power is a form of condescending towards others.

When it does not work the soft power, then the condescending takes the form of father knows best or they know best.

The Chinese have the perfect respond to that, and not blow up the room at the same time. The Chinese will state they do not understand what they are talking about, must be something loss in the translation.

Either way, I doubt the Chinese ever gave a shit about American soft power.

Something new and foreign that diffuses into China, starts to change over time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/zo9gi8
based comrade breadtube. While still forced to appeal to western liberal values, at least the mask is slowly starting to lift for western “leftists”.

Softpower is just money. That's it. As long as you have money to fund a lavish entertainment industry, you have soft power.

did Korea have a entertainment Industry first or samsung. Did Japan have a anime industry or Toyota first? You see where I'm going with here. You can yell from the mountain tops how great your country is but without the money to pay for amplifying your voice you might as well be screaming into thin air.

tankphobia said:

Softpower is just money. That's it. As long as you have money to fund a lavish entertainment industry, you have soft power.

did Korea have a entertainment Industry first or samsung. Did Japan have a anime industry or Toyota first? You see where I'm going with here. You can yell from the mountain tops how great your country is but without the money to pay for amplifying your voice you might as well be screaming into thin air.

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LOL No, Money is hard power. Financial capacity is very much a true pillar of power that holds a country up, the other two being technology and military might. "Soft power" is just a term coined too loosely such that it invalidates itself. It's not a power unless there is force, the ability to make someone do something they don't want to do, and that can only be done through hard power and its nonvilent extensions. Cultural attraction and charm are what "soft power" was intended to mean and it's either only useful between friendly nations or when buoyed by dominant hard power, in which case, you wouldn't need any cultural attraction at all for others to admire/fear/obey you. In other words, it's not useful at all.

manqiangrexue said:

LOL No, Money is hard power. Financial capacity is very much a true pillar of power that holds a country up, the other two being technology and military might. "Soft power" is just a term coined too loosely such that it invalidates itself. It's not a power unless there is force. Cultural attraction and charm are what it means and it's either only useful between friendly nations or when buoyed by hard power. In other words, it's not useful at all.

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Yeah, I think we have the same point just worded differently. 'Softpower' is just when you're rich and you can flex it, that's literally it.

tankphobia said:

Yeah, I think we have the same point just worded differently. 'Softpower' is just when you're rich and you can flex it, that's literally it.

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Not even that. If you're rich, you can get your way by hard financial power. A rich douchebag with a shit attitude will wreck a sweet lovely poor boy in the dating and corporate world. Soft power doesn't exist. It's an imaginary concept worshipped by weak and lazy people who wish to progress without worry about the hardships of the competitive world of hard power. It's the escape they've invented to sooth themselves into thinking that they can win just by being charming because the fight to become a superpower is too scary a task for them to consider.

You guys are arguing over pointless semantics. Softpower is derived from wealth. It is near analogous to wealth, hence tank is correct in saying that soft power (in the way we're generally defining it) is pretty much wealth or so related to wealth that only wealth buys you soft power. There are no poor nations with any considerable soft power. Wealthy nations may also have little of it but it's a choice of how funds are deployed. Chasing soft power is kind of pointless for China. This is where Man is correct in saying that all forms of power relate to the main pillars of a civilisation/nation - industrial capability, military capability, economic capability (derived from industrial capability and the military capability to protect and enforce its interests).

Soft power here is just that PR capability which is a nice to have but it's far more important for China to chase real power. If ever in the future China has any ability to "project" soft power to currently unfriendly nations, it would be because it has picked up enough real power and enough excess funds to spend on endless self promotion that drowns out every other voice. That's how the Anglos have achieved this since WW1. Constantly reforming and rebranding itself in this domain (PR and public international perception). China instead has been constantly reforming itself to better adapt to new highs and new environments which have propelled it to industrial and military capability.

Soft power is therefore a luxury and an epic waste of resources for China to focus on today as it understands the priority of things in a way India doesn't (see the contrast in priorities and the ground realities of the two).

Chinese softpower won’t spread world wide until China opens its great firewall. Its not the government but the people that effectively spread softpower. Be it visiting student that take part in cultural program in foreign University, or an immigrant who make authentic Chinese cuisines in his/her resturant or just a simple video blogger like Li Ziqi who show how beautiful Chinese traditional food/ way of life is. The more China is secluded and cut off from rest of world, the lesser people from abroad will know about Real china and instead will be indoctrinated to a fake image of China what west wants to portray.

For once China should be brave and tear down this Great Firewall Censorship. It will definately be chaotic at first but China would be structurally more robust, stronger.

I think 0 Covid policy is similar to Great Firewall Censorship. One can draw parallel between these 2 policies. 0 Covid policy seemed like it worked but it was a policy doomed to fail. You can never be forever isolated from the world.

MrCrazyBoyRavi said:

Chinese softpower won’t spread world wide until China opens its great firewall. Its not the government but the people that effectively spread softpower. Be it visiting student that take part in cultural program in foreign University, or an immigrant who make authentic Chinese cuisines in his/her resturant or just a simple video blogger like Li Ziqi who show how beautiful Chinese traditional food/ way of life is. The more China is secluded and cut off from rest of world, the lesser people from abroad will know about Real china and instead will be indoctrinated to a fake image of China what west wants to portray.

For once China should be brave and tear down this Great Firewall Censorship. It will definately be chaotic at first but China would be structurally more robust, stronger.

I think 0 Covid policy is similar to Great Firewall Censorship. One can draw parallel between these 2 policies. 0 Covid policy seemed like it worked but it was a policy doomed to fail. You can never be forever isolated from the world.

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They don't even have to do that, what they need to do is make it a policy to export their top social media platforms in the form of an separate international version. This way China can control the platform and manage the information streams on those platforms and slowly erode away Meta and googles strangle hold on the worlds information streams in the form of youtube, facebook and instagram.

solarz said:

The bottleneck on Chinese media influence is the semiconductor industry.

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By this logic Taiwanese media must be super influential right？Give a me a break