Why "the West" gets China wrong

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J

J-XX

Banned Idiot
Anyone believing western media propaganda should never be taken seriously. The west knows they are on the decline and Asia is on the rise. This infuriates them to no end. Expect more anti-Chinese propaganda to keep the ignorant masses in the west happy.
China must increase its media and cultural influence around the world, especially in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America and Caribbean, Eastern Europe.

90% of all global news is controlled by the western news agencies Reuters, AP and AFP. Chinese media must expand globally to give China's perspective and show China is not the bad country or people the west likes to portray.
Chinese soft power is weak. The west uses Hollywood and tv shows and tv channels (History, Nat Geo, Discovery) to give their point of view and the world accepts this as facts and they end up looking like the good guys and China look like the bad guys.

Media influence and cultural influence are 2 major soft power pillars of western dominance.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
The only thing China can really do is fight fire with fire. I read today that China has this popular expose TV show. I've been reading for a while about all these food scandals against McDonald's and KFC in China and apparently it was started by this show. The latest target is Apple and I believe they're tackling how China makes Apple's products but Chinese comsumers pays the most for them in the world. Apparently the American media is taking issue about how this show targets Western companies only. Isn't that like how the Western media talks about how outsourcing is completely China to blame with no fault of the corporations that choose to outsource? China is also in the unique postion to have their journalists interview US politicians and ask the hardball questions the American media won't. And if US politicians refuse to be interviewed, China can spin and fill in the blanks on why just like they do when they don't get what they want from China. Can you imagine if a Chinese journalist interviewed Bill Clinton and reminded him about his comment that China was on the wrong side of history and then bring up American history to him? That's what China should be doing.
 
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ahadicow

Junior Member
Things are a little more complicated than "east" vs "west" in terms of soft power. There is only one "soft super power" in the world and that is cosumerism. Cosumerism not necessarily west altough it originated in the west.

Hollywood, to take a prime example, do not examplify "american culture" or "western culture". You can taste all kinds of "cultures" in Hollywood, even chinese culture. But as chinese, you can tell the Hollywood version of "chinese culture" is different. What Hollywood does, is to put world through a glass of uncompromisable individualism. In hollywood movies, it's alway good to challenge authorities, it's always right to pursue sexual interest, it's always right to "work hard and rise above the crowd". If you watch Gladiator, you watched all Hollywood movies: the world is an arena, you're a gladiator, slay the people who get in your way and the crowd would cheer. There is no real "culture" in Hollywood movies because culture is shared ideals, shared identities and shared stories but in those movies, the real focus is the individual. The story of idividual rise above the crowd and achieve success could be set in any culture or even without culture (The Lion King). MuLanCi is a Chinese story of a girl who took her father's place in madatory draft. Chinese honor this story because it reflected Chinese value of duty to both one's family and society. However, when Disney get hold of this story, it twisted and carved it into, hold your breath, a story of a individual who conquered her self-doubt, rised through the ranks and achieved dazziling individual success, without any support and help from her family and society as per ususal.

"culture" in today's world today is like a food court. The food is made of simple rice, corn and wheat of consumerism. When you put on different sauces, they suddenly become "Chinese", "Korean", "American", "Greek" etc.

So it is not accurate to say the world culture reflected in media and other places is biased against chinese culture and in favor of the "West". All these places are actually occipied by consumerism, and consumerism doesn't have an opinion of chinese culture. consumerism has no opinion of any culture. It admits chinese food just as good as american burgers, so long as they are based on the same bottom line.

However, Media does have a bias against the Chinese state of PRC. (how often did you see negative report about Taiwan)The reason is very simple: this is a rogue state that has not fully embraced consumerism yet. It is basically the same reason Cuba, North Korea and Iran are in the same "axis of terror", They are not open to the multinational corporates. It has nothing to do with culture. So before you go to fight a median war with "chinese propective", you better make sure chinese really have a different "prospective". In my opinion, they don't. Chinese embrace consumerism as readily as westerners. CCP don't fully embrace consumerism because it puts its power in question. So long do Chinese not drive out the final wall between them and total consumerism, CCP, the said bias would always continue.
 
Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
ahadicow said:
Things are a little more complicated than "east" vs "west" in terms of soft power. There is only one "soft super power" in the world and that is cosumerism. Cosumerism not necessarily west altough it originated in the west.
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Consumption is a lot different than a point of view or perspective. If that's the case than Chinese inventions of paper, gunpowder, printing blocks, compass,etc, would've made China extremely popular even today. I agree with some of your points but a lot of us are talking about why the need for the Western media to have to constantly bash China at any angle in any negative news they can find. Even Henry Kissinger and Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn couldn't understand why either. Especially when the two nation economy and interests are so interwoven.
 
A

ahho

Junior Member
Well, I think the news agency would like to entertain their audience and get the audience support in their point of view of things than really presenting the audience with facts of what is really going on. The citizens of the west has always been taught that communism is bad and the big boys of the the group are Russia and China. The government have always taught them how inferior the bad boys are and this does affect how people will perceive the news and how media tend to present it. Reporter and Editor tend to play the freedom fighter. If they know a country is a authoritative country or not fully democratic, they will write article with bias on it, so they can gather a crowd to support their point of view.

There was a news that I have read before in regarding Hong Kong by Reuters or AP. In one of their sentence, they wrote something about the only democratic party in Hong Kong and they did not elaborate anymore. Well of course Hong Kong have only one "democratic party" called the Democratic Party as the other parties in the city is called Liberal Party and other names.

News agency tend to entertain the crowd with drama. I remember back in the second Gulf war in Iraq. The news agency presented us that Iraq had more tanks and a lot of anti aircraft systems, and give a tough fight for the US military. They did not mention how outdated the Iraqi weapons were and how easily US went in to the capital during the first war. They tend to get more viewer to tune in as the war unfold. When I was watching the news I did not comprehend how easily the Iraqi was defeated and this drove me to this site and the forum to better understand military equipment and news.
 
A

ahadicow

Junior Member
ahho said:
Well, I think the news agency would like to entertain their audience and get the audience support in their point of view of things than really presenting the audience with facts of what is really going on. The citizens of the west has always been taught that communism is bad and the big boys of the the group are Russia and China. The government have always taught them how inferior the bad boys are and this does affect how people will perceive the news and how media tend to present it. Reporter and Editor tend to play the freedom fighter. If they know a country is a authoritative country or not fully democratic, they will write article with bias on it, so they can gather a crowd to support their point of view.

There was a news that I have read before in regarding Hong Kong by Reuters or AP. In one of their sentence, they wrote something about the only democratic party in Hong Kong and they did not elaborate anymore. Well of course Hong Kong have only one "democratic party" called the Democratic Party as the other parties in the city is called Liberal Party and other names.

News agency tend to entertain the crowd with drama. I remember back in the second Gulf war in Iraq. The news agency presented us that Iraq had more tanks and a lot of anti aircraft systems, and give a tough fight for the US military. They did not mention how outdated the Iraqi weapons were and how easily US went in to the capital during the first war. They tend to get more viewer to tune in as the war unfold. When I was watching the news I did not comprehend how easily the Iraqi was defeated and this drove me to this site and the forum to better understand military equipment and news.
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I agree. Once you remove the whole "culture" thing from the problem, the behavior of western media is nothing extrordnary. They cast whatever facts they receive into the mold of "good news", news that reinforce the pre-existing worldview of their primary audiances, news that assure the watcher the lives they lead are rightous and there is no better alternative. So murders and wars are actually "good news" because, if the world is filled with murders and wars that one step away from your standard life, there is only unbounded chaos, the best thing to do is to seat on your butt and watch TV. That's just what average reader of news liked to hear: Life is good, world is unredeemable, there is nothing they can do, therefore, they have no responsibility.

Nothing is hard in explaining why western media like to cast PRC in negative light. It's not that they don't "understand" China or chinese culture. Average citizens are not interested in "understanding", they are interested to know their way of life, which is characterised by material consumption in the west, is the superior way and the only way. Thus, they like to hear that anything slightly different only lead to bad outcomes. So, the news companies who are out for profit naturally gave their audiances what they really wanted to hear. Chinese media is the same thing more or less. If you watch the chinese state-run CCTV evening news, the first 20 mins are devoted to the praise of progress in China and the glorious deeds of the party leaders; the last 10 mins is about how the rest of the world are living in hell. Is this really a "chinese prospective" that reflect chinese culture and value and belief? Some people call it propagenda, I think they are just everyday run-of-the-mill "good news" that do not present chanlleges to its watchers. I really do not care for CCTV news to win a shouting contest against Reuter or AP becauce they are all the same. IMO, people who take in information uncritically and biased media outlets deserve one another.
 
J

J-XX

Banned Idiot
ahadicow said:
Things are a little more complicated than "east" vs "west" in terms of soft power. There is only one "soft super power" in the world and that is cosumerism. Cosumerism not necessarily west altough it originated in the west.

Hollywood, to take a prime example, do not examplify "american culture" or "western culture". You can taste all kinds of "cultures" in Hollywood, even chinese culture. But as chinese, you can tell the Hollywood version of "chinese culture" is different. What Hollywood does, is to put world through a glass of uncompromisable individualism. In hollywood movies, it's alway good to challenge authorities, it's always right to pursue sexual interest, it's always right to "work hard and rise above the crowd". If you watch Gladiator, you watched all Hollywood movies: the world is an arena, you're a gladiator, slay the people who get in your way and the crowd would cheer. There is no real "culture" in Hollywood movies because culture is shared ideals, shared identities and shared stories but in those movies, the real focus is the individual. The story of idividual rise above the crowd and achieve success could be set in any culture or even without culture (The Lion King). MuLanCi is a Chinese story of a girl who took her father's place in madatory draft. Chinese honor this story because it reflected Chinese value of duty to both one's family and society. However, when Disney get hold of this story, it twisted and carved it into, hold your breath, a story of a individual who conquered her self-doubt, rised through the ranks and achieved dazziling individual success, without any support and help from her family and society as per ususal.

"culture" in today's world today is like a food court. The food is made of simple rice, corn and wheat of consumerism. When you put on different sauces, they suddenly become "Chinese", "Korean", "American", "Greek" etc.

So it is not accurate to say the world culture reflected in media and other places is biased against chinese culture and in favor of the "West". All these places are actually occipied by consumerism, and consumerism doesn't have an opinion of chinese culture. consumerism has no opinion of any culture. It admits chinese food just as good as american burgers, so long as they are based on the same bottom line.

However, Media does have a bias against the Chinese state of PRC. (how often did you see negative report about Taiwan)The reason is very simple: this is a rogue state that has not fully embraced consumerism yet. It is basically the same reason Cuba, North Korea and Iran are in the same "axis of terror", They are not open to the multinational corporates. It has nothing to do with culture. So before you go to fight a median war with "chinese propective", you better make sure chinese really have a different "prospective". In my opinion, they don't. Chinese embrace consumerism as readily as westerners. CCP don't fully embrace consumerism because it puts its power in question. So long do Chinese not drive out the final wall between them and total consumerism, CCP, the said bias would always continue.
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China a rogue state? Lol.
Why, because China don't kow tow to western colonialism?

The CPC is the one that kicked out the imperialists out of China and gave Chinese back sovereignty and an independent foreign policy. Without the CPC, China would still be under colonial rule like Japan and South Korea are under where they have to beg America to get the range of the missiles extended.

China has been the country that is most feared by the western world. Napoleon even said it. China is a sleeping giant with a population bigger than the entire western world put together. That sleeping giant is starting to awaken.
Chinese government has MASSIVE support among the Chinese people.

Please elaborate how the CPC don't embrace consumerism. If consumerism means going into trillions of dollars in debt to buy things you don't produce, then no China don't do that. China lives within its means.
 
A

airsuperiority

Captain
ahadicow said:
Things are a little more complicated than "east" vs "west" in terms of soft power. There is only one "soft super power" in the world and that is cosumerism. Cosumerism not necessarily west altough it originated in the west.

Hollywood, to take a prime example, do not examplify "american culture" or "western culture". You can taste all kinds of "cultures" in Hollywood, even chinese culture. But as chinese, you can tell the Hollywood version of "chinese culture" is different. What Hollywood does, is to put world through a glass of uncompromisable individualism. In hollywood movies, it's alway good to challenge authorities, it's always right to pursue sexual interest, it's always right to "work hard and rise above the crowd". If you watch Gladiator, you watched all Hollywood movies: the world is an arena, you're a gladiator, slay the people who get in your way and the crowd would cheer. There is no real "culture" in Hollywood movies because culture is shared ideals, shared identities and shared stories but in those movies, the real focus is the individual. The story of idividual rise above the crowd and achieve success could be set in any culture or even without culture (The Lion King). MuLanCi is a Chinese story of a girl who took her father's place in madatory draft. Chinese honor this story because it reflected Chinese value of duty to both one's family and society. However, when Disney get hold of this story, it twisted and carved it into, hold your breath, a story of a individual who conquered her self-doubt, rised through the ranks and achieved dazziling individual success, without any support and help from her family and society as per ususal.

"culture" in today's world today is like a food court. The food is made of simple rice, corn and wheat of consumerism. When you put on different sauces, they suddenly become "Chinese", "Korean", "American", "Greek" etc.

So it is not accurate to say the world culture reflected in media and other places is biased against chinese culture and in favor of the "West". All these places are actually occipied by consumerism, and consumerism doesn't have an opinion of chinese culture. consumerism has no opinion of any culture. It admits chinese food just as good as american burgers, so long as they are based on the same bottom line.

However, Media does have a bias against the Chinese state of PRC. (how often did you see negative report about Taiwan)The reason is very simple: this is a rogue state that has not fully embraced consumerism yet. It is basically the same reason Cuba, North Korea and Iran are in the same "axis of terror", They are not open to the multinational corporates. It has nothing to do with culture. So before you go to fight a median war with "chinese propective", you better make sure chinese really have a different "prospective". In my opinion, they don't. Chinese embrace consumerism as readily as westerners. CCP don't fully embrace consumerism because it puts its power in question. So long do Chinese not drive out the final wall between them and total consumerism, CCP, the said bias would always continue.
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I like your approach. The more I review things, the more I am more inclined to believe in the following:
1. Your average journalist are more in haste to rush stories out and do not take any real too in-depth analysis to stories, and often just rely on bias.
2. Bias reinforce one another
3. Once bias are set, people do not change easily (persistence effect)
4. Expert is not all-rounded, and there are few real experts on Chinese equipment. And bias can wreck a person's mental capacity to understand some stuffs.
5. "China-bashing" can be a combination of many phenomenon. It's incredibly ignorant for anyone to conclude it all under one reason, as social phenomenon can't stand single-legged on one reason. Attempting to simplify it all is a reckless attempt to come to conclusion. Consider a social psychologist can write 20 pages of research paper in an attempt to explain one thing, it's not quite possible for us the average folks to conclude in one forum post.
6. I'm not referring to you, although notable pro-China camps in this forum are just as fallible as the China bashers.
7. People who believe the West are out to get China are just the same group of people who believes China is evil. Matter of difference between which side of the river.
 
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A

ahadicow

Junior Member
J-XX said:
Please elaborate how the CPC don't embrace consumerism. If consumerism means going into trillions of dollars in debt to buy things you don't produce, then no China don't do that. China lives within its means.
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I already did. CPC does not allow billion dollar multi-national companies to run China becuase CPC is running China. In america, whatever makes money, and there is no law prohibiting it specifically, has a right to operate. That is not the case in PRC. In China, bussiness need to provide good service to the "people"(subject to the definition of CPC). That means the state is in control of the bussiness (whether private or publically owned), That's very different from how things are run in the west. Consumerism is the culture of honoring material consumption. Government intervention that stops or slows down consumption is a big no-no in the west.(government intervention that increaces consumption is very good, on the other hand). CPC regularly intervenes and don't tend to give a sh*t about consumption. That's why, in the eyes of consumerist cultures, CPC is a unruly state, a rogue state. The evil things CPC did includes: not allowing people to have more then one child, restricting the amount of products individual can consume, not allowing business to do whatevery they want in making money, not allowing people to say whatever they want in making money, produce more than it comsumes. It is rather clear that CPC does not recongnize human needs for material consumption as the highest virtue and that's enough to condamn it.
 
A

airsuperiority

Captain
ahadicow said:
I already did. CPC does not allow billion dollar multi-national companies to run China becuase CPC is running China. In america, whatever makes money, and there is no law prohibiting it specifically, has a right to operate. That is not the case in PRC. In China, bussiness need to provide good service to the "people"(subject to the definition of CPC). That means the state is in control of the bussiness (whether private or publically owned), That's very different from how things are run in the west. Consumerism is the culture of honoring material consumption. Government intervention that stops or slows down consumption is a big no-no in the west.(government intervention that increaces consumption is very good, on the other hand). CPC regularly intervenes and don't tend to give a sh*t about consumption. That's why, in the eyes of consumerist cultures, CPC is a unruly state, a rogue state. The evil things CPC did includes: not allowing people to have more then one child, restricting the amount of products individual can consume, not allowing business to do whatevery they want in making money, not allowing people to say whatever they want in making money, produce more than it comsumes. It is rather clear that CPC does not recongnize human needs for material consumption as the highest virtue and that's enough to condamn it.
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In a bit more objective view, China practices more protectionism in a way to encourage domestic industries to develop. Rationally this is acceptable and needed, because complete free trade with zero barriers in a country with under-developed domestic industry isn't a good thing. You can call it rogue, but I will side with China on this for having the right to protect its own industry, and also a necessary step. Despite that, China does have an issue with infringements on copyrights, and this is definitely something very controversial because while imitation is often the first step to developing an industry, the situation in China is definitely in excess of the phenomenon.
As for one-child policy, of course we understand the application of such policy, so while we can disagree on the infringements of human rights, it does see the effect of getting the population growth under control. For China's current production of foods, socioeconomic demographics, and the amount of people living below poverty line, it is a very needed policy. We can dispute the moral characteristics of it all day, but its effect is something we have to all recognize. This also leads to my reply to Solarz's thoughts at the top, that generally developed cities do see a lower population growth (also due to rising costs of living), therefore what I read from The Economist...I interpret this differently. Another thing is that since it's only one article, I don't think we can make any concluding thoughts based on one alone.

Finally, in your third point I will say that CCP is definitely a very incomplete, bottlenecked government system which is meant for industrialization, but not as final product of governance that gives its people the definition of "civic". It is efficient, but not quality government system. It is not suited for stuffs such as social reforms, rule of law, guarantee of private properties. Of course there can be many disputes, but I will definitely say it is too haste to make judge of any states simply by the current status of the government. Instead, everyone always overlooked that what makes a country what it is is actually its people, not the government, and with that said, therefore it is more important to first study and understand what the people is, and of course with that said, we examine what makes that country's people what it is today.
 
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