This girl is one of the reasons I want the Chinese gov to tear down the Great Firewall. She is doing a better job than half of the CCTV staff, by using her hard power and smart power and soft power, not FUD or pontification. I bet millions of Chinese teenage girls would be like her in their own right if "the wall" is down. That wall is one of the most foolish acts that CCP has ever done in my book. If it served some purposes before, it is largely negative now.
I don't think so. That girl is only mentioned anywhere because she's double Olympic champion
and she grew up in the US. There are Chinese athletes with 3 or more Olympic gold medals without a tenth of her voice. The risks of letting down the firewall is that hundreds of millions of Chinese people who have no real exposure to the West may hold the general misconception that Westerners are honest and benign, thus making them vulnerable to the horrible lies and propaganda. The benefit is that by reading what many Westerners post, especially racially hateful things towards China, these people may be educated to the true colors and evils of the West. These are the benefits and risks that must be weighed and with China's population generally patriotic, putting China on course to surpass the US, the CCP determined that that was not a risk worth taking now. Seeing their successes, I would never call their decisions foolish even if I disagreed and I urge you to watch your mouth as well unless you've achieved something greater. You can say that your own analysis disagrees, but you should note the disparity in proven capability.
I, for one, believe that a directed course on Western propaganda and hatred towards China would serve as an excellent source of patriotic education. For certain, when I have kids, I will do this for them to ensure that they grow up with a clear view of what they face. I've seen and felt first hand how effective this is. Personally, as a Chinese kid growing up in the US, I was patriotic to America before I changed sometime in college. For many years, I was always unable to pinpoint what caused the change and worried that I could not direct my children there as well. But a while here, I realized that it's seeing how racist and hateful Americans are online that has changed me; the postings on this forum itself played a great part. I've also met (and dated) Chinese women who had previously remarked on how nice Americans were and how there should be no national/ethnic boundaries to friendship or love. They were absolutely shocked and have completely changed their tune after I showed them videos and commentary by American "pickup artists" saying how easy Chinese women are and what tactics they use to drop their guard. After this, even after our separation, they date only Chinese because they would never want to contribute to this or the satisfaction of those people and they can now see the immense shame of falling victim to them.
