One can argue that the submissive messaging makes traitors and saboteurs a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why should Chinese support their country if all it does is bend over backwards for foreign powers? Why are the rich still parking their wealth overseas, sending their kids abroad?
I saw a discussion about the presidential election, and how Biden was emphasizing the fact he made NATO relevant on the world stage again and also strengthened America's alliances in East Asia. Their point was that he was being incredibly tone deaf since in reality, unless its a conflagoration taking place right on the border your average Joe Shmoe on the street hardly cares about foreign policy and is more focused on the core concerns of, inflation being brought under control, affordable housing, crime, and decent paying jobs. Needless to say, I'm sure most average Chinese joe schmoes are of that mindset and more inclined to judge the CPC on its ability to improve their quality of life rather than sticking it to the West on foreign policy issues that have no immediate effect on their daily lives.
As for your next sentence about rich sending kids abroad, it ties into this point you make right here.
Not to mention, low internal spending indicates low confidence in China's market from Chinese people. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows in China either.
Precisely, the Chinese economy has seen better days. China is sharing in the current global economic downturn due to the fallout from the pandemic and wars raging right now, but it is also in phase of economic transition which is for sure hurting lots of people but necessary to ensure the nation's future competitiveness. Emphasis on
painful, but necessary, because I want to address this point next.
I know. That is why I support China going all-in on supporting Russia against Ukraine. Between sending Azov to HK in 2019, and their meetings with Taiwan offering support to the separatist government, China has plenty of reason to drop the hammer on them.
EDIT: To clarify, I hope that Ukraine is truly stupid enough to get China to abandon its dovish stance. The US and EU will shit bricks if China threw her entire industrial might behind Russia. What are they gonna do? Sanction China?
I see online, lots of people in the anti-West camp are pointing the figure at China and criticizing it for seemingly sitting out of the current global conflicts and just offering the same foreign ministry talking points about de-escalation. I know this is a bitter pill for hardliners to swallow, but China absolutely can't afford to pick a side. For all the championing of the global south's struggles and China's own rhetoric on the global south, the cold reality is China has no obligation other than to the well-being of the Chinese people. Yes, there is mudslinging and tariffs, but commerece between China and the US, EU, Japan still amounts to 1.5 trillion dollars. There is no reality where China can simply sacrifice that market completely and replace with the global south. After all, when China made the first revisions to its visa policy this year and allowed visa free travel from up to 50 nations, notice how the majority of those nations were EU countries? Sure, such drastic decoupling would hurt the US and its allies, but China's chances of being stuck in the middle income trap would jump exponentially as well.
Plus, say China were to drop its neutrality stance on Iran and provide it with weapons and military training, how would a country like Morocco, which is a member of BRI but has really antagonistic relations with Iran, react to such a development? Never that simple is it?
You see, China is still a middle income economy and has to play this delicate game of balancing its relations in order to extract results from all parties.
So rather than chest beating like this
I hate the submissive tone the Chinese gov always uses in these statements. It makes them sound like a Joshua Wong-looking Asian nerd in high school trying to befriend the white jocks.
Understand that in a world where countries are increasingly divided into black and white camps, Chinese diplomats still have the burden of treating the whole world as a gray area, some areas perhaps shades darker than others, but still nonetheless places they must deal with adroitly through a calculating lense in order to win the best results for the interests of China. And I repeat, whatever interests you think the CPC should be pursuing, nothing is more paramount than the continued development of the Chinese nation towards developed nation status, even if that means dining with your "enemies" now and then.
