Miscellaneous News

tamsen_ikard said:

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.

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My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

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 the vast majority of Chinese within the country. People still worship the ground white people walk on.

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All governments produce propaganda showing their regimes in a good light. Then there are China, Russia and a few others which "attract"
targeted negative propaganda by hostile governments. In China's case, the governments known to have highest anti-China propaganda budgets are US (300-500 mil annually allegedly), Japan and Taiwan. The typical Chinese (ok, pretty much everyone across the globe, basically) is bombarded with "west good, Chyna bad" propaganda.

azn_cyniq said:

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.

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Here's what I enjoyed:

全职高手
时光代理人
希灵帝国
拾忆长安
萌妻食神

tamsen_ikard said:

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.

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Mihoyo is still HQed in China. Hoyoverse is a subsidiary of Mihoyo.

tamsen_ikard said:

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.

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If they didn't do that they would've gotten banned in Western countries. You can't really blame them for doing that. It's better to earn hundreds of billions of dollars and spread Chinese influence in Western countries than to cling onto a foolish notion of "national confidence" and get banned.

Feima said:

All governments produce propaganda showing their regimes in a good light. Then there are China, Russia and a few others which "attract"
targeted negative propaganda by hostile governments. In China's case, the governments known to have highest anti-China propaganda budgets are US (300-500 mil annually allegedly), Japan and Taiwan. The typical Chinese (ok, pretty much everyone across the globe, basically) is bombarded with "west good, Chyna bad" propaganda.

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That's my point. Chinese soft power is at a stalemate even within its own borders. That is objectively terrible.

azn_cyniq said:

If they didn't do that they would've gotten banned in Western countries. You can't really blame them for doing that. It's better to earn hundreds of billions of dollars and spread Chinese influence in Western countries than to cling onto a foolish notion of "national confidence" and get banned.

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His post has multiple inaccuracies. ByteDance, PDD and Mihoyo are still HQed in China.

TikTok, Temu and Hoyoverse are their subsidiaries.

Shein is the only one that left for reals.

azn_cyniq said:

If they didn't do that they would've gotten banned in Western countries. You can't really blame them for doing that. It's better to earn hundreds of billions of dollars and spread Chinese influence in Western countries than to cling onto a foolish notion of "national confidence" and get banned.

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That's the sneaky way of gaining money, not the way of a Superpower. Well, get banned and ban Western companies in return. focus on other countries. Enter western countries only when they understand how useless it is to decouple from china. And then enter the west with confidence.

US companies were also banned in China for decades under Mao times. US companies didn't hide themselves to enter China. They entered with confidence and even proudly showed their Americanness. That's how it should be for Chinese companies as well.

GZDRefugee said:

That's my point. Chinese soft power is at a stalemate even within its own borders. That is objectively terrible.

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I think you need to temper that supposed lack of Chinese soft power within China itself with the fact that CPC enjoys 90+% approval

tamsen_ikard said:

That's the sneaky way of gaining money, not the way of a Superpower. Well, get banned and ban Western companies in return. focus on other countries. Enter western countries only when they understand how useless it is to decouple from china. And then enter the west with confidence.

US companies were also banned in China for decades under Mao times. US companies didn't hide themselves to enter China. They entered with confidence and even proudly showed their Americanness. That's how it should be for Chinese companies as well.

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I don't agree. It's not sneaky when those companies are clearly Chinese. Is there a single person who uses TikTok, Shein, etc. and doesn't know that those companies are Chinese?

Western companies succeeded in China because they were incredibly pragmatic. They didn't care about "Western pride" and formed joint ventures with Chinese companies. Western companies were willing to put aside their "pride" and they profited enormously as a result. At its height, Volkswagen alone was making more than $100 billion a year in China. They even shared some technology with Chinese companies. For this, they were lambasted as traitors in the West. Foolhardy companies like Facebook and Google got banned in China because they refused to comply with Chinese laws. Chinese companies shouldn't act like that.

GZDRefugee said:

That's my point. Chinese soft power is at a stalemate even within its own borders. That is objectively terrible.

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70%+ of Russians support China despite basically 0 soft power investment in Russia.


80%+ of Chinese support Russia despite Russia also investing 0 soft power in China. Russia spent way more soft power investments via RT in EU and US (which did not help them 1 bit).


North Korea of all countries is polling higher than Japan lmao.

If the goal of soft power is to actually wield power - that is, enforce political change favorable to oneself - then US and Japan failed miserably when Russia and North Korea are polling higher.