Miscellaneous News

GZDRefugee said:

Yet anime and K-pop are extremely popular in China. Go speak to people in the metropolitan areas of China, ask them what they prefer in terms of media, products, and even governance. Chinese soft power is so powerful that Chinese don't support their own industries. My own own aunt is a diehard iPhone fan despite being a party member. Chinese soft power can't even convince most Chinese within the country. People still worship the ground white people walk on.

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Anime isn't exclusively Japanese.

IDK how popular Kpop is in China right now, I thought it was dead after 2017. But Koreans themselves don't even watch their own movies while Chinese movies dominate Chinese box office.

Are you telling me that metropolitan Chinese want chaebols or an emperor back? Lolwut.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Anime isn't exclusively Japanese.

IDK how popular Kpop is in China right now, I thought it was dead after 2017. But Koreans themselves don't even watch their own movies while Chinese movies dominate Chinese box office.

Are you telling me that metropolitan Chinese want chaebols or an emperor back? Lolwut.

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I don't think Chinese care enough about what Chinese marketing and influence operations do. The mentality that foreign brands are better is still extremely prevalent especially in the metropolitan areas. Look at the advertisements, how many still use white monkeys as the face?

Petrolicious88 said:

Plenty of countries have a lot less hard power than China or America, but able to punch above their weight with soft power. How about the Vatican - that ability to influence a billion people - is that all hard power.

Thats true.

Right. But I never discounted hard power.

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The Vatican? ARE YOU BLEEPING Real? that's your example? Why not use MECCA, Medina equally for that matter to support your laughable example.

I should not have expected much from you to begin with, since I have yet to read of value or an interesting and insightful posts even if I find it disagreeable.

Your quip based on my perception from the years I have read your posts is to belittle China at every possible moment without making it too obvious to most people on this forum.

GZDRefugee said:

Yet anime and K-pop are extremely popular in China. Go speak to people in the metropolitan areas of China, ask them what they prefer in terms of media, products, and even governance. Chinese soft power is so powerful that Chinese don't support their own industries. My own aunt is a diehard iPhone fan despite being a party member. Chinese soft power can't even convince most Chinese within the country. People still worship the ground white people walk on.

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Anime is still quite popular in China, but Korean popular culture has become significantly less popular in China in the last couple of years. This is coming from someone who semi-regularly uses Chinese sites like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Douban, Weibo, etc.

Back in 2017, most of the popular songs on Douyin were either American or Korean. Nowadays, they're mostly Chinese. I listen to them all the time. American and Korean shows used to be the most-discussed shows on Chinese social media but nowadays, they're simply not as popular as they were before. In my opinion, Chinese shows are not the best in the world, but they've definitely improved. Even someone like me, who is used to the quality of Western shows, started watching Chinese shows a few years ago.

Anime is enduringly popular though. I think that's because Japanese plots tend to be more interesting and I think this is one of the major downsides of China's censorship regime.

GZDRefugee said:

I don't think Chinese care enough about what Chinese marketing and influence operations do. The mentality that foreign brands are better is still extremely prevalent especially in the metropolitan areas. Look at the advertisements, how many still use white monkeys as the face?

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IDK I was always more of a Bilibili guy so I don't pay attention to the normies who buy iPhones and man purses.

azn_cyniq said:

Anime is still quite popular in China, but Korean popular culture has become significantly less popular in China in the last couple of years. This is coming from someone who semi-regularly uses Chinese sites like Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Douban, Weibo, etc.

Back in 2017, most of the popular songs on Douyin were either American or Korean. Nowadays, they're mostly Chinese. I listen to them all the time. American and Korean shows used to be the most-discussed shows on Chinese social media but nowadays, they're simply not as popular as they were before. In my opinion, Chinese shows are not the best in the world, but they've definitely improved. Even someone like me, who is used to the quality of Western shows, started watching Chinese shows a few years ago.

Anime is enduringly popular though. I think that's because Japanese plots tend to be more interesting and I think this is one of the major downsides of China's censorship regime.

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Anime isn't exclusicely or even identifiably Japanese, even Japanese animators themselves admit that China is a very close competitor in anime.

People get shouted down and mass downvoted on the Genshin and Honkai fansites if they mistake it for a Japanese game. Some of the highest viewed anime music videos are Chinese too like 【大喜】.

Petrolicious88 said:

What good is soft power when you can only use it when you are already strong and powerful.

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Nothing useful. Soft power was made a broadly spoken thing by Hilary Clinton and Obama when they realized that US was loosing control of the world. Whatever other form it was in before that time wasn't something that US bothered to emphasize. That tells what "soft power" really means, nothing. It is a bragging phrase of past.

Soft power is a "concept" that has been bloated far beyond whatever it really worths, to the same level as concept of "marriage" or counting prostitution into the GDP in west.

Petrolicious88 said:

Me disagree. China is an already a dominant power by most hard power metrics. But its soft power hasn't followed its rise in hard power. What happened?

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No need for such bragging. In Chinese we say "好汉不提当年勇". It means "a great man does not brag about his great past". Only a dying man would mumble jumble about his glorious past to kids.

Influence comes naturally and obviously with what one does. It isn't really the kind of "soft power" that people talks about here. This influence does not need purposfully dressed and fed to people, it is integral part of the acts (the hard power) in front of people's eyes.

If you define this influence as part of soft power then China's soft power has matched her hard power, way better than the west. What China is behind the west is the other part of "soft power" that is lying, tricking and empty lip service, the kind of soft power that US has been demonstrating since Obama's time which China has no interest in matching.

FairAndUnbiased said:

IDK I was always more of a Bilibili guy so I don't pay attention to the normies who buy iPhones and man purses.


Anime isn't exclusicely or even identifiably Japanese, even Japanese animators themselves admit that China is a very close competitor in anime.

People get shouted down and mass downvoted on the Genshin and Honkai fansites if they mistake it for a Japanese game. Some of the highest viewed anime music videos are Chinese too like 【大喜】.

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Which supports what I said before: let Mihoyo handle PR for China. As a single company, it is doing better than the MFA in its entirety.

EDIT: It's beautiful, really. Spread Chinese soft power and at the same time facilitate wealth transfer from the west to China. Flawless strategy.

FairAndUnbiased said:

IDK I was always more of a Bilibili guy so I don't pay attention to the normies who buy iPhones and man purses.


Anime isn't exclusicely or even identifiably Japanese, even Japanese animators themselves admit that China is a very close competitor in anime.

People get shouted down and mass downvoted on the Genshin and Honkai fansites if they mistake it for a Japanese game. Some of the highest viewed anime music videos are Chinese too like 【大喜】.

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I don't watch Chinese animation much, but I used to watch a lot of anime. In my opinion, Japan has produced many masterpieces like Death Note, Attack on Titan, Your Name, Castle in the Sky, etc. In your opinion, has China produced any comparable shows/movies? If so, I'd love to watch them.

GZDRefugee said:

Which supports what I said before: let Mihoyo handle PR for China. As a single company, it is doing better than the MFA in its entirety.

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Mihoyo is not even a Chinese company anymore. They moved their headquarters out of China to reduce scrutiny. This is not a sign of confidence and patriotism, its a sign of kowtowing to get more money.

PDD, Shein, tiktok, pretty much every chinese company with business with the west are moving their headquarters out of China, essentially making them foreign companies. This is not a sign of a confident nation trying to rise up.

When faced with Western sinophobia, Chinese companies do not say they are Chinese at all. Instead they try to hide their Chineseness as much as they can. Even try to hide under Singapore or other country. Imagine a US or western company doing that. They would be villified so much in their own country that they would immediately change their decision and say how proud they are to be "American", European".

Compare that to Chinese companies lack of patriotism and lack of scrutiny from Chinese society itself.

GZDRefugee said:

Which supports what I said before: let Mihoyo handle PR for China. As a single company, it is doing better than the MFA in its entirety.

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Counterpoint: Isrl has the worst MFA and literally 0 soft power.

Yet nobody is able to punish them for anything except via hard power because despite rock bottom soft power their core allies haven't left them, at great cost to themselves.