Chinese Soft Power and Media Discussion and Updates
- Thread starter tankphobia
- Start date
Yea, too much filters for Chinese girls on Chinese social media. Every time I visit China, I'm disappointed I don't see those Douyin beauties IRL. I don't know how bros in China deal with this dichotomy. As much as I think the fact that Chinese beauty filters are used all over the world is a soft power victory, I think it doesn't lead to good outcomes in society either.
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I think the bros do see a lot of them. I was in Guangzhou this summer. A lot of them look like Douyin girls. They're good with makeup and surprisingly tall too. And Cantonese aren't known for height. Though probably more than 50% aren't native. It's been that way for years.
Filters are one thing but clothe size and fitness you can't fake. XXL in China is Small in the US. The crop tops and tiny tees (some girls wore children T-shirts like from Uniqlo LOL) paired with cut-off jeans or short skirt create a very appealing aesthetic in person. Guangdong is hot and humid as well so bare midriff and legs work very there
Are there disproportionally many Americans that are child predators likely due to cultural reasons? Yes. But even if it's 100% more, if there are 1 per 100, it only translates to 2 per 100.
It doesn't make sense to punish the race rather than just punishing the criminal. If US pedophile rings was a great concern, it would show in criminal statistics.
And about passport bros, yeah when China was poorer than US in the early 2000s, it's just the natural course of 1 country being richer than the other. China does the same with east Europe, Vietnam, Indonesia etc. I suppose Vietnamese go to even poorer places like Laos or Cambodia. This is mostly a fixed problem as China now has about the same median income as US.
Psychological warfare is not exactly US' strong point either. You just need to look at all the chaos various social media has caused at home for them, and also how they can't even get rid of something like tiktok. At least China doesn't have foreign apps acting like a virtual foreign concession being immune to the supreme court's rulings.
It won't help to make enemy out of people on racial grounds. Instead it's better to emphasise that it is the culture, the enemy leadership that is evil, not the individual. China didnt get as large as it is by killing off the original peoples of the land, it did plenty of massacres on people who opposed them, but always allowed friendlies/converts to stay alive.
In the best scenario, US internal instability will cause a Warsaw pact style fall of nato. It's what will cause minimal damage to China and maximal damage to the US nationalist cause.
I don't think equals is a stable setup. Once the gap in actual living standards increases, local curiosity for the west will turn into disdain.
XHS is under absolute control. there is 0% risk. the wall is 2 sided and this is their enclave inside the wall.
At XHS the foreigners are an immigrant community that is under 100% full monitoring within the wall. They're the refugees being given unusual acceptance as long as they obey the rules.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Although what you said is true about the past, one must realize that all cultural influence or "soft power" stems from hard power. You have clearly seen horrible things in the past from when Chinese and Americans interacted. The tide of hard power was overwhelmingly in American favor so our people were taken advantage of and submitted themselves to enemy manipulation.
However, the current interactions on XHS are very different in power dynamic. 30 years ago, it was Americans coming to China as ambassadors from a more advanced, richer and more powerful society. Of course they could take advantage because as members of a weaker society, the Chinese looked up to them. This time, it's the opposite. They now come as starry-eyed pilgrims, refugees of a broken and oppressive capitalistic system travelling to witness a more advanced and beautiful society. Now these Americans look up to China. And while there is still white worship in China, it is doubtful what the result would be when these renmants of the old order come into contention with the modern flip in power dynamic.
Positive stark differences are already noticeable. Firstly, while in the past, the vast majority of Americans wanting to learn Chinese have been predatory creeper fuckheads with yellow fever, now I see many women instead. (I haven't the statistics but from the videos I see, more than half are women, although it could be skewed due to attractive women being pushed more by algorithms.) Secondly, have you heard of the "My Chinese spy" trend? It is white girls who are proud to show off their Chinese boyfriends in defiance of what traditional white American culture would like to see. It is something that would never have happened in the past where China was seen as a weak and primitive society.
So while I do recognize the risks of overexposure to Western culture as they have many degenerate trends we would prefer to be insulated from, we do have some protection from them in that Americans on XHS fully realize that they are entering a Chinese platform that will be moderated to Chinese standards. We make no attempt to claim that they have full free speech and from what I see, Americans are taking it well, telling others not to F it up for everyone because they are guests and must abide by the rules of the host if they want the privilege of using the app.
And while it was fun to see Americans get redpilled, there were moments where I wouldn't know what to do when Americans with clearly no skills or societal value wanted to move to China. They were so warm and enthusiastic but yet I feel like they need to be let down slowly that our society is not for them; I really don't even want to see them visit. In terms of immigration, China is far far stricter than America in talent selection. It is so difficult for a foreigner to become a Chinese citizen without admission for special talent that some say there is no defined path to take at all! Even beautiful foreign women who have lived in China for so long that they are fluent in Mandarin complain that they are given no favor in an obscure and seemingly hopeless process while beautiful women usually have free passes to everything in life!
So while I wouldn't have full drive-with-my-eyes-closed confidence that all will be well in this mixing of cultures, you should have more confidence than this. All "soft power" and cultural influence depend on hard power dynamic; this used to favor them, but now it favors us. So the result can very well be totally different from what we saw in the past.
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AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
It’s spin because it’s the Western elite that doesn’t want to see this interaction. The narrative it’s the US government that’s lying to its people about the other. They want to ban TikTok over foreign influence. Luigi Mangioni is representative of killing off capitalism. So who’s the bad influence? He was already in Chinese discourse before TikTok refugees came along and Beijing didn’t stop it.